I came across this yesterday and it’s been running through my mind ever since. It seems that the idea of “economic counter-protests” has been catching on as a good way to fight against Westboro Baptist Church.
The way it works is this: If Westboro decides to picket an event or place with their inflammatory signs, someone will set up a pledge fund in the area, getting as many people as possible to pledge one dollar for every minute Westboro pickets. Then after the protest, they will donate the money to the organization that is being protested, or else a charity that represents the cause. They will refuse to show up to counter-protest in person, instead leaving only a sign that informs the Westboro protestors of the pledges: the longer they protest, the more money goes toward that which they protest.
Most of WBC’s protests are against pro-homosexual organizations. I have already made clear my position on homosexuality, but this forced me to ask myself what I would do if Westboro came to Des Moines. Would I donate to an organization that I may somewhat disagree with in order to fight against a group that I disagree with much, much more?
I wonder to myself what Jesus would have me do, and in the midst of all of the answers that fill my thoughts—”fight!” “stand up for your beliefs!” “no compromise!”—I hear one that could never have come from within: “love them all.” I still don’t know what this means or how to do it, but I know it’s the right answer.
I pulled my comment on FB before I read this. I am considered “liberal” by the people I tend to run with and easily offend them because I don’t see the Gospel as reforming the world of bad behavior, but of regenerating individuals. This WBC kind of “hate” is propagated by other groups in a much nicer way, but it is still hate. I pulled the post so that you wouldn’t have what I perceived might be a controversial position on your site and also because I hadn’t realized that there was a antisemitic aspect to this group. I didn’t know if that was part of the WBC protest.
I have also read your post on gay marriage and homosexuality. I am going to read it again because I couldn’t believe anybody but me would say what you have said. I have to read it again to see if it really said what I think you said, but I think it does and it has given me hope that if I am insane at least I have some company.
I very much appreciated your comment on Facebook, and it was actually the direction I was heading. Far from dissenting! :)
The world continually presents us with choices: “you must choose either A or B.” They did this to Jesus, too, and his response was almost always to reject the choices and choose C instead. (”Whose inscription is on this coin?”) This is our pattern to follow. Sometimes A or B is the right choice, but usually it is not, especially when it comes to politics or social problems.
I agree with you that the right choice in this case might be other than A or B.
I’m pondering the thoughts you shared in your April blog, outlining your position on homosexuality, and considering whether to comment. Privately, perhaps. ;-)
I know this is a bit of a rabbit trail, but since the Matthew Shepard foundation is mentioned on the Facebook page you linked to, I thought you might find the following interesting.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=1
People always try to take sides as if life were a game of street ball. Even the unbiblical “hate the sin love the sinner” separates a person into two sides: the person is good and his homosexuality is evil.
There is one true side and all other sides are pretentious.
The homosexual is closer to God than the self righteous Christian preacher and blogger. They are closer because their efforts appear more loving than the others. But they all fall short.
Maybe the question is, “Can you admit deep-seated sin?” If the answer is “yes,” you are a target for mercy.
Strikes are rebellion against sinners. Last I checked Jesus rebelled against a different sort of crowd, usually found in church.
Some good thoughts, Brooks! I’d like clarification on something though. When you say “hate the sin love the sinner” is unblibical, do you really mean to say it is extra-biblical, or do you mean is it contrary to Scripture?
Also, it seems you are saying we shouldn’t separate a person into two sides–the person is good and his homosexuality is evil. Could you expound on that a bit? Are you saying that his homosexuality is evil AND he is an evil person, or that both are good? Or something entirely different? We may be on the same page; I just need some clarification to figure out exactly what you are saying.
Al, people only do what they are. The external is evidence of a heart. Unlike most religions – especially humanism influenced by Mazlow and Freud (now fully crept under the rug of American evangelicalism) – Christianity proclaims that we are inherently evil and completely unable to generate good because we ourselves are evil.
We do not need to clarify anything to figure out if we are on the same page. You and I *are* on the same page (read: team). We are bitter enemies (together on a team) against God.
I agree with some of your second post, but I do like to understand what people mean, hence the request for clarification. I feel I always come away from our conversations having learned something, but that is usually only possible if I understand you correctly.
Also, I don’t consider us bitter enemies against God. We WERE enemies of God before we came to Christ.
Yes, you and I ARE on the same team, as believers, but obviously we don’t agree on all things theological–which is what I was referring to when I used the term “same page”.
I’m still trying to figure out if by saying “love the sin hate the sinner” is unbiblical you mean we are to hate both, or love both. Obviously, it can’t be the latter, but I assume you aren’t taking the former position either. That led me to wonder if you really meant to say it is extra-biblical rather than unbiblical.
