The protesters from Westboro Baptist "church", who go around spreading a distorted so-called "gospel" and promote hate instead of God's love, are going to be in my area in a couple of weeks.

I am going, in full clown, props and all, to be right near them with a HUGE sign that says "God Is Love" on one side and "NOT to condemn, but to SAVE" on the other.

Anyone want to go with me? Write me a private message if you're interested and I will give you the details.

For the record, I am within 50 miles of New York City, so that should be a general guideline to how close you are to the event in question.

There are things they stand for that I cannot help but agree with (sin IS sin, after all), but I simply cannot allow people to present so ugly and distorted a message that supposedly represents "authentic" or "fundamental" faith in Christ, when all it does is offer fear and hatred in the place of love, mercy and sacrifice.

N-E-Way, enough of my own preaching ;)

I will not be going to argue, preach or try to be louder-voiced than anyone else. I am simply going to provide a bright, obvious, loving alternative, especially because there will be so many families and young people around.

Thanks for reading.

It's only my little loaves and fish, but He is welcome to them.

Oh how I wish I could go with you.

Aw, I totally wish I could go, but I live so far away! But I hope it goes well. Bump a nose and have a good time!

I agree Brother Stevie, Pastor Phelps needs to be picketed. I think his congregation has been infiltrated with an un-holy alliance of hippies, commies and pinkos. While I appreciate his devotion to Jesus, his message is being diluted by the satanic forces of liberalism. Just the other day, I noticed he was even allowing his wife to communicate Gods message! It seems very unGodly to allow such important work to be entrusted to a women.

"Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says." (1 Corinthians 14:34)

Untill Pastor Phelps can root out the liberals in his flock and put the women back where they belong, I fear for his salvation. He needs to take hold of those unGodly liberals by the scruff of the neck and put them to death with some good old fashioned biblical stoneing. If only I was in America now I would rush to your support Stevie. I pray by the grace of God for your success in this mission and Pastor Phelps gets the help he needs to root out the liberals within his congregation

Amen

Easy Barry......

People might actually believe you've recanted your pagan ways if you start posting in this area!

Dear Mr. Beezer,

I'll leave the scripture quoting to Mr. Daft (who knew?) but I do wonder what benefit there is in protesting in clown.

Is it your goal to add levity to the situation? Be more colorful for the six o'clock new's cameras? Sometimes perceptions are as powerful as realities. Mr. Phelps and his congregation are fools. Will your appearance in greasepaint make them - or you - look silly?

Yours,

P. Berry

PB,

Levity, definitely. Color for the news, oh, yes.

I am not going there to try and make anyone look like fools. My point is just to present
an alternative for people to be able to point at and say, "look. there's someone who has something to say that is DEFINITELY NOT the same as the WBC crowd."

I am not going to try and "convert" anyone, nor am I going to prepare to argue, fight or even talk very much. All I want to do is provide some comic relief and send a little wordless message about God's love in the bargain.

Please, anyone with more suggestions or different perspectives on this idea, let me have them.

Steevie,

I will pray that your message comes across in the spirit of Christs Love that you intend, but be prepared in your heart for the possibility that it will be distorted by the media, and for possible persecution from all sides. I have confidence that you will be able to remain acting out of a Loving spirit in such a potentially difficult atmosphere.

Boobu

Barry. Just remember God is a constant and that’s fine but if they pull you in always remember the people as in Christians have a habit of eating there own in United States (and you would be just like a blue-Barry) But I don’t see what the thing is on either side, seen this guys web site, protesting directing at dead solders, & Gays, What’s the point? EXCEPT to get media involved. The best parties always have gays at them, we need the solders, live and dead, we need the gays, he is not going to change nothing, but if he did, then he will go after my Jewish friends and you know what that means, that banking and Broadway will be shut down, a proper picket would be to have solders, gays, and Jewish people with media now that would be worth seeing

Barry. Just remember God is a constant and that’s fine but if they pull you in always remember the people as in Christians have a habit of eating there own in United States (and you would be just like a blue-Barry) But I don’t see what the thing is on either side, seen this guys web site, protesting directing at dead solders, & Gays, What’s the point? EXCEPT to get media involved. The best parties always have gays at them, we need the solders, live and dead, we need the gays, he is not going to change nothing, but if he did, then he will go after my Jewish friends and you know what that means, that banking and Broadway will be shut down, a proper picket would be to have solders, gays, and Jewish people with media now that would be worth seeing

Alex, you need to join the military then you could go help protest, and knock all three out with just you.. :) bahahahahah

I see what you did there...

