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They Are At It Again, You All

Lewis

Lewis

Member

Church members enter Canada, aiming to picket bus victim's funeral
Last Updated: Friday, August 8, 2008 |
CBC News

Members of a fundamentalist American church group planning to stage a protest at the funeral for a Winnipeg man brutally killed on a Greyhound bus have managed to enter Canada, a spokeswoman told CBC News on Friday.

Canadian border guards are under orders to prevent members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a controversial Kansas-based sect, from entering the country.

The group intends to picket the funeral of 22-year-old Tim McLean to tell Canadians his slaying on July 30 was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church wave protest signs outside funeral services for a soldier in Iowa in 2006.Members of the Westboro Baptist Church wave protest signs outside funeral services for a soldier in Iowa in 2006. (Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office sent an alert to border patrol to "look out" for people with signs and pamphlets consistent with the messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church founder Fred Phelps, said a group of church members was turned away from a border crossing at Niagara Falls, but a small group did manage to get into Manitoba overnight.

"They were looking for picket signs and they were looking for leaflets. Well, we don't do leaflets, and the picket signs, you know, Fed Ex ships them overnight," she said.

However, Phelps-Roper said the reaction the group has raised from some police and public officials has her questioning whether the planned protest will go ahead.

"The question to my mind [is] whether or not we ought to get them the heck out of that country, because that's some crazy stuff when you've got your officials talking like they are in a back-alley brawl and not government officials who took an oath to obey the law and so forth."

Phelps-Roper said she would advise church members not to go ahead with the protest if there is a concern they might be arrested or harmed.
Counter-protest planned

A counter-protest against the church's picket plans was launched on the social networking site Facebook on Thursday.

More than 700 people have since joined the group; postings indicate they plan to form a "human wall" around the family to shield them from the church protest, if it takes place.

Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin said the group should be "sent packing," and should not try to show up in Winnipeg "for their own safety."

"We're not going to allow these people to compound the tragedy of the McLean family loss, and Canadians simply won't tolerate these lunatics disrupting what should be a respectful service," he told CBC News on Friday.

"Your freedom to swing your arm in the air ends when it touches the end of my nose," he added. "What these people were going to do was hurtful, harmful and disruptive to the peace, order and good government that we guarantee to our citizens, so they have no place in this country."
Family in shock, requests privacy

Meanwhile, Tim McLean's mother released a short public statement Friday morning, saying the family is in "complete shock at the horrifying loss of our loved one."

Carol deDelley expressed frustration that some media outlets have not identified McLean's family members properly; the statement identifies Tim's parents and step-parents and the six siblings in his blended families.

DeDelley asked for privacy during the family's time of mourning.
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Lewis W said:


Canadian border guards are under orders to prevent members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a controversial Kansas-based sect, from entering the country.

The group intends to picket the funeral of 22-year-old Tim McLean to tell Canadians his slaying on July 30 was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage.

[
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I find it very strange that God would let a mentally deranged man, do his judgement. This is an act of human depravity and sin. I'm canadian, and i don't see how this would become a statement for a foreign religous faction. Were these people waiting for a headline from canada so they could spread their views on judgement? I find the motive for this funeral to be picketed distasteful, and highly dishonourable.
 
If you want them to go away, stop giving them the attention that they craving.
 
This is all I could find in the news and this is from one of the local papers:

"Those gathered outside kept a vigilant watch for any appearance by members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, which had announced plans to picket the funeral, but none showed up."

I have heard of this group before and what they believe since I go onto cnn.com several times a day. It is utterly amazing that such a group can claim to know Christ and spew the hatred that they do.
 
Wow, they're always causing trouble. Everytime they're on the news they start fighting with the anchor
 
What business do they have here in Canada? What nerve! We don't want or need that sort of religious buffoonery making a mockery of a terrible tragedy.
 
handy said:
...and Jesus will say to them, "Go away, I never knew you."
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I might suggest that before that, he would say "Go and sin no more"... I believe He would sit down at talk to them, open up His arms to them... it is their response that is telling.
 
hmmmm, read through the passage, and nope, it doesn't say that on Judgement Day Jesus has a nice quiet sit down with the false prophets who spead hatred and lies rather than God's love. He has given them the Law and the Prophets (the Scriptures). He also died that they could have the Holy Spirit. Being so well equipped, if they can't use them for God's glory on this earth, rather than sheer hatred, don't expect that they get a bunch of last minute second chances at Judgment time. In this the Scriptures are clear. NOW is the time for salvation. If folks choose to ignore the clear teachings of Scriptures and instead twist God's word to promote their own hatred and bigotries, then they will stand before Him at Judgment and He will rightly say that He never knew them.
 
