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

by Megan Phelps-Roper

But Jacob and Esau weren’t the only ones created with their fates predetermined, Mom continued. Indeed, these twins were the standing symbols of the two types of people living in the world: the elect, represented by Jacob, chosen by God for love, mercy, honor, glory; and the reprobate, represented by Esau, chosen by God for hatred, cruelty, wrath, destruction. Of all the people who had ever existed or ever would, only a precious few were God’s elect. Narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. The vast majority, both of the living and of the dead, were created for destruction. For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. My mother must have been through this story over and over ad nauseam through the years, but she spoke as if it were the first time, her tone filled with impossible awe—as if she still couldn’t believe the elegance of this scenario, as if the beauty of this divine truth could come only from the mind of God Himself. I