Is it your goal to add levity to the situation? Be more colorful for the six o'clock new's cameras? Sometimes perceptions are as powerful as realities. Mr. Phelps and his congregation are fools. Will your appearance in greasepaint make them - or you - look silly?


Everyone knows that Mr. Phelps and his church speak only for themselves. They aren't influencing anyone. But for some reason, the media seems to follow him whereever he goes. If I wanted to protest them, I would call my local television station and complain about the station airing Mr. Phelp's garbage.

I don’t normally ever venture into this area of the forum. I have no desire to contribute anything to religion but this thread has nothing to do with ministry clowning and should more properly have been posted in a different area of the board. I have some observations and major reservations about various aspects of your proposals here Stevie. I have wide experience in protest, clowning and clown protest, I shall keep my anti-theism down and dwell only on those areas.

Its obvious that you care a great deal about your religion and understandably, resent the ugly and distorted message as espoused by the Westboro Baptists but what do you think you are going to achieve with your own counter demonstration? You say you want to show an alternative view of christianity that portrays love, mercy and sacrifice, and convince who exactly? The very vast majority of people understand this about your religion already. Surely you don’t imagine people drive past Phelps and think, “My goodness he’s right, God hates us, lets put an end to our sodomy and liberal lifestyles”. If you do think people think like that, I suggest you pack up your life and home , take your family and run away as far and as fast as you possibly can.

So it must be Phelps himself you trying to convince. Well think again my friend. Do you really think your “God is Love”, placard is going to affect his reasoning? Really? Phelps is a mad man beyond any reasoning. Fortunately he is a non entity, a pathetic and bitter little man with zero influence. Zero influence over all but his abused, sad family, that comprise almost all of his 50 strong congregation. All he and his wretched little flock want, more than anything else in the world, is to get noticed. You play straight into their hands, Stevie, by entering into a dialogue with them, with your counter placards. If you throw rocks at him, which I expect most people would like to do. He gets to feel vindicated and proven right. He would spout of some biblical twaddle about the path of the righteous being beset with evil, (In case your interested Pinkberry, I learn my bible scripture from films like Pulp Fiction) and it would only serve to strengthen his resolve. Phelps seeks out and thrives on controversy, he likes to upset people. Do not respond to him and you deprive him of the things he enjoys. The only thing that will destroy him, is if he were to be completely blanked and ignored.

I have other issues and questions with your proposal Stevie. You say “I am simply going to provide a bright, obvious, loving alternative, especially because there will be so many families and young people around.” I want to know why would people wish to take their families and young people to such an environment? It is a nasty, vile and hate filled place, where people are likely to be harangued by the likes of Pastor Phelps and his band of spiteful christians. It is a place where angry and venomous insults are going to be hurled back at them as well. I would not feel comfortable performing under such circumstances and I don’t like doing it for people who take their children to such places.

This next part, is actually the main issue I have with all of your proposal. In another thread, you ask “…what are the "dead giveaways" that one is an amateur or Halloween clown and not a "professional" (by this I mean one who IS a clown, not just someone who dresses as one)?” Well, what you have planned so far with this protest is exactly what I consider to be amateurs playing dress up. Standing around in a clown costume with a placard that proclaims “God is Love” is nothing like clown behaviour in the slightest. It is the behaviour of someone who thinks by being colourful, their message might be more widely seen. These people stand out like a sore thumb to me and I do not like them.

Remember, I am talking here, not as an anti-atheist with an axe to grind about religion but as a clown and someone who is passionate about clowning. Could you not have come up with anything slightly more original or anything less lame and more clown like than “GOD is LOVE”? If I were to go as a clown to one of these events, I would go as a CLOWN and that means demonstrating perversity and peculiarity of thought, actions and manner. Please consider my first post on this thread and see what I did there. The first thing I ever think about when clowning, is what is the perverse and the unexpected response to the given situation? How can I play with this? What will be funny? What will get the laughs? You have so far applied absolutely zero clown logic or thought to this protest and “GOD is LOVE”, demonstrates this fact beyond any doubt.

