More on Westboro. "Re: Yes, Jesus Would Protest At A Funeral."
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Hello, Mrs. Roper.
Well, I'm sorry to bug you again so soon, but I was reading your blog again, and... well, I just had to say something. As the subject above says, this is in response to your reply to Lisa's letter, to which you said, "Yes, Jesus would protest at a funeral." I'm going to try to go in the order you wrote your response.
First off, you said that Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their dead." That's true, but He was saying this when he was calling people to follow him and one man asked to be allowed to bury his father before following Jesus. He then goes on in the next couple verses, saying that anyone who follows Him but chooses their family over Him when His commands are contrary to their views has sinned and doesn't really know what it means to truly follow Christ. The point of Jesus' comment here is that our heavenly Father comes before our earthly families, no matter what.
But even when we fail, there's still hope, as the woman in John 8:1-11 found out firsthand. The woman was caught in adultery, and the people were preparing to stone her, but Jesus said, "If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her " (John 8:10). Nobody stepped forward to stone her, and Jesus said, "[Neither] do I condemn you" (John 8:11). Not only does Jesus offer free forgiveness to anyone who will accept it, He even offered it to the woman who was not seeking forgiveness of sins at all, but only escape from death. All she had to do was accept it. God doesn't give up His children that easily.
And look at John 5:1-15. People were crowded around the pool in Bethesda, and Jesus approached one lame man who had no hope of getting into the pool to be healed. The man believed that the water in the pool had healing powers, and when Jesus came along asking if he wanted to be healed, all he said was that he had nobody to put him into the pool. Even when faced with Jesus Himself, the man still sought healing from a "magical" pool of water rather than from God, the only One who could heal him. But Jesus still chose to heal him. Why? If God hates sinful man, and not merely sin in man, then why did He heal the man who clearly had no intention of following Him?
Secondly, I would like to bring up the issue of judging people again, just like I did in my first letter. You said, "If you REALLY believed you shouldn't judge, you would not have written your Bible-hating email judging us." For one thing, the apostle Paul says in Galatians 6:1, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently." Trust me, if I didn't think you might change your ways, I would not be writing you right now, and I wouldn't have wasted my time writing my other three letters (found here). And I believe Lisa had the same mindset. I dare you to find anything blatantly judgmental in my letters. Also, when the disciples ran into a man casting out demons in the name of Jesus—a man who was not physically following Jesus—they tried to stop him, but Jesus said, "Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you" (Luke 9:50). Lisa and I are both trying to obey God. As you would say, we are not remaining silent but openly declaring your faults to you so that you would repent and obey. If that's not judging when you do it, then you can't blame either one of us for judging you. We would like to see you become true men and women of God who are relentlessly preaching the gospel to the world so that all people might receive salvation and eternal life.
Next, in the following paragraph, you said, "You're made in the likeness of Adam, Lisa. If you ever cracked a Bible you would know Adam alone was made in the likeness of God." But I have to disagree. Crack that Bible open one more time for me and read Genesis 1:26-27: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." "Let us make man in our image... and let THEM rule..." "[Male] and female He created them." God created man(kind) in His image. Although Adam was the only one to be created by God (the rest of us are born according to God's will), we are all made in His likeness. That's why Jesus says, "Be holy, because I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16). If we were not made to be like Christ—in other words, made in God's image—we would not be able to be holy. And God Himself says the same thing in Leviticus 20:26: "You are to be holy to Me because I, the Lord, am holy." We are to be like God, hence the phrase, "in [His] likeness."
"Lisa, would Jesus start 2 big wars and murder hundreds of thousands of people in cold blood?" Mrs. Roper, would Jesus curse/swear/cuss? Would Jesus call anyone an idiot/fool? If I'm not mistaken, the only insult Jesus makes is calling people hypocrites. He never calls anyone a fool because they're His own creation, and by calling them stupid, He would be calling God Himself stupid. That's blasphemy, attributing to God a fault that does not exist. If you want people to obey God, I suggest you do the same.
Finally, about halfway through your second response to Lisa's letter, you bragged, "[He] has stood with us for 20 LONG YEARS EVERY DAY ON THE STREETS, NO TRAUMA TO US. NONE!" But Jesus says in John 16:33, "In this world you will have trouble." And in 2 Corinthians 12:10, Paul says, "I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." If you're just breezing through life, I'm sorry to say it, but I'm pretty sure you're doing something wrong. Hardships make us stronger and force us to rely more on God's power. That's why some of the strongest Christians in the world are those who have faced traumatizing experiences: untimely deaths, cancer, AIDS, severe persecution and torture, etc. I mean this in the least judgmental way possible, but I think that God is keeping you from trouble so that you would realize you're missing something and return to Him. It wouldn't do any good to put hardships on someone who may or may not already be on the wrong path.
I do have to say that I agree with the majority of the paragraph in which you say that this world has done the complete opposite of what God commanded. But despite that, there is still hope. And I don't have to tell you what His name is.
I apologize for anything I've said that may have offended you, and I hope to receive a reply soon. Please. I've been waiting for a response to my other three letters, and I've been disappointed to find every day that you still haven't written back. I would love to hear back from you.
Thank you for your time, once again. God bless!
Michael Watanabe
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" ~ Galatians 2:20-21
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