Does God Hate Fags?: Christian reflections on Fred Phelps’ visit to UAlbany
The answer is certainly No! Absolutely not. God loves all of us. In fact God in the form of Jesus is the embodiment of love. One of the biggest misunderstandings out there is that God Hates people. I don’t know what goes on in the mind of people like Fred Phelps [leader of WBC] or why they think the way they do. Since it is not my job to judge, all I can do is speak truthfully about God and hope that my voice will drown out voices like Phelps.
Phelps’ hateful claim however, raises an interesting question. What does a loving God hate?
One can’t find any evidence in the Bible that God hates people. The only reference to God hating anything is always an action, or an attitude of the heart of a person, but not the person themselves. In other words, the Bible tells us God hates sin; which raises another interesting question, “What is sin?”
According to Bible commentaries and wikipedia alike, “sin” is a term borrowed from archery meaning, “to miss the mark.” The “mark” is to live in harmony with God’s will as He gives us life in its fullness. At times we sin by taking matters into our own hands; by doing the things we aren’t supposed to do [sins of commission], and by not doing those things we should do [sins of omission].
We all have missed the mark of God’s purpose for our lives. We all have sinned, myself included. Any Christ-follower [Christian] should be the first to admit that each of us fall extremely short of the example Jesus set! Amazingly, God loves us anyway, like any good father loves his children in spite of their screw ups. Even Fred Phelps.
The visit from Phelps to this area and this campus last spring reminds me of God’s concern for the poor and oppressed. Throughout the Bible God repeatedly hears and responds to the cry of the suffering and oppressed. We at CA, cry along with God at the message of hatred preached in Jesus’ name.
Fred Phelps and those like him, take it upon themselves to oppress people and often target the LGBT community. My heart, prayers and thoughts go out to each person in these groups on any campus. This is not the message Jesus came to bring. His message consisted of the kind of love that brings hope, transformation and life.
It is our hope that through the experience of his visit last spring a dialogue can begin that didn’t exist before. We hope that preexisting walls between groups can be broken down. It is our hope that the true nature of God is forwarded through love, day by day. Lastly, we hope that the campus can see that God loves them and we are here as Christians to love and serve just as Jesus did.