Megan Phelps-Roper was born into the Westboro Baptist Church, a religious cult called the most rabid hate groups in America. Megan was a true believer and one of the Church’s most vocal advocates...until one day, she changed her mind.
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Pushkin. My mom used to actually say this about the Bible. You can some of the Bible in three words, obey, obey, obey. Megan felps Roper grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church, a religious cult out of Topeka, Kansas that's often called the most obnoxious and rapid hate group in America. Meghan was a fervent believer in everything Westborough stood for, but when she was in her mid twenties, Meghan decided to leave it all behind, her family, her community, and everything she had ever believed to be true. It felt like this physical, like like I had a giant boulder sitting on my chest and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't see around it, and I had no vision of the future. I had no idea what my life was going to look like today. A story of someone who was absolutely persuaded by terrible ideas until one day she changed her mind. I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans, a show that dives deep into the world of change and hopefully gets us to think differently at that change in our own lives. All right, Megan, So I'd love to start from the beginning. Your grandfather started the Westboro Baptist Church, right, tell me more about the church. So what did you guys believe in. We believed that we were the elect of God, this very small remnant that was bound for heaven, and that basically almost everyone else in the world was headed for hell, that God had condemned them because of their sins. And so for me, how I came into that was when I was five years old, my family started protesting, protesting all across the country, usually several times a week, and every single day in my hometown. Our most infamous message was God Hates fags. So it started as a protest movement against the LGBTQ community, but as I say, like it very quickly expanded to include everybody who wasn't part of our church. Were you able to comprehend what those signs were even saying did you understand what it is that you were actually protesting? To bring it back to that scene, yeah, So after church it started. After church one Sunday, we kind of piled into our vehicles and drove It was about a half a mile. This park was about a half a mile from the church, and we walked out there with these signs I couldn't read at the time. Of course, it was just before I started kindergarten, and I remember, you know, people of course were very angry the messages on our signs. Uh. You know, one of the very early ones what said gays are worthy of death. And you know, people saw those signs and were immediately inflamed. And people would start like driving their cars at us, jumping out of their cars, like parking in the middle of the street, you know, these busy thoroughfare and to come after us on foot. And so you know, my dad and and the kind of older men in the church would come and try to, you know, form a kind of barricade between us and you know, counter protesters and people who came out to attack us. And at the time, of course, I did not understand Westboro's theology in all of its particulars. But the main theme that I understood was about obedience. And this was a theme that was you know, constantly harped upon in my family. So it's the idea that if you obey God, how bless you. And if you disobey God, then he will curse you. And so my family taught me that this was the definition of love. What we were doing to go out and warn people of the consequences of their sins that if they continue to go down this path of supporting you know, the LGBTQ community, or fornication or adultery, you know, which my family and church defined as to include divorce and remarriage. To go down this path is to incur necessarily the curses of God. We considered it a great privilege that we got to go and speak the truth into this, you know, the language that he used. We get to go in and inject a little Bible truth into this insane orgy of fag lies. That's how we put it, and that's how they talked about, you know, death generally, it could never be just you know, somebody dying of natural causes, you know, of old age or something. It's like, no, this was a punishment from God because this person was a sinner. I was kind of marinating in that ideology all the time. It was absolutely something that I lived and breathed and desperately wanted to, you know, to be a good and proper advocate for So when I graduated from college and you know, I learned about Twitter, it was something that I really, I thought, Okay, well, this could be a new avenue for us to get this message out. Can you tell me a bit more about what your Twitter exchanges were like. So, yeah, when I got on Twitter, at one of the first people that I targeted because the Jewish community at that point was very much in focus of the church, and it was around the time at the High Holidays, and I reached out to this man named David Abbottball who ran a blog called Julicious, and I think my first tweet said something so I mean to him was something about how about Jewish people needing to really repent? And you know, I thought he mistook the tone of my tweet because he responded