Westboro Baptist Church and the Rest of Christianity


Back in 2015 the New Yorker published a long article about a granddaughter of Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. The granddaughter, Megan Phelps-Roper, had held a leadership position. Over time she had many on-line discussions of the Bible with "outsiders." After a few years of this she left the church. A young Phelps man who had left the family spoke at an atheist conference I attended a few years ago. 

Entwined with her experience debating the Bible, however, was the Phelps men taking over leadership positions in the church from Phelps women. This was as troubling to Phelps-Roper as the alternative views of the Bible. There was no reason, based on the Bible, for men to rule over women. The men were mistaken, she concluded. Eventually, she and a sister left the church. 

The original founder, lawyer Fred Phelps, had encouraged women to take on leadership positions. The women were good at the gay hating and Bible thumping. There was only one explanation for men taking over, greed for power. 

Which brings us to the rest of Christianity. Those parts of it which see men as the only logical gender to preach from the pulpit are barely better than the male descendants of Fred Phelps. The justification for males only to hold these positions has never been there and this lack of justification is slowly being seen clearly the what it is, males using the Bible to wrongly claim power.

The gutsy departure of Megan Phelps-Roper should be a signal to all of Christianity that women will not take their second place standing in all places forever. Saying, "Our women are happy with their second class status" is no doubt what the Phelps men thought--and probably still think. Megan Phelps-Roper wrote a popular book and, though she has an ordinary day job, travels around the country telling her story. 

I'm sure nearly all of Christianity sees the Westboro Baptist Church as a outlier with no relevance to important parts of the faith, it may indeed have something to teach others: Don't rely on women accepting second class status forever. 

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