What do *you* think of Fred Phelps and the Westboro "church"?
Someone I've known for a very long time says that he's not seen very many Christians condemning the Westboro "church people." I told him he hasn't been listening.
Do me a favor gang -- please speak up. What do *you* think of Fred Phelps and his "church"?
Do me a favor gang -- please speak up. What do *you* think of Fred Phelps and his "church"?
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
Paul elaborates in Galations 5 with lists of "works of the flesh" (I'm not gonna defend his inclusion of witchcraft on that list here), among which he lists "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law."
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So what this is saying to me, is that Christians need to police their own ranks. There should be some kind of religious court, which can go in & stop a person who is spewing hate & other kinds of vitriol under the guise of being a Christian.
The only problem with a Religious court, is you may start getting things like Iran, and Afghanistan where the Religious Court/Leaders believe they are the Only Leaders/Courts that their people should have.
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Individual Christian church denominations (many of them) do have written processes for the kind of braking effect a religious court might provide, within those denominations.
Part of the problem is that there are Christian denominations who (on paper or in practice or both) insist that other denominations are not really Christians, or "not Christian enough" (the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has stated that many complaints they receive about Evangelical prosletyzing are filed by other Christians, often Catholics. For just one dispiriting example). I have no idea whether the Catholic Church teaches that other churches are not really Christian, although I think they'll still excommunicate people who were born Catholic and then commit certain sins. Anyway, some of these denominations don't regularly communicate with one another, thinking they have too many differences 8/
Although I haven't made a study of it, I suspect that decades and centuries of shame (or a desperate wish to run the other way) over the Church's past sins (when Teh Church was the 800-pound gorilla) may have contributed to the sense of restraint many existing church leaders feel constrained to operate under.
There are also a number of churches (I've seen Independent Baptist, Evangelical and Pentecostal churches) that operate outside any denominational heirarchy, precisely so that they do not have to answer to anyone. Once they label themselves a church, outside observers have few reference points for asking questions. I'm fairly confident WBC must be an independent Baptist church, but because they use the same name as a more respectable denomination, their true identity as "lone signmen" can appear blurred. Most Independent churches keep the name of the denomination they broke away from, not out of a desire to deceive, but from a desire to affirm those core values they may still share with the named denomination.
Unfortunately, you can't always spot the looney before he pulls out his weapons 8/
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The Catholic Church certainly does not teach that other denominations are not Christian - and so far as I know never did. It *used* to teach that they were heretical Christians, which is different - but has certainly not done that, either, in my lifetime (not sure exactly how/when it changed, as I think it was more a slow drift than a sudden change. We tend to do things by slow drift...)
Some, at least, Evangelicals believe Catholics are not Christian. At any rate, I have been told that I am not, multiple times. (Occasionally followed by a tirade on how I must have a Personal Relationship with God which somehow must exactly mirror the speaker's relationship - the idea that mine might look different seems unacceptable. I suspect that at least some of the complaints about evangelism in the military comes after such encounters.)
The church does still excommunicate Catholics for serious sin. Only practicing Catholics, who are then forbidden the sacraments - it wouldn't really matter to anyone who *wasn't* practicing. Some bishops flourish this around a bit too lavishly... But it's supposed to be used more for theology or flaunting grave sin. Most people don't seem to know that, back in the fifties, a priest and author was excommunicated for teaching (loudly and publicly) that only Catholics went to heaven... This is contrary to theology, he'd been ordered to stop, he refused... But other churches seem to remember his teaching, not his excommunication.
Once the Reformation demonstrated that one could break off from a mother church and survive, some people continued breaking off, in ever smaller splinter groups. Most are good religious people seeking their own understanding of God. Some... are not. But a church they have broken from cannot regulate them. And, in this country, we quite firmly *do not* have an Established Church to do so - for which I am thankful...
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I think we will agree that it didn't work very well.
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