Supporters Block Funeral Protest in Weston

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Supporters Block Funeral Protest in Weston

Watch the news broadcast here.

WESTON, MO. —

People in Weston, Missouri banded together on Saturday. They wanted to protect loved ones who were saying goodbye to a fallen soldier. They stood up to members of the Westboro Baptist Church who planned to protest at Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell's funeral.

Sadell died October 24 from injuries he suffered in a surprise attack in Afghanistan. On Saturday, there was quite a turnout of people who wanted to keep the protesters away from the funeral.

"I'd say probably half the people in Weston are here," said Eric Moser, Marine Corp veteran.

Weston has less than 2,000 residents, but hundreds of people showed up to support the family of First Sgt. Sadell.

Sadell was in the Arif Kala region of Afghanistan when his unit was ambushed October 5. Five soldiers died and Sadell was badly injured.

"If you think about it, they've all gone to serve just so we could be able to do this," said Rebecca Rooney who organized the supporters. "He didn't die in vain."

Rebecca Rooney is a Weston resident who wanted to stand up against Fred Phelps and his followers.

"We got everybody here early so we could take up all the parking spots," Rooney said ."We did that so Mr. Phelps wouldn't have a contingency that was really close."

Supporters came armed with patriotic music and American flags.

Protesters didn't stick around long once they saw the supporters.

"I'm glad they left, but I'm sad they came," Rooney said.

People came from Blue Springs, California and even Australia to be a part of the band of patriotic supporters. Half of the group lined up at the intersection while the the other half created a human shield at the funeral home.

C.J. Sadell was 34-years-old. He leaves behind a wife and two sons.

http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-cjsadell-funeral-westboro-church-protest-110610,0,3649584.story?hpt=T2

[Ban Hammer 13,407]

weston isn't a town phelps would feel welcome in.

[scandal 951]

Condolences on the loss of First Sgt. Sadell.

It's outrageous that anyone would use a funeral of one who serves his country as a protest venue.

[HeatDeath 430]

Westboro Baptist Church see themselves as inheritors to several ancient Israeli and Jewish prophets: the prophet Jeremiah, in particular.

Jeremiah was a prophet of God in the midst of a society [the Kingdom of Judah, just prior to the Babylonian Captivity] that had once worshipped God and completely abandoned Him. Jeremiah's duty from God was to continuously condemn the idolatrous spirituality and presumptive, utterly self destructive foreign policy Israel was pursuing. Jeremiah was shown, by God, that the path Israel was on was one of utter ruin, and he was called by God to declare that warning to the Kingdom of Judah, repeatedly, at every opportunity, without the slightest concern for the sensitivity or popularity of a message that he knew would, at best, be completely ignored, and at worst, expose him to mockery, derision, persecution and possibly even death.

Similarly, Westboro Baptist's message is that, as a consequence of America's myriad sins: primarily the tolerance of homosexual practice and widespread practice of prenatal infanticide [but they also throw in messages about involvement in what they see as unjust foreign wars, allegedly at the behest of Israel], America, collectively as a nation, has lost the love and earned the hatred of God. Their theology, in significant contrast to most mainstream Catholic and Protestant belief, that holds that God hates nations in which these practices are held, and that God therefore hates individuals who practice these things, and soldiers who represent nations that tolerate these things. They hold, in what seems like an uncontroversial doctrine straight from the Tanakh / Old Testament, that God guides the geopolitical rise and fall of nations to reward and prosper nations He loves and to punish, diminish, and chastise nations He has come, as a result of their practices, to hate.

A fair reading of the Tanakh / Old Testament show this view to be, on the surface, a not entirely unreasonable view for a Jewish or Christian group to hold. But there are significant difficulties to be found in attempting to reconcile this view with the Christian view of the universal love of God as expressed in the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. The question of how God treats with nations that operate almost totally outside of His will, and how this interacts with His treatment of individuals within those nations is a major one, for which no consensus exists among modern theologians and denominations.

There is no denying that Westboro Baptist is, technically speaking, a cult. They are a small group, lead by a charismatic leader. The vast majority of their members are family members of the charismatic leader, and the have a spectacularly unpopular and insensitive message. Allegations of extreme authoritarianism and possible abuse exist. The group has also demonstrated racist beliefs utterly at odds with any reasonable interpretation of either Jewish or Christian belief.

None of which should stop a level-headed assessment of their core message. Christians above all others should know that the truth of a message has nothing to do with the obscurity, lack of popularity, or apparent heresy [by popular standards] of it's origin.

While I deeply regret the pain Westboro Baptists cause to the families of the targets of their protests, and disagree completely with their publicity tactics, I cannot say with utter certainty that their message is wrong. I wish I could.

Edited November 8, 2010 by HeatDeath

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You can't say with certainty that a message that amounts to " soldiers deserve to die because America tolerates homosexuals"" isn't wrong? Why not?

[scandal 951]

There is no denying that Westboro Baptist is, technically speaking, a cult.

You can stop right there. Nuff said.

