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“So… *Does* God Hate F*gs?” with Megan Phelps-Roper · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:03
  G'day humans, welcome to Safe Space for Dangerous Ideas.
• 0:07
  If you lose religious faith, do you lose the whole kit and caboodle?
• 0:13
  Does it shake the foundations of your beliefs about the cosmos and the purpose of life?
• 0:19
  Or are there things still worth keeping from the Bible, from scripture, from religious tradition?
• 0:26
  How are you left thinking about agnosticism and atheism, about belief and certainty and knowledge and the purpose of the cosmos if all of the religious scaffolding that previously held those ideas together gets stripped away?
• 0:42
  And what do our modern-day culture war spats over things like colonialism and gender rights and structural racism and white supremacy?
• 0:52
  What does all that have to teach us about cult-like thinking, about moral puritanism and judgment and, indeed, compassion?
• 1:02
  Today's guest is one of my favorite thinkers, one of the most sophisticated and nuanced people I know.
• 1:08
  Megan Phelps Roper grew up in an environment completely antithetical to those values in the Westboro Baptist Church.
• 1:15
  You might have seen the Louis Theroux documentary about them in the early 2010s.
• 1:20
  Megan appeared in that as essentially a fundamentalist phenomenon.
• 1:24
  Christian cult member, really.
• 1:26
  This was the group that would go and picket with God hates fags signs and they would go to the funerals of fallen servicemen and women who had come back, who'd been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and they'd shout and jeer and chant because they believed that the United States is on the wrong side of history because it's sinful and it's allowing homosexuality and adultery.
• 1:49
  I mean, the logic is head-spinning, but ultimately...
• 1:53
  when Megan got onto Twitter and became sort of a spokesperson for the Westboro Baptist Church and started proselytizing its extreme values and its enormous judgment and fire and brimstone hatefulness to the world on Twitter, she was forced to encounter some pushback.
• 2:10
  She left the church, she and her little sister.
• 2:14
  She essentially abandoned her family.
• 2:17
  The church was founded by her own grandfather and her parents are still very much involved in it.
• 2:22
  And she became instead one of the most, as I say, sophisticated thinkers about the way that we can get trapped inside belief systems.
• 2:30
  She is now an activist and a journalist.
• 2:33
  You may recall her from the incredible podcast called The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.
• 2:40
  And Megan's been on the show before to discuss that, where J.K. Rowling, who normally doesn't give any interviews, certainly not about the transgender controversy, did grant interviews to Megan.
• 2:51
  And Megan went to J.K. Rowling's house and interviewed her, and that's an incredible podcast about the... Not about the ins and outs of the trans question per se, but about the cultural phenomenon of the way we can...
• 3:05
  have a puritanical certainty about the righteousness of our own side on whatever side of the issue you happen to be on.
• 3:12
  And we can prosecute that with a zeal with which Megan herself is very familiar.
• 3:18
  Megan's new project is, again, a podcast from the same production company, the same producer as The Witch Trials.
• 3:24
  It's called Bookkeeper.
• 3:26
  And it's about Megan's attempt to extract from the Bible, the book, the stories that she wants to keep and what they can teach her about faith and compassion and leading a good life.
• 3:38
  As always with Megan, this conversation goes over all kinds of terrain.
• 3:41
  It's absolutely delightful.
• 3:43
  And I hope you enjoy as much as I did the one and only Megan Phelps Roper.
• 3:54
  My grandpa just passed away.
• 3:56
  But I spent... That's terrible.
• 3:58
  Yeah, so it's my dad's dad who was never part of Westboro.
• 4:01
  So I didn't really know him growing up.
• 4:02
  And he lived in the panhandle of Florida.
• 4:06
  And I spent...
• 4:07
  It's so cold in South Dakota.
• 4:08
  So we spent... Me... Chad was on and off with us because he has to... His work is here in South Dakota.
• 4:16
  um but we spent the first like four months so january well whatever mid january to mid may with my grandpa so my kids getting to know their great grandpa was so fucking awesome yeah oh awesome it's yeah so beautiful it makes me so happy um
• 4:34
  Oh, that's nice that they got that.
