WWW, February 2009 - In a recent press release, the group behind the website "God Hates Fags" announced their plans to travel to the Netherlands and picket the burial of nine people who recently lossed their lives in a plane crash at Amsterdam Airpost.
What drives these "Christian Taliban" and what can they teach us?
The group is headed by a man called Fred Phelps and calls itself the "Westboro Baptist Church" (WBC). They are often in the news as they go from place to place witch picket signs saying things like "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For Aids". Special places of interest to the WBC are funerals, perferably that of dead soldiers and those who they love to hate the most: (perceived) homosexuals.
In itself, the group is predominantly one family under the guidance of the patriarch. Their appearance is usually seen as funny or offensive, they're a welcome guest in many talk shows as they guarantee a piece of sensation.
They're an obvious cult, as their website clearly indicates. They urge this visitor to "carefully read every word of this web site, along with the entire Bible", a clear indication they do need to explain a little bit before the innocent visitor can open the Book of Books and, guided by the Holy Spirit of God, read what's in there.
Just recently, the group announced that they would go the Netherlands and hold a demonstration at the funeral of the victims of a plane crash that recently took place at Amsterdam Airport. Nine people crashed in an airplane from Turkish Airlines in what the WBC sees as a judgement of God because of... homosexuality.
It is unlikely, though, that the WBC will actually be able to physically enter the Netherlands. Recently, they were banned from entering the UK as part of the European War on Freedom of Speech.
However, their Freedom of Speech is not the issue. There are questions more important for those interested in Christianity. Questions such as: how can it be, that the WBC claims how "homosexuality" is the reason for "God" to make a plane crash of Turkish Airlines at Amsterdam Airport?
One word: Calvinism.
The WBC is a rather extreme example of this "Christian" philosophy that has been responsible for terror regimes throughout the last centuries. Regimes, which make the Taliban in Afghanistan look like keepers of paradise.
In a video entitled "What Love Is This", recently reviewed by the CRC, well-known author Dave Hunt revealed some of the terror that Calvinists released on the people they had political power over. But we can also look at the Dominionists, the neo-evangelical version of this form of political Christianity, Sharia Style.
Basically, Calvinists and Dominionists believe that they have to create a "Christian World Order", wherein what the Bible calls the Fruit Of The Spirit is forced on people by law, with extreme penalties in cases of trangressing these so-called "Divine Laws".
We have well-known cases such as Rick Warren teaming up with the President of Rwanda who was recently accused of war crimes, Pat Robertson calling for the extermination of leaders which oppose the United States of America ("God's Own Country", as they say), all of them associating with presidents and others in circles of power.
We also have the Westboro Baptist Church with their "pastor" Fred Phelps and an army of footsoldiers who all love to hate just about everyone that doesn't follow their Calvinist form of "Christianity". With a smile on their face, they will tell you that you go to hell, just because God created you to go to hell. And, as the picture shows, they will even help you getting there with pleasure.
Carnal pleasure.
Carnal minds define the Calvinist and Dominionists. Carnal minds define the members of the group behind the "God Hates Fags" website and church. And no, not just because of their obvious focus on sexuality and frequent use of the word "Sodomites" to describe homosexuals, about which we will talk a little bit further one.
The Carnal Calvinists are spiritually handicapped, spiritually disabled even. They take the Bible, a translation of copies of manuscripts who have been long gone, but it is the only thing they can physically touch with their carnal bodies. They lack the Presence and Teaching of the Holy Spirit, without Whom we can never understand what the Bible actually teaches.
They think, that the Bible is all about the State. They think, that when the Bible speaks about "authorities" and "leaders", when the Bible gives guidelines for Church gathering and spiritual livity in general, the Bible gives this as a commandment to be obeyed by those under the command of the leaders who interpretate the Divine Laws...
They totally ignore the fact that the Bible says all of us are living in sin, and that it takes a spiritual rebirth to be able to receive the Works of the Holy Spirit that makes our carnal sins become less and less important. They claim that the Bible wants people to create states with heavy laws that none can keep, laws which the Bible explains are fruits of the works that the Holy Spirit works out in those who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
Equally, they deny the fact that God did not destroy Sodom because of homosexuality at all. Sodom, namely, is the biggest argument for Fred Phelps and his Calvinist brethren to go around the world and tell everyone that God is going to destroy the world because of "Sodomy" and "Sodomites".
And this is where it gets tricky. Because they are right, the acts of Sodom are indeed the reason the the Creator to come down Himself and Personally downstroy this wicked shitstem.
Therefore, it is extremely important to find out just what was going on in Sodom, even though the answer might not be what your avarage Pastor, President or Priest may tell you.
The Bible uses the word "heteros" to describe the sexual acts of the Sodomites. They were not homosexuals, even though some of them have might been and even though it is true that homosexuality is condemned as sinfull in the Bible. That is not the issue here. The issue is that homosexualioty in itself is not the reason for the Most High to condemn this world shitstem and call her "Mystery Babylon, Mother of Harlots and Abominations". (MORE INFO)
The Westboro Baptist Church is an extreme, and therefore very clear example where a carnal view on the physically tangible Scriptures lead to. Not just to a rather ridiculous idea that is so obviously wrong that they cannot be taken seriously. Not just to an entertaining sight of a dysfunctional family dressed as up a Church.
What this family does, is just a small version of what the Dominionists and Calvinists are doing at large. They would love to impose their ridiculous ideas on humanity by law, just like the fighter jets impose the ideas of the world elite by bombing the hell out of people in the name of that very same "White European Anglo Saxon Christianity".
What this family, this cult dressed up as a "Church" does, is just an extreme version of what carnal minds are doing at large. Without any guidance from the Holy Spirit, not hindered by a spiritual identity caused by a born again situation, they take the Black Book and make their own carnal sense out of it.
They do so to their own judgement. They also do so as an example for all.