I hope you guys aren't silly enough to lump these idiots with other litteralist fundametalist christians. (like myself)
Quote from David Cloud :
"As for Fred Phelps, who runs around saying that God hates homosexuals, I do not support that type nonsense. God hates all sin and God does hate the sin of homosexuality, but God also loves homosexuals and Jesus died that they might be saved by repentance and faith."
"ANOTHER NUTTY LITTLE CHURCH IN TOPEKA (Friday Church News Notes, June 16, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Westboro Baptist is a nutty little church in Topeka, Kansas, the same place that spawned the Pentecostal movement in 1901 when Agnes Ozman began to speak and write in strange unscriptural mutterings and scratchings at Charles ParhamŐs Bible School. Westboro Baptist is pastored by Fred Phelps, who rejoices when American soldiers die in Iraq and claims that God hates homosexuals. The church's prayer meetings are nutty, too. They pray for more tornadoes and hurricanes. Bring on the judgment, God! Instead of going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature like Jesus commanded, Westboro Baptist Church members picket military funerals carrying signs saying "Thank God for Maimed Soldiers' and "Fags die, God laughs" and other such nuttiness. The church is extreme predestinarian, believing that God has predestinated a few to be saved and the rest to be damned (which is exactly what John Calvin taught, by the way). They are not preaching the gospel that Jesus Christ preached: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (John 3:16). They are not warning sinners to turn from their sin and believe in Christ and be saved, because they don't believe the non-elect can do this. They are simply pronouncing judgment. It is their duty, they believe, to let it be known that God hates you and that you're going to hell ("Kansas Minister Preaches Doom,Ó Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 3). They are right about the fact that America is a wicked nation and they are right that God hates sin, but they are wrong about God's heart and they wrong about the message that we are to proclaim today. God is holy and just and will certainly punish sin, but His heart is a heart of love toward fallen sinners and He wants to save them. "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:3-4). "Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33:11). Mr. Phelps, who is so self-deceived that he believes he is 100% correct, is just as confused as the "prophet" Charles Parham was when he started a Bible School in Topeka in 1900 and proclaimed that God always heals the believer's sickness and disease and that tongues-speaking is for today. Parham's disciple, William Seymour, pastored the famous Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles."
I, and my Independent Fundamentalist Bapitist church, agree fully with these statements by David Cloud.