[HeatDeath 430]

You can't say with certainty that a message that amounts to " soldiers deserve to die because America tolerates homosexuals"" isn't wrong? Why not?

All humans die. This is empirical science.

All humans deserve to die. This is mainstream Protestant and Catholic orthodoxy. All have sinned. Belief in the atoning sacrifice of Christ will save us at the Last Judgement, but until and unless our souls and spirits become absolutely identical with Christ's, we all of us deserve nothing but eternal destruction.

If, as Westboro Baptist believe, America as a nation has earned the just hatred of a perfect and Holy God, then God causing the military failures that result in dead soldiers is a very reasonable prediction. If God has come to justly hate America (and Western Civilization in general) for widespread tolerance of practices that are unambiguously stated in the Tanakh to be evil, God may very well be the immediate proximate cause of soldiers dying on battlefields in the Middle East in 2000-2010, rather than in hospice beds in 2050-2060. One of those two scenarios was going to occur anyways, and God may very well be choosing the first due to His opinion about Western Culture.

[HeatDeath 430]

You can stop right there. Nuff said.

Well, not really. The New Testament records that the established Jewish communities of first century Palestine said pretty much the same things about the early Christian Church that mainstream Protestants say about WBC.

This isn't proof that WBC are right, by any means. "They laughed at Jesus, they laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein" is easily countered by "They also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

But it does prove that laughter cannot be the end of the conversation.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

All humans die. This is empirical science.

All humans deserve to die. This is mainstream Protestant and Catholic orthodoxy. All have sinned. Belief in the atoning sacrifice of Christ will save us at the Last Judgement, but until and unless our souls and spirits become absolutely identical with Christ's, we all of us deserve nothing but eternal destruction.

If, as Westboro Baptist believe, America as a nation has earned the just hatred of a perfect and Holy God, then God causing the military failures that result in dead soldiers is a very reasonable prediction. If God has come to justly hate America (and Western Civilization in general) for widespread tolerance of practices that are unambiguously stated in the Tanakh to be evil, God may very well be the immediate proximate cause of soldiers dying on battlefields in the Middle East in 2000-2010, rather than in hospice beds in 2050-2060. One of those two scenarios was going to occur anyways, and God may very well be choosing the first due to His opinion about Western Culture.

Bollocks

[Pooky 3,809]

Bollocks

+1

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Westboro Baptist Church see themselves as inheritors to several ancient Israeli and Jewish prophets: the prophet Jeremiah, in particular.

Jeremiah was a prophet of God in the midst of a society [the Kingdom of Judah, just prior to the Babylonian Captivity] that had once worshipped God and completely abandoned Him. Jeremiah's duty from God was to continuously condemn the idolatrous spirituality and presumptive, utterly self destructive foreign policy Israel was pursuing. Jeremiah was shown, by God, that the path Israel was on was one of utter ruin, and he was called by God to declare that warning to the Kingdom of Judah, repeatedly, at every opportunity, without the slightest concern for the sensitivity or popularity of a message that he knew would, at best, be completely ignored, and at worst, expose him to mockery, derision, persecution and possibly even death.

Similarly, Westboro Baptist's message is that, as a consequence of America's myriad sins: primarily the tolerance of homosexual practice and widespread practice of prenatal infanticide [but they also throw in messages about involvement in what they see as unjust foreign wars, allegedly at the behest of Israel], America, collectively as a nation, has lost the love and earned the hatred of God. Their theology, in significant contrast to most mainstream Catholic and Protestant belief, that holds that God hates nations in which these practices are held, and that God therefore hates individuals who practice these things, and soldiers who represent nations that tolerate these things. They hold, in what seems like an uncontroversial doctrine straight from the Tanakh / Old Testament, that God guides the geopolitical rise and fall of nations to reward and prosper nations He loves and to punish, diminish, and chastise nations He has come, as a result of their practices, to hate.

A fair reading of the Tanakh / Old Testament show this view to be, on the surface, a not entirely unreasonable view for a Jewish or Christian group to hold. But there are significant difficulties to be found in attempting to reconcile this view with the Christian view of the universal love of God as expressed in the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. The question of how God treats with nations that operate almost totally outside of His will, and how this interacts with His treatment of individuals within those nations is a major one, for which no consensus exists among modern theologians and denominations.

There is no denying that Westboro Baptist is, technically speaking, a cult. They are a small group, lead by a charismatic leader. The vast majority of their members are family members of the charismatic leader, and the have a spectacularly unpopular and insensitive message. Allegations of extreme authoritarianism and possible abuse exist. The group has also demonstrated racist beliefs utterly at odds with any reasonable interpretation of either Jewish or Christian belief.

None of which should stop a level-headed assessment of their core message. Christians above all others should know that the truth of a message has nothing to do with the obscurity, lack of popularity, or apparent heresy [by popular standards] of it's origin.

While I deeply regret the pain Westboro Baptists cause to the families of the targets of their protests, and disagree completely with their publicity tactics, I cannot say with utter certainty that their message is wrong. I wish I could.

And ironically, Phelps (and his followers) hate modern Jews--go figure