God Does Not Hate

"I was promised donuts" read one of the irreverent signs held by a counter-protester last week in San Francisco where a large and varied group rallied to protest the protest of Fred Phelps' group from Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. Phelps' people came out to picket the corporate offices of Twitter, for unknown reasons. Their signs largely read "God hates . . ." followed by "Obama, gays, Jews" and others. They were met by a quickly assembled rag-tag group which highlighted the absurdity of the protest with their own wackiness. Here is a description:

"Westboro Baptist Church showed up to protest in front of Twitter’s San Francisco office on Thursday, but found themselves severely outnumbered by a crowd of absurdist pranksters, including guest blogger EDW Lynch above. WBC’s hate-promoting signs were answered by multiple signs of randomness, nonsensical yelling, and even a unicorn." (http://laughingsquid.com/san-franciscos-answer-to-westboro-baptist-church/)

I laughed at the crazy signs: "God hates signs", "I'm tired", "God never gonna let you down" followed by "God never gonna give you up" followed by "God never gonna run around and desert you(!)", but felt an ache in my heart that any so-called Christian group would promote the idea that God hates. I emphatically disagree and cringe over the poisonous ideas being promoted by Phelps' group. I get angry that anyone would abuse the good name of God in such a way and though I admire the irreverent spirit of the protesters who calmly (and non-violently) point out the absurdity of such hate speech, I also wish for the chance to advertise a different view of God - one who only loves.

In any religion there are extremist factions who use the tenets of their religion to fuel hatred while mainstream followers only see and strive to follow the teachings of love. The words of every sacred text have been twisted to provide fuel for haters but look closely at the truth of the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, and the essence of the teachings are love and justice. If you are a Christian and you need words to back up your logic, look no further than Jesus' one and only law "Love your God above all else and love your neighbor as yourself." That's it, that's the law. There are no corollaries for persons of different sexual orientation, different races and nationalities, different genders, professions or religions. Jesus did not discriminate against anyone nor did he advocate discrimination.

My home church has feared the ire of Phelps' group as we move ahead with becoming a reconciling congregation. This means that we will explicitly state our openness to gay and lesbian and transgendered persons, the groups that are most marginalized by Christianity today. If the congregation moves ahead and embraces the reconciling ministry, and we are picketed by Phelps' or any group, I will challenge myself to hold the sign which I most believe in, which is as true for Phelps' followers as it is for my family, "Jesus loves you." Not irreverent, hard to swallow perhaps, but the best rebuttal of all. And . . . at some point I promise I will find an opportunity to carry the sign: "I was promised donuts."