Westboro Baptist Church

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WBC member Jael Phelps (right) outside Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa

The Westboro Baptist Church is a 1955 into being called, no one denomination affiliated community based in Topeka and is considered hate group ( hate group ) considered.

profile

This association is not affiliated with any Baptist community. It describes itself as primitive-Baptist (“primitive” means “original” in this context) and Calvinist , but is rejected by the community of Primitive Baptists .

The 40- to 80-strong congregation, mostly related or related by marriage, gathered around the radical preacher Fred Phelps , who believes the death of soldiers, earthquakes, hurricanes and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are God's punishments for tolerating homosexuality . Their typical, garish demonstration boards contain slogans such as "AIDS cures fags" (German: "AIDS heals Schwuchteln "), "2 Gay Rights: AIDS and Hell" (German: "Two gay rights: AIDS and hell") and "Death Penalty 4 Fags . Lev 20,13  EU Röm 1,32  EU "(German:" Death penalty for fagots "), the latter certainly being used at the World AIDS Conference at the end of July 2012, as well as similar slogans against Catholics, Jews (or Israel ), other religious groups, the United States and “sinners” in general.

Beliefs

Demonstration in front of the Virginia Holocaust Museum

The followers of the Westboro Baptist Church believe that their God loves his orthodox followers, but is a hating God towards sinners and deniers, who misses every opportunity to punish those who do not believe in him or change his word. Their basic statements are:

  • May God be the author of true morality, which is written down literally and unalterably in the Bible.
  • Homosexuality in particular is sinful.
  • Tolerating homosexuality is sinful.
  • Accordingly, the US state that tolerates homosexuality is also sinful, including its servants, including and especially members of the army.
  • Honoring flags and symbols of a country hated by God is sinful.
  • Anti-Semitism can be justified by stating that the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.

In their opinion, the basis for the statement that God hates almost everyone is the verse from John 3:16  EU : “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him would not perishes, but has eternal life ”. After that, God loves only a select few, whom he gives the chance to have eternal life. All other people are denied access to eternal life.

Proclamation of faith

Westboro Baptist Church supporters make no attempt to get people to join their church. However, they see a central task and an expression of love in making the public aware of what they see as sinful behavior. God's hatred will one day make them go to hell because they did not fear him and did not live by the standards of the WBC.

They accomplish this proclamation through demonstrations at places and events that they see as manifestations of sin, e.g. B. Churches of other denominations and religions. They achieved national media awareness and unanimous outrage through demonstrations at the funerals of fallen soldiers who are condemned to hell as servants of a state that tolerates homosexuality. They also interpret natural disasters and terrorist attacks as godly earthly punishments for a sinful society.

The denomination also uses the Internet for its preaching activity and maintains several websites, including those that are specifically directed against Catholicism, Judaism and the State of Israel, Islam and Barack Obama or explain why God hates every single nation on earth . Representatives of the sect have defended their beliefs several times on talk shows and news broadcasts. The community has also repeatedly given documentary filmmakers an insight into their lives.

history

Beginnings

The young Baptist preacher Fred Phelps moved to Topeka in 1954 to take up a position as a minister in the local Baptist congregation. He was given the task of building a new church in the western part of the city. In 1955 the Westboro Baptist Church, which he directed, was founded there, which soon lost contact with its mother church. Phelps' successes were modest and early on the crowd of believers was largely limited to his increasingly large family. In order to keep themselves afloat economically, Phelps and his family first hawked as a peddler, later Phelps took up law studies and practiced as a freelance lawyer until he finally gave up this activity in 1989 due to conflicts with the professional inspectorate. In 1979 he had been expelled from the bar for improper conduct. Fred Phelps tied his family very strongly into his religious and professional activities, 11 of his 13 children are lawyers alone.

Notoriety as a hate group

The WBC first attracted public attention in 1991, when the congregation increasingly used the protest demonstration as a means of proclaiming the faith, initially in Gage Park in Topeka, which was within walking distance of the church and was suspected to be a gay meeting place. Such activity grew to such an extent that the Kansas Congress passed an act in 1992 to restrict demonstrations at funerals, stalking, and facsimile harassment. From 1997 the group began using the Internet to spread their views.

The group became known nationally in the late 1990s for derisive demonstrations at the funerals of AIDS victims, and above all at that of the beaten to death gay student from the University of Wyoming Matthew Shepard , which aroused great outrage.

After 2000, the Westboro Baptist Church reached the height of national attention and general outrage by systematically demonstrating the funerals of US soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. This led to counter-reactions: On the one hand, the group of Patriot Guard Riders formed from the motorcycle scene , who set themselves the task of shielding soldiers' funerals from WBC demonstrations. Second, on May 24, 2006, the United States Congress passed the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act , which allows for protests within 300 feet of national war cemeteries from an hour before and up to an hour after funerals Prohibits a fine of up to US $ 100,000 or a year in prison.