• 4:36
  So your kids got to sort of know their great grandfather.
• 4:39
  It's funny, isn't it?
• 4:40
  I like, I have the same thing with my kids where their great grandparents on Sean's side are still knocking around.
• 4:49
  Yeah, that's awesome.
• 4:50
  Yeah, my grandpa was still in May.
• 4:52
  He was still like reupholstering chairs and stuff.
• 4:56
  Like he was just super, super active.
• 4:58
  How old was he?
• 4:59
  83.
• 5:00
  Oh, that's not old.
• 5:03
  Wait, how do you have such a young... Oh, it's because it's your grandfather, right?
• 5:08
  Yes, I thought it was your great grandfather.
• 5:09
  I was like, they must have been having kids when they were 15.
• 5:12
  You never know with these Christians.
• 5:14
  Yeah.
• 5:16
  He was 20.
• 5:17
  My dad was 20 when he, yeah, it's really, yeah, just really young.
• 5:22
  Having kids young was awesome.
• 5:24
  And what side of the family was the Westboro side?
• 5:27
  My mom's side.
• 5:28
  Yeah.
• 5:28
  It's my mom's side.
• 5:29
  Yeah.
• 5:30
  So both of, I mean, until my grandpa just passed away, both of my dad's parents were around.
• 5:36
  And so my grandma is still around too.
• 5:38
  Yeah.
• 5:40
  And obviously it's wonderful that they can know, since they won't know my parents, it's really wonderful that they got to know my grandma and grandpa.
• 5:48
  Yeah.
• 5:49
  How do you feel about your faith as you've gone through the process of putting together this new podcast?
• 5:53
  Are you religious?
• 5:55
  I'm not religious yet.
• 5:56
  And I haven't been for a long time and I sort of, you know, for a while, quite a while, I had this sort of antipathy about the Bible because obviously there's a lot.
• 6:10
  I can't imagine, like, is there anything in your past, Megan, that might have given you that antipathy?
• 6:16
  Let's dig in here.
• 6:18
  Yeah, yeah.
• 6:19
  But I mean, the antipathy is obvious, but I mean, I think, but it was, I also just thought that I had to sort of give all of it up.
• 6:28
  I mean, it's where the title of the show came from, Bookkeeper, right?
• 6:32
  It's like realizing that there actually is so much from the Bible that I have kept and
• 6:37
  I want to keep and that I want to share with my children.
• 6:40
  And, and more than that.
• 6:42
  And that's mostly the stoning of adulteresses and the slave owning.
• 6:46
  Is that the, that's what you want to.
• 6:48
  Is that the word?
• 6:48
  Yeah.
• 6:49
  What are the, what are the bits, what are the bits of this prehistoric medieval text that most appeal to you?
• 6:55
  Megan.
• 6:57
  Well, unsurprisingly, it'll probably be the gentle parts of it, which is really funny.
• 7:02
  I think a lot of people, obviously, that part is natural.
• 7:05
  For my family, we spent all those years largely focused on the harshest, most cruel, most extreme bits.
• 7:13
  And so for me to slowly discover the really beautiful parts was a revelation, you know?
• 7:22
  Is there a difference between the focus between the Old Testament and the New Testament in that divide?
• 7:28
  Yeah.
• 7:30
  So I think some people like some people see it that way.
• 7:33
  I don't really, because I think there's a lot of both in both the like both the harsh and the gentle in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
• 7:42
  But and also, yeah, I just we it was very integrated for my family, I guess, because we saw, you know, like the the gentle parts.
• 7:52
  Right.
• 7:52
  The grace was reserved for God's people and the harshness, the punishment was reserved for.
• 7:59
  the disobedient, right?
• 8:00
  The rebels, the people whom God had not chosen.
• 8:03
  So there was never, it never felt to me like a contradiction between these two, two versions of God, if you will.
• 8:12
  And it really wasn't until after I left and really started to think about, you know, so for instance, Jesus, obviously a lot of people really love Jesus and, you know, two of the seven episodes in this first season of the show, you know,
• 8:26
  um are jesus um stories of jesus from jesus and that i think are incredibly beautiful and that i love you know the good samaritan and um the story of the adulterous woman who was not stoned the one that you were just referring to not that one yeah not that um and so yeah i mean like obviously there's some really beautiful words from jesus that i absolutely love um i mean you just said something sorry finish that thought
• 8:54
  Well, go ahead and interrupt and then I'll tell you.