I think I understand what you are getting at with the homosexual and the self-righteous preacher and blogger. And I agree that we all fall short. However, I’m not sure I agree the homosexual is “closer to God” than the self-righteous person because their efforts appear more loving. It depends upon whether or not they have been saved. I don’t think an unregenerate person can be close to God. Maybe you were assuming both are unregenerate? Or that both are saved?
Kevin thanks for sponsoring this convo :D
Al yes I meant that the particular phrase is extra-biblical and unbiblical. God demands sins to be paid and for a person to pay for those sins. The sins are never separated from the sinner. Rather, a greater person (Jesus) may pay for the sins and be a substitute for other people.
No one is good. Not even Christians. We were enemies of God and we still are enemies of God (we have sin inside us) and we still run far from him daily. One need only take a look around the world at Christians to see the atrocities and we have committed, sometimes in his name. (See above post by K-Van).
When a person becomes a Christian she does not become holy. She becomes a recipient eternal mercy (available to the repentant) instead of “mere” temporal grace (available to all people). The thing that does not occur, however (and this is the rub), is sanctification. If we could speed that up it would benefit all of mankind, and yet, pride would increase. See all of Ephesians 2 and the end of Romans 3.
Therefore because pride rises up among the saved (Romans 2) we should be acutely aware that the people God works in are the people who are unabashedly aware of their own humanness (read: sinful status).
Standing with a handwritten sign decrying sexual sin may seem fair play. Even Jesus was in a strike like this once, making signs with his hands, too. Except the people he was protesting were the ones who, in Kevin’s article, hold the signs. John 7:53-8:11
Brooks:
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I see what you are getting at. I am pondering your assertion that we are enemies of God. Several passages come to mind, the first of which is James 4:4-10.
I realize that a person is not completely sanctified the moment they are saved, and for some the process is faster than for others. However, I think there is a wide chasm between not being fully sanctified and being bitter enemies against God.
And, just so there is no confusion, I don’t support what WBC does.
With all this traffic, I should be putting up some banner ads!
Regarding the discussion of whether we are enemies of God: though the disagreement is a minor one, I have to voice my agreement with Al on the basis of Colossians 1:21-23:
God no longer sees us as enemies if we have been reconciled by Jesus. We still have a very hard time with this because our hearts are still loyal to Satan, and present sanctification is the ongoing process of changing that loyalty. But we have been rescued and brought over to God’s “side”. (How we act after we’ve been brought over is another story: we can be treasonous at times.)
Regarding “love the sinner, hate the sin” – I understand what you’re saying, but I do think we have to philosophically and theologically separate the sinner from the sin because that’s the story in Genesis: we were originally created in God’s image, and then corrupted by sin in the Garden. The story of human history ends in Revelation with that corruption being removed once and for all. So I think that it discounts this story to a degree, or at least runs the risk of doing so, to say that we are one with our sin. If that was the case we wouldn’t be worth saving, and God should have just destroyed everyone in the Flood instead of all but 7.
I think your angle is that we must not say “sinner = good person + bad sin” because the “good person” premise is flawed. This I agree with. We were wholly good when we were first created, and we will be wholly good at some point in the future, but between the Fall and the Millennium (in other words, history) we are rotten to the core.
But I think lovethesinnerhatethesin is a whole different issue, one that is not at all against the idea in my previous paragraph. To love someone is not to tell them they are inherently good, but that they are inherently valuable—for no other reason than because God thinks so. And if lovethesinnerhatethesin is wrong, then the alternative is hate the sinner and hate the sin…
There are no “better” people than others. We are all sinners and we are all deserving of no grace (by definition).
Once we are saved we are not holy. We are regarded as holy. Paul states this clearly about himself. 1 Timothy 1:15
The problem with stating we are holy is that there is no more work to be done by God.
“If that was the case we wouldn’t be worth saving…”
We are not “worth saving.” God does it because he is loving.
Sorry, had to cut that short.
The view that we are holy is *only* God’s view and God’s accounting. He is not fooled. He doesn’t sit around and look at us and say we are perfect and flawless; rather, he gives us each other and the Spirit to help us become holy.
We only are holy because of Jesus. We have his holiness. He is our high priest.
My point is that many people who say they are different than other people (Christians who believe they are holy) are really only self-righteous. To see that our righteousness is truly Christ’s righteousness, well, that puts us on a level playing field with those who are not saved in the end.
No one is good except God. Our mouths still wreak havoc and our intentions still drip with self glorification and pride. This is the cautionary tale of all Christians: beware lest we appear judgmental instead of merely discerning.
Lovethesinnerhatethesin would be a fantastic AIM screen name. If only I thought of it in 2002.
