Like most that live around Virginia Tech, the anniversary of the shootings can seem to hang over my head.  But now there is something else.
Westboro Baptist Church is coming into town. Â The delightful gang that started the godhatesfags website and has recently been picketting funerals of everyone from soldiers who have been killed in action, to those of children that have been killed by cars. Â At all of them the theme is the same, “God hates you and what you are doing. Â You (or someone else) caused this.”
Seems their schedule is flexible enough to fit us in. Â Wonderful. Â Here is their itenerary while they are in the area.
So now, those of us in leadership of just about any group are asking ourselves the question, what do we do to respond to what they do? Â I have heard great ideas that range from simply being somewhere else and not giving them any audience, to some that are suggesting we aggressively protest them.
The question I have is, what is a thoughtful Christ-like response to thoughtless rantings? Â At [nlcf], we are kicking around a number of ideas right now. Â In the next few days we will list out what we are suggesting. Â I am sure we will also want to be as involved as possible in the local and university’s response to all this is going to be.
So, what do you think we should do? Â What would you suggest? Â Why would you suggest it?
~~ I have just removed the hotlink to the WBC site at the suggestion of a web-savvy-internet-guru friend named Liz! Â She felt it was best to not make it easier/enticing for people to go to the site and essentially help their numbers stay high.
said...
1I gotta be honest, these people are so detrimental to the Gospel of Peace that it’s really hard not to go Jesus-against-the-moneychangers on them (ironic, right?). Basically, my instinct is to disrupt their organization.
Dialogue doesn’t work with them. Protesting them doesn’t work. They are immune to logic, reason, accountability, scripture, common sense, or any other form of rational or spiritual persuasion.
They are, to paraphrase, a brood of vicious effing vipers. For my money, leave them alone, or stage a God Loves Fags rally somewhere else in town.
03/26/10 12:23 PM | Comment Link
Kevin said...
2I half of NLCF staff should stone them to death, then the other half of NLCF staff (who aren’t in jail of course) parade and hold up signs at their funerals that say, “God hated what you were doing,” and “Thank God for stones.”
Just a thought.
03/26/10 12:40 PM | Comment Link
Bill Woodward said...
3So, I’m guessing that slapping the crap out of them would not be the appropriate response? Tempting, though!
Checking their itinerary, it appears that they’ll be picketing the Blacksburg High School from 2:15 – 2:45. And won’t they be surprised that no one is there! We should take pictures as they stand around looking stupid(er).
Jim, have you seen the parody site?
03/26/10 12:53 PM | Comment Link
said...
4First of all, I’d have to say that no one should link to their website anymore.
Take out that anchor text and maybe just list their itinerary somewhere else? Or maybe even just no-follow those links. You’ve got follow links on your blog and it kills me to think that link-power is being sent to their website, which will help to optimize it. Their site is down right now (thank goodness) or my computer just won’t connect, so I can’t tell if they have ads, but it’s a nightmare to think that if they have adsense that they could be making money from that website.
Hi, by the way Jim. I work at an internet marketing/search engine optimization firm now so these things are on the brain!
03/26/10 12:54 PM | Comment Link
Rob said...
5seeing that they’re making their way to protest the Jewish organizations around Blacksburg as well (3pm I think it is), then perhaps it’s a good chance to reach out and meet some of the Jewish community there and at least show them some real commaraderie and love…
Just maybe a way to share a little love in the midst of this event. The comments on their iterinary is rather whacky in their response to Jews.
If this group would read the end of the gospels they’ll realize it’s all cool… Jesus comes back to life… He’s God Son so it’s ALL cool!!
But yeah, no doubt they are not into reason… something about arguing with a fool. All you can do is represent the truth and hope a “seeker” might be more interested in your message. I figure God can use ridiculous dissention to move people toward Him also… right? 🙂
We’ll look for your blog post about it next month, bro!
03/26/10 6:40 PM | Comment Link
Rob said...
6And I would guess, these guys draw more traditional media sources to cover their antics. Being there might give a chance to plug for truth to a media person; highlight what the local church thinks. Comments and response to the media for truth might reach someone that’s reading a newspaper or watching a news show — and THAT person might be the one God is tugging on.
I would not expect the Westboro crew themselves are really seeking for any kind of truth or anything beyond their immediate message.
Or… a few comments might even sell a few books!
03/26/10 7:41 PM | Comment Link
Charlie said...
7I think this guy has a point. We need to encourage people to look at the real life of Jesus to see whether or not what WBC says about God is actually true. Not quite sure how that execution would look, but I think that needs to be the goal.
03/29/10 8:01 AM | Comment Link
said...
8Maybe [nlcf] can stand in-between those who are being protested against to take the accusations upon yourselves. so for example, if they are protesting at a high school. Just go and stand there in between them and the school and take the accusations on yourselves, in a sense shielding the kids in the school. if they are protesting the jewish group, go stand in between them and the building and take the accusations and insults. somehow i think that’s a pretty good metaphor for what Jesus would do / has done.
03/29/10 9:01 AM | Comment Link
Kevin said...
9This is the best response to WBC I’ve seen yet:
The idea is to collect donations and contribute them directly to the charities that WBC is opposed to (in WBC’s name, even). Thus the more protests WBC stages, the more funding is given to the organizations they oppose. That causes their protest to be entirely counterproductive, and their best course of action would be to stop the protest in the first place.
03/29/10 5:34 PM | Comment Link
Anonymous said...
10Virginia Tech students are already organizing a positive counter-protest that will raise funds for charities against Westboro Baptist Church’s interests:
You can find out more at .
03/30/10 12:07 PM | Comment Link
said...
11Thanks for all the ideas! We decided that as a church, [nlcf] would participate in the counter-protest that is highlighted in the CT article that anonymous just linked to. It is a great way to raise money that can always be used as well as infuse some levity into something that can feel very offensive (and is very offensive). I will be posting in the next couple of days some other thoughts that it would be good for us to be reflecting on as we prepare to have Westboro Baptist Church come.
03/30/10 1:13 PM | Comment Link
said...
12Liz, very good idea and I will post that in my next post as well! I will edit my first one right now!
03/30/10 1:14 PM | Comment Link