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Megan Phelps-Roper delivers a surprisingly detailed introduction in her talk at TED New York and describes her experience not only in the church but also her family. The talk offers a more personal and lively introduction to Phelps-Roper than her memoir does and can help contextualize the time period of the memoir more. The story she tells gives just enough information to get the audience interested and engaged and want to read her book but not enough to bore them or learn absolutely everything about her.

Her audience has most likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church but their understanding of this history she assumes doesn't fully cover all the psychological and familial motivations. Phelps-Roper takes to time to share her perspective and change the audience's understanding of this history to a place of more understanding. The previously less understanding view of the actions of the church become more nuanced. Phelps-Roper's actual presence and voice helps personalize the story as well and build empathy in the viewer.

People can learn to empathize with those with extremist or illogical opinions by openly listening to Phelps-Roper's story. Her personal live performance of the story adds a layer of humanity to her memoir and let people even further understand and sympathize with her story. Her whole purpose is to teach people about the dangers of cultural isolation and that's exactly what she accomplishes by speaking slowly and calmly to her audience and relating to them on a personal level.

The medium in which Phelps-Roper tells her story in this case really helps solidify her story into the minds of her audience. Her voice telling her story is much more understandable to people and prepares the audience to empathize with her more. Without the added medium of real life, the memoir can seem inhuman and out of touch.

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I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here's why I left | Megan Phelps-Roper

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Transcript:

Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper tells the story of a woman trapped in a hate group disguised as a Baptist church called the Westboro Baptist Church or the WBC. The WBC has a history of highly controversial anti-gay protests including defacing the American flag and picketing at football games, high school theatre productions, pop concerts, and the funerals of murder victims and US soldiers. Phelps-Roper is the grand-daughter of Fred Roper the founder of the church and has 11 siblings. She is trapped in the church because of her circumstances and eventually ends up taking the position of Twitter representative for the church. She would frequently debate random people on Twitter and try to defend her beliefs. This constant public debate eventually caused her to see some very reasonable arguments against her church and years later caused her to leave the church with her younger sister. She even ended up marrying a man who argued with her frequently online and would fly to see her at protests and argue in person.

I chose to explore this memoir because I spend a lot of time online and I found Phelps-Roper's story very interesting and a testament to the power of public debate and good communication. I always knew there must be better ways of arguing online without resorting to just screaming over each other and Phelps-Roper demonstrates that not only is it possible to argue calmly and positively but its also possible for people's opinions to change because of this arguing. I think this is a very positive and important lesson in the age of social media and social media platforms should be trying to promote this kind of public discourse.

For my presentation I found a TED talk that Phelps-Roper did back in 2017, a CNN timeline of Trump's perspective on January 6th, and a poem by Greta Zwaan named "Four-Wall Christians" that criticizes churches that use the bible and christianity in general to manipulate and excuse terrible actions. The TED talk adds a layer of personability to the memoir by having Phelps-Roper tell her story in her own voice and explain to the audience how she really feels about her story. The memoir can feel a bit sterilized at times but having Phelps-Roper tell the story really makes you empathize and feel like her story is real. January 6th is very relevant to this memoir as the WBC was taking action on the same ideas decades before the arrival of Trump. Christian fundamentalists are a huge portion of Trump's supporter base and for good reason. Churches like the WBC have a way of making their members feel like they're a part of something greater and that they need to sacrifice their entire lives to helping the church accomplish its goals. Trump has the same goal and January 6th was the culmination of his ideology. "Four Wall Christians" by Greta Zwaan also has extremely similar goals to Phelps-Roper as she spreads a warning about christians who use religion as an excuse to commit unholy actions and seclude themselves from society.  Zwaan criticizes the idea that many churches spread that as long as they confess everything they do to God then its alright and they just need to give money and time to their church to be good people. This idea is similar to the WBC as they use the sense of community and belonging to justify their hatred.

My "epiphany" was when Phelps-Roper went into depth on how her future husband argued with her in a way that didn't make her feel threatened and kept her from blocking him and walking away. The manner in which he spoke and offered evidence was extremely non-threatening and he asked more questions than telling her what to think. This is a new way of arguing for me and I learned a lot about how people get trapped in ideologies even with overwhelming evidence against them. This book was important because it showed me that not all hope is lost in our modern political situation and one of the biggest solutions that we need to learn how to do as a society is learning how to talk to one another in ways that aren't threatening and will keep the other from walking away or yelling.

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The Anti-Defamation League has covered the Westboro Baptist Church from its inception and has a vast history on the church and its actions. Understanding the public perception of the church and how the church has been perceived throughout the years is highly important to understanding the alternate perspective portrayed in the memoir. ADL goes in depth into the entire history of the church and how their actions have been understood by the public.

The ADL offers a more pragmatic perspective to the church's story and simply describes the church over the years rather than explain the possible motives or internal happenings of the church. Megan Phelps-Roper offers a perspective into the inside of the church while the ADL simply offers a perspective on the outside looking in. The detail of the article helps to shape our understanding of this history of the church from the outside and understand the public perception throughout the years. The context of the time period and setting helps offer a look into the external history of the church and a further understanding of the disapproval and violence the public expressed towards the church.

By exploring the perspective of an outside organization like the ADL we can gain a better understanding of how the church has functioned throughout the years from the viewpoint of the public. We can learn about the attitudes of the early 2000s towards the LGBT community and how the church functioned to promote negative views surrounding minority populations.

