{"id":985,"date":"2019-12-17T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T08:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/?p=985"},"modified":"2019-12-16T09:37:53","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T09:37:53","slug":"death-of-a-founder-louis-theroux-and-americas-most-hated-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/?p=985","title":{"rendered":"Death of a Founder: Louis Theroux and ‘America’s Most Hated Family’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louis Theroux, the journalist and documentary filmmaker, has never shied away from controversial topics, communities, and individuals. His 2007 documentary, The Most Hated Family in America<\/em>, which documented the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), served as an especially notable example. Following its success, Theroux recently returned to the WBC for a follow-up documentary, Surviving America\u2019s Most Hated<\/em>\u00a0Family<\/em><\/a>, which aimed to give\u00a0an insight to the current climate of the church, particularly following the recent death of its founder, Fred Phelps.<\/p>\n

The WBC is commonly associated with the Phelps family, who are at the centre of the church\u2019s practices, activities, and public engagement. While there are other members beyond the Phelps family, the WBC consists of fewer than 100 members, and largely stands apart from other forms of Baptist denominations. The Phelps and other WBC members have become known as a hate-group in public discourse, particularly due to their use of highly discriminatory language and actions directed towards groups including the LGBTQ+ community, Jews, Muslims, and the American military. The WBC have become renowned for their public protests, during which they hold inflammatory signs (including \u2018GOD HATES FAGS\u2019, \u2018YOU\u2019RE GOING TO HELL\u2019, and \u2018ABORTION IS BLOODY MURDER\u2019), which have drawn significant attention from the media (ranging from news coverage to comedic parodies).<\/p>\n

During his original documentary Theroux spent a significant amount of time meeting Fred Phelps and his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, and concentrated on the homophobic beliefs and actions of the WBC. For his return in Surviving America\u2019s Most Hated Family<\/em>, Theroux stated that \u201cembarrassing secrets were said to be coming out\u201d about the WBC, specifically concerning the issue of apostasy and the excommunication of Fred Phelps prior to his death.<\/p>\n

These issues were the thrust of Theroux\u2019s documentary. On the surface, very little has changed, as demonstrated by a WBC picketer\u2019s \u201cGOD STILL <\/em>HATES FAGS\u201d sign (\u201cGod hasn\u2019t changed, and he\u2019s not going to\u201d, he explained). Religions, however, particularly New Religious Movements, are dynamic categories. They are in a constant state of change depending on its members, social environment, and practices. Theroux was successfully able to probe the issue of apostasy \u2013 three of Shirley Phelps-Roper\u2019s children (two daughters and one son), have recently left the WBC, and have been subject to \u2018shunning\u2019 from their family and the church. Notably, Megan Phelps-Roper discussed how she decided to leave the church following conversations with outsiders on Twitter, and has since presented a TED talk<\/a> on her experiences of the WBC and why she left.<\/p>\n

Arguably the most interesting aspect of the documentary is the second \u201cembarrassing secret\u201d: the shunning of Fred Phelps. Before his death in 2014, it is alleged that Phelps approached the residents of the \u2018Equality House\u2019 (a house near the WBC painted in Pride colours as a form of protest), and told them that they were \u201cgood people.\u201d Given Phelps\u2019 reputation for highly homophobic sermons, such an action seems at odds to the discriminatory activities with which the WBC are typically associated. It is believed that, as a response, WBC members voted to excommunicate Phelps from the church. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Theroux was less successful in gaining substantial information on this issue. Beyond the accounts of Shirley Phelps-Roper\u2019s apostate children, WBC members were not forthcoming with details, and mostly avoided his questioning on the topic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Westboro Baptist Church 1955 [via Wikimedia commons]<\/p><\/div>The excommunication of a leader is highly significant, particularly one that directly informed the core beliefs and practices of their community.\u00a0 Scholars of new religions have committed a significant amount of research on the notion of \u2018charismatic leaders\u2019, those who attract devotion and dedication from their followers (see Barker 1992). The death of a charismatic leader raises several possibilities for the future (and survival) of a movement. For the WBC, this issue has an even greater impact due to Phelps\u2019 \u201closs of charisma\u201d (Wessinger 2012). As Theroux correctly observed, any acknowledgement of his excommunication from the WBC would suggest a fallacy, or that Phelps had \u201cfallen\u201d by straying from the core message of the church.<\/p>\n

The Weberian (1948) model of routinized charisma suggests that a movement succumbs to routine bureaucratic authority following the death of the charismatic leader. However, due to Phelps\u2019 excommunication, it is currently unclear how his charismatic authority may or may not be preserved. His loss of charisma is already making its mark on how the WBC is organized \u2013 Theroux suggests that Shirley Phelps-Roper has been \u201csidelined\u201d (having previously acted as the WBC\u2019s chief spokesperson). Furthermore, whilst the Phelps family continue to be at the core of the WBC membership, there are a small number of new members joining the church, which seem likely to influence the future direction of the WBC.<\/p>\n

As previously noted, the day-to-day activities of the WBC are largely unchanged, with its members continuing to pursue their controversial picketing. Yet the excommunication and death of Phelps is resulting in significant organizational changes \u2018behind the scenes.\u2019 Theroux\u2019s latest documentary offers us a glimpse of this transition, but the full impact of the WBC\u2019s rejection of Phelps remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barker, E. (1992) New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction<\/em>, London, HMSO.<\/p>\n

Weber, M. (1948b) \u2018The Social Psychology of the World Religions\u2019, in Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (eds and trans), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology<\/em>, London, Routledge, pp. 267-301 (this edition 1991).<\/p>\n

Wessinger, C. (2012) \u2018Charismatic Leaders in New Religions\u2019, in Hammer, O. & Rothstein, M. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements<\/em>, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 80-96.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louis Theroux, the journalist and documentary filmmaker, has never shied away from controversial topics, communities, and individuals. His 2007 documentary, The Most Hated Family in America, which documented the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), served as an especially notable example. Following its success, Theroux recently returned to the WBC for a follow-up documentary, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,5],"tags":[361,252,362,69,363,360],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary-religion-in-historical-perspective-2","category-news-and-media","tag-americas-most-hated","tag-bbc","tag-fred-phelps","tag-louis-theroux","tag-shirley-phelps-roper","tag-westboro-baptist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}