Needless to say, the irredeemable protesters and attention-seekers of the Westboro Baptist Church have announced that they are to picket Steve Jobs's funeral. Sadly the Daily Mail chooses to describe the Westboro people as "a church group". As if we're all like them. The Mail noted the irony that they announced this on an iPhone - in much the same way that an anti-capitalist protester in the summer demanded we smash private enterprise on an iPad. Well sadly we're still waiting for the first public-sector smart device to be developed - they're probably drawing up the terms of reference for the diversity policy for the committee that will oversee the governance of the device even now. And in like manner, nobody has yet developed a fundamentalist Baptist smartphone.
But I have my own theory about the Westboro Baptist Church. I don't doubt their devoutness. But they're rather shouty and anti-people at the moment. And I reckon that's because, with all that going out and shouting and self-publication, they're only working their way through the Bible very slowly. They've got through the early creation stuff - and taken it literally, which is why they have their doubts about Apple. And they've learnt the story from Exodus that some cultures are evil. And they've got through Joshua and decided that God hates lots of people.
But they've hit some long words in Judges. And confronted with words like "Adoni-Bezek" and "Nahalol" they've slowed down.
The rate they're going, I reckon they're going to hit the Prophets in 2015, and when they do they're gonna find out that actually God doesn't hate people. God may hate some of the stupid things that we do, but God doesn't hate people. And they're gonna have to face the fact that the God they think "hates fags", actually loves everybody. And they're going to change their ways and, if their necks aren't as brass, they're going to repent and start turning up at events with big signs saying "We're really sorry. We got it wrong. God loves everybody." And what they're going to make of Jesus around about 2019, goodness knows. Unless they decide that, hanging around with a bunch of blokes like that and telling people that prostitutes are in the Kingdom of Heaven is a bit suspicious all round. In which case they'll have to get some new posters saying "God Hates Jesus". And then they're really going to get no sympathy at all.
So there you go, the Westboro Baptists. They're just slow readers.
"God Hates Jesus"? I think they might get some sympathy for this sentiment from the famous evangelical preacher John Piper. After all, the logic of his understanding of the atonement is that God started by hating all of us sinners and then decided to hate Jesus instead and punish him for our sins. But then Piper, who would certainly agree that God hates "fags", along with everyone else, might not really think all that differently from the Westboro clan. Perhaps Piper too ought to read the whole Bible before continuing to preach on it!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Archdruid. Very charitable indeed.
ReplyDeletePeter - that's some debate you had back there. Did you ever find out if John Piper had been quoted accurately? We wouldn't want to adopt Piper's example as quoted round here, as if we did of course we would have ended up hitting each other and claiming that was God's will.
ReplyDeletePaul - if you don't mind me saying so - that's very "terse"...
Yes, Archdruid, I had a lot of fun debating about Piper and friends. I think the quote was genuine, but rather old so maybe not reflecting his latest thinking. I don't really want to go on record as seriously saying Piper is like the Westboro lot. But in this less serious context I can see some parallels.
ReplyDeleteWell it's a very big church, so there are bound to be people of all abilities - I like this theory!
ReplyDeleteI didn't think they'd got as far as opening their Bibles. They've found some bigoted pages on the internet which quote selected snippets and probably misrepresent them, and they've thought 'We can do better than that'.
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