May 11, 2007
by Brian Trent

According to a notorious Kansas church group, the victims of Virginia Tech's tragedy are roasting away in hell.

"The evidence is they were not Christian," declared Shirley Phelps-Roper of Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a Topeka-based congregation. "God does not do that to his servants. You don't need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell."

For the WBC, holding fast to this conviction isn't enough; they announced plans last week to protest the funerals of the 32 massacred students. This might shock some sensibilities, but it's just standard operating procedure for this hive of fanatics; they have a lengthy record of protesting at the funerals of soldiers, the five Amish girls killed in last October's shooting, the Asian tsunami disaster of 2004, and any tragedy from which to construct a rapid pulpit for hate.

God hates America, they tell everyone. He hates us because we are a nation which tolerates gays, blacks, Catholics, Muslims, and just about everyone who isn't them. Their activities are closely watched by the Anti-Defamation League, and they are (unsurprisingly) classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Regarding the Virginia Tech murderer Cho Seung-Hui, Phelps-Roper says that he is certainly in hell, "But he was also fulfilling the word of God."

It will be difficult to find anyone else who supports this despicable view with regards to this specific tragedy. Sympathy for the Virginia victims has extended beyond U.S. borders, pouring in from all faiths, races, and nations.

But what few people will readily acknowledge is that Phelps-Roper's worldview isn't any different from the declarations of many notable religious leaders... as well as some passages in the Bible itself.

From noted evangelical leader Dr. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries "Impact" newsletter, around the time of the 2004 tsunami disaster:

"We are all equally guilty in the sight of God and equally deserving of the death penalty... So, judging from Jesus' words, the world - not just the victims - should take the tsunami disaster as a call to repent. Now that is a message that does not show up in the headlines, but the Bible is very clear. We are all sinners in need of repentance. 'There is none righteous, no, not one' (Romans 3:10 NKJV) and we all justly deserve the punishment of God."

It's no surprise that the WBC took 9-11 as opportunity to peddle religious bigotry. From their website GodHatesAmerica.com: "The Lord God Almighty killed [the people who died on 9/11], looked at them in the face, laughed and mocked at each one of them as he cast each one of them into hell."

A crazy point of view? I'd say so. But Reverend Jerry Falwell of the laughably named Moral Majority also chimed in regarding that tragedy: "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," while quickly blaming homosexuals, feminists, and secular-progressives for it. (Falwell also proclaimed that AIDS is "the wrath of a just God against homosexuals," a view fiercely supported by the WBC.)

Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition was quick to agree on 9-11's roots: "We have insulted God at the highest levels of our government. Then, we say, 'Why does this happen?' It is happening because God Almighty is lifting His protection from us."

The WBC is universally panned as a bunch of loons, with even Sean Hannity condemning Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church's founder, as a "religious nut" during a Fox News interview. But Falwell and Robertson have audiences in the millions and an uncomfortably large group considers them the voice of modern Christianity.

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Biblical morality is what we need, so this group says. Falwell himself declared (with the pomposity of a true cult leader) "The Bible is the inerrant... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc." This view is identical to that of fundamentalist Muslims regarding their holy book. Both groups, in fact, thump pages to justify their stances on everything from gay marriage to the rightful place of women in society.

Thus, when evangelicals howl how America needs to embrace Biblical morality, it's clear what the Bible condones:

We must kill people who refuse to listen to priests (Deuteronomy), kill fortune-tellers and homosexuals (Leviticus) kill adulturers (Leviticus) wipe out an entire city if a single person in it worships a "false god" (Deuteronomy), kill people who work on the Sabbath (Exodus), kill your family and friends if their religious views differ from your own (Deuteronomy) and so the list goes, in a long crimson stretch of pure intolerance and murder including death for blaspemers and women who aren't virgins on their wedding nights.

Most rational people, including a good many religious leaders, will be correct to point out that the Bible is like many "holy books" in that it's the product of a specific culture and era, and thus reflects those dated values. But a great many "respectable" Christians love thumping its pages with highlighted passages... counting on ignorance of the other verses. If condemning gays is acceptable because the Bible says so, then killing them for this "crime" is also acceptable. And if that's okay, then all the other passages describe the society we should be engineering... including enacting the murderous commands listed above.

So while the WBC virulently embraces mass murder, bear in mind that so does Robertson: "The people who have come into [our] institutions [today] are primarily termites," he told New York Magazine, August 18, 1986. "They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have.... The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation."

The fiery thirst for blood and mayhem with glittering-eyed sadism is at the pulpit or behind the curtain of the fundamentalist worldview. And it's important to recognize that. We build the future each day; if the builders are people who believe in apocalypse rather than human progress, then those are the bricks we're getting.

The WBC may or may not protest at the Virginia Tech campus.

But as for other religious leaders, it's essential that they draw a sharp distinction against these medieval-peddling lunatics, as surely as it is the duty of Muslim clerics to condemn terrorism.

There will be tragedies, natural disasters, and wars; church leaders should make it their mission to promote a message of hope, education, and comfort. They must draw a line in the dirt on what is acceptable today as opposed to the beliefs of a more intolerant yesteryear. They must demonstrate their own evolution. And they need to roundly condemn a good many Falwells, Robertsons, and Dr. Kennedys whenever these cretins get air-time.

Otherwise we are left to assume that they concur with the 5th century calls for hellfire, godly punishment, and murder.

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Brian Trent [send him email] is a professional essayist, screenwriter, and novelist; he is the author of "Remembering Hypatia" and the forthcoming "Never Grow Old: the Novel of Gilgamesh."  Brian is a contributor to American Chronicle and The Humanist Magazine.  Visit his website at www.rememberinghypatia.com.

Copyright 2007 Brian Trent