Responding to WBC

I’m offended right now, in a way so deep and penetrating that I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt anything quite like it.  I’ve been on the edge of tears several times, tears of both sadness and anger, bubbling up from within, calling cards of a heart that is very troubled.

Let me back up and give some background.  If you live in or around central Pennsylvania, you can’t possibly have missed the biggest local news story of the last couple days: the tragic house fire that claimed the lives of 7 of the 8 children of a Perry County family.  The tragedy has made national news, so I’m sure that many far beyond the area know of the story as well.  This is obviously an unimaginable tragedy that is painful and gut-wrenching on its own.  However, today a new wrinkle has entered the story, with news that the Westboro Baptist Church is planning to picket at the funeral of these children next week.

Events over the last few years, and even the last few weeks, have garnered national attention and made it highly likely that you have heard of this group already.  If you haven't, consider yourself lucky.  I’m not going to take any space here to further introduce you to them, because I refuse to be a vehicle that exposes people to their message.   I will say that their previous notoriety has come from picketing the funerals of soldiers who were killed in combat.  If you don’t know anything about this group, you have my full blessing to stop reading.  If you do know of them, however, I’m quite certain that you have a better understanding of why I am feeling the way that I described in the opening.

First of all, let me say that I am hoping against all hope that this is a bluff on the part of WBC.  While the group has certainly followed through on many of these types of plans in the past, it also wouldn’t be out of character for them to simply announce their intentions in order to make a stir, only to not make the trip.  I pray, for everyone’s sake, that that is the end result in this case.  However, even if they don’t show up, the announcement and the specter of their possible appearance has already created an additional distraction and negative focus that a hurting family and community just should not have to deal with.  I so desperately wish that the media would decide not to pay any attention to the actions of WBC, but that’s just not realistic, and it is already too late for that in this situation.  And so, simply as a human being, I’m deeply offended that anyone would ever use the occasion of a funeral for innocent children who died so tragically to promote any kind of agenda, let alone an agenda like that of WBC.

However, as a Christian, it cuts even deeper, because I am offended that they do so in the name of my God and my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I am angered to my very core that these individuals choose to smear the name of my God by claiming His endorsement of their message of hate.  I am incredibly troubled by the possibility that people who don’t know Christ have or might come to see these people as His legitimate messengers.  All of it stirs me up so much, on top of the pain I feel for the family and their loss.

And yet, there is still another feeling stirring inside of me; one that is somewhat new to me in a situation such as this, and that is pity.  My heart breaks for the members of WBC, for hearts that are so blinded, so enslaved, so broken and destroyed by sin and the work of the enemy that they have arrived at such a twisted view of God – if they are sincere in their beliefs – or have been led down a path of using God as a cover for another agenda.  There is something very broken deep inside of them that needs restoration, restoration that only a true encounter with the God whose name they trample on can provide, the restoration that we are all lost without.

This is not to somehow mitigate or excuse the offense – these individuals have made their choices and, absent the mercy and grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ, they will answer for them in full one day.  However, Paul makes it very clear that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil.  These people are nothing more than blinded pawns of our enemy, and they are still God’s creations – people that He longs to draw to Himself.  No matter how hopeless it may seem, nobody is beyond the reach of God’s grace – and who better to testify to that than Paul: a man whose life took a complete 180 after his own encounter with Christ forever changed his understanding of who God was , and of what serving Him meant.

And so I urge all of my brothers and sisters in Christ who might feel as I do: Go ahead and be angry.  I believe it is a righteous anger to take offense at the name of our God being dragged through the mud by those claiming to speak for Him, and at those who would look to exploit the pain of the suffering in such a manner.  Further, let those feelings move you to action.  And yet, let us not choose to wage war in the earthly realm by repaying hatred with hatred and evil with evil.  Shout from the rooftops that these people do not speak for you and your Lord and Savior – but also pray for them, that God’s light would finally break through the darkness, and that they would come to see and know God for who He really is.  Stand in the opposite spirit – pray for the hurting family and community, look for tangible ways to show love and support – let the love, grace, and mercy of Christ - and the provision that He has made for dealing with our sin - stand in stark and overwhelming opposition to the message of WBC.

My hope and prayer is that, in all of this, God will take that which the enemy has designed for evil and use it for His glory – to multiply and amplify His work amongst the lives of the hurting and broken and those who surround them – including the hurting and broken who would seek to do harm.