God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right

by Rebecca Barrett-Fox

The congregants thanked God that they weren’t like all those hopeless people outside the church, bound for hell. So the Westboro Baptist Church’s Sunday service began, and Rebecca Barrett-Fox, a curious observer, wondered why anyone would seek spiritual sustenance through other people’s damnation. It is a question that piques many a witness to Westboro’s more visible activity—the “GOD HATES FAGS” picketing of funerals. In God Hates , sociologist Barrett-Fox takes us behind the scenes of Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church. The first full ethnography of this infamous presence on America’s Religious Right, her book situates the church’s story in the context of American religious history—and reveals as much about the uneasy state of Christian practice in our day as it does about the workings of the Westboro Church and Fred Phelps, its founder.

God Hates traces WBC’s theological beliefs to a brand of hyper-Calvinist thought reaching back to the Puritans—an extreme Calvinism, emphasizing predestination, that has proven as off-putting as Westboro’s actions, even for other Baptists. And yet, in examining Westboro’s role in conservative politics and its contentious relationship with other fundamentalist activist groups, Barrett-Fox reveals how the church’s message of national doom in fact reflects beliefs at the core of much of the Religious Right’s rhetoric. Westboro’s aggressively offensive public activities actually serve to soften the anti-gay theology of more mainstream conservative religious activism. With an eye to the church’s protest at military funerals, she also considers why the public has responded so differently to these than to Westboro's anti-LGBT picketing.

With its history of Westboro Baptist Church and its founder, and its profiles of defectors, this book offers a complex, close-up view of a phenomenon on the fringes of American Christianity—and a broader, disturbing view of the mainstream theology it at once masks and reflects.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published June 10, 2016

Reviews

[Zade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I am not at all unbiased about this book. First, Dr. Barrett-Fox was a classmate and friend of mine in grad school. I like her as a person and admire her work as a scholar. Second, I grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and went to school with the younger Phelps children. I lived only a few blocks from their "church" and have spent my entire adult life running into their protests almost every time I go home. There's a certain amount of shame that goes with being from the same town as what is probably the most widely recognized embodiment of hatred and intolerance. I also watched from a distance as friend-of-a-friend Steve Drain first investigated, then was seduced by, and ultimately took over Westboro Baptist, usurping the Phelps family's power and ultimately excommunicating Fred himself when it became clear the founder would die before the Second Coming--which contradicted the church's theology. I knew, of course, that Rebecca was in no danger of being brainwashed by the church, but the precedent set by Drain makes the quality of her objective and thorough ethnography all the more striking.

Barrett-Fox's book does a wonderful job of explaining what formerly appeared inexplicable. Her explanation of the history and theology of Calvinism provides much needed context, showing clearly that although WBC is on the far bleeding edge of evangelical extremism, it is also firmly rooted in American religious tradition. Barrett-Fox further positions WBC in relation to the present-day religious right, pointing out the ways in which WBC does the dirty work for less in-your-face churches that nevertheless share the anti-gay agenda.

Barrett-Fox does a good job of maintaining academic objectivity. She details Fred Phelps's early activism as a civil rights lawyer, complicating the reader's desire to demonize him. Ultimately, her book is a powerful and cogent defense of free speech that takes into account its dangers and discomforts.

This is an academic book and fairly dense. There's a lot of information here, but the writing is clear and the narrative engaging, so the book is accessible to general readers, not just academics.

[Samantha Parkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished "God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and The Religious Right" by Dr. Rebecca Barrett-Fox. I grew up in Kansas watching everything get protested by this group, so it was good for me to read this in-depth, honest, and thoughtful history/analysis. I learned about double predestination, the religious right, and freedom of speech. Highly recommend for kids who grew up in Kansas, lay ministers, and members and allies of the LGBTQ community.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've watched a lot of documentaries on The Westboro Baptist Church and the American religious right. No matter how 'unbiased' these documenters are you can tell what they really want to do is show people in a bad light. Now don't get me wrong, I don't agree in possibly any way with anything Westboro or the religious far right have to say but it was interesting reading a more academic book on the subject. This book gave me a lot to think about and a few different perspectives. It's well written and held my attention the entire way through.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book definitely gave me a lot to think about.