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dcnovice -> RE: "The Face of Hate": Westboro Baptist (5/7/2012 4:42:46 PM)
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Sure. I was slow to register myself. But a friend is an editor there, and I wanted to be able to read her stuff.
Some bits from the interview:
quote:
Westboro members say their purpose is not to convert souls. So why do they picket?
They say it’s obedience to God. They feel like God told them to do this, so they’re going to do it, regardless of public response. They use the same biblical passages used to justify any kind of preaching by any church: “Make it known to the world,” that kind of scripture.
They would say they know their preaching won’t save anybody. They are absolute predestinarians who believe that God chooses not just salvation and damnation, but everything. Not a sparrow will fall without it being God’s will. These beliefs, when taken together, make up the core of hyper-Calvinism. You are not saved because you heard them preaching; you are only saved because God wants you.
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Did the actual church service resemble mainstream Christian worship?
I had seen them preaching hate-filled messages on the streets. What amazed me was that they were saying the same thing in the church service—how do people come back Sunday after Sunday to hear this? Nothing new is being presented. I saw a lot of circling the wagons, with sermons about things like Noah and the flood and how only eight people got on the ark. This church is the ark, so if you’re a part of this church you’re getting on. The sermons are actually very typical of themes addressed in Calvinist teaching: questions of how you know that you are in or how you know that they are out.
So the attraction is the appeal of being part of the “in group.”
Exactly. And I could see the attractiveness of that in a world that is fragmented and scary, especially if you are not okay with doubt or gray areas.
Fred Phelps’ preaching is really a rhetorical act. You want to laugh at the jokes he’s making, and you want to be part of that group. He would say, “As it says in ...” and then he would drop the scripture and one or two people would call it out, or sometimes he would say, “Jon, what’s that Bible verse again?” And Jon better know it. It almost reminded me of law school, the level of pressure in a service.
Did children participate in this public biblical examination?
No, no. Neither did the women.
How were women expected to behave?
They can’t cut their hair at all, and they wear head coverings during religious services. But they don’t have to wear what I would consider modest clothing. I would sometimes see women wearing clothes I wouldn’t let my daughter wear to church, like shorts from Victoria’s Secret Pink collection, but also head coverings.
I was struck by how the congregation operated. It’s almost eerie if you are used to other kinds of church services. Nobody makes a peep; there’s no disruptive behavior, even from the kids.
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Did you ever feel drawn into the church’s perspective?
There was never a moment where I thought, gosh, let me join this church, but the appeal of the community—I could see that. I also think that church members create a culture that makes it uncomfortable to leave, and that becomes a high hurdle.
Because if you leave you are basically excommunicated?
They wouldn’t say “excommunicated.” They’ll take you off the church rolls, so you are excommunicated, but it amounts to more than simply excommunication from church services; it is de facto shunning because, as [Fred Phelps’ daughter] Shirley has said, “We don’t have time to talk to people who aren’t part of the church.” Shirley has one son who has left, Josh, who has publicly said, “I would like to have my mom be part of my life,” though he doesn’t agree with her theology.
So Shirley’s response to her son’s departure has been silence?
Oh no! She told everybody publicly that she’d just as soon line up all of her kids and punch them in their noses as let Josh back into her house, because she would be such a bad parent to give the message that it’s okay to leave this church.
Do you have the sense that she has any grief around his absence?
I can’t imagine how there couldn’t be. But if you go into Shirley’s house, on the refrigerator there are pictures of all of Shirley’s kids in foam picture frames, all in birth order, only Josh’s is gone—and no one has pushed the pictures of his two surrounding siblings closer together. Instead, there’s just a hole.
Shirley would say that he’s clearly not one of the elect since he left the church, so she’s not going to be in heaven with him anyway. For her to want Josh there would be like telling God, “You are wrong about this.” They probably don’t have an expectation that all of them will be chosen for salvation. That’s, again, that cold calculus of Calvinism, that maybe makes it easier when family members walk away.
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What does the Westboro Baptist Church activity, and our response to it, say about our culture?
It has illuminated for me the homophobia of some forms of conservative Christianity, and I find that far more dangerous than Westboro Baptist. Westboro makes those other guys look reasonable; conservative Christians make efforts to distinguish their own anti-gay message from Westboro Baptist’s. But Westboro is clearly a historic part of Christianity. There is a long strain of hyper-Calvinism in this country. Broader conservative Christianity does believe that God acts divinely in negative ways. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes are said to be God’s punishment for Pokemon or voodoo or whatever evil thing Japan or Haiti or New Orleans has done.
What struck you about the way people responded to Westboro?
Some of the most progressive people fell for their homophobic and misogynistic taunts and responded with hostility. I was discouraged by how normative that kind of behavior was. Yet I don’t feel discouraged in my faith at all. It’s not as if I’m looking at this situation and saying, “Oh no, what’s wrong with the world?” I looked at this and said, “Passionate, devoted, intelligent people get led in the wrong direction.”
How do you think people should respond?
I don’t think if you ignore them they will go away, because they are not motivated primarily by a response. I think what’s more important is showing solidarity for your community: Make sure that those being targeted are loved and supported.
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