I’ve been around a lot of Baptists in my life. I’ve known Southern Baptists, Free Will Baptists, American Baptists, Independent Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and Seventh Day Baptists. There is one thing I can tell you. People who call themselves Westboro “Baptists” are not like any Baptists I know.
They want you believe that they know the Bible and that they know it a whole lot better than you do. They love those parts that they can use as a club against other peoples’ sins, especially the part in I Corinthians 6 that says people with certain sexual issues will not be in the kingdom of God.
So let’s accept the Apostle Paul at his word here. Paul is very clear that people who are idolaters and adulterers are in the same spiritual condition as the others on the list. Why doesn’t that special breed of self-proclaimed “Baptist” protest adultery and the broken marriages that result? I would humbly submit that adultery and other heterosexual sins have done more damage to our culture over the last half century than has the other. Think of the broken marriages, the hurt children of those marriages, the abortions, the STDs, the economic poverty, and the emotional train wrecks that lay in the wake of sex outside of the bounds of marriage.
And even if you disagree about which sexual sin has done more damage, can anyone deny that Paul’s bold statement condemns both equally?
Here’s another thing I don’t understand. I don’t understand why these “Baptists” of that supposed “church” don’t take Paul’s full counsel. They don’t realize that it is a duty of the follower of Christ to “speak the truth in love”, not in hate. And I don’t understand why they think they are righteous while at the same time they commit one of the egregious sins on Paul’s list: reviling. Look up revile in your Webster’s. It’s not a pretty thing, and Westboro needs to check its own heart, especially when they lack an understanding of what Paul really said the chapter before.
In Chapter 5 of I Corinthians Paul provides a similar sin list in verse 11 as he does in chapter 6. But before that (verse 8) he makes the point that sins committed in malice and wickedness are the dangerous ones. Throughout his time on earth, Jesus consistently showed mercy to those who sinned out of weakness or ignorance and even stated that principle on a number of occasions (Matthew 11:20-24, Luke 12:47-48). I’m simply going to ask some questions. We’ll let you answer them. Who is a reviler? Who is acting in malice? Is Westboro Baptist free of sin?
I agree completely! Only that one particular Sin is harangued continually. No one ever mentions the others, like adultery, incest, etc. I can from experience, tell you that those particular sins have negatively affected more peoples' lives than homosexuality ever did. And it is always ranted about with such hatred. Yet it is only ONE of a list of sins of the flesh that Paul talks about. And very rarely does anybody go on and focus on what Paul talks about next. The gifts of the spirit that we are supposed to be incorporating into our lives on a daily basis. And the fruits of the spirit include the loving, patience, kindness that is so lacking when some people talk about that particular sin of the flesh. Look at the way Jesus corrected the sinners he healed. Did he get vituperative? No. He was kind and loving and told them to sin no more. Aren't we supposed to follow Christ's example?
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