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Thoughts on Fred Phelps
Mar. 20th, 2014 09:28 pmNow for something different, though topical.
If you haven't heard by now from numerous news outlets, Fred Phelps, Sr., founder of the Westboro Baptist Church has died. (Oh yes, they of the "God hates fags" picketing fame.) One of his estranged sons reported that he was near death a few days ago, and since then, certain news about him has trickled out.
What's interesting, however, is the own church's media response to his death. Most notable to me is the last paragraph of their statement:
God forbid, if every little soul at the Westboro Baptist Church were to die at this instant, or to turn from serving the true and living God, it would not change one thing about the judgments of God that await this deeply corrupted nation and world. That is the pinnacle of your hopes, and by far the most vain. Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, or the power of God.
If this is true, then they can feel free to stay silent for the rest of their days, but I digress a little. Let me back up.
What I found telling is the news that within the last few years, Fred Phelps, Sr. had been excommunicated from his own church by a board of directors that had among its members three of his own sons. In fact, most of the Westboro congregation is made of his own family (with thirteen children, I suppose this is understandable), and the family who have left the church were mostly estranged from him. Still, he persisted in his faith-based railing against the supposed evils of the modern world until he was ejected from his post by his own family, all the while being despised by other members of his family for starting the church in the first place. Here's a man who was moved from the church he worked so hard to build to a house away from the church to live out his dying days mostly hated by those around him, it seems.
And why? Why did this man, who led this church since the 1950s, become so hated by his own members? Because after the church bounced their longtime spokeswoman, who not only spoke for the church but also defended it in their high-profile cases involving their right to picket military funerals because it constituted free speech, Phelps called for the members of his church to be kinder to each other. After all that picketing, Fred Phelps, Sr. wanted more kindness! This was apparently too much for the board to bear.
It's hard to imagine this man was once was a prominent civil rights attorney. It's even harder to think that this man, who advocated the picketing of basically anything to stay in the public eye no matter how much it incensed other people in order to espouse his very hateful message under the guise of religious superiority, could be ousted by his own flesh and blood for saying they should be kinder to each other.
I don't know how the man died because I wasn't there, if he suffered, if he had any idea of the damage he had done to other people or if he understood even a little of what it felt like to stand on the other side of the hate his family spreads, and given that all my facts have come from the media, it's difficult to really understand what happened or where he came from.
Still, in a very sad way, with all the turmoil over the course of his life, Fred Phelps, Sr.'s lonely death seems almost fitting.
EDIT: And if you're all, TLDR, here's a comic that sums it up pretty nicely.
If you haven't heard by now from numerous news outlets, Fred Phelps, Sr., founder of the Westboro Baptist Church has died. (Oh yes, they of the "God hates fags" picketing fame.) One of his estranged sons reported that he was near death a few days ago, and since then, certain news about him has trickled out.
What's interesting, however, is the own church's media response to his death. Most notable to me is the last paragraph of their statement:
God forbid, if every little soul at the Westboro Baptist Church were to die at this instant, or to turn from serving the true and living God, it would not change one thing about the judgments of God that await this deeply corrupted nation and world. That is the pinnacle of your hopes, and by far the most vain. Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, or the power of God.
If this is true, then they can feel free to stay silent for the rest of their days, but I digress a little. Let me back up.
What I found telling is the news that within the last few years, Fred Phelps, Sr. had been excommunicated from his own church by a board of directors that had among its members three of his own sons. In fact, most of the Westboro congregation is made of his own family (with thirteen children, I suppose this is understandable), and the family who have left the church were mostly estranged from him. Still, he persisted in his faith-based railing against the supposed evils of the modern world until he was ejected from his post by his own family, all the while being despised by other members of his family for starting the church in the first place. Here's a man who was moved from the church he worked so hard to build to a house away from the church to live out his dying days mostly hated by those around him, it seems.
And why? Why did this man, who led this church since the 1950s, become so hated by his own members? Because after the church bounced their longtime spokeswoman, who not only spoke for the church but also defended it in their high-profile cases involving their right to picket military funerals because it constituted free speech, Phelps called for the members of his church to be kinder to each other. After all that picketing, Fred Phelps, Sr. wanted more kindness! This was apparently too much for the board to bear.
It's hard to imagine this man was once was a prominent civil rights attorney. It's even harder to think that this man, who advocated the picketing of basically anything to stay in the public eye no matter how much it incensed other people in order to espouse his very hateful message under the guise of religious superiority, could be ousted by his own flesh and blood for saying they should be kinder to each other.
I don't know how the man died because I wasn't there, if he suffered, if he had any idea of the damage he had done to other people or if he understood even a little of what it felt like to stand on the other side of the hate his family spreads, and given that all my facts have come from the media, it's difficult to really understand what happened or where he came from.
Still, in a very sad way, with all the turmoil over the course of his life, Fred Phelps, Sr.'s lonely death seems almost fitting.
EDIT: And if you're all, TLDR, here's a comic that sums it up pretty nicely.
