Something is Missing at Westboro

Westboro Baptist Church has become famous for its hatred spewed across the public landscape. Through the church's website (godhatesfags.com), public pronouncements and vitriolic billboards, usually displayed at military funerals and carried by children as well as adults, no one seems to be immune to their equal opportunity hatred. In their open letter addressed to "elect Jews" and posted on their website, the Westboro congregation states "The Antichrist Bloody Beast Obama is going to become king of the world ...Then Obama will lead the nations against Jerusalem to battle." So much for diplomacy, Although the group's leader, Fred Phelps, is a Democrat, I seriously doubt President Obama will be looking to him for support.

Phelps and his family, who constitute the majority of Westboro Baptist Church, try to pass off themselves as Baptists in the doctrinal lineage of Primitive Baptists. The church "exists today as an Old School (or, Primitive) Baptist Church" and adheres to the teachings of the Bible, so they say.

In fact, several Baptist associations and fellowships do hold to at least some of the theological positions claimed by Westboro Baptist Church. The Calvinistic "doctrines of grace" are embraced to varying degrees by certain congregations within Southern Baptists, Landmark Baptists, Regular Baptists and numerous independent churches.

Yet there is an obvious and noticeable difference between the people at Westboro and other "sovereign grace" Baptist Churches, including other Primitive Baptists. Westboro Baptist Church pickets alone. Why is that? From Phelps' point of view, other churches are deficient in the truth and derelict in their duty. Why are other churches not "preaching from the housetops?" he wonders.

The answer does not lie is what is missing in other churches. Something is missing in Westboro, and that something is the "good news" that constitutes the heart of the New Testament message.Contrary to Phelps and company, the gospel or "good news" (from the Old English phrase "good spell") is not a message of judgment, but of deliverance. As theologian John Piper writes In "Desiring God" (p. 61), "The good news is that God Himself has decreed a way to satisfy the demands of His justice without condemning the whole human race."

Christian doctrine teaches that God judges sin and that His judgment is just. Indeed, Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote that sin against God is "a violation of infinite obligations" and "deserving infinite punishment." But judgment is not all there is to the message. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul declared God's righteous indignation to be satisfied through the death of His Son. Piper explains, "If the most terrifying news in the world is that we have fallen under the condemnation of our Creator... then the best news in all the world (the gospel!) is that God has decreed a way of salvation..." for repentant sinners.

Try finding that message in anything coming out of Westboro Baptist Church. It's not there - not in their open letters, not in their website, and not on their signs that read "God Hates Israel," or America is Doomed" or "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." Clearly, Westboro Baptist Church's constant drumbeat of hate is a message far removed from the evangelical gospel and not at all representative of any orthodox Christian church. That explains why every Baptist church association or affiliation of any kind in America seeks to distance themselves from the church in Topeka, Kansas.

That Westboro Baptist Church preaches a perverted message may be lost on those of the radical left who are willing to paint all evangelical Christians with the same condemnation they use on Westbrook. As one Huffington Post reader opined, "...While Westboro Baptist Church may be extreme, they are simply taking Christianity to its natural conclusion. The only difference is one of degree."

Fortunately, that opinion seems to be in the minority for the present. Only time will tell whether such opinions survive or die off. Meanwhile, no one should confuse the message coming out of one radical congregation with the rest of orthodox Christianity.