Justin G
Member
Westboro is a cult. They don't follow Christ, but Fred Phelps. There are many churches like them, they are the most annoying however. I'm Christian, and have never been told to, or taught to hate any individual for whatever percieved shortcoming they may have. I have grown up in the church my entire life, in the south, in a Baptist church(I'm a Methodist now), and was never instructed in the "Phelp's" manner of biblical interpretation. Was my upbringing fundamantalist, sure. But hatred was not even an option for us to consider.
You're right about the WBC. They are a cult, or more accurately a hate group. And is there any way that Phelps guy isn't a self-loathing closet homosexual? Anyway, I wouldn't associate them with mainstream Christianity at all.
But...
I was raised in the south and in the church as well (Baptist and Methodist), and while I was never taught to hate anyone, the seeds of hatred are still actively sown. You're taught to condemn gays for their "choice" to sin, to pity those poor unwashed masses in foreign countries who will never know salvation (unless you cough up when the plate is passed during Mission Week), to feel sad for the Jews who, God love 'em, just can't get with the program, to look down on our friends and neighbors who commit such atrocities as drinking a beer, listening to metal, staying in bed on a Sunday morning. The list goes on. They may not be teaching hatred, but they're enabling it.