The very formal nature of the ADL report affects our interpretation of the story by making everything feel more official and objective. The writing and tone of the report puts everything in perspective and adds a layer of objectivity instead of just a story.

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The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is a small virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group that regularly stages protests around the country...

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January 6th is a now infamous day in American history and the ideas that fueled the coup are similar to those discussed in the memoir. Far right christian fundamentalism fueled many of the conspiracies and absurdist ideas that drove the insurrection and the WBC had been working off of those same ideas since the early 2000s. Nothing in politics is new and Jan 6 is just the next wave of far right ideologies and the WBC can be partly blamed for stirring up those ideas before their time.

Our understanding of Jan 6 revolves largely around our public perception of the insurrection and violence and Trump's own perspective is often ignored. Many political scientists believe Trump pursued the presidency from the suggestion and planning of others based on his very intentional and plagiarized style of speaking and strategy so his attempts at holding on to power during the final hour only make sense. He has absolutely no idea what he's doing and when he goes off script, things quickly go wrong. He began calling random people to try and get them to change the voting results and debated declaring martial law to violently hold on to power basically conducting a Latin American style military coup. In the end he decided his last resort was using his supporters to commit the violence as to not stir up even more opposition so he gathered as many people as he could and enticed them into conducting an insurrection while avoiding direct responsibility. This new perspective can help us understand the perspective of Fred Roper and why he may have started the WBC.

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timeline of the coup: how trump tried to weaponize the doj to overturn the 2020 election - cnnpolitics

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Timeline of the coup: How Trump tried to weaponize the DOJ to overturn the 2020 election

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A full year after the 2020 presidential election, new details are still emerging about former President Donald Trump's unprecedented effort to overturn the results.

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Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Worship" painted in 1943 is a visual representation of the concept Franklyn Delano Roosevelt described in his Four Freedoms speech. This concept is extremely relevant to Unfollow because the WBC is essentially exploiting their right to worship and doing the opposite of what is depicted in the artwork. Similar to churches like scientology, the WBC uses their church as an excuse to spread hate and conduct violent protests. Unfollow tells the story from the inside of the church and so understanding how the church is even able to conduct these actions legally is highly important.

Our understanding of the history surrounding FDRs speech is often very positive and it's difficult to see how anyone could disagree with the message however, the WBC proves that these freedoms can be abused and misused to have a negative effect on society. Our interpretation of this artwork can change with the added context and knowledge of the WBC. Our understanding of the history of this freedom and art piece is changed by the memoir.

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Four-Wall Christians
Poet: Greta Zwaan, © 1994

Four-wall Christians, safe in our way;
Make little impact if all we do is pray.
We may share our dollars, the few we may not need,
And call it generous giving, but God will call it greed.

We think not of our neighbour, or pain in other lands,
We have to make a living, achieve our goals and plans.
We go to church each Sunday, like Christians ought to do,
But after every service, we haven't changed our view.

We live so isolated, so far from hurt and pain;
We stifle our own conscience time and time again.
But what if a "RWANDA" should happen in our land?
And we should feel that heartache, and need that helping hand?

Would we think that a Christian, who had the means and power
Should send relief and comfort in our most desperate hour?
If mortar shells were falling and bombs dropped everywhere,
Would we want other Christians to just kneel down in prayer?

I'd think we'd want assistance, involvement and concern,
With no thought of repayment or favours to return.
Not just a token offering, not just a passing glance,
But genuine love and caring; a new start, a new chance.

If we want that from others, we ought to give the same,
Not out of sheer compulsion, but give in Jesus' name.
Don't be a "four -wall" Christian who doesn't get involved,
Who gives a meagre dollar and prays that wars are solved.

Become a burden-bearer, become a caring friend,
Stretch forth your hand in mercy, just let your life be spent.
The things that are important are what God gives to you,
And how you use that talent that makes His message true.

You cannot take it with you, you've heard that line before,
But souls won for God's glory will share that heavenly shore.

Explanation:

Greta Zwaan criticizes christians who isolate themselves and misinterpret the bible to meet their own needs. Unfollow is a word for word example of what Zwaan is criticizing and her poem contextualizes the history of churches exploiting the bible for their own gain. It is a common occurrence for people especially white people living in sheltered and isolated communities to use christianity to justify their secluded and privileged life.

When Zwaan writes her story in the form of a poem she can hold the interest of her audience and make her message much more digestible and artistic. Poems have a history of of making a larger impact than other forms of spreading information because people are more interested in reading something that sounds good rather than something like a scientific report or news article. Writing in the form of a poem however can restrict how much information you can share because you are confined by the artistic parameters of a good poem.

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Jenna Miscavige tells the story of her experience in the church of scientology and the methods used by her church to keep her believing and stuck. This adds another layer of context for Unfollow because it goes into depth on how actual cults function and keep people trapped within their organization. The WBC begins to look a lot more cultish after reading this book and learning about how church's like the WBC and Scientology function and trap people adds another layer of understanding.

Our understanding of the WBC can be shaped by reading Beyond Belief as Miscavige narrates her experience and garners the attention and sympathy of the reader. Our understanding of history and the world relies partly on our ability to understand the psychology and strategies behind manipulative organizations like the church of Scientology and the WBC. Using people's emotions to gain wealth or protest things you don't believe in is a common occurrence throughout history and Scientology and the WBC are just modern examples of this.

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Beyond Belief book. Read 3,304 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Jenna Miscavige was raised to obey. As niece of the Church of Scie...