Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America

by Jeff Chu

Few things irk Westboro’s members more than the widespread belief, even beyond the church, that Christ was a sweet, all-loving man. God does not actually love everyone, they say, only those whom He chose for heaven. “God foreordained some people to go to heaven and some to go to hell. But people can’t stand that they got put in the wrong category. That’s a buzzkill!” says Steve Drain, who came to Topeka in 2001 to make a film debunking Westboro’s beliefs and ended up converting and moving his family up from Florida. “But Jesus did not die for everyone.” This kind of thinking isn’t unique in the American church. Mark Driscoll, a prominent pastor who leads Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, which regularly draws more ten thousand worshippers, gave a sermon in the fall of 2011 in which he said: “Some of you, God hates you. . . . He doesn’t think you’re cute. . . . He doesn’t care if you compare yourself to someone worse than you. He hates them, too. God hates—right now, personally, objectively hates some of you.”