They Doth Protest Too Much

I’ll be leaving in a little while to spend Thanksgiving with my mother and sisters in Virginia, so I wanted to wish all of you a wonderful holiday and Godspeed in your travels.

I’m not sure what my blogging status will be in Virginia, but I will be continuing to track some stories related to the recent tragic school bus crash here in Huntsville. It will be a difficult time for our community over the next few days as we attempt to hold in tension our thankfulness that things weren’t any worse, our grief for the four young girls who lost their lives and our ongoing concern for the injured.

As if this burden weren’t enough, now comes word that representatives of a certain so-called church in Topeka, Kansas are planning to be in Huntsville next Tuesday for the girls’ funerals. Their message?

The bus crash was God’s divine retribution for Alabama’s alleged tolerance of homosexuals.

These are the same so-called “Christian” nut-cases showing up at our soldiers’ funerals across the nation with the same message. I won’t name the church on this blog, nor will I link to their press release regarding the Huntsville protest since I don’t won’t them to have a means of tracking my comments here. Most of you know who these people are and are smart enough to figure out how to find the press release if you want to read it.

Times like this are a severe test of Christian charity. My mind careens toward visions of car wrecks on the way from Topeka, a few timely cases of botulism after Thursday’s turkey dinner or maybe a “Welcome to Huntsville” committee consisting of the starting offensive and defensive lines from the Lee High School football team. But as I fantasize along these lines, I realize that I’m drug down into their same dirty, despicable gutter. Praying for your enemy and turning the other cheek are perhaps the severest Christian trial of all.

I’m sure our Mayor Loretta Spencer will have some things to say about all this over the few days and will make sure that everyone is ready for these vultures. Perhaps, if nothing else, an unbelieving world will see the difference between the way real Christians behave versus these crazy counterfeits. Let’s hope so anyway.

I’m also reminded of the line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Any time someone someone insists too strongly that they themselves are pure while everyone around them is worthy of condemnation, you would be wise to suspect that the exact opposite might be true. I’m not sure what darkness resides in these folks’ souls, but it would appear that it is so black that it prevents them from seeing their own hatefulness and foolish pride.

They doth protest too much, indeed.