One of my favorite verses is Hebrews 10:14 — “[B]ecause by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Salvation is both a completed act and a continuing process. Perfect forever. Being made holy.
By the way Kevin I love the refTagger you’re using!
Perhaps I should grab the “lovetheSinhatetheSinner” screenname before Westboro coins it.
http://bit.ly/2zPNwx
Brooks: You are right, I misspoke on that :) What I meant was not that we wouldn’t be worth saving if we could not be separated from our sin, but that we would have been unsaveable. If I am equal to and inseparable from my sin, then by destroying my sin you destroy me as well. But we were created in God’s image and sin came later, so our story is one of God undoing what we have done to ruin what he created to be good. This should not in any way downplay our depravity, but I do think that it’s unbiblical to say that we are enemies of God. We aren’t. We just act like it more often than we should.
Side note: I feel like all of us agree on most everything so far, and that all the arguing has just been semantics…
And yeah, RefTagger is the best. So easy to use. Everything is automatic, and it just works, which is the best you can ask for!
I see what you meant now. But I’ll continue to take it one more step in the direction you were (accidentally) heading.
The concept of reconciliation assumes two parties meeting in the middle. Romans 5:6-11 dives deep into this. If we are reconciled to God by our own effort, then we have room to boast. And we may claim we are on God’s side. We become proud, separated from other people whom we believe are not striving hard enough. And grace becomes a little backpack to help us hold the load.
But if we are people who were – and still are – powerless to please God, then reconciliation evidently happened between two other parties, one of them not being us. This is the true case. God met his match (his own son) and agreed to forgive our sin because of Jesus. We were – and are still – enemies. We are recipients of grace and not the weight the law demands.
Why are Westboro people so proud and unattached? They believe they are holy. The operative phrase in your quote above is “in his sight.” When we are holy in our own sight we start treating other, non-recipients of the same free grace, as worse than us.
Why are other people throwing their hard earned money at the Shepard cause? Because they understand people who are beaten and killed for a cause, any cause, are worth taking a look at and considered instead of picketed.
Ironically Jesus was beaten and killed for a cause. That is why I believe they are closer to “getting” Jesus than the picketers.
Give me $10million today for no apparent reason, and I will do anything for you.
But in a year, come back and ask me in my new mansion to mow your lawn and I will complain behind your back about your silly request. This is how most people react to grace.
If I earn $10 million, however, I have a whole lot of pride about it. I will volunteer for organizations, give my life to them, and not think twice about it. I am confident in my accomplishments and am in control of my life.
This is why it is easier for all of us on this blog to believe that we really aren’t *given* eternal life. Our functional savior usually looks quite more like ourselves, and hence we hesitate to say we are still His enemies. Yet, our attitudes toward one another (the least of these) show that we truly love to flip off the Almighty.
I hesitate to add my comments because I can see that we each have semantic problems explaining ourselves. So we need to understand what the person is saying rather than assuming we understand his or her point of view. Of course, that is called “context” when we read the Bible.
My personal view is that we were enemies of God before we are reconciled to God and that was provided at the cross and obtained upon trusting the Lord. (Romans 5:1 and Romans 5:10). We are enemies if we are “friends with the world” (James 4:4). However, my view is that James is saying these people are not “saved”. After we are saved which means we are reconciled we become friends (John 15:12-14). A friend in this passage does what the Lord commands. In the passage He commands that we love one another as He has loved us. That is only possible through the divine nature that is imparted at the new birth. So the evidence of being a true disciple is “loving one another”. This is also the main point of John in his first epistle. Does loving one another include the unsaved? I think it does, but that could probably be argued.
I believe that regardless of our view on the “enemies” issue, we need to remember that we who are saved are just guilty sinners saved by grace. I hear people say that they WERE guilty sinners saved by grace, but I personally AM a guilty sinner saved by grace. I think that is your point Brooks. I know that God sees me in Christ and calls me a Saint but I am not very Saintly at times.
The original issue had to do with the WBC and its demonstrations. I think they have forgotten that they ARE guilty sinners saved by grace. When we preach the Gospel we can’t be self-righteous about it because we are in this sin problem together. I ask myself, do I want to be known as a “sin killer” who eradicates the world of my pet sins, or do I want to be known as one who can offer sinners hope and a solution in Christ? Both the Lord and the Pharisees seemed to understand adultery was wrong in John 8 with the woman taken in adultery. But would I want to stand with the hypocritical Pharisees trying to throw stones, or do I want to show the grace of the Lord who recognized that the sin was wrong but said “neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more!” (John 8:11). Which approach is more likely to release a person from the bondage of sin?
