“Called to Hate? How antihomosexual crusader Fred Phelps discredits the church” by Jody Veenker, Christianity Today, October 25, 1999.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
The two and a half pages of text are preceded by a full-page, full-length, color photo of a towering Fred Phelps, the bizarre “GOD HATES FAGS” picket preacher. He’s dressed in a dark suit, red tie, white shirt, big white cowboy hat, big white gloves and over-sized, wrap-around, mirrored sunglasses. He braces an even taller roadside sign that says: “FAGS ARE WORTHY OF DEATH ROM. 1:32.” The sign is topped off with an American flag flying upside down to signal distress. America’s leading evangelical magazine captions the photo: “Lone ranger: Fred Phelps stands alone with his message of hate to homosexuals in Topeka, Kansas.” That’s CT’s point: He’s Not Us! But when CT looks into the stony face of Fred Phelps, perhaps what it sees is its own visage reflected in those big mirrored wrap-arounds!
It’s always painful to see ourselves in what we see as the misbehavior of others. Instead of frankly identifying with the misbehavior, learning from the self-recognition, and changing our own behavior, our too ready response tends to be a defensive distancing, as though our own behavior and their “misbehavior” have nothing in common. That’s Not Me! That’s Not Us!
After reminding readers that Phelps picketed the funeral of murdered gay student Matthew Shepard, “waving fluorescent signs of Shepard’s face amid blood-red flames and chanting the mantra ‘Matt is in hell,’” CT’s reporter gets right to the evangelical establishment’s problem with Phelps: “Phelps’s high-profile publicity stunts act as fodder for homosexual-rights activists to portray Christians as dangerous, crazy, hateful, and irrelevant.” The “danger [is] to the church,” an evangelical leader is quoted as saying; Phelps “discredit[s] credible people of faith.”
While it’s true that Phelps can’t reasonably be compared to most evangelicals on most matters, it is also true that Phelps can’t be so quickly contrasted from most evangelicals on the matter of homosexuality. His “godhatesfags” Web site may indeed trump others’ sites in terms of verbal crudeness and explicit graphics. However, for gay Christians who have no choice but to live with their deeply-centered same-sex orientation on a daily basis, what is the real, practical difference between Phelps’ picturing a “death-worthy” Matthew Shepard burning in flaming hellfire and a more “respectable” Moody Bible Institute chancellor’s warning that “by far, [the] worst effect [of homosexuality is that it] can keep a man or woman outside of heaven forever?” [George Sweeting] Sweeting adds that homosexuals “are letting their lust come between them and the blessing of salvation.” For gay Christians, what is the real, practical difference between Phelps’ rough words and the smooth tones of D. James Kennedy? According to Kennedy: “It is the [homosexual] act which is condemned and those who do it.” He insists that the Bible “expressly says that [all homosexuals] shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” What’s the real difference between Phelps’ reading “fags” into his proof texts and the paraphrased inserting of modern-day “homosexuals” among those who “will have no share in [God’s] kingdom,” as in The Living Bible. CT complains that extremists “use their own translations of the Bible to justify their views” and gives an example against interracial marriage, saying that many Christians would find this hatred “hard to comprehend.” But it wasn’t so hard to do, not so very long ago. And what is the real difference between Phelps’ antigay agitation and Jerry Falwell’s? Falwell solicited funds from supporters by raging that “these perverted homosexuals … absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, God-fearing citizens stand for. … Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom … If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!” In Phelps’ words: “Our national support of perversity is bringing God’s wrath upon us.”
Now there really is a difference between Phelps’ “anti-fag” antics and those of “respectable” evangelicals – and it’s not just Day-Glo. Phelps, the cartoon, is easily dismissed as a caricature, a kook (or maybe a shill? – after all, he’s been an outspoken Leftist lawyer for civil rights). But how can the more “respectable” anti-homosexual agenda and No-Heaven-for-Homosexuals stuff be as easily dismissed? Indeed, it represents much of what passes for every-Sunday Christianity in Evangelicaland and, as such, is tragically tough on tender consciences. The “respectable” can do far more damage all the way around – precisely because they’re “respectable.”
So, contrary to CT’s self-serving obsession over the allegedly negative impact Phelps may have on the reputation of Christians and the use CT fears gay activists might make of his tirades, those who really care about the well-being of others will be concerned over the damage the more typical religionists do in the everyday lives of people who, just like their attackers, neither chose nor change their deeply-centered sexual orientation.
Since few would ever think of going to Phelps for good preaching and pastoral care, the real difference between him and his more “respectable” rivals is the ineffective hate of a controversial and thus powerless picket and the effective hate of conventional and thus powerful preacher-pastors and their publications.