Fred Phelps: The Most Effective Gay Rights Activist Ever?
How should we remember a person whose life mission was accomplished in reverse? In particular, someone who was so obnoxious and repugnant in arguing for his cause that he convinced most people to believe the opposite?
This is the riddle of, as my friend put it, the "excruciatingly Reverend" Fred Phelps (1929-2014) — a man who founded the infamous "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist Church and ironically may go down in history as one of the most effective evangelists for gay rights, because of how many people were turned off by his hateful rhetoric and decided to increase their love and acceptance of gay people in reaction to it.
You are my enemy, Fred Phelps. As your life ends, I want you to know that God is running to meet you. And if what I believe is true, I'm excited for you to find out just how wrong you've been about how good God really is. I'm excited for you to spend some time apologizing to all those gay people in Heaven who have already forgiven you. I'm excited for you to learn from the best teacher about what it really means to love your enemy. And I'm excited for you to discover how much God really loves us. Even you. Even me.
A religious person might say that "God works in mysterious ways" — even through people like Fred Phelps.
The best parodies are nearly indistinguishable from reality. Although it's probably too much wishful thinking to suppose that Westboro Baptist Church was in fact a parody, like the Landover Baptist Church which mocks materialistic evangelical megachurches, we can't be sure. Shortly before his death, Phelps himself was excommunicated by his church — which consisted entirely of his own family — reportedly for "advocating a kinder approach between church members." But I wonder if that's the whole story. Maybe he had a change of heart and decided he had been wrong to hate gay people all those years. Or maybe, just maybe, he was excommunicated because he told his church that the whole thing had been a big parody designed to discredit holier-than-thou religious opposition to homosexuality.
Whether or not that was Phelps' intention (and it probably wasn't), that's exactly what he accomplished. Life is like that sometimes. If you go too far one way, you may provoke a reaction in the other direction. If you look ridiculous doing it, you make the other side seem reasonable in comparison. If you make people hate you, they might hate your enemies less, or even start liking them.
To illustrate such a practice it is said that a saint "was hailed by a large crowd when he entered a town; they tried to accompany the great saint; but on the road he publicly started urinating in an unlawful way so that all of them left him and no longer believed in his high spiritual rank." According to the Malamati, this saint was virtuous in his unlawfulness.
Basically, the idea of the Malamati Sufi tradition was to piss off everyone you encounter. They believed that you must hate yourself and make others hate you, in order to get God to love you. How sad.
What if Fred Phelps was a self-hating gay man? What if, in his own tragic and deluded way, he made himself a figure of uttermost hate, so that in taking the hate of the world upon his shoulders, he inadvertently helped to free gay people from the tyranny of a religious ideology that says they are deserving of our hatred? What if in making "God hates fags" such a comically despicable notion, he made it laughable and thus made it lose much of its power?
I don't hate Fred Phelps. By making himself a caricature of hate, he helped make it socially unacceptable to hate gay people and persuaded millions of people to embrace them as equal and worthy of love. Whether he did that accidentally or as part of a sick but brilliant strategy of reverse psychology, the more appropriate title for Mr. Phelps is "comedian," not "Reverend." When the history books are written about the gay rights movement of the early 21st century, Phelps will be remembered not with hatred, but with the ironic laughter he so richly deserves.
This article was originally published on Eric Stetson's blog at Daily Kos. Eric is the author of a 2008 book, Christian Universalism: God's Good News For All People. He served as the founding Executive Director of the Christian Universalist Association.
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In this video, shot on location at Holy Land USA Waterbury in Connecticut, this video explores what the church fathers thought!
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Very humbled to be asked to serve my friends at RLC. I can hardly think of a more welcoming group of people.Our thanks to the Rev. Jim Egbert for preaching this morning. Thank you for your generosity of time and love of sharing God's word.
Do you live anywhere near Northeastern IL? Are you looking for a Church that celebrates a Benevolent God?
Oh, bring instruments if you like - we can do a jam session!
Listen to the beautiful lyrics of the first Christmas song which was performed on the plains of Bethlehem the night of our dear Savior's birth.
"Fear not, for, behold, I bring you GOOD tidings of GREAT joy, which shall be to ALL PEOPLE. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." Luke 2: 10, 11.
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Luke 2: 14.
The GOOD tidings of GREAT joy includes ALL PEOPLE, and this is why the tidings are GOOD and the joy is GREAT. To say that one person is excluded from God's grace is to charge the angels with falsehood and eliminate the joy. For who can possibly find joy in exclusion?
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