Dignity In Death

Recently a story about a Tampa, Florida Baptist Church hit the airwaves.  One of its members had died.  The family was preparing for the funeral that day, when all of the sudden the minister called to inform them that the funeral was no longer welcomed in their church.  The invitation to have it held there was rescinded.

You see, some of the church folks started to complain about the deceased because they found out he was gay.  The pastor made the decision that since they just found out the guy was gay in the obituary that it would be an abomination to hold the funeral there.

While I realize a church is free to do what they want to do inside their four walls, I'm also free to point out how wrong their actions can be, especially in this case.  In this particular church and example, I can think of many things in the bible that they disregarded in coming to this decision.  If you think for a moment or two, I'm sure you can come up with the same list.

Of course, I'm sure that for everyone who dies and has a funeral in this church, they ask a series of questions.  Hopefully they ask everyone else before a funeral, if they have ever done something that the church disagrees with because God forbid they would just differentiate between some things and not others.   I'm sure the questions would be like the following examples

• Have you ever stolen anything or cheated from anyone?
• Have you ever eaten shellfish?
• Have you ever been divorced?
• Have you ever overeaten and stuffed yourself, harming your own temple of the Holy Spirit?
• Have you ever been drunk on wine?
• Have you ever judged anyone?  
• Did you show love to all people at all times?
• Did your life proclaim all that you believed 100% of the time?

There are numerous questions that could be asked to make sure that people being buried were not an abomination to the Lord God.  Would it not be correct to do this for fear that you were just singling out a certain group of people.  After all, you would not want to be identified as being a bigot would you?

Again, its a church and they are free to worship any God in any way they think is appropriate.  However, when you start picking the verses in the bible to judge your brethren by, you have elevated yourself to a position which is not for you.  You have degraded humanity to the lowest level when you do this.

When you degrade humanity, you hurt not only the person your disdain is for, but you hurt the entire world and yes, you hurt yourself.  To be human means to accept one another for who they are, not because of how you hold your opinions as beliefs to judge one another.  Humans are supposed to be evolved creatures, but in cases like this, it is hard to believe that anyone understands what being human really is.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 8/12/14 by Don Shetterly

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