with thanks Megan, that's handy what with youngpoor coming up. So then I like made sure the next message wouldn't be misunderstood. I told him that Whish customs were dead, wrote rituals that would lead them all to hell. So that started this you know, kind of back and forth where at the at the beginning, you know, it started out very hostile, but very quickly David changed his tone. And and not just David, but there was there were other people on the platform too who took this kind of more relaxed as I'm gonna understant that's quite the right word this. It just it just wasn't as aggressive they were. They were willing to ask questions and to be calm and to really try to understand where I was coming from instead of just assuming the worst of me and my family and our motives, and their willingness to listen ultimately allowed them to find these internal inconsistencies in our doctrine. And so David actually ended up being the first person to find one of those internal inconsistencies, and it was really mind blowing for me, and I refused to admit to him at the time. You know, he had clearly, you know, pointed out this contradiction, and it wasn't something that I could argue my way out of, and coming from a family full of lawyers who had been teaching me this ideology every day, you know, essentially from the time I was old enough to understand language. For me not to have the answer felt, you know, I felt like at a complete loss in that moment. So I didn't have an answer for the contradiction. I shut down the conversation and then I just stopped talking to him for a while what was the contradiction It was, you know, it's it's so funny looking bad because it's a relatively you know, small point of theology, or seemingly so. It was about a sign that we had that said death penalty for fags. And I should say I the only reason I continued to use that language is because I think it's important too to show kind of the depths of you know, the destructiveness of our of our message. So that's what the sign said, it's calling for the death penalty for gay people. And you know, David pointed out, what didn't Jesus say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone? And you know, we had an answer for that because people would you know, throw that verse at us, And what we would say is, we're not casting stones. We're preaching words like, we're not actually out trying to you know, murder anybody. And David, you know, pointed out the obvious, you know problem with an argument, which is like, yeah, but you're advocating that the government cast stones, which he's exactly right, that's what we were doing. And it had never occurred to me. So again, this is the moment that I first kind of you know feel like whoa like, I feel like I've missed something here. And then but then David kept going. He said, and didn't your mother have your oldest brother out of wedlock? And we had an answer for that too, and the answer was that, you know, God doesn't require sinlessness, that's not the standard of God. He requires repentance. And of course my mom repented of that sin, and it's not like she's you know, she was still committing forn occasion. And David said, yeah, but if you had instituted the death penalty for that sin, she would have been killed and would not have had the opportunity to repent and be forgiven. And that realization, like my family would not exist without the mercy that my mother experienced, like the fact that she lived in a society where she was not murdered for that sin or executed rather for that sin. I was, just, like I said, at a complete loss. It's interesting because David's approach with you reminds me of this concept in cognitive science called moral reframing, and it basically says that we're more effective at changing people's minds when we ground our arguments in ways that affirm rather than threaten their moral values. So rather than you know, trying to undermine the entire belief system, right, rather than trying to challenge all the axioms, right, the fundamental ideology, you roote your arguments in basically the language they speak. And it seems like what David was doing was grounding his arguments to you in terms of existing values that you had, right, and that had he gone, you know, the extra step of saying began what you think is absolutely that shit crazy, it probably would not have worked as well. Can you can you share your thoughts on that? Yeah? Absolutely, this is so amazing. I didn't realize there was a word for that. I hadn't heard that phrase moral reframing. The questions and the doubts often start with internal inconsistencies or the group's failure to live up to its own standards. That this is This is how doubt creeps in initially, and then the system overall can ultimately be undermined. But it has to start with those very small things. And like you said, you are affirming or or utilizing, you know, source material that they already find compelling. But you are also you know, by asking questions and trying to understand where they're coming from. You know, you are signaling to them that they're being which tends to make people more receptive to hearing about your ideas as well. So, I mean, when David is asking me all these questions, David, and you know a lot of other people on Twitter, when they're asking me these questions, you're hearing kind of other learning