Sadness for Screamers

Is it me, or is there something really effed-up about these two smiling as they hold signs of hatred in the name of God?

Behold, the members of Westboro Baptist Church. They have gained infamy for showing up where they are not wanted or welcomed to protest the funerals of LGBT people... and soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the latter protests that have made them wildly unpopular with most Americans.

I'm using these two as an illustration for a greater problem and a frustration I feel when I see these images. Too often, this has become the face of Christianity: the benevolent smiling soul armed with Bible verses culled for the purposes of leading people AWAY from God, and into a belief that Christ (God) hates people, specifically anyone seen as an "other". What effect does this image have on the non-gay population? Something like what I heard at dinner last night, when a young mother was contemplating her options for preschool for her daughter, and wanted to find one that was affordable and "not religious". I could understand the affordability and "not religious" part, except that she was open to considering the preschool attached to Temple Israel. "Jewish" preschool was OK; "Christian" preschool was not because a "Christian" preschool would teach things about God that this mother didn't want to instill in her child... such as God is to be feared, and God condemns and punishes people (I didn't want to point out that much of that language about God exists in the Hebrew texts).

Where would she get such an idea about "Christians"? I refer back to the image above. I point to countless statements made by "christians" over the centuries that would support her belief. And, as much as I disagreed with this assessment of Christianity, I see evidence of it myself... which makes it incredibly difficult to counter such claims.

And it saddens me. The screamers, as I call them, are successfully jamming the signal that says, "God is love". Perhaps this is why this Christmas season, I am feeling the return of God into the world more profoundly and strongly than I ever have before. Too many people, too many of those of "other" status in whatever "other" that is, have been led to think that the God who came to meet us in our humanity in an effort to show us love instead came to beat the crap out of us. That is sad.

Again, the Psalm assigned for this morning's Daily Office ends on a more appropriate note:

The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Ps.34:22

Believe that statement... and remember it in your heart!