Fred Phelