Inverse Paradigm

It looks like the wonderful Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing the funeral of late actor Heath Ledger. They are the ones behind the “godhatesfags” website. I’m not going to get into the OT vs NT debate here. But what happened to “hate the sin but love the sinner” idea? Which is about the best one can expect from many in Christian circles. It’s sad. But I suspect the WBC is going to be surprised when many they denounce are in Heaven while many from their number are in the same Hell they are saying Heath Ledger went to. When I was a in Evangelical circles there were always people speculating about whether a deceased person was in Heaven or Hell. I even did my share of that spiritual masturbation. Unless these people have some spectral CCTV into the afterlife they have no clue. We don’t know who’s going where. We only know that we hope to go to one place or another. Our final destination is up to God, who were he a lawyer would have issued a cease and desist letter to these people for copyright infringement and plagiarism. Disrupting funerals, harassing mourners, desecrating graves and other acts of disrespect for the dead are just as evil acts as what WBC is saying of the people they hate.

Pick One.

I know there are a lot of supposedly hip parents who think they can be one of the gang with their child and his or her friends. Well you can do that to a certain extent. But there will come a time when you are going to need your child’s respect and obedience not his friendship. And if you have abdicated one in favor of the other, expect the two of you to be taken aback by the reaction. It’s one of those situations where no one should be surprised. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen often. If you find yourself thinking of the parent/child relationship as a clerical formality, like some puffball job title in a bureaucracy, and you tend to view the kid as your best friend, you need to find some new friends. It’s inappropriate. It’s no different from the boss who goes out drinking with her subordinates and then wonders why they’re taking 90min. lunches and writing down an hour. I’m telling you this because it’s what I have observed in my lifetime. I don’t have children. While I don’t have experience dealing with the rigors of that life I have seen parents dealing with the aftermath of those “friendships.” However I have been in front-line management as a lead and I have had subordinates that I tried to stay on friendshippy terms with and that caused problems as time wore on.