The Westboro Baptist Church is known for its controversial eschatology and its hatred of homosexuals. But is there a psychological basis for Pastor Fred Phelps’s hatred? How better to find out than to listen to Phelps’s estranged children. In this video, the children who have left the fold say that their father’s ill will toward homosexuality is just one part of a larger world of hate.
“[Phelps] had the emotional maturity, in my view, maybe of a fourth grader – and that’s on a good day!”, says one of Phelps’s estranged daughters. And as bad as it is for the victims of Westboro’s protests, it was worse for the Phelps’s children. They were beaten to the point of suffering serious injuries, and this propensity for violence led many of them to abandon the Church.
In short, there is far more to the Westboro Baptist Church than is immediately apparent.
Phelps abused his children?
Also, if there is a more general hatefulness to his nature, where does THAT come from?