Westoboro Baptist Church — lessons in lucrative offence

Four years after his first foray into the weirdly twisted unreality of the Westboro Baptist Church, Louis Theroux has been back, catching up with the Phelps' (what's left of them — they've had a number of defections) to see if they are still as committed to their extreme, fundamentalist ideology as before. It turns out they are, but now appear more organised, more media-savvy, more litigious and apparently just as crazy. The BBC documentary is currently available on YouTube (but may be pulled soon):

Part 1 of 4: http://youtu.be/yh3HZ4cGNPY

Part 2 of 4: http://youtu.be/BMJHNSmpuFw
Part 3 of 4: http://youtu.be/Pj4aVHr9Ktw
Part 4 of 4: http://youtu.be/rk-s_cgfWZQ

These people truly seem to be living in fantasyland, and though some of the cult members have left, the remainder appear just as committed as ever. Louis Theroux allowed them to self-condemn from their own mouths — as is his particular journalistic style — but nothing in this documentary gave cause for hope that the cult is on the wane. Particularly concerning is the continuing indoctrination of children, skewing their development in ways that will severely affect them for the rest of their lives.

The extremity of the Phelps' views has led some to speculate as to their genuineness. One such, El_Camino_SS, reports that "Fred Phelps is a Con Man". An article entitled "Why the Westboro Baptist Church is a Scam" lists a number of apparent facts about Fred Phelps:

• He says God Hates Fags, God hates the US Govt., that God hates the US Military, God Hates you, and God justifies the killing of others.
  Phelps knows that saying 'God' and 'Hate' in the same sentence gets people worked up. He knows that. He knows that people have a knee jerk reaction to that.
• He says that the US Govt. and the United States are evil.
  This is another hot button with people who love their country. It is intentional. It is designed to make you take a swing at him. He wants $50,000 from you. He wants a Powerball winner to swing at him so he gets 100 million dollars. It's that simple.
• He goes after homosexuals, he goes after people who are making sacrifices. Phelps intentionally targets people that are being victimized, or good people doing their jobs to create more outrage. He kicks people when they're down. He does that so someone will come up and defend them. Then he will sue you.
• His boards are laminated on hardwood, because he pulls them out of trucks at least five times a week. He also puts them in bright colors for attention, and makes absolutely sure that you can read them at all time. He's phishing you. Everyone must know that.

The thesis of the article is that the Wesboro Baptist Church is not interested in God, it's just interested in being as offensive as possible — within the law — in order to incite other people to break that law. Phelps will then sue for as much as he can get. Whether this is true or not isn't something that can be readily determined, but it's a hypothesis that seems to fit the known facts. What we need now, perhaps, is a proper test of that hypothesis.

Baby Bible Bashers - did they have a choice?

When I was very young I asked my mother about the Holy Trinity. I wanted to know how three persons, beings, entities, whatever, could all be one single thing, and at the same time three separate things. "There are some things we're not meant to understand," she said. To a little child, that's tantamount to saying, "Don't worry about it. That's just the way it is."

Only in later life have I reflected on the effect such pronouncements may have had. Vivid in my memory is the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son, Isaac, only for God to call it off at the last moment. Thinking back now, I remember feeling distinctly uneasy about the story. This is a loving God? But it's in the Bible, and I'd been told the Bible was true. A small child, however, doesn't dwell long on such matters, and I had other things claiming my attention.

But a child's mind is a clean slate; what is first written thereon is likely to endure, colouring the worldview taking shape in that putative personality. Even seemingly insignificant snippets of inculcation can have profound effect. How much greater effect, then, if you immerse a young child in an alternative reality, to the exclusion of everything else?

I've held off writing about the recent Channel 4 Cutting Edge TV documentary Baby Bible Bashers until it was available to view uninterrupted. You can see it as a series of short clips on YouTube, but now BitTorrent-enabled users can find the whole thing here:

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4051646/

YouTube:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP-s3AV9Kzs


Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klZXuytDtrk
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGoMfrOSLAY
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zAHEn3UbSw
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9PBb2ef4JM

There's been plenty of discussion over at RD.net, but I particularly want to mention that the film made a point about the manipulation of these kids by their parents. Whether or not the film's slant accentuated this, it can't be denied that all three of these young 'preachers' have been influenced (to put it mildly) by their parents, who appear to believe that their god-filled worldview is real. The children, however, had no choice in the matter.

The three families, overly fundamentalist, are by no means typical - otherwise film-makers would not want to document them. But recent polls have shown that there are vast numbers of people who, though less extreme, have similar values, and are raising a similarly skewed generation of faith-head offspring.

It's clear that seven-year-old Samuel lives in fear of going to Hell - his responses direct to camera contained references to descending into Hell and being eaten by worms. This idea came from his father, who admitted telling his son (then only three) about eternal damnation. Samuel's only option, apparently, was to be baptised and have his sins washed away. At that point he began his 'ministry', preaching his first sermon in church, standing on an upturned plastic crate, still aged only three. (Samuel's fire-and-brimstone performance was captured on home video.)

This film pressed a lot of buttons. It was sad, and enraging. Watch it.