Leaving it all behind

Megan Phelps-Roper was raised and belonged to the Westboro Baptist Church in America. The church mostly consisted of members of her large and extended family and was led by her grandfather. At the age of 26 she left her church and therefore her family. Unfollow is the story of her childhood and what led her to make the difficult decision to walk away.

The Westboro Baptist Church had a core belief which was that everyone except the members of their church were wrong about pretty well everything and that God was punishing America and its people for their sins. They especially focussed on homosexuality as a sin and AIDs and deaths in action as the punishment. They were also very anti-Semitic. The punishments, they believed, were sent by God to turn the people of America back to Him. Because of their beliefs they saw it as their duty to tell people how evil they were and how God was judging them and they kept nothing back – they picketed schools, events and funerals holding placards and shouting obscene abuse at those they believed that God had condemned.

Megan was a true believer. Even though she went to a state school and mixed with people outside the family she was completely committed to the message of the Westboro church because she knew that they were right. Like other church members she could recite scripture to back up her arguments. Eventually she became responsible for the church’s social media accounts and she used them to share the same message.

Two things changed Megan’s view. The first was that disagreements between leaders of the church meant that the same techniques that were being used outside the church on unbelievers were turned against her mother and other church members who were seen as not being committed enough or to the right theology. The second was the reasoned and loving responses to her virulent social media messages from those outside the church. The consequences of her leaving the fellowship and the family were devastating to Megan and her sister who went with her.

This is a straightforward and very moving book. You can see how scripture was used to reinforce the bigoted ideas of the church and to determine their actions. The message of hate is quite frightening but it is worth reading this autobiography to begin to understand how some others think.

I read and reviewed In the Days of Rain (see review here) about a family leaving the Plymouth Brethren which resulted in many of the same issues for those who left. If you want to read a book about a child held hostage to the beliefs/dreams of their parents I recommend Wavewalker (reviewed here).