And They'll Know We are Christians by Our ... Hate?

There are times that words fail me...

I think if you ask any parent what their deepest, darkest fear is and they'll tell you that it's getting that middle of the night telephone call that their child is dead. It's hard to lose a parent. I can't even begin to know what it's like to lose a child and I pray with everything I am that I will never know.

In the last few days, two Georgia families got that call. I've never met them and know of no reason that I ever will, but I grieve with them for their losses. I'm thinking at the moment about Lauren Burk, a young lady from the Atlanta area who was a student at Auburn University until someone took her life. (A man has been charged with her murder, which appears to be random evil as he did not know her, but this story really isn't about him.)

By all accounts, Lauren Burk was a wonderful young lady who had a full life ahead of her. She was a daughter, perhaps a sister (I don't know), and a friend. All of that was taken away in violence, leaving a jagged hole in a lot of hearts.

On Sunday, her funeral was held at a synagogue in Marietta. I don't have his words in front of me, but I remember reading that her rabbi said that you don't respond to her murder with hate, but with love.

But hate was there. My daughter sent me a link to this story in the Marietta Daily Journal. A group from the Westboro "Baptist Church" in Topeka, Kansas, showed up outside the synegogue to thank God for Lauren Burk's murder. This group (I don't dishonor the word "church" by giving it to them) is best known for acts of hatred, such as demonstrating at funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, thanking God for the death of whover is being honored, or carry signs at funerals of people who happen to have been gay with signs like "God Hates Fags". In this case, their twisted version of Christianity said that God killed Lauren Burk because of the rampant sins committed on college campuses and that (somehow) her parents are responsible for her death.

It doesn't take a dissertation to show how false this is. All it takes is is the answer to this question: Comparing the words of love from the rabbi inside with the words of hate by this rabble outside, where would Jesus be?