The news came in today that Rev. Fred Phelps has died. If you are not making sense of the name then you will probably know Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for their protests at funerals. Many will be glad that Mr Phelps has passed on, but to join in vitriole at the death of any human being, however detestable we might have found their actions, simply diminishes us.
It might be better to spend some time reflecting on just why it is we live in a society where we allow folks whose sole mission seems to be spreading hatred and discontent such a center stage in our lives. When we are children and a sibling is trying to make us angry parents will often say "ignore him, he will get bored." Yet our very adult media feeds with a frenzy those who seek to stir up anger and violence in ways which we find, to say the least, distasteful.
I do not think that Mr. Phelps would have got bored if we had ignored him, but I know he would not have got famous and he would not have had the change to stir up and supercharge hatred and factionalism on a national stage.
James 3 talks about the way we speak and paints a picture of the tongue as a piece of us which can very easily be turned to evil - what great a forest can be set alight by a small spark, says the writer, James 3:5. How often in our speculation and greed for the next story are we complicit in giving voice to that which is not of God, even if only by wanting a media which is constantly digging deep into the threads of dysfunction in order to feed our rapacious appetites for news?
I sincerely hope that Mr. Phelps, in God's mercy, can rest in peace and rise in glory - I can't make that happen, but God can. I can only watch my own tongue and monitor the conversatiosn of which I am a part or which I subscribe to by watching them on television and pray hard that all that I do will be in God's purpose and work for the good (Rom 8:28).
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