Cult’s targeting of family funeral points to folly of speaking for God

By David McElroy · July 14, 2011

I don’t know of a better example of pure evil in the world today than the members of an insane religious cult in Kansas who claim to speak for God. For those of us who are Christians, though, it’s a warning that it’s easy to believe that our thoughts and judgments all come from God.

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is widely known for picketing military funerals and protesting pretty much everything you can think of. Its members claim that “God hates fags.” (That’s even the name of the group’s website.) Every time something bad happens in this country, the group claims it’s evidence of God’s judgement of America. They picket funerals to bring attention to their claim that the deaths and disasters represent God’s hatred of a sinful America.

Today, this group announced that members would be picketing the funerals of the Teutenberg family (above), the members of which were killed in a plane crash last Saturday in rural Alabama. For the hate-filled details, see this press release (PDF) from the group. You really need to read it for yourself to get the full effect of how insane and how hateful these people are.

Why are they picketing the funerals of this family? It’s hard to say. The news release claims that the family was “…killed in a plane crash by an angry God for the sins of a wicked nation….” In other words, there’s nothing in particular about this family the group objects to. It was merely an excuse to draw attention to themselves and their claims.

As far as I’m concerned, the Westboro Baptist Church isn’t Baptist and it isn’t a church. It’s a nutty and hateful cult whose insane leader, Fred Phelps, has taken the hate in himself and indoctrinated mentally weak people into following him. (I’ve read before that most of the group’s membership is related to Phillips, but I can’t find the specifics right now.) The group isn’t affiliated with any recognized denominational group and certainly isn’t connected to any of the Baptist conventions.

It’s easy to look at these over-the-top hateful people and smugly feel good in knowing that we would never be like them. In many ways, that’s true. I’ll never picket a funeral. I’ll never say that God hates people. I’ll never act in the insane and hate-filled ways that the members of this group do.

But I judge people. I apply my standards of what people should be to others and think that God would judge them more severely than He would me. I sometimes have a mental “sin list” outlining which sins are the really bad ones (the ones other people do) and which sins are those that should be ignored (the “little ones” that I commit, of course). On a small scale, am I less guilty than the members of this cult of trying to speak for God?

As a Christian, I believe that God does condemn sin. I believe that human beings are hopelessly lost without salvation. But it’s not up to me to condemn and judge. It’s up to me to love people and pray that God will show them the error of their ways — just as I daily pray the same for myself. Sadly, for me, that includes not hating and judging the insane people of this cult. The same God who saved me — very flawed and continually broken again — can save people who are as filled with hate as they are.

I can’t find the quote right now, but I once heard talk radio host Ian Punnett say that for many people, God’s voice was just themselves with a deeper voice — and I’ve seen that over and over again in various people, including Fred Phillips, but also in people who are respectable Christians (and pastors) in my own life. We can and will disagree about how God feels about a wide variety of things, including things that are seemingly covered in scripture. And if you’re from another religion or if you’re an atheist, your entire framework for evaluating God or morality or the meaning of life is going to be entirely different from mine.

For now, though, I’m mostly concerned about the witness of myself and my fellow Christians. I believe we know the Truth. We know God — because He has revealed Himself to us in our hearts through scripture and through spirit. But we make a mockery of all of that when we go beyond what He actually says. We put ourselves in grave danger of His judgement when we dare to speak for Him in areas outside of the narrow places where there is complete clarity for us.

I’m confident that God has saved me. I’m confident that God can reveal Himself to anyone He wants to. I’m confident that God can change anyone. But I’m not arrogant enough to speak for Him. It’s a daily struggle to make sure that I don’t judge for Him, even in my own mind and heart.

I’m disgusted that the members of this Kansas cult will be at the Florida funeral of this family, but we as Christians need to look at our own judgmental spirits before we’re really worthy of condemning them without also condemning ourselves.

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The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

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