I am not ashamed of Christ. He is the One true God, and saviour to all who receive the gospel, and I pray everyday that He would be my greatest treasure….He is ALL!!

But, Westboro Baptist, and those like them in various forms have made me ashamed to call myself a Christian, if they are what people associate with Christianity. You may be familiar with Westboro, and their hate filled leader from Kansas. In 1999 they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepherd simply because he was homosexual. They frequently picket the funeral’s of dead soldiers, and are renowed for even picketing outside a Jewish primary school. In fact they spend $350,000 annually picketing various things and people they feel God hates.

They have become famous for this, when as Christians, it is only the fame of Christ and His glory that we should seek in all endeavors.

Though they recorded their first song, “God hates the world” a couple years ago, it was their latest nonsense that caught my attention on the radio this morning.

Recently they released a statement, flyers, and a song declaring God’s hate for Lady Gaga. I was shamed as I heard the morning show crew discuss this with contempt as they judged Christians and Christ by the measure of these hate fill pharisee’s. The song, a parody of “poker face”  repeats over and over  again “God hates you.” Referring to Lady Gaga.

Here is the reality of it all. The scriptures say in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Does this mean that all will come to receive Christ, and come to repentance, no. Does it mean that God hates people, surely not.

God hates sin, not people, not the world. He despises it, and despised it so much that He bore the weight of all sin, so that He might save some. He became sin, so that we would not have to endure it forever or be away  from Him forever…so that some might be drawn to Him by His Spirit, and saved. Does this sound like hate or absolute and unconditional love unknown to the human heart outside of God?

Westboro, you are shameful, and you make me ashamed…my only solace is that God will judge one day. He will judge your misrepresentation of him, your waste of money to propagate hate when you could have been funding the mission of God (to save and serve), and He will judge your self-righteousness.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”