Something deep inside of me wishes that these guys weren't called Baptist:
"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.
“God hates fags,” [said Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.] “The wrath of God has been revealed before the eyes of this nation with the death of Heath Ledger. … This nation worships the dead almost as much as they worship their filthy sex acts. America is doomed.”
Read the full article here.
Ok, I will be the first to admit, while it is certainly not our place to judge ones salvation, you can get a pretty good idea from their fruits. These people, however, don't claim to have "an idea." They are claiming absolute knowledge of the state of Heath Ledgers, along with thousands of U.S. troops souls.
I firmly believe that we can always take some comfort in the fact that only God knows the state of any ones soul. That is to say that even if someone has never lived their lives in a way that would lead you and I to believe they are soundly saved; We don't know. Perhaps they experienced Spirit led repentance and faith in their dying days, or even dying moments. Perhaps they had repented and put their faith in Jesus at some point, but were rather quite about it, (this scenario seems impossible to me, but who knows?)
The point is that only God knows. It is not, in any way shape or form, Westboro Baptist Church's place to proclaim the state of Heath Ledger's soul. Judging is a difficult topic, and a difficult act. Lets always be careful to make sure that we are not judging things that we have no business judging. Some things should simply be left to God.
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