The bible is a very easy text to twist around and pervert to make it say whatever you want it to. This is why I hate it and also what has contributed to its success. Phelps is the proof of this. Many clowns here may be surprised to find there is a passage in the Bible that makes it quite clear that God hates clowns. Yes that’s right, God thinks as much about all of you, as he does the fornicators and idolaters and there is no way you are ever getting to heaven. Get used to the idea of me baiting you lot, for all of eternity (actually the idea of that scares me too). The passage I refer to is Ephesians 5:4, look it up.

If I were to mount a Westboro counter protest, I might play around with this little passage. I would have a “GOD hates CLOWNS” placard and paint my makeup into a very sad clown face. I would rig up some tear ducts so I could squirt people each time I burst into tears. I could have a lot of fun with that, making people laugh and play around with their empathy, while also parodying Phelps and mocking the absurdity of his stance.

"this thread has nothing to do with ministry clowning..."

Really? That's a very ironic statement coming from a man that calls my faith "poison". How do you know a thing about what compromises ministry?

You made it very clear in a message to me that I "do not know [you]" and might not like you if I really learned what you are like.

Guess again, Barry. In fact, I like you immensely. I truly appreciate your willingness to share your opinions and feelings about all things clown.

Here, in this thread, however, I'm afraid you're as far off base as can be. Let's say you saw a fight going on. Would you actually go and help a person who was injured by a stone-throwing mob if you saw them lying in the road, or would you go and squirt their face with seltzer? You and I both know that you would rush in to help and/or to stop the madness. That is what I was attempting to plan with my visit to the protest in question. Oh, and why would anyone bring their children there? BECAUSE IT'S A PROTEST BEING STAGED AT A PLAY AT A HIGH SCHOOL, Barry. My comment about young people being in attendance had NOTHING to do with people bringing kids to a protest. There will be hundreds of families at this school production and a large percentage of the populace that night will be people under 20.

You have every right to say what you want about religion and its adherents. No one can deny you that or argue against it sanely. That said, there is a line between what you may intelligently speak about and what things you must refrain from addressing.

Have your beef with theism or whatever the root issue is, Barry. I don't care. Just do it all at a safe distance from anything that looks like you have a dog in the fight when it comes to "ministry clowning", because you don't and can't.

You don't like my reasons? Fine. Don't like my chosen method? OK, super. Maybe you think "God Is Love" is not original enough? I'll grant that I borrowed it from that vile book you reminded us you hate so much.

Here's the thing, though... I'm quoting God Is Love because I believe it to be true, both in my personal life and in the life of the world at large. Deny it, disbelieve it, laugh at it, mock it. Go right ahead; just don't ask me to consider your definition of "ministry" any more valid than would be my definition of "anti-theist", because it's something I know NOTHING about.

There's a part of me that hates the very idea of having to debate/discuss any of this at all with anyone, and especially with someone who has his opinions set in stone before the parley even begins.

I'd like to thank you, Barry. For what, you ask? For displaying so vividly that the hypocrisy and falsehood you claim to see in religion is very much alive and well in the non-theist world as well.

By that, I mean that you sent me a message telling me about how you wish people would use this forum for being witty and funny and trying out our repartee, and not just for pedestrian things like how to glue on noses or where to buy shoes.

After all that, you proceeded to hijack a discussion I started ASKING PEOPLE IF ANYONE WANTED TO HELP IN WHAT I FELT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO EXPRESS CHRISTIAN LOVE, and then weren't a darn bit funny, witty or clever in a single word you used.

You want to vent about Christians or Christianity or theism or whatever? Start your own forum. This is definitely not the place, nor is this the particular sub-forum nor thread.

You've said to me that you think that Christian clowns are just people who use funny clothes and makeup so that they can get close to kids and "inculcate them with their poison".

If that's the case, then please refrain from addressing the things I choose to do in MINISTRY, because while you say you aren't liked by many here, it's also plain to see that the feeling is mutual.

Regards,

S.B.

P.S. I have decided not to attend the event, not because I have recanted my original statements about my purpose, but because I have it on very good authority that there will be a VERY good chance of the conflict getting ugly, physical, even, and I don't want any part of it. Just like Westboro and Phelps, there are other people that are going to take that night's opportunity to express something worthwhile and use it instead to scream their own brand of poison. I've decided to let them have at each other. I have more productive areas of MINISTRY to work in.

At the request of the author, I am closing this thread.