Unfollow

A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church

De: Megan Phelps-Roper

Narrado por: Megan Phelps-Roper

The activist and TED speaker Megan Phelps-Roper reveals her life growing up in the most hated family in America

At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy. As Phelps-Roper grew up, she saw that church members were close companions and accomplished debaters, applying the logic of predestination and the language of the King James Bible to everyday life with aplomb - which, as the church’s Twitter spokeswoman, she learned to do with great skill. Soon, however, dialogue on Twitter caused her to begin doubting the church’s leaders and message: If humans were sinful and fallible, how could the church itself be so confident about its beliefs? As she digitally jousted with critics, she started to wonder if sometimes they had a point - and then she began exchanging messages with a man who would help change her life.

A gripping memoir of escaping extremism and falling in love, Unfollow relates Phelps-Roper’s moral awakening, her departure from the church, and how she exchanged the absolutes she grew up with for new forms of warmth and community. Rich with suspense and thoughtful reflection, Phelps-Roper’s life story exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization.

©2019 Megan Phelps-Roper (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Perhaps the most important book I have read.

I don’t think I would have chosen to read this book on my own, but thankfully our book club selected it. I was supposed to read the first chapters, but I couldn’t stop listening, re-listening and then placing bookmarks with notes. Now, I want to buy truckloads of Unfollow and give it everyone, absolutely everyone. I resonant greatly with Megan’s story because of my own religious trauma, but I truly believe all humans can learn a ton about philosophical/theological certainty, tribalism, empathy, group think and so much more. Please listen to this book.

Beautifully written, beautifully spoken.

It will be difficult to emphasize the importance of this book. Highly recommend far and wide no matter your taste in books and/or reading. Hearing this spoken in the author's voice is an important piece of the experience.

Great listen

I very much enjoyed this listen. The compassion with which Megan tells her story is compelling and the details enjoyable.

Sweet are the uses of adversity

“Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the
running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.”
-from Shakespeare’s As you like it
Duke Senior’s transformation is much more benign, however, MPR’s change had much to do with words, sermons, books.

Bringing humanity to religion

A bit hard to follow at times but many times bringing tears to me. A heartfelt memoir of the heart ache of following ones conscience and reason. Thanks Meagan!

Raw and honest

A raw, honest and riveting story of Megan’s life. I grew up in a Baptist church, too. It wasn’t exactly like Megan’s. We didn’t picket and the torture wasn’t geared towards anyone outside of the church. But the members, we were tortured most definitely. From age 13-18 was the worst. I was tortured, shunned, forced to dye my hair dark brown to match my eyebrows (despite God creating me with blonde hair). I was homeschooled. I wore skirts and tops two sizes too big in efforts to hide body parts that showed I was a girl. I ended up going to a Bible college with those same beliefs. I could go on an on. My story is so much different than Megan’s life, yet so similar. I loved reading her story.

Wow! I couldn't stop listening.

I'll be thinking and talking about this one for a long time. Thank you Megan for your courage and vulnerability. At this time of such extreme polarization, I wish all of us could learn the value of doubt and the destructive power of intellectual and spiritual certainty.

Was not prepared to cry for Fred Phelps

I’ve read and listened to interviews of Megan Phelps-Roper before, and really appreciated getting to hear her in her own words. She is a compelling writer and her ability to capture the humanity of people who have caused so much pain and harm in the world is truly remarkable to experience (I was not prepared to see so much of my own loving father in Fred Phelps on his hospice bed). I have mixed feelings about the relative effort we all should be putting into reaching harmful extremists vs changing systems that give them outsized power, but there’s certainly some role for both and I’d guess there are few people more qualified to do the former than Megan.

Truth and Love, nuanced and gentle

The story of an illusioned past told truthfully as Megan knew it. She does not paint villians but humans under the influence of a powerfully drilled order. She speaks about the beauty of her family without ignoring the ugliness. As she is confronted by more and more evidence of a flawed system, she does not continue sweeping it under the rug as other church members do ("they know best"/"my depraved heart must be ignored"), but struggles to find truth above comfort. According to their own measure, any flaw in a church signals it is not led by God. Yet the church begins to enforce its law above scripture (pushed to tweet direct lies), and obedience to the church must come above your own conscious (which is not to be trusted). Even knowing this, Megan is afraid to leave because of her strong connected and love for her family. Megan demonstrates through the book that truth and love are her highest standards. She is free to tell the good and the bad with nuance because of her commitment to the truth, and though she is deeply wounded by her family's coldness, she loves them strongly, no matter what evils they have done, she will love them and believe in their ability to change. This is the same reason she left: Westboro's corrupt idea of love cannot match her instinctual love, and their suppression of logic and the truth cannot match her instinctual need to know and find truth.

Stunning

A stunning book of hatred, love, certainty, blindness, redemption, rebirth, compassion and transformation.

Highly recommend!