When You Have Half the Story...

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Quite a number of recent events have proven to be very disturbing. As if the murder of six Amish schoolgirls in Lancaster County, PA was not enough, the fanatic nuts at Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS were about to protest at the funerals of these schoolgirls, and were only stopped when FOX News' Mike Gallagher gave them an hour of air time on his show to spout their message.

Also recently, an anti-abortion group protested at the University of Wyoming, the protest was complete with pictures of unborn fetuses and such. This came a week after ANOTHER group of radical religious protestors showed up on campus.

Before I get into the Westboro situation, I need to address these groups that come onto campus.

In fact, I have noticed two different reactions from college campuses when confronted by messages or groups they don't like. On the one hand, you have places like Columbia University, whose students staged a violent interruption of a set of speeches being given by the Minutemen, the group stationing itself along our southern border to assist the US Border Patrol. The scene turned into full-blown chaos in something I'd expect out of the Muslim world.

The other side of the coin is displayed in places like the University of Wyoming. Since I live here in Laramie, where the univsersity is located, I get to watch the reaction of the students here to pretty much anything that happens. The reaction of the UW students to the radical groups that showed up here has been "Why do these people have to inflict themselves on us?" This is problematic only in that the UW students don't understand that although the message these people present is reprehensible, they have a First Amendment right to be on campus...something that the students at Columbia University seem to have forgotten.

Now to the Westboro nuts...

The message that these "Christians" put out is that God hates sin, God hates the sinner, and sinners are going to Hell. They think that just about everyone outside of their church fall into the category of the unwashed sinners, so we're all doomed to eternal torment.

The thing is that while elements of their message are correct, the delivery sucks. These idiots stand outside funerals for US military men, they threatened to do the same in the case of the Amish schoolgirls, and they routinely show up here in Laramie every October to celebrate the death of Matt Sheppard.

The Westboro nuts are good at hammering home the God is vengeful message, but they fail to complete the other half of the story. Yes, God is a wrathful God, and he hates the Sin that all of us have because of Adam, and therefore, he hates the unrepentant sinner. However, through the grace of God, and by the sacrifice of his Son, we have a way to be redeemed.

The Westboro church members, most of which belong to ONE family don't seem to understand this fundamental part of the Christian faith. Instead, it seems as though only members of the Westboro church are redeemed...Christianity to them is a rather exclusive group...namely themselves.

There is also the idea that men should not be judging other men in matters such as this. And thankfully we aren't given that power. If we were, Hitler wouldn't have had to used the Nazis as the vehicle for his horrid crimes.

He could have entered the Church and risen to a position of power.

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John B.
Blogger Guy