I personally do not want to be a person who is constantly involved in “causes”. I want to be one who upholds the Lord’s righteous standards by pointing sinners to the grace of God, the same grace that I need and have received.
To get off the theological track a bit, I’ve often said that I would not be at all surprised to find out that WBC is actually a group formed to advance the homosexual cause. I say that because they are doing more to silence Christians on the issue of legislating homosexual “rights” than probably any other group or effort, and they play right into the strategy of homosexual activists, as outlined 20 years ago in the “playbook” of their movement, “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s”.
It is difficult for me to believe that a group of people who consider themselves Christians could persist in doing the heinous things they do. I actually called them up a couple of years ago when I heard about the churches they planned to picket in our area. At least one of the churches is very conservative, and preaches the whole counsel of God, including the passages concerning homosexuality.
Brooks:
“Ironically Jesus was beaten and killed for a cause. That is why I believe they are closer to “getting” Jesus than the picketers.”
Put in the above context, what you said earlier (”The homosexual is closer to God than the self righteous Christian preacher and blogger. They are closer because their efforts appear more loving than the others.”) makes more sense to me now. I will agree they may be closer to getting one of the messages of Jesus–that being how we should treat others–but that does not necessarily mean they are closer to having a relationship with Him. Further, though it may be difficult to believe that the people from WBC have a relationship with Christ, if they do, in fact, have that relationship, despite the fact they are acting in an unbiblical manner, they are still closer than an unsaved homosexual (or any other unsaved person) who does good works and treats people kindly.
In regard to being beaten for a “cause”, you might want to check out this link I posted for Kevin earlier, if you haven’t already.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=1
Al, I did read the Matthew Shepard article, but could you explain what you mean by posting it?
Bruce,
I appreciate your efforts to interpret not only scripture but others’ comments. I must however clarify a very important point dealing with your interpretive style.
A closer reading of John 15:12-17 will indeed reveal the prerequisite quality of the love of Christ. We were loved by Him before we obeyed Him. It is intuitive indeed by gazing at history: did God so love the world or did we so love God? Therefore I can establish against the notion that our love for each other is exclusive of our love for the world (people unbelieving).
This is extremely crucial to a Christian philosophy. One who loves Jesus must also love the world (again not sin but people, just as Jn 3:16-17 uses the word cosmos to imply people not sin and Satan).
The same blanket approach must also apply to every other passage because the gospel is about his love for his enemies. (See my previous comments references.)
let’s now take the woman caught in adultery. The point of that passage is not as you claimed. It is rather to point out how when we love out own traditions more than we actually love people, we stand to be more condemned than the people we condemn. The key is gospel story: Jesus stood by and forgave not only the woman, but also the scribes and Pharisees. That pericope reveals not a gushy god but a God who stands to judge both groups of sinners but forgives in his future death payment.
Both the whore and the Bible guys deserved judgment: but one realized her sin and the others did not and also were too proud to admit it. In other words, the bad girl was saved and the bible dudes were not. That was written by John to demonstrate – like the rest of his first half of the book as an autoptic report on how the godhood of Jesus will always be ironically opposed to self-justified people. A warning to the fundamentalist and Jew alike.
Hi Kevin:
Sorry for not checking back earlier (I wish there was notification when someone puts up a new comment!).
I posted that article because some of the positions taken on this blog seem to be based on the premise that Matthew Shepard was beaten and killed because he was a homosexual. The story at the link I posted presents strong evidence to the contrary (AND it comes from a source that–if anything–would probably be sympathetic to the homosexual cause).
I think this information is very important, and not just because many of the so-called “hate crime” laws, “civil rights” laws, and “bullying and harassment” policies are being pushed because of allegations that there is a widespread problem with homosexuals being attacked (with the Matthew Shepard incident being the primary example that is always given).
The Shepard case also has the effect of evoking the sympathy of many of us who do not want to see anyone beaten and/or killed, regardless of their “sexual orientation”. It can cause many people to remain silent on the issue (as was a stated strategy of the homosexual activists in the book I loaned you), for fear of being identified with the WBC group (or anyone who would advocate violence against homosexuals). It some cases, it might actually even cause some who think homosexuality is wrong to advocate for the above-mentioned laws and policies.
This is not to say that people shouldn’t be protected from violence. However, that is not the real goal of such legislation. The real goal is to silence all dissent concerning the homosexual lifestyle, and eventually to force acceptance. At stake is nothing less than our religious freedom and freedom of speech.
I think if we take a position because of emotions that are stirred up by something that is untrue (or at least unproven), it bears re-examination. We shouldn’t accept everything at face value, and shouldn’t believe it is true merely because someone–someone who has an agenda–tells us it is true.