Twitter in the Westboro Baptist Church: free publicity or a savior?

Even the most hated family in America, according to Louis Theroux documentary, is able and aware of how to reach out to people. Could this be the reason why they let Theroux into their lives and spread their message through a documentary? 

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The Phelps Family

Ever since the documentary: ‘The most hated family in America’, the world became familiar with the Phelps family. Theroux’ followed the Phelps family for the first time in 2007, and four years later he met them again. (VPRO, 2019) If the Phelps family doesn’t ring a bell, maybe the Westboro Baptist Church does?

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is an American old school Baptist church founded by Fred Phelps, with around 40 member. This is where the Phelps family comes in, because most of the members of the church in Topeka are relatives of the Phelps family. Fred Phelps is the leader and at the same time (great) grandfather. He passed away in 2014. The Westboro headquarter is at the same time a residential neighborhood where all the members/family live together, on the west side of Topeka. The church has faced several accusations of brainwashing and has been criticized as a cult. (Wikipedia, 2019)

The Phelps family became famous for their pickets which includes inflammatory hate speech against LGBTQ+, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews and U.S. soldiers and politicians. You can often find them next to public roads, or at funerals of military’s and celebrity’s, and public events. You can recognize them by their large signs with hate slogans on them, targeting Jews and Gays, and many more. The church also has made statements such as “thank God for dead soldiers”, “God blew up the troops”, and “God hates America.” (Wikipedia, 2019)

In keeping up in the modern age, the Westboro Baptist Church certainly isn’t behind. You can find everything you want to know on www.godhatesfags.com, the official website of the church. On the website they describe their church as

“We adhere to the teachings of the Bible, preach against all forms of sin (e.g., fornication, adultery [including divorce and remarriage], sodomy), preach repentance and remission of sins in Christ’s name, and insist that the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace be taught and expounded publicly to all men.” (Westboro Baptist Church, n.d.)

 You can also see the public preaching schedule (pickets), read several blogs about pickets in the past, and contact them. It is a very inclusive site which looks professional.

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Members of the church as deviants 

We can see the Westboro Baptist Church as a social group, according to Becker’s ‘Outsiders’. (Becker, 1966) They are a homogeneous whole with rules within the group which members must obey to belong in the group, or to become a member. An example; on their website is written ‘God hates fags’, so members can’t be homosexual.

In case of the Phelps family, you are automatically a member because you do not have a choice when you are born, but others from outside the community can join them as well. Although you get born as a Phelps, still you must follow the rules of the church, otherwise you can get rejected. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church are seen as deviant by many, because they do not confirm to conventional norms/rules and the mainstream. The time as we know it today is all about accepting everyone, no matter what gender, color, or sexual preference. Look at our national ‘coming out day’, where people celebrate being different. (Duits, 2017) Therefore, the message of the WBC is for many people very dated and no longer taken seriously in the 21st century.

To be a member of the church there are certain rules you must obey. Such as, going to church every Sunday, attend in pickets, and girls cannot focus on boys, which is visible in Theroux’ his documentary. This identity work, as Boyd calls it, is a discursive orientation towards a set of features that are seen as emblematic of particular identities. (Boyd, 2014) In this case, the identity of a Westboro Baptist member.

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Westboro members forming a community on Twitter

In the documentary you can see that despite the fact that the Westboro Baptist Church is firmly convinced of what the church stands for, they are also aware that there are not many proponents for what they describe as normal. You can read the following sentence on their website:

“Although these doctrines are almost universally hated today, they were once loved and believed. Even though the awful, destructive, sin-encouraging lies that "God loves everyone" and "Jesus died for everyone" are being taught from nearly every pulpit in this generation, with no focus on the wrath, holiness, and judgment of God, this hasn't always been the case. If you are in a church that supposedly believes the Bible, and you are hearing these lies, then your church doesn't teach what the Bible teaches.” (WBC, sd)

“Although these doctrines are almost universally hated today, they were once loved and believed.”

For a church without many proponents it is a hard to find new members. This also applies to the Westboro Baptist Church. For that reason you must rethink the old fashioned ways of mobilizing new members. From offline to online. The platform what is very popular amongst members of the church is Twitter. They form an active community online wherein they spread tweets with facts about the church, they respond to what is going on today and the time of the year, and they are complete honest about what they think about certain topics and happenings. They use any possibility to share articles about the Westboro Baptist Church. The majority of these articles are negative, but they don’t really bother about the perspective in the articles, but they care about the amount of publicity.