• 8:57
  Yeah, let me interrupt because I think you said you passed by something really interesting about the way that Westboro conceived of religion, which was that the grace was for the people who were in the in club.
• 9:12
  And the judgment was reserved for the deviance outside of it.
• 9:15
  Hence, God hates fags or whatever.
• 9:17
  But explain that to me from their perspective in order to contrast it with what you're currently looking for.
• 9:25
  Because I thought that the whole gist of the Bible was that vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.
• 9:42
  Yahweh and that what the humans should be doing, certainly in the New Testament, is practicing grace and doing unto others as they'd have them do unto them and like refraining from occupying the role that is rightly occupied by the creator of the universe, which is the role of judgment.
• 10:03
  Yeah, I mean, I think the way that you just said it, I think is how how most people conceive of it.
• 10:08
  Like, it's the whole judge not that you be not judged.
• 10:11
  Right.
• 10:13
  But then there are also like contradicting verses like that offer, you know, alternate views.
• 10:17
  So, for instance, my family would always point to.
• 10:20
  You know, Jesus saying, judge not according to the appearance.
• 10:23
  I think it was Jesus.
• 10:24
  It's New Testament.
• 10:25
  But judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
• 10:29
  So and then also, you know, Jesus saying the line about before you judge your neighbors is cast.
• 10:35
  You're supposed to cast out the mote that is in your own eye before you so that you can see clearly to cast out the mote that is in your in your neighbor's eye.
• 10:44
  So, like, obviously, we are all naturally judging all the time.
• 10:48
  This is one of the things we would say at Westboro.
• 10:51
  And so- But isn't the point of the moat example, I like the fact that we're using the literal language, isn't the point about the piece of shit, let's just call it that, that's in your eye, that you need to, isn't the point that you need to reflect upon yourself and make sure that you are not guilty of any-
• 11:08
  sins or wrongdoing or, you know, unloving, ungodly behavior before you judge other people.
• 11:15
  It doesn't strike me that Westboro was doing a ton of that introspection before throwing stones.
• 11:22
  Were they or did they think that they were?
• 11:23
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• 11:28
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• 11:33
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• 11:44
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• 11:51
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• 11:56
  Back to the show.
• 11:57
  Absolutely, we thought that we were.
• 11:59
  I mean, so some of the hard, like most people probably don't realize this, but some of the harshest
• 12:05
  treatment was reserved for insiders who were deemed to be deviating from the truth as they understood it.
• 12:12
  So the way that, you know, people would be punished, excluded within the church, it was terrifying to watch as a child.
• 12:20
  Like, this is one of the ways that, you know, the rules are enforced.
• 12:24
  Like, you come to understand when you watch, you know, because it's largely one family, you know, I'm watching my
• 12:31
  aunts and uncles and cousins all sort of run through this meat grinder of, you know, they step out of line and have to be chastised, if you will, not physically, but, you know, to sort of be shunned by the community and sometimes actually excluded in the sense of we called it voting out.
• 12:49
  So you would lose church membership.
• 12:52
  And the ostracism in that was absolutely terrifying because these are the only people that you are allowed to have any kind of relationship with.
• 13:01
  Um, so, I mean, I understand that, but that is not moat, that is not moat casting.
• 13:06
  Like that's, that is, you're right that it's throwing stones in some, well, it's not self though at the unit of the individual, is it?
• 13:13
  It's self at the unit of the church, but the, I think, I think Jesus's point in the,
• 13:19
  in the getting the bit of shit out of your own eye before you judge other people is not that people inside your, that you should be super judgmental of people inside your tribe before you're super judgmental of people outside your tribe.
• 13:29
  Oh, they were judgmental of themselves.
• 13:31
  You should be introspective.
• 13:33
  Right.
• 13:33
  Okay.
• 13:34
  That you should be humbly introspective about your own personal conduct and casting.
