The Politics of Hate - The Death of Fred Phelps



Fred Phelps has died.
Phelps was a former lawyer turned pastor.
For some reason he managed to transform the Christian God from a benevolent Deity to some gross hateful monster.
His weird church "Westboro Baptist" managed to garner global fame, despite only having a handful of members, all related to each other and living on a joyless campus in Kansas.
Their fame came largely through the garish posters they would hoist outside funerals of celebrities or army veterans.
These signs contained some of the most vulgar language I have ever read.
They all followed the line that basically God hates everybody, especially homosexuals.

I never really studied why or how Phelps went down such a strange route in his life.

What I do know is his idiocy made it very difficult for true followers of Jesus to present the truth of the gospel.
God doesn't hate homosexuals.
God doesn't hate America.

If there is anything we can know about God it is that his primal characteristic is one of holy love.
God is holy, meaning he is made up of moral perfection, untainted by sin.
God is love meaning that all his actions and motives are contextualized by love.

But, does God hate?
Yes, in fact he does. "I hate robbery and iniquity" - Isaiah 68:1
God hates sin.
God hates sin because sin dehumanizes and destroys his creation.
Sin disfigures humanity, whom God loves.
Just as we hate illness or disease when it affects those we love - God hates it when sin and brokeness mars his created sons and daughters.

For some reason Fred Phelps did not understand that.
Instead, he served an antithetical God which we cannot find in the Bible no matter how we try.

Fred Phelps is dead.
My only hope and prayer is that his twisted theology will soon meet the same fate.

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