TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Fred Phelps Fax Machine Antics

Re: Fred Phelps Fax Machine Antics

Fred Atkinson (fatkinson@mishmash.com)
Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:28:41 -0400

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is a pity. IMO, Reverend Phelps is
> an embarassment to everyone who claims to be a Christian. Of course,
> that's probably okay with him; he feels his church and himself are the
> only 'real Christians' anyway. They took the name 'Westboro Baptist'
> in the early 1950's when another Baptist organization in town called
> 'Eastside Baptist' (where Fred was also affiliated as a member)
> decided to 'expand their outreach' in another area of town, so
> logic dictated moving to a western area and thus the name "Westboro"
> was chosen, and Fred was selected to operate the new branch. I
> think Eastside held the mortgage originally on the Westboro property
> but that was many, many years ago, and Eastside has long since
> disavowed Fred and his bunch.

Well, it depends upon how you look at it. Are you embarrassed by The
Crusades? Jim Jones? Or David Koresh? The KKK? The Militiamen?
Many of them claim Christianity. But I don't buy it nor do others.

They are disgraceful, that's true. But I'm not letting it embarrass
me. There are a lot of people who profess to be Christians that are
not really.

They just don't get it, do they?

And yes, I am a member of a Baptist church.

> And yes, telephone harassment is against the law. PAT]

That's a fact.

Fred

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am an Episcopalian and we generally
believe that a person is a Christian if _they claim to be a Christian_.
I know no other practical and non-judgmental way to evaluate a person.
So much about churches, I suspect, has to do with the _social culture_
of which they are a part, rather than the _specific religious beliefs_
they hold, and many christian-based churches hold the same general
religious beliefs anyway. For example, a person going to First Baptist
Church in Independence, KS would be a different sort of person than a
Baptist at Riverside Church or Park Avenue Baptist in New York City,
or Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago. Both Riverside and Rockefeller
Chapel are Baptist institutions, having been founded, and substanially
endowed by John D. Rockefeller, a Baptist. True of Episcopalians also:
members of Epiphany Church in Independence are entirely different than
members of Trinity Church-Wall Street in New York. Personally, I think
we are living in a post-Christian era for the most part. If church
attendance is any indicator it is no where close to where it was fifty
years ago or more.

And why I feel embarassed for Fred Phelps? Because so many, probably
most, GLBT people feel that _he_ -- their contemporary, Phelps --_
represents what our beliefs are about. That's all they have seen or
know, in the the same way many small animals are afraid of humans. And
you know, Fred, even Baptists were at one point firm believers in
Calvinism and the T.U.L.I.P. doctrines which Fred espouses. A century
and a half ago, most protestant churches were very big on
it. Many/most GLBT people are far from being intelligent theologians
or sociologists. Fred claims he is not picking on gay people; he says
we all are going to hell, not just gay guys, all of us! PAT]

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