Westboro Baptist Church first came to my attention via Louis Theroux’s documentary, The Most Hated Family in America. He did a follow-up years later, Surviving America’s Most Hated Family, which I think was part of my Covid-lockdown viewing. Anyway, it’s the reason that Megan Phelps-Roper’s memoir, Unfollow, made its way onto my reading stack.

Phelps-Roper was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church – a fire-and-brimstone sect, known for their aggressively homophobic and anti-Semitic views and for picketing the funerals of American soldiers. The author attended her first picket at age five, and in her teens became instrumental in spreading the church’s messages via social media. Through all of this, she attended mainstream schools, where her beliefs sat uncomfortably alongside those of her peers.

The spoiler is in the title – in 2012, age 26, Phelps-Roper left the church with her sister, Grace, cutting themselves off from their family and the only life they’d known.

Although I was curious about the behind-the-scenes world of Westboro, I anticipated that there was little the author could say to explain her involvement, given she was born into it – children are hard-wired to trust their parents. For many years, Phelps-Roper had no reason to challenge them or the views of Westboro (we tend not to challenge the familiar, or what feels safe). Furthermore, children have no power, so there was Megan, bound to her parents, her community (who were essentially all extended biological family), with the weight of the Bible upon her –

…my grandfather had a different perspective on the opposition and scorn we faced: it was proof that God was with us. He would quote Jesus, who warned his disciples to expect the hatred of the world: If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

Ultimately, a number of events – notably her mother and sister being questioned by church elders over invented infractions, and all church members no longer being allowed to participate in decision-making –  resulted in the author doubting her own community.

I was beginning to see that our first loyalty was not to the truth but to the church. That for us, the church was the truth, and disloyalty was the only sin unforgivable.

She states that a vexing thought had begun to take hold –

As members of Westboro, we behaved as if everyone in all the word were accountable to us, as if they all were steadfastly bound to obey our preaching – because we were the only ones who knew the true meaning of God’s Word. Presidents and kings, judges and governors, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa – all were subject to our understanding and our judgement. And all the while, we ourselves were accountable to no one outside our fences.

The majority of the book explores Phelps-Roper’s childhood, explaining how particular passages and lessons from the Bible were applied to Westboro’s extreme views. I got bogged down in these sections (perhaps because I have zero religious education, and my starting point for the book was that the views of Westboro are completely unfathomable to me).

We were powerless to alter our destiny, but the surest sign we could have that we were one of God’s elect? Our obedience. I came to love the clarity and simplicity.

When the author begins high school, the pace picks up – there’s more to challenge her – but still, the ‘challenges’ feel glossed over, and are discussed at a superficial level, all within the context of church beliefs. I wanted to know about stuff like how she managed comments from classmates, or awareness of fashion trends (that she wasn’t allowed to wear), or missing out on school dances… I wanted to understand the interface between her Westboro life and the life other teens were living.

After leaving the church, Phelps-Roper reflects on her new life and rejection of long-held beliefs, noting that ‘…we had never learned how to ‘agree to disagree’, because to church members, such a concept was blasphemous.’

As the people who she once reviled show her genuine kindness and understanding, she reflects on the depths of her ignorance, and says –

“I didn’t hate them… I thought that God hated them. I thought that the Bible said so. I thought that it was my duty to God to tell people that.”

Is there a happy ending? You could say that, although the author emphasises that her leaving was not a clear-cut decision –

It wasn’t the desire for an easy life that led me to leave. Losing them was the price of honesty. A shredded heart for a quiet conscience.

My curiosity about Westboro was probably satisfied in Theroux’s documentaries, but I’m sure readers with an interest in religion, sects and cults, will find this memoir interesting.

2.5/5

Oh my gosh… remember when cake pops were a thing?!

We’d walk to the bakery for cake pops and frosting shots.