Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church

by Megan Phelps-Roper

Why would we be punished for unintentionally flashing an inch of skin on our back or belly, while our brothers were permitted to swim shirtless, with all of theirs on full display? Why were girls in other Westboro families subject to more lenient rules of modesty? How could the standards of God differ from house to house? Let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Sam dismissed our objections, seeming to believe that they originated from a desire to dress like sluts. Grace and I knew better. That the problem went far deeper: hypocrisy, and the dawning realization that the rules we had been taught—the divine rules of a sovereign God—were being systematically replaced by the caprices of fallible men. Church members had always denied that we were “interpreting” the Bible, insisting that we were only reading and obeying what was plainly written in the Scriptures. But once I was excluded from the discussions, it soon became obvious that interpretation was inescapable—that it was happening daily, hourly, and always in ways that protected and expanded the authority of these eight elders.