Westboro Baptist Church
BY Herschel Smith14 years ago
The father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder (the Lance Corporal perished in Iraq) has been ordered by the Fourth Circuit to pay the legal fees of Westboro Baptist Church.
Outraged that the father of a dead Marine was ordered to pay some court costs incurred by a group he had sued for picketing his son’s funeral, people from across the country have launched a grass-roots fundraising effort to help the grieving family.
“I was appalled,” said Sally Giannini, a 72-year-old retired bookkeeper from Spokane, Wash., who had called The Baltimore Sun after seeing an article about the court decision against Albert Snyder. “I believe in free speech, but this goes too far.”
Living on a fixed income, Giannini said she could send only $10 toward the $16,510.80 that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Snyder to pay to Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., an anti-gay group that travels the country picketing military funerals. The group says military deaths are God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality.
Strange way indeed to make ones views known.
Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, 20, was killed in a Humvee accident in Iraq on March 3, 2006. A week later, church members stood outside his funeral at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Westminster waving signs that said “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates fags” while mourners grieved inside. Later, they posted a diatribe on their Web site claiming that Matthew’s divorced parents raised him “to commit adultery” and to support “satanic Catholicism.”
The Westboro church members had never met Matthew, who wasn’t gay, nor his family. Yet seven of them – adults and children – traveled 1,100 miles across a half-dozen states to celebrate the young Marine’s death …
The report is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the extremely poor theology which underlies the whole approach. God has revealed Himself – past tense – and He no more has told the pastor or members of Westboro Baptist Church about His eternal plans for Iraq or why any individual has perished than He has told Pat Robertson why an earthquake struck Haiti (Deuteronomy 29:29).
More remarkable still is the ex nihilo fabrication of a “constitutional right” to desecrate funerals by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The idea that the our founding fathers had this in mind under the rubric of the first amendment is preposterous. There is no reason to believe that the administration of righteousness will be spared the gaze of God; to the contrary (1 Kings 3:9). There will be a day of reckoning for those who make a joke of their public oaths and vows and a laughingstock of justice.
Finally, Westboro Baptist Church does indeed have the right to promulgate their views at the right time and location (funerals is not one of them). The scholarly approach is to behave as Paul did on Mars Hill (Acts 17). Westboro Baptist Church displayed the reciprocal behavior. When a warrior perished on the field of battle, they profaned his funeral. When a parent grieved, they insulted the memory of his son. When a young man’s memory was being honored, they lied about his past and used his life in a cheap attempt to gain attention to themselves.
Many churches have as their vision statement “To know Christ and make Him known.” I won’t fall into the same trap as Westboro Baptist Church and claim to know the hearts of members whom I have never met. I have no problem, however, claiming that they have failed at making Christ known. And a day of reckoning awaits them too.
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