Fred Phelps
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What of the lovable Phred Phelps?
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I think he's dead.
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So is Fred Flintstone and Fred Rogers.
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Fred, dead in bed. He's been dead since 2014. In 2013 he was excommunicated by his own church, Westboro Baptist.
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He, being dead, yet stinketh.
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Well, I don't think we have to worry about him coming out.
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Coming out? Phelps was gay? Well, isn’t that ironic, dontchathink?
So is Phred Phelps in heaven or is he in the place where he sends everyone he hates?
As long as he was free to preach, so were any of us.
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Fred's eternal destiny is a matter of opinion:
"Phelps had been reportedly suffering from some form of dementia in his final year, and started behaving irrationally. This led to church members believing that God had condemned him. It has been stated that Phelps 'had a softening of heart at the end of his life,' according to accounts published in a memoir written by Phelps' granddaughter Megan Phelps-Roper, and reporting from The New Yorker citing former members of the church. This includes an incident in 2013, in which Phelps is said to have stepped outside the church and called over to members of Planting Peace, a nonprofit organization that bought a house on the other street and painted it with an LGBTQ rainbow, saying: 'You're good people!' In an interview with NPR, Megan Phelps-Roper said this outburst was 'the proximate cause' of Phelps being excommunicated, a claim that the church has denied. According to Phelps' grandson and former church member Zach Phelps-Roper, Phelps' actions were regarded as "rank blasphemy" by the church members."
en.wikipedia.org
Westboro Baptist Church, in spite of its extreme public relations problem, was listed for many years in the online "Directory of Sovereign Grace Baptist Churches" but it is no longer listed in the current online directory updated as of September 3, 2018. I have a hard copy of that directory dated July 27, 1993 published by Milburn Cockrell, Berea Baptist Church, Mantachie, Mississippi, listing Westboro with Fred Phelps as pastor. Westboro was regarded as a Calvinistic IFB church.
But here's the funny thing - the books I have read, by former members of the church, indicate that the church believed in baptismal regeneration, and that it was possible to lose one's salvation. That doesn't sound particularly Calvinistic or "Sovereign Grace" to me. In fairness to Bro. Cockrell, he stated that "we cannot with absolute certainty affirm that every church listed holds to these great doctrines. There are no doubt many errors and omissions in this directory." In my opinion, it was a big error for any IFBs to be allowed to be associated in any way with Westboro.
"Phelps had been reportedly suffering from some form of dementia in his final year, and started behaving irrationally. This led to church members believing that God had condemned him. It has been stated that Phelps 'had a softening of heart at the end of his life,' according to accounts published in a memoir written by Phelps' granddaughter Megan Phelps-Roper, and reporting from The New Yorker citing former members of the church. This includes an incident in 2013, in which Phelps is said to have stepped outside the church and called over to members of Planting Peace, a nonprofit organization that bought a house on the other street and painted it with an LGBTQ rainbow, saying: 'You're good people!' In an interview with NPR, Megan Phelps-Roper said this outburst was 'the proximate cause' of Phelps being excommunicated, a claim that the church has denied. According to Phelps' grandson and former church member Zach Phelps-Roper, Phelps' actions were regarded as "rank blasphemy" by the church members."
Fred Phelps - Wikipedia
Westboro Baptist Church, in spite of its extreme public relations problem, was listed for many years in the online "Directory of Sovereign Grace Baptist Churches" but it is no longer listed in the current online directory updated as of September 3, 2018. I have a hard copy of that directory dated July 27, 1993 published by Milburn Cockrell, Berea Baptist Church, Mantachie, Mississippi, listing Westboro with Fred Phelps as pastor. Westboro was regarded as a Calvinistic IFB church.
But here's the funny thing - the books I have read, by former members of the church, indicate that the church believed in baptismal regeneration, and that it was possible to lose one's salvation. That doesn't sound particularly Calvinistic or "Sovereign Grace" to me. In fairness to Bro. Cockrell, he stated that "we cannot with absolute certainty affirm that every church listed holds to these great doctrines. There are no doubt many errors and omissions in this directory." In my opinion, it was a big error for any IFBs to be allowed to be associated in any way with Westboro.
I wonder how anyone was able to tell the difference.
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"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves" (Matt. 23:15)
Phelps's family apparently excommunicated him in the end for not hating gays enough. Talk about the embodiment of "twice the child of hell." He went home to his father, and so will they without repentance.