It had more drastic consequences for the WBC when a father of a soldier who died in the war filed a lawsuit after the Westboro Baptist Church stormed the funeral service for his son. Fred Phelps lost that lawsuit and was sentenced to a cash payment of $ 10.9 million. The sum of money consisted of a $ 8 million fine and $ 2.9 million in damages for the injured party. Since they cannot pay the fine, a court ruled that the church building and an office building should be sold. The family then indicated both buildings as their place of residence, as they cannot be expropriated for punishment. Despite the lost trial, the Westboro Baptist Church holds on to its position to this day.

In February 2011, several Westboro Baptist Church websites were hacked and taken down by the Internet collective Anonymous .

In December 2012, Westboro Baptist Church also announced that God had sent the shooters to shoot the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School .

On April 15, 2013, the group also announced on Twitter that God had sent the bombs to the 2013 Boston Marathon because he was angry about same-sex marriage, which was allowed in the state of Massachusetts in May 2004.

In May 2013, the movement launched a website called Godhatesoklahoma.com, alluding to the hurricane that killed several people in Moore, Oklahoma on May 20. The site was immediately hacked.

Fred Phelps died on March 20, 2014. The Westboro Baptist Church did not hold a funeral service.

International Burn a Koran Day

After Terry Jones canceled his "International Burn a Koran Day", the Westboro Baptist Church announced that it would continue.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Evidence for the title as a hate group:
  2. ↑ http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/06/21/community-tells-westboro-baptist-church-members-theyre-not-welcome-at-local-soldiers-funeral/
  3. ↑ 'My God Will Wipe This Country From the Face of the Earth': The Real Louis Farrakhan in His Own Words on GBTV ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2012/04/westboro_baptist_church_member_1.html
  5. ↑ http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html
  6. ↑ WBC Sign Crew: 2 Gay Rights: AIDS and Hell! , twitter.com, June 23, 2012
  7. ↑ WBC Sign Crew: New Sign: Death Penalty 4 Fags! , twitter.com, June 23, 2012
  8. ↑ Part-time blogger: Washington diary for the World AIDS Conference: A personal review by a participant! , ThinkOutsideYourBox.net, Aug 1, 2012
  9. ↑ “God Loves Everyone” - The Greatest Lie Ever Told ( Memento from June 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 1.97 MB), www.godhatestheworld.com, March 13, 2009, (English)
  10. ↑ http://www.priestsrapeboys.com/ ( Memento from September 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ http://www.jewskilledjesus.com/ ( Memento from October 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ http://www.godhatesislam.com/ ( Memento from October 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ beastobama.com
  14. ↑ http://www.godhatestheworld.com/ ( Memento from October 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ Video: Representatives of the WBC switched on on the Jeremy Kyle Show
  16. ↑ Video: Representatives of the WBC on Russell Brands talk show
  17. ↑ Video: Shirley Phelps-Roper at Tyra Banks
  18. ↑ Video: Shirley Phelps-Roper at FoxNews
  19. ↑ Video: The Most Hated Family in America - Documentation by Louis Theroux
  20. ↑ Video: Westboro Baptist Church: Warriors for God? - ABCnews
  21. ^ Joe Taschler: The Transformation of Fred Phelps . In: The Topeka Capital-Journal . August 3, 1994. Archived from the original on March 1, 2013. Retrieved on December 11, 2012.
  22. ↑ State v. Phelps, 226 Can. 371, 598 P.2d 180 (1979)
  23. ^ Congress Bars Military Funeral Protesters Washington Post, May 25, 2006
  24. ↑ Jury Awards Father Nearly $ 11 million in Funeral Protesters Case. In: Fox News. November 1, 2007, accessed April 19, 2013 .
  25. ^ Adam Lake: 'God Hates Fags' sect could lose their church , pinknews.co.uk, April 8, 2008
  26. ↑ site GodHatesFags.com chopped , queer.de 25 February, 2011
  27. ↑ http://www.thinkoutsideyourbox.net/?p=30522
  28. ↑ International Business Times
  29. ↑ The hate preacher from Topeka , the daily newspaper , March 21, 2014
  30. ^ Jack Phillips: Westboro Baptist Church 'Asks Public Not to Picket' Fred Phelps Funeral Actually Satire; There will be no Funeral , The Epoch Times , March 23, 2014
  31. ↑ Open Letter from Westboro Baptist Church to President Obama, to Doomed america, and to perverse Muslims worldwide. (PDF) Westboro Baptist Church, September 9, 2010, archived from the original on September 10, 2010 ; accessed on September 10, 2010 (English).

Web links

Commons : Category: Westboro Baptist Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files