From Foxnews.com on 1/23:

A radical Baptist church in Kansas known for picketing the funerals of soldiers who perished in Iraq said it intends to protest Heath Ledger's memorial service with signs claiming the actor died and is in Hell because he played a gay character in "Brokeback Mountain."

"Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there," the Westboro Baptist announcement says.

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I'm sorry folks, but this is just over-the-top wrong. It is shameful and flat-out disgusting. The gospel is nothing if not good news of grace for sinners. This piece of garbage out of Topeka is so filled with what Phillip Yancey calls "un-grace" that it has nothing to do with the Christian church, Baptist or otherwise.

Whatever happened to the first sermon Jesus preached where he said, "Do not judge or you too will be judged"? If nothing else, have a little respect for the grieving parents, for heaven's sake.

Nouwen said this about forgiveness: "It often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not been able fully to receive it. Only as people who have accepted forgiveness can we find the inner freedom to give it."

Judgmental religious folks that condemned sinners needing grace were the ones that Jesus held up for his most passionate rebuke. He called them "snakes," "a brood of vipers," "blind guides," "twice as much a son of hell" and "white-washed tombs." (see Matthew 23 for the list)

In our day, he might hold up the self-righteous folk at Westboro Baptist for the same scathing treatment. Even supposing they get a few doctrinal things about Jesus right, they get his heart spectacularly wrong.

*For more on this, here's a good blog about it.