Protesting members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church were met with an unlikely group of counter-protesters Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.
Hours before President Barack Obama led the nation’s Memorial Day observances at the Tomb of the Unknowns, three members of the Westboro Baptist Church were challenged by others who disagreed with them – including members claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan.
The Kansas-based church has attracted nationwide attention for its angry, anti-gay protests at the funerals of U.S. military members.
Can we in this forum agree to stop calling this group of people a “Church”? They are an “Ecclesiastical Community”. I find associating Church with this group of people offensive.
One has to wonder, in apologetics circles, how Protestants argue against Fred Phelps and his ilk. For is he not using the same paradigm that they propose: “All I need to do is read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will direct me to the truth!”?
Now, of course, Catholics have an apologetic superiority when objecting to Fred Phelps, because we proclaim that when one has departed from the Faith of the Apostles, then one has divorced himself from the Body of Christ.
I don’t think we have an apologetics superiority when objecting to Fred Phelps, because one doesn’t need theological reasons to object to his works and worldviews.
On a purely natural level, Fred Phelps is patently vile and his works evil. So the superiority of Catholic teaching gives us no advantage here.
I understand what you’re saying, Fone. On a similar vein, it rankles me when some call abortion a “religious” issue, when it is a *moral *issue. One need not be any religion in order to argue against abortion.
However, I do think that, as Fred argues from religion, we can argue from religion as well.
And, what I’m proferring here is really not about Fred, but about the Protestant paradigm. Because of its “I can read the Bible and come to the truth with the Holy Spirit” paradigm, it allows for such vile, odious paradigms as proposed by Fred et al.
True, though I prefer not to go that route as a matter of pragmatism. As you’ve pointed out, if one sticks to religion/theology - or even makes that the principal basis of one’s arguments - then he can easily say, “You’re misinterpreting the Bible.”
But he can’t believably argue against the claim that his teachings are nasty and staggeringly hateful. To an impartial observer, that fact will be self-evident. Theological inferiority is only rarely self-evident.
Well, this is exactly my point. If he were in a discussion with most Protestants, they would have no recourse. For they would have to say that, indeed, Fred Phelps is following their paradigm of this unholy trinity of me, the Holy Spirit and my bible.
Catholics, however, profess that there is no such assurance that the individual, guided by this alleged Holy Spirit, can read the bible and come to an understanding of truth.
A group that hates based upon ethnicity is bashing and blocking a group that hates based upon sexual preference and both anti GOD groups have chosen the opportunity of the death of a soldier who gave his/her life so that the black and gay, can be free to be.
And the devils dance a jig around both groups with each demon picking and choosing who they wish to escort to JESUS on the day they die, to tell this sad sordid tale to JESUS on the day HE judges them.
MY GOD, I BELIEVE, I ADORE, I HOPE AND I LOVE THEE, AND I ASK THY PARDON UPON THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN THEE, DO NOT LOVE THEE, DO NOT ADORE THEE AND DO NOT HOPE IN THEE.
A prayer taught to the three children of Fatima by an angel after they had a vision of hell.
They would have no recourse if they stuck to arguing on theological grounds. But why should they do that? Why should anyone? It’d be extremely easy and efficacious for them - as for anyone - to point out simply how vitriolic and hateful the group’s teachings and rhetoric are.
No one - not even the Westboro people themselves! - would deny that.
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