about other parts of their their lives and such, developing these essentially you know, these relationships, however distant and kind of tenuous it is. And that was I experienced that over and over again on Twitter. Un tell there was this you know, community of people that I that I did feel like I had some kind of connection to. You know. That was the beginning of the process of It was like the thread that started to unravel the rest of the tapestry of Westbroo's ideology. In my mind, will be right back with a slight change of plants. Megan's faith in Westborough was beginning to falter. In the spring of twenty eleven, another crack in her belief system formed when a group of Westborough's male leaders turned on Meghan's mom. They said she wasn't following the rules. They called her a troublemaker, and they stripped her of all her church duties. Meghan's mom was devastated. The church had meant everything to her. It was the first time I'd watched it happened to other members of the church, and I was never close enough to those people to really challenge it even in my own mind. And seeing it happened to my mother, who I spent so much time with, so much of my day to hear the things that the other church members were saying about her, I knew that they were wrong, and it was a really terrifying thing for me to be feeling these things and to be rejecting the judgment of the church on any issue. It made me feel as if, you know, Satan was whispering in my ear, and this was a test from God, and I was failing it because I didn't just go along with it the way that everybody else seemed to be. Was there one moment in particular where you felt, Okay, now I'm fully beyond the point of return. Yeah, there was this moment in the summer of twenty twelve. So I was painting in a friend's basement with my sister. We were supposed to be covering up these purple stripes with white paint, and I just I advocate for that. I'm not a fan of purple stripes on the wall. You know. Funny thing in hindsight, like the more I tried to cover that, that cover that paint up, nothing was working. You could still see the darkness underneath. Is this a metaphor? I know? And it's like it was, it was. It was a horrible moment. So I was painting in the basement with my sister, or painting opposite walls so our backs are to each other. This incredibly sad music is playing on the speaker. What was it? What was the song? It was called just One by a blind pilot, And you know, and I'm barely hearing, you know, the music because at this point, you know, all of those all of those questions and doubts just building and building in my mind. And there's the level of shame and regret and humiliation that I felt in that moment. It's hard to describe because I mean, if you if you imagine, like what it would be like to look back and think that you had spent decades of your life sewing doom and discord to the rest of the world, offering nothing but condemnation, going to people in their most vulnerable moments and telling them that God was punishing them that they deserved, you know, this, this horrible thing that's happened to their family. You know. So I'm looking back at all of those things and realizing that, oh my God, this wasn't the work of God. This wasn't you know, a necessary divine truth. No, this was Gramps, you know, this was his understanding of the world. And it's completely wrong. And so to have this thing that I had seen as such a blessing and this just what a beautiful gift to go and speak for God. It's like having this beautiful gem in your hand and then suddenly realize that it's like it's it's not a gem. It's like turning to like ashes. It was just horrifying. So was there a particular song lyric that precipitated these thoughts? You know? The line was will I break and will I bow? If I cannot let it go break bo And I'm like, I'm sitting there again a whole onto all of these questions, and like the song continues, and I can't I know that I can't let those questions go there was I was never going to be able to let it go. And then you know, it gets to a little a few lines later and he says, I can't believe we get just one life, you know, is what he's talking about. And the idea of, you know, having spent all at that point, all of my one life doing nothing but but going around hurting people with all the best intentions. We had done this thing that had caused so much destruction in so many lives, including our own, and the idea of spending the rest of my life that way, I just that was the moment I knew that I had just gone too far down the path in my mind that I would never be able to go back and pretend. I actually thought in that moment, like could I pretend for the sake of my families, just so I could keep them, to not have to lose them. You know, I'm the third of eleven children, you know, fifty some cousins, and we all lived within a few blocks of each other. The church members were our entire life, They were in our entire community, the only people we were ever allowed to be close with. And the idea of walking away and losing all of them immediately in one Fell Swope, but they would never talk to me again. That the prospect of that kind of loss is just almost impossible to comprehend. I was wondering if you could bring me back to the day when your parents found out that you were planning to leave. Yeah. So, yeah, we had My sister