I’m posting this letter here for two reasons—one is simply because you didn’t respond to my email and you refused to talk to me in person. The second is to spare others the time. I want other churches to know if you go there, your goal is not anybody’s repentance. Your goal is simply to cause a scene, hopefully win a lawsuit, and root for fire from heaven. I pray God silences you by converting you to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Last week I was notified by local law-enforcement that you (Westboro Baptist) were planning on visiting the church I pastor. They told me you had a track-record of not showing up for your protests, that we shouldn’t worry about it or do anything differently, and that if you did show up, they would ensure your right to be heard while maintaining order at our church.

I quickly found your website that lists your protest schedule, which conveniently also listed why you were protesting. You said you would be at our church because we are not active in street evangelism, as evidenced by the fact that we were meeting together in a building. I sent you an email asking if you were familiar with all of the evangelism and outreach our church does do, but never heard back.

Anyway, our plan was to simply ignore you while you were here. The irony that you were protesting us simply because we were meeting in a church on Sunday morning was not lost on us, so my personal intent was to not even comment on your presence here. But then I saw the sign: “Your pastors are whores.”

So with that, I went out on the street to meet you, and find out exactly why you would say that. I’ll be honest—this was entirely against my better judgement. But other elders at my church had told me that I should be willing to listen to any criticism you have of us, and see if there is any truth to it. I felt like the unanswered email fulfilled my duty in that, but then the sign showed up, so out I went.

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