Some Thoughts on the Death of Fred Phelps:

Something To Think About, Sad! 3/22

Almost everything that was said about the late Fred Phelps was wrong.  I suppose that is appropriate.  His life was wrong. Fred Phelps was often called "Pastor Fred Phelps," or "Fred Phelps, Pastor. . . ."  He was not a pastor.  The word "pastor" really means shepherd; the model Pastor is our Lord, Psalm 23, and John 10.  Perhaps there was a level at which Phelps had that caring-for-the-flock mode, but it never showed in his pubic persona, and, since that image was one he clearly cultivated, he should not be known by a title that doesn't fit. Some called the leader of Westboro Baptist Church, so called, a Fundamentalist.  Again wrong.  Hatred is not a fundamental point of any faith that is remotely Biblical.  I was nurtured in Christian Fundamentalism, and while some have veered off into the realms of hatred--though I know of no one to the extreme of Phelps--hatred is not one of the Fundamentals.   Phelps was often called a Christian, as though his venom characterized faith in Christ.  I am unable to see someone's heart, and I claim no special knowledge, but it is hard to make the claim that  Phelps was a Christian, in the sense in which the Bible uses the term.  He certainly failed to model the poverty of spirit, meekness, brokenness over sin, and self-focused--as opposed to others-oriented judgment that Jesus said marked His disciples.  Jesus said that it was love for fellow Christians that would mark us as His disciples.  Phelps drove many people away from the Lord and His truth.  His only converts were to a convoluted system of hatred, not Christianity. We need to know, though, beyond any doubt that the preacher of hatred's death is cause for mourning.  He is a creation of God, made in His image.  The great potential of that heritage was distorted and wasted.  He is one for whom Christ died.  As I already said, I intend no judgmentalism, but I saw no signs that God's grace had touched his cold, hard heart.  It is sad.  I won't protest his funeral.  I mourn his wasted life.  I hope the news will report that nothing happened.  I pray that folk will lovingly, kindly, respectfully share the Good News, that one need not see their life wasted. Over nineteen hundred years ago, there was another man who breathed out "threats and murder."  He called himself the "chief of sinners."  God saved him, and changed him.  Saul the persecutor became Paul the missionary, the ambassador for the One Who gladly was known as the 'friend of sinners."   Fred Phelps died this past Thursday.  I mourn that I saw no evidence that he opened the door to God's life-changing grace.  Don't wave a sign, not at the cemetary, not online.  Bow your head and pray. It's STTA. Explore the Good News here.