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By Lloyd Mackey
 WITHOUT intruding too much on the tragedy involving the death of Tim
McLean, en route on a bus from Edmonton to Winnipeg, I would like to touch
on the names and involvements of three churches in the story that has been
emerging.
Two of the churches are Canadian: Grant Memorial Baptist and Westwood Community, both substantial
congregations in Winnipeg. The third is Westboro
Baptist of Kansas City, a small family-controlled entity best known
for using funerals and other public events to demonstrate a particularly
strident form of hatred against homosexuals and those who support them.
* * *
Grant Memorial Baptist Church was established in the late 1800s to provide
a worship home for Swedish immigrants to Manitoba. It has grown steadily
and reached out to its city vigorously through the years and, today,
counts 1,500 or more people among its members and adherents.
The Swedish influences in the church are much subdued from what they were
in earlier years. But Grant has retained a reputation for blending
pietism, evangelism and social service. And it has tried, through the
years, to welcome immigrants coming from many parts of the world, in a way
that would provide them practical assistance in settling in.
Vince Weiguang Li, 40, has been charged with the murder of McLean. The
macabre details have been extensively reported: Li stands accused of
stabbing the victim many times, then decapitating him. Li has made two
court appearances and is now undergoing a psychiatric assessment.
Some reports have taken note of the fact that Li and his wife Anna, who
emigrated from China seven years ago, had been taken under the spiritual
care of Grant church and that he had been employed for some months as a
custodian at the church.
Grant's senior minister, Tom Castor, was quoted in the Winnipeg
Free Press on August 4, by FP reporter James Turner, as
suggesting that Li seemed happy to have his job at the church and was
committed to doing it well. Turner reported Castor as saying that "Li was
quiet, and did not show any sign of anger issues or any other trouble,"
before he left the Grant job in the spring of 2005.
He apparently worked as a forklift operator in Winnipeg before suddenly
moving to Edmonton, where he was employed at a McDonald's restaurant and,
later, as a newspaper delivery person. The Free Press also noted
that Castor's congregation is offering support to Li's wife, Anna, "who
the pastor says is in shock and is very afraid about her future."
* * *
The connection between Westwood Community Church and Tim McLean and his
family has been much less canvassed by journalists than the Grant/Li
linkage.
Westwood is a part of the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren. Many
of the denomination's original churches played a major role in the 19th
and 20th century, in developing worshipping communities for Mennonite immigrants
from Eastern Europe and South America, among other places. Westwood, along
with several other MB congregations, was started later, as younger
Mennonites moved into other suburban communities and reached out to their
neighbours, most of whom likely had different ethnic backgrounds.
Likely because Tim McLean's family members have understandably requested
privacy, the information about how Westwood plays into their lives is
simply not available. But it is known that 600 people attended the funeral
of this young man. His uncle, Alex McLean, described him to the gathered
as "friendly sweet, kind and caring" whose "love of his friends was easy
to see."
Of such sentiments, funerals -- Christian or otherwise -- are made. People
want to remember with warmth, the deceased, especially if his or her
passing had aspects of tragedy.
* * *
But McLean's funeral has another, contrasting aspect that bears analysis.
In addition to those attending the service, there were another several
hundred lining the streets leading to the church, attempting to block the
way of any Westboro Baptist protesters who might try to show up.
Some of the "guardians" were armed with umbrellas, not so much to protect
from the weather, but to open up and form a barricade against any
intruders.
As it happens, nobody from the Westboro group arrived at the scene. That
was, in fact, true to form. Often, Westboroians get preliminary publicity
by threatening to turn up, then fail to show. They have made their point,
which is their firm belief that God's judgment is on a community or
country that is soft on gay rights.
* * *
The exercise of tracking the influences of these different parts of
evangelicalism -- the immigrant-rooted churches and contrasting protesters
-- can be instructive. One produces succeeding generations who reach into
their neighborhoods and communities for service and support. The others
aim their attacks at those they claim God hates.
* * *
Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in
Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance
(ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
Continue article >>
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Relate stories:
Tragedy
tests one's faith
The horrific story that took place this week
on a bus near Brandon, Man., is one of those reminders that the world is
full of nasty surprises, evil exists and innocent souls can suffer
horrible torment for no reason at all. Terrible things happen all the
time, but rarely does a single incident focus so many people at once on
one act of horror.
Charles Lewis, National Post, August 2
Accused
killer on Manitoba bus described as quiet, hard-working
Long
before he was accused of the gruesome beheading of a fellow passenger on a
Greyhound bus in Manitoba, Vince Weiguang Li was a quiet and hard-working
custodian at Grant Memorial Church. Pastor Tom Castor, who helped hire Li
soon after he immigrated from China in 2004, said the man never showed any
sign of anger or emotional problems.
Canadian Press, August 3
Polite
exterior, troubled soul
Vince Li arrived from China about four
years ago and found a home in Winnipeg, surrounded by a loving wife and
caring members of the community who quickly took him under their wing. He
soon found a job, vastly improved his English and enjoyed socializing with
new friends at Sunday-morning church services, dinner parties and trips
out to Falcon Lake.