and I had been making plans for a couple of months or so. At that point, we had started moving out boxes, and but we kept delaying our exit because we were we were just hoping that if we if we could just convince them, you know, maybe we could just move it all back and pretend like it, you know, it had never happened. Maybe we could convince them that they were wrong, and then we wouldn't have to that we would be saved, you know, from our plans. And and so one day a friend, um, a former friend actually, you know, she had she knew all about our plans to leave, and and she sent a message to our parents, you know, telling them that we were going to leave. And you know that, of course, immediately brought everything to a crashing halt. Um. We had barely been able to keep it together as it was. Um, but then when that when that happened. We just knew this. We can't delay this any longer. We just we just have to We just have to explain and we have to go. What was the most important thing that you packed? I mean, you're packing up your entire life and you're not sure you're you're ever going to return. I copied, you know, sixty some DVDs worth of home movies, and you know, watching the scenes play like it was a funeral reel. It was just it was it was horrifying. But it was important for me to have those things to take with me. But it was also important for me to leave things behind. You know, as I was packing, I was looking at all of these letters and cards, birthday cards and just you know, thank you cards, things that my family had given me that I kept in this box. And as I'm going through it and I'm reading, there's a qualification on all of these cards. I love you because you love the Lord. I love you because you walk this path with us, things like that, and so everything that I wrote to my family in those months, it was I love you forever and ever, no matter what, and I'm always going to be here for you no matter what happens. Things like that, and you know when you when you know that this connection is going to be so cleanly severed, it just brings everything into very sharp focus. So you know, I'm thinking about I'm trying to put myself in your shoes. So there's the day you left, and you know, anxiety, trepidation, fear, adrenaline, it's all getting you through the day. And then there's the next morning when you wake up and this stark reality hits you, and you know it occurred to me. I think it's easy to see your childhood as having been oppressive, right bound by the Church's ideology and its rigidity. But I do feel that there is an ease that comes from never having to ask existential questions as a child. Every answer is spoon fed to you, every decision and action is licensed, And I'm just curious to know how do you transition to a world right you're waking up that next morning none of this is true anymore. What it felt like for me, it felt like this physical, like like I had a giant boulder sitting on my chest and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't see a round it, and I had no vision of the future. I had no idea what my life was going to look like, and I had every reason to believe that, you know, the fact that I had so boldly, you know, gone forth in the name of Westboro and you know, done all these horrible things, and that nobody had any reason to give me a second chance, and I had left the only people you know who had any reason to love me. You know, Once it was actually done, there was an enormous sense of relief too. Along with that boulder, there was this weird sense, strange sense of relief that I could now live and behave and speak according to my conscience, to not have to act for the sake of my family, That I could be upfront with the people around me about what I really thought, about what I really believed, and to ask the questions that I needed to ask, and talk to, you know, to people and try to understand different ways of thinking and seeing the world. It was incredibly valuable to be able to be open. When you reflect back on your time in Westboro, it must feel at least slightly jarring to reconcile that Megan with the Megan you are today. And you know, I think it raises some interesting philosophical questions about what it really means to be you, right. I mean, so technically you were the same physical person, you had the same consciousness, all the same memories, but you held a starkly different and harmful worldview. And how do you feel about that? I mean, do you actively try and distance yourself from that? Megan? I do not try to distance myself from it. When I left, I did not delete you know, twenty some thousand tweets, you know, where I had been posting for the church and saying all those heinous things. I didn't go and delete all my Facebook photo and you know, pictures from pickets and such, and so I still get these memories popping up on my Facebook about about these things, and sometimes in some moments I'm like, wow, I cannot believe that was my life, and it does feel distant. But I think part of the reason, part of what helps me have such a posture of grace toward other people and even you know, specifically people that I believe are doing harmful things, is because I feel so close to the person that I was, Like, I remember what it is like to be absolutely persuaded by very bad ideas, and so for me, I've been extremely grateful that people have been