Religion’s low point, Westboro Baptist Church

There is at least one rallying point for non-believers and people of most religious faiths: and that is in our dismayed reaction to the activities of the so-called Westboro Baptist Church.

The group is most well-known for its extreme protest activities, including those which are anti-gay. They frequently picket at public events and funerals, often the funerals of fallen military soldiers. They display large, colorful signs with messages like, “God hates fags”, “Thank God for 9-11″ and “God hates America.”

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is an independent Baptist church headed by family patriarch, Fred Phelps and is based in Topeka, Kansas. The church, comprised mostly of some 70 family members, who live on connected properties, believe that only members of their group will be saved by God from the torments of hell. Their message is that God is wrathful and judgmental, and that true worshipers must rejoice at his judgments of the wicked, i.e. fallen soldiers, 9-11, etc. They believe that God is punishing the United States for tolerating gays and that 9-11 was a beginning of that punishment. Fred Phelps goes so far as to say that God led America into a war they couldn’t win and that every fallen soldier is God’s judgement, for which true Christians should rejoice.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is not in our hurt feelings, dismay or disgust at this group’s twisted and hateful theology – but in the way that this group is indoctrinating a new generation of young people. Children born into the WBC are prohibited from making friends outside the group and must picket several times a week. But sadder still, in a documentary by film maker Louis Theroux, you can see for yourself how the children are indoctrinated with hate from early childhood, how they are made to fear God and eternal fiery damnation, and how they are denied a normal, healthy childhood.

Below is the 58 minute film, documenting the Westboro Baptist Church by film maker Louis Theroux. While this film left me with an ill feeling in the pit of my stomach, what I appreciated the most about it was Theroux’s fair and balanced journalistic approach.  He is sincere and soft-spoken and for the most part it is the church members who narrate the film with their dialogue. Shirley Phelps leads the ‘tour’ so to speak and I don’t think anything could be more damning than to hear her words coming from her own mouth.