Winnipeg Free Press, August 3
Greyhound
suspect on suicide watch
Pastor Tom Castor said Li, a recent
immigrant at the time, seemed happy to have a job and was committed to
doing it well. Castor said Li was quiet, and did not show any sign of
anger issues or any other trouble before he quit in the spring of 2005.
After this, he's believed to have taken a job as a forklift operator for
Midland Foods in Winnipeg while his wife, Anna Li, worked as a
waitress.
Winnipeg Free Press, August 4
Suspect
in bus beheading described as hard working
A man who witnesses
said stabbed, beheaded and cannibalized a fellow traveler on a Greyhound
bus immigrated to Canada from China four years ago and worked for a time
as a church custodian, the pastor who employed him said.
Associated
Press, August 4
Controversial
U.S. church plans to picket funeral
Members of the
controversial Westboro Baptist Church are threatening to picket the
funeral of Tim McLean, the young man decapitated on a Greyhound bus last
week. . . . God is sending a message through Mr. McLean's murder that He
and the commandments must be obeyed, Shirley Phelps-Roper
said.
National Post, August 6
Playwright
welcomes messages of hate
Outside the Cameron House tavern, one
group will arrive to take in a stage show that satirizes the hard-line
anti-gay teachings of Pastor Fred Phelps and his Kansas church, while
another, comprised of seven members of Mr. Phelps's very flock, plans to
greet them in protest. Controversial as it all sounds, it could be a
marriage made in heaven from a publicity perspective, as each side draws
more attention to the other's message than either might receive on its
own. Both sides acknowledged as much yesterday, in the lead-up to the
opening of The Pastor Phelps Project: A fundamentalist
cabaret.
Globe and Mail, August 6
Controversial
U.S. church group stopped at border
Residents rallied Thursday
to protect the family of a young man murdered on a Greyhound bus last week
from a posse of radical religious protesters planning to portray Tim
McLean's death as God's wrath. Earlier this week, the Westboro Baptist
Church - an organization branded as a hate group and infamous for
protesting the funerals of slain U.S. soldiers - announced they would
picket Mr. McLean's funeral to let Canadians know that his decapitation
was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality
and adultery.
Winnipeg Free Press, August 7
Group
plans counter-rally to protect McLean Family
Jim Cotton, a
resident of Winnipeg Beach with no relation to the McLean family, started
a Facebook page this morning asking Winnipeggers to help protect McLean's
funeral in the wake of news that a notorious fundamentalist church in
Kansas is planning to protest the service.
Winnipeg Free Press,
August 7
Message
of hate: Day
Canadians rally MPs to block church group
protesters
Winnipeg Free Press, August 8
Anti-gay
protest fizzles as Kansas-based fundamentalists held up at
border
Despite the absence of actual protesters, more than 100
people gathered in counter-protest outside Cameron House last night, ahead
of a performance of playwright Alistair Newton's The Pastor Phelps
Project: a fundamentalist cabaret, which satirizes the leader of a
fervently anti-gay religious group.
National Post, August 8
Police say
Westboro Church protesters no-show at Red Deer play
Members of
a fanatical American church were a no-show at a central Alberta theatre
for a planned protest of a play about the murder of a gay university
student in Wyoming. The Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based
fundamentalist sect, had announced it would picket a production of the
Laramie Project by a theatre group in Red Deer, Alta., on
Friday.
Canadian Press, August 8
Stockwell
Day did the right thing
On the other hand, people who live
outside Canada, and who aren't Canadian citizens, aren't protected under
our Charter. And so I think it was defensible for Public Safety Minister
Stockwell Day to keep Westboro activists out of Canada in light of their
announced intention of picketing McLean's funeral. Our public-security
officials and border guards turn people away from our borders for all
sorts of reasons . including the possibility that their presence in the
country would (as in this case) stir up a violent
confrontation.
Jonathan Kay, Full Comment, National Post, August
8
Bus-victim
funeral not protested
The funeral for the victim of a Greyhound
bus slaying has started without disruption from a group of U.S. zealots
who had pledged to protest the service.
Winnipeg Free Press,
August 9
Protest
group gets through border
Sent their signs by FedEx; will
picket Winnipeg funeral
CanWest News Service, August 9
A
sad tale of two funerals
Groups seeking to push message after
tragedy block healing, forgiveness
Gordon Sinclair Jr., Winnipeg
Free Press, August 9
In
praise of friends of Tim McLean
Ultimately, the Kansas
protesters failed to show. Still the private and spontaneous outpouring of
concern by hundreds of people for the feelings and privacy of Mr. McLean's
family and friends is a demonstration of the innate compassion and
ingenuity of ordinary Canadians.
Editorial, National Post,
August 12
Powerful
Protestations
This year's Summerworks festival was supposed to
start with a protest. The Pastor Phelps Project, subtitled "a
fundamentalist cabaret," was due to be picketed by members of the Reverend
Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan. This congregation,
notorious for their vociferous insistence that "God hates fags," had
already signalled their attitude to the show pretty clearly by denouncing
it as illiterate garbage: a piquant criticism for fundamentalists to make,
even on the unlikely supposition that they'd actually read the script,
since a substantial proportion of it consists of verbatim quotes from the
Bible. Even the name of the group presenting it, Ecce Homo, is as much
biblical as it is homosexual.
Robert Cushman, National Post,
August 12
August 14/2008
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