• 13:38
  Absolutely.
• 13:39
  That too.
• 13:40
  That's another level.
• 13:41
  Yeah.
• 13:41
  Because so, you know, we would say with the Apostle Paul that we are the chiefest of sinners, you know.
• 13:47
  So this is I remember writing about this in my book.
• 13:50
  It's like this obvious kind of contradiction where we would both feel like the chiefest of sinners, but also that God had given us the most righteousness and the most clarity about what his word was and what it required.
• 14:04
  And like, oh, how lucky for us that we get to have this.
• 14:07
  you know, this standard that we get to be the bearers of the standard of truth.
• 14:12
  And so it's it's so you it's like this position that is inherently full of hubris, but we felt humble.
• 14:20
  Yeah, that makes sense.
• 14:21
  I mean, it's one of the things that infuriates me the most about all religion, really, is that it's arrogance under the garb of humility.
• 14:33
  Like, we are just servants.
• 14:36
  We know not why.
• 14:37
  The world is full of mysteries that we cannot possibly fathom.
• 14:41
  You know, we are humble.
• 14:43
  We...
• 14:44
  kneel before you, Oh Lord, at the same time as we apparently know exactly what's going to happen after we die and who's going to go to heaven and who's going to go to hell and why the universe was created.
• 14:54
  But it's not us who are arrogant.
• 14:57
  We are meek lambs.
• 15:00
  Absolutely.
• 15:01
  I mean, it was one of the things that I, it took me a long time to realize.
• 15:04
  So there's this passage that my mom
• 15:10
  Okay, how did it go?
• 15:11
  I just added, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and who can know it?
• 15:20
  And so we had this, you know, again, this sense of our own unrighteousness.
• 15:27
  And that even when we were going to try to do the right thing.
• 15:31
  evil was with us, right?
• 15:32
  That was the sense that we had.
• 15:35
  And so yes, absolutely, it is a sense of humility.
• 15:37
  But it wasn't until I was getting ready to leave the church and sort of everything is kind of unraveling at once, that I realized that ultimately, ultimately, all we have is our heart, right?
• 15:48
  That is our heart in the sense of like our heart and our mind and our perspective, right?
• 15:54
  It is the thing that is ultimately deciding like, is
• 15:58
  this true or not, right?
• 16:00
  Are we, so we thought we were following the word of God and that our understanding was the correct interpretation.
• 16:08
  But ultimately it's our judgment at the bottom of that, just necessarily as a matter of course.
• 16:13
  Does that make sense?
• 16:15
  It totally does.
• 16:16
  And it's the part of the sort of conundrum, isn't it, about having these very old texts that are written in inscrutable ways that are open to a lot of interpretation about whether or not you're supposed to take them literally or figuratively and what they're trying to say and whether or not they are divine.
• 16:32
  When you say your mum's quote there about your heart is, what's the quote again?
• 16:37
  The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
• 16:41
  Is that from the Bible?
• 16:43
  It is, yeah.
• 16:45
  I'm trying to remember.
• 16:45
  I don't remember what.
• 16:47
  Yeah, I don't remember.
• 16:48
  But I trust you.
• 16:49
  No, I'll tell you.
• 16:52
  I'm sure there are some people who are listening who can just rattle off the psalm and know it.
• 16:57
  But that's interesting because what was evil then?
• 17:02
  Because I also sort of understand two versions of evil in the Christian thinking.
• 17:09
  One is that evil is something that's out there, that it's temptation, that it's the devil, that it is nefarious forces, that it is human evil derived of free will.
• 17:19
  And it's things that...
• 17:21
  that you can succumb to, you know, the siren song of temptation.
• 17:28
  And then your quote is more about how there's like an evil kernel of something buried deep within us, which is more reminiscent of like original sin and the idea that we are born fallen and that because of Adam and Eve's, you know, founding sinfulness, we're all tainted and we could have been...
• 17:48
  perfect, but unfortunately we're fallen.
• 17:50
  And that is something that's intrinsic to the internal human struggle.
• 17:56
  Did you in Westboro think of evil as being something inside or something outside or both?
• 18:03
  G'day, humans.
• 18:04
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