Christian Superhero Fred Phelps is no longer with us

Well, no I'm not devastated, if anything I'm relieved. Never could understand what Phelps thought he was accomplishing. Also thought it a horrendous miscarriage of justice that he was allowed on the ground of free speech to harass the families of soldiers killed in action at their funerals. All our constitutional freedoms have been twisted beyond recognition however, so although I'm dismayed I'm not exactly surprised.I'm certainly strongly opposed to gay marriage and regard homosexuality as sin, based on the Bible, but Jesus died for sinners, far from hating them, He died for my sins as well as those of gays and everybody else. While we have to uphold the Biblical understanding of sin, not cringing from calling it sin, we also have to love the sinner as Christ did and hope for their salvation.

This could be true. I think I've been consistent in denouncing Phelps whenever the subject has come up, but of course it would have to be church leaders who should take that role. And I'm sure many have, but they'd have to make it their life's work for anyone to notice. I'm aware of lots of issues that have some ministries working around the clock to keep the flock informed about, meaning that these days there is so much deviation in the churches that needs to be condemned it's rather hard to keep up with it all. And besides then they're open to the criticism that they are setting themselves up as the arbiters of truth, and if they define anybody as not a true Christian out comes that no true Scotsman nonsense. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Rather a strange logic. Gay marriage is rejected by Christians because the Bible reserves marriage for a man and a woman and because homosexual acts are sin. They are just as much sin whether married or not because there is no legitimate gay marriage in God's eyes, and in fact a marriage under the circumstances just compounds the sin because it violates God's ordinance of marriage. I've known of many homosexual couples who have lived together their whole lives without thinking they had to be officially married. If the concern is loneliness marriage is not the solution to it.It does seem to me that it would be extremely hard to be gay AND a Christian, though, if the Bible is read as it should be read, as condemning homosexual acts. Homosexuality is something that just happens to some people, I've never thought it was a choice as some think it is, but at the same time it is sin. It's a hard position to be in, but the solution of insisting it's not sin doesn't stop God from judging it as sin, you're just putting on a blindfold so you can't see it, and marriage only compounds the sin rather than solving the problem. Christians do have to give up sin, however. This includes some divorced (heterosexual) people I know of who understand scripture to say they cannot remarry, and I tend to agree with that reading of scripture. That's a hard one too. Nobody is stopping them from living together, marriage is hardly necessary and if you're concerned about sin then marriage simply adds to the sin. It's an existential situation, it has nothing to do with how people feel about homosexuality. If the person is serious about Christ, however, then Christ has to become the love object that takes the place of all other love objects. There are certainly many single Christians who are not gay and are living for Christ alone.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Straight from centuries of Christendom to militant Secularityland in a few short decades.