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

by Megan Phelps-Roper

So we called the truth a lie and rewrote history—as though it were in our power to dictate reality so long as it was in the church’s judgment and interest. So long as we all held the line, no one could prevail against us.

I was stunned listening to the sudden shift in how the elders spoke, their tender and heartfelt praise for my parents’ boundless dedication and sacrifice abruptly decaying into a noxious contempt.

elders’ unscriptural will to punish. By their implacable demands for unquestioning obedience. By their pernicious need for superiority and control. They had developed a toxic sense of certainty in their own righteousness, seizing for themselves the role of the ultimate arbiter of divine truth—and they now seemed willing to lay waste to anyone who disagreed with them. It was a heinous arrogance and sinfulness that could not be denied.

“Girls?” Mom called out. We turned. “You can always come back.” Her hope broke me more than her tears.

He flipped the bar over and started teaching me about the kosher symbols on the packaging, while I listened earnestly and held a GOD HATES JEWS sign.