Below are three different Twitter accounts, all members of the church. The first one, @GodH8sMedia, is shearing an article about a picket where a news site paid attention to. The second one, @AliWBC, is about Christmas and why they think it is a filthy lie, with the associated reasons. And the last one, @WBCRachel, is a response on a tweet from The Washington Post. The Jewish community in Jersey City is confronted with a deadly shooting. Someone from the Westboro Baptist Church response with a tweet wherein they accuse the Jews of killing Jesus Christ.

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Digital Media to find new members: There is no such thing as bad publicity

Betty Phelps, the mom of the Phelps family, is also active on Twitter. If you take a look at her Twitter account @BettyWBC you can see how she uses Twitter to spread out her, and the church it’s message. You can see that it doesn’t bother her what is said online about the church or the members. She only sees the number of views. What reminds you of the term ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity’. Betty Phelps does not care at all what is said online, she only has eye for how many people see the message of the church.

This is also the case with the tweet above. The Westboro Baptist Church organized a picket outside a concert of Kim Petras in Kansas City, a German transgender popstar. The popstar responded to it with posing in front of the picket and posted a photo of this on her Instagram page with the caption ‘update. hoes still mad…. Which was received as ‘hilariously’ and ‘legendary’. The post received 192.000 likes and over 8000 comment, and Kim herself has over 475.000 followers. (Petras, 2019) Of course, all her followers are in favor of Petras action, but at the same time all confronted with the Westboro picket and indirectly with the Westboro Baptist Church. Whether you agree with it or not. And between thousands of people, it could be, that somewhere in the world, there is this one person who thinks about the: ‘This is the thing what I have been looking for’.

How to go viral is something the family has knowledge of, anyway it looks like they know but could be it is not on purpose. This was also a big reason to give Louis Theroux the opportunity to make a documentary about the family and their beliefs. As they say in the documentary, Theroux giving them the opportunity to talk about the church and go all around the world with their messages. And this is what happened, his documentary went all around the world, and was on TV in countries such as Russia, Australia, and The Netherlands. Only in the UK it has already over 3.3 million views. (IMDB, 2007) With that they have become more known all around the world.

These instruments together, Twitter, documentaries, social media, website, can enforce globalization of the Westboro Baptist Church. There is no such thing as bad publicity. They are aware of the fact that almost everyone is against them, they are not blind. But if they can reach a lot of people, there must be a few individuals who do feel addressed by the story of the Westboro Baptist Church. And although they can only reach a few people in this way, every individual is an asset for the church.

As described in the previous paragraphs, the Westboro Baptist Church is aware of the time where we live in today where the online world is playing a big role. They have an official website, and they are not alienated of social media. Looking at their behavior online shows you that they are aware of the fact that they can reach people through online platforms.

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How Twitter helped to change the mind of members of the WCB

A former member of the church who used social media as a tool for other purposes is Megan Phelps-Roper. Megan, who became famous by her TED Talk, talks about her leaving the church in this talk. (Phelps-Roper, 2017) Megan shares details of life inside America’s most controversial church and describes how conversations on Twitter were key to her decision to leave the church.

Megan says the following thing in her TED Talk: “The end of my career in anti-gay pickets and life as I knew it, 20 years later, was partly caused by strangers on Twitter, who taught me the power of dealing with others. The line between friend and foe became more and more blurred, they saw each other’s as human beings and it changed the way we spoke to one another, these conversations planted seeds of doubt.” (Phelps-Roper, 2017)

One of the first persons she spoke to online was David, a Jew from America. The two were talking for a long time and while it was always civil, friendly conversations with genuine interest from both sides, the arguments were heated. David came see Megan at one of the pickets. Quite striking, because the members of the church also organize pickets against Jews.

“The end of my career in anti-gay pickets and life as I knew it, 20 years later, was partly caused by strangers on Twitter, who taught me the power of dealing with others.”

Megan's Twitter behavior changes over time. At first, she spearheaded Westboro’s push into the social-media age, using Twitter to offer a window into life in the church and giving it an air of accessibility. (Chen, 2015) The fact that you can only process 140 characters in one tweet made Megan think about what she wanted to tweet. So, instead of moving spreading hate from an offline environment to online one, she started to tweet about the church and that’s where the conversation with others started. (Phelps-Roper, 2019) In the tweets below you see Megan openly talking about her experience on Twitter, and about how she still loves her family very much and want them to experience the same as her.

In her Ted Talk she says the following, remarkable thing: "I started to feel like I was becoming part of this community on Twitter. And that was the first time that I really felt ashamed of what I was doing". She does not mean the Westboro community on Twitter but a community of people who share openly their opinions and most important treat each other with respect. Persons like David.

