Friday, February 24, 2006

if you're not mad at this, check your theology...

i heard something briefly the other day about people protesting funerals and I was shocked, but didn't hear enough to figure out what was going on. Then this morning on KTIS, they were discussing the Star Trib article about a protest at a funeral in Anoka.

Now I was thinking "that's an odd way to get people to come to Christ, by yelling at them and telling a grieving mother that she sent her son to hell," but then I went to the website of the church that is organizing these protesting parties, and I think I figured it out. Apparently God hates these people and wants nothing to do with them. Also, Jesus only died for the sins of those who believe in him. Best of all, there's pretty much no hope even if people want to repent, because God has given them up.

So really, it's apparently not so much about salvation, it's all about declaring to as many people as possible that they're going to hell - out of love, of course. This apparently includes the Bush family, Mr. Rogers, Catholics, Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, and several other denominations.

oh.

now it all makes sense.

So if all these horrid people are so proud of their sins and not planning on repenting or even able to be saved, then why would they care if you're protesting anywhere around them? If God hates America so much and doesn't even want us praying for our country because it condones and encourages homosexuality, then why stick around? He told Lot and his family to hightail it out of Sodom before it was destroyed, and if it's only a matter of time, you might want to start packing your bags if you're that convinced that we're all gonna get it.

Now, Melissa and I were talking about the right way to combat this type of thinking, and I really don't know what it would be. I can't imagine that protesting those who are protesting at a funeral would do anything but get you lumped in with all the awful sinners going to hell as it is (assuming you're not already in that group for some reason), and I don't think it'll do any good to try and unconvince somebody who is that extremely convinced...so then what? What is a rational response to this type of behavior?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you hear about the email Dan R. sent to them?

Kevin Sawyer said...

Ignore it. Media loves this story cause it fits their archtype of Conservative Christians. From what I understand, there are about 5-6 people protesting at each of these. That's not news unless you're writing with an agenda.

Anonymous said...

I loved the sarcasm in your post :)
Yeah I agree it's best to ignore these people. They are on the fringe. Although they make enough noise in the right places - like this funeral - and remember Matthew Shepard - and the media will pay attention if it's only a few people. Anyway - I'm not sure if these people are worth dealing with at all...

mrs. r said...

mrs t - what e-mail did Dan send?

Anonymous said...

He wrote an email to the people who demonstrated...the basic premise was that if you are going to perpetuate this hate, please clearly disassociate yourself with God, Jesus and Christians. I can tell you more about it later too.