handy said:
hmmmm, read through the passage, and nope, it doesn't say that on Judgement Day Jesus has a nice quiet sit down with the false prophets who spead hatred and lies rather than God's love. He has given them the Law and the Prophets (the Scriptures). He also died that they could have the Holy Spirit. Being so well equipped, if they can't use them for God's glory on this earth, rather than sheer hatred, don't expect that they get a bunch of last minute second chances at Judgment time. In this the Scriptures are clear. NOW is the time for salvation. If folks choose to ignore the clear teachings of Scriptures and instead twist God's word to promote their own hatred and bigotries, then they will stand before Him at Judgment and He will rightly say that He never knew them.
Click to expand...

You did not mention Judgment Day in your earlier post... I thought we were talking about the here and now.
 
I visited their site several years back. NOt really knowing much about them. What I saw brought tears to my eyes. They actually had memorials set up for people who had died and were in hell. Shwoing pictures of them in flames screaming. Very sickening. God bless. :)
 
One thing they got right, and that is a lot of people are going to hell. Including some that they say are. It is just the way they do things, thats all, and some of it is crazy. And they sure don't sugar coat nothing. Some Christians need to be like that, because some will let a person go to hell, they won't tell that person the truth, or are scared, that they will hurt that persons feelings.
 
ALV, yes I was referencing Judgdment Day by paraphrasing what Christ will say to the false prophets, the one's that say "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name and do wonders in your name" and He says to them, "Go away, I never knew you."

Lewis, you bring up a very important point and one that has been on my heart for such a long time now. It seems about 30-50 years ago, the church totally abandoned preaching hell. The church has a God given responsibility to speak the truth in love and that includes the whole truth. But, instead the church seems to have bought into the lie that we must never 'frighten' folks into loving God with scary stories of hell. Big lie, but many believe we should say nothing of hell. The church I now go to only speaks of God's love and never references hell at all. When we went to church with my folks when Dad was still up to going, their minister preached an excellent, and I do mean excellent sermon on the coming wrath of God and how we should be voicing warnings and reaching the lost now. It disturbed me that my husband and older daughter were really bothered by the subject matter, my husband really didn't like hearing the truth. But, it has been so long since so many church have preached God's truth in this matter.

Because the church bought into this lie that we shouldn't 'scare' people with talk of hell or wrath or judgment, then Satan has won a victory and now it seems that only cranks like Phelps talk of this important subject and when they do so they do so without a particle of God's loving salvation for us, thus subjecting themselves and in many cases the true church to ridicule and justifiable anger.

The church needs to 'take back' the subject of hell. We need to remember that Jesus spoke of hell far more than He spoke of heaven. We need to make sure that the gospel we share is the whole of the truth, both the good and the bad. We need to remember that all those passages that speak of God bringing wrath, calamity, and judgement on the wicked are like vegetables, not very tasty, but important to take in.

However, like a mother serving those veggies to a child she loves and wants to care for, we need to put all these uncomfortable truths in the context of God's far surpassing love and salvation. And that is what Phelps et. al. fails to do. There is no glory or thrill to the idea of someone being condemned to hell. It's overwhelmingly sad. It's horrible that Westboro are almost gleeful in their condemnations of others. Jesus takes no joy in condemning the lost, so why are they?

I've been to their website as well. There one can wade through their denouciations of America, the World, other churches, other pastors, Obama, McCain, well pretty much everyone else except themselves. But, in all the sermons, writings, videos and audios, what is hard to find (and I did look) is how one can be saved. That is what is missing from Westboro. They are like Jonah. Not wanting to share the truth because of his hatred for Ninevah, Jonah went opposite of where God called him to preach because he didn't want to see Ninevah repent and be spared.
 
Handy, I love you sister.
Ezekiel 3:18When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
 
aLoneVoice said:
If you want them to go away, stop giving them the attention that they craving.
Click to expand...

Well, I agree with you on this one. The WBC is a very small "church" made up mostly of members that are related to one another. They really influence nothing - the whole Phelps family consists of attorneys that egg people into lawsuits, that's how they support themselves. They claim to be "seven point Calvinists" but don't behave accordingly with their "you're all going to burn in Hell" rhetoric. All they want is attention and $$$, of course. :sad
 
I believe they looked over the part in their bibles that said: "Ye without sin, cast the first stone". They're a bunch of judgemental soundless gongs that have failed to ask for hot coals upon their tongues, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I see none of the gifts of the Spirit displayed by them. They're Pharisees.........sad, sad indeed.

Kudos HIM.........do they? NOT
carolpalm91 <><
 
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