willing to allow me to show the nuance of this picture, to see the hope in that, because if somebody is doing bad but has good intentions, you know you at least have the intentions to tap into. If you can just help them reframe whatever the situation is, then there is a possibility for change. And I just I am a prisoner to that hope because I know what it's like to believe so strongly in something and then to now believe you completely the opposite. In so many ways, I admire that despite the discomfort in having to embrace prior megan, it is essentially the thing that allows you to sustain the empathy you feel. In many ways, it's something you probably feel you have to do in order to feel not fully alienated from your family, right like the people that you love, like you have to cultivate this mindset. I believe that I just responded in a very human way to people who treated me like a human being, and that if my family were exposed to the same kind of thing that I was exposed to, that they would have left too, And so they just haven't yet had the experiences that I had for it to become undeniable for me, that we were wrong and that I had to find a different way. They haven't had those experiences yet, and that's the only difference between them and me. It seems like there are a lot of counterfactual worlds where if things had played out ever so differently, it might have been your family who left and not you, right, And I think that's such an important thought experiment, because sometimes the best way to empathize with others, to forgive others, to under try and understand where they're coming from, is to recognize that there's not that much that actually separates you from them. What's your relationship like with your your parents? Do you talk to them? I missed my mom so much. We spent so much time together all the time, and I, you know, when I see videos of her now, especially back when there was vine. I remember just shortly after I left, just watching videos of her on a loop, those six six second videos just to hear just to hear her voice. It's very one sided. So they don't believe that they can have anything to do with me, you know, on this way. We're daughter and I, you know, have to show me that that I'm doing wrong so that I can, you know, understand, understand that I'm doing wrong and repent. So largely it is, you know, the our relationship consists of me sending letters and birthday cards and wedding gifts and tweets, and whenever I'm in Topeka, like I always go and like walk around the block where I used to live, and I leave something in the door for for my parents. And I don't try to get them to come out and talk to me, because I'm not trying to put them on the spot or make them feel like they're betraying the church or the rest of the family. But it's important to me to leave those things for them so that they know without a doubt that I have not forgotten them and that I love them, and you know, I know, And this is one of the things that I think is the reason that I'm not an emotional basket case, is that I understand that they love me. In spite of the fact that they have completely cut off this communication with me. I understand that they love me and that they're doing this because they believe it is for my good, and that the way that they raised me left me with no doubt of this. You know, deep motherly, fatherly love that they have for me, and that's something that I can't forget and that I won't forget. So having gone through such a momentous change, do you fear change? No? I really relish it. Actually, I think you know. One of the things that I realized after I left was what an enormous burden it was to feel like I had the answers to everything, or that I had to have the answers to everything. What limits that places on your mind and on your life? And now, like, what an amazing thing to realize, like how big the world is? Like Wow, all these things that I just took for granted as true and necessary, and the way you know it's it's all questionable, and it's all the possibility there is amazing. It's incredible to realize how much is undiscovered, and like what a joy that makes life. Hey, thanks for listening. Join me next week when I talk with Adam Grant, we discuss how incredibly challenging it can be to change your mind about just about anything. Adam and I talk about science based strategies we can use to help encourage this change in ourselves. People generally assume that they're less biased than others. Right, This is my favorite bias. It's I'm not biased biased, right, everybody else is biased. I am objective. I see things with perfect neutrality, and I think that the higher your intelligence, the more likely you are to fall victim to that bias. A Slight Change of Plans is created an executive produce by me Maya Shunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lang, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben Tolliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louise Gara who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. Megan, I just want to say thanks so much for joining me in this conversation. It was absolutely fascinating and can you say something back? Sure? Well, I guess it feelings one sided, folks. I'm one of us to join the conversation. I'm totally kidding. I thought I thought I was supposed to be quiet so you could just talk