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UNFOLLOW

Megan wrote a book about her story, titled: ‘Unfollow, a Journey from Hatred to Hope, Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church’. Unfollow related Phelps-Roper’s moral awakening, her departure from the church, and how she exchanged the absolutes, grew up with for her new forms of warmth and community. It exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization. (Phelps-Roper, 2019)

What is striking about Megan’s Twitter behaviours, is that she still tries to reach out to her family. When she left the community, she knew she would never talk to her family again. But she doesn’t hold any grudge against them for not talking to her anymore. In contrast, Megan says in an interview with NPR

“Shortly after my sister and I left, we realized pretty quickly, we have nothing to lose, and we have nothing to gain by following those rules. We have nothing to lose by reaching out to them.” (Phelps-Roper, How Twitter helped change mind Westboro Baptist Church member, 2019)

Although Megan left the church voluntary, she still misses her family every day. She also makes clear that the church is not a cult because of this voluntary way out, her family even helped her pack if she liked. (Shaitly, 2016)

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Twitter as resort or as a tool for mobilizing new members

In short, Twitter plays a massive role in this story, as a tool for various motives. Betty Phelps only see views, likes, and reactions, and it does not bother her if they are negative or positive, as long as many people as possible get confronted with the Westboro Baptist Church.

In case of Megan, who found an answer on a lot of questions on Twitter, where after she start doubting the Westboro Baptist Church. Due to conversation with strangers, who were kind to her on Twitter, she began to question the church, which led up to her leaving it. Now she uses it as a tool to talk about the church and to address her family with messages of hope and love.

So, social media, in this case Twitter, has two roles in this story. On the one hand it can be a tool for free publicity. Weather it is bad or good publicity, it is still publicity for the Westboro Baptist Church. And on the other hand, it is a tool to discuss with others about the church, which led to Megan leaving the church.

It is debatable if social media has a positive or negative effect for the church. When you think of Megan, if she wouldn’t have met others on Twitter, or read stories on internet. Maybe she would still be a member of the church. This might differ some members, but it is not proven that this outweighs the publicity what social media can provide. Publicity that can bring in new members. This will remain unclear but a very interesting debate.

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References

Becker, H. S. (1966). Outsiders. New York: The Free Press, New York. Retrieved December 4, 2019

Boyd, D. (2014). It's complicated. Boyd, Danah. Retrieved December 4, 2019

Dube, R. (2009, October 7). How to handle hate Jews debate response to the WE. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from Forward: https://forward.com/news/116261/how-to-handle-hate-jews-debate-response…

Duits, L. (2017). Hoe queer ons afhelpt van hokjesdenken over seksualiteit indentiteit en gender. Retrieved Januari 2, 2020, from Brainwash: https://www.brainwash.nl/bijdrage/hoe-queer-ons-afhelpt-van-hokjesdenke…

IMDB. (2007, April 1). Title. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000764/

Petras, K. (2019, December 1). @Kimpetras. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5jT6cMFWF9/

Phelps-Roper, M. (2017, February). I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here's why I left. TEDNYC. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.ted.com/talks/megan_phelps_roper_i_grew_up_in_the_westboro_…

Chen, A. (2015, November 15). Unfollow. The New Yorker. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/conversion-via-twitter-we…

IMDB. (2007, April 1). Title. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000764/

Phelps-Roper, M. (2019, November 12). Escaping the Westboro Baptist Church (Megan Phelps-Roper Interview). (D. P. Show, Interviewer) Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvkDFD3tQG0

Roper-Phelps, M. (2015, July 29). @meganphelps. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from Twitter: https://twitter.com/meganphelps?lang=en

Shaitly, S. (2016, April 10). Losing my religion: life after extreme belief . The Guardian. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/losing-my-religion-life-a…

Phelps, B. (2019, December 2). Retrieved December 3, 2019, from Twitter: https://twitter.com/BettyWBC/status/1201317260633227264

Phelps-Roper, M. (2019, October 10). How Twitter helped change mind Westboro Baptist Church member. (T. Gross, Interviewer) Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://www.kcur.org/post/how-twitter-helped-change-mind-westboro-bapti…

Phelps-Roper, M. (2019). Unfollow: A journey from Hatred to Hope. Riverrun. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43314707-unfollow

Shaitly, S. (2016, April 10). Losing my religion: life after extreme belief . The Guardian. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/losing-my-religion-life-a…

VPRO. (2019, October 18). Most hated family in America. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from VPRO: https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/louis-theroux/most-hated-family-in-ameri…

WBC. (sd). About WBC. Opgeroepen op December 30, 2019, van Godhatesfags: http://godhatesfags.com/wbcinfo/aboutwbc.html

Westboro Baptist Church. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2019, from Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/westboro-baptist-church

Westboro Baptist Church. (n.d.). AboutWCB. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from Godhatesfags: http://www.godhatesfags.com/wbcinfo/aboutwbc.html

Wikipedia. (2019, November 21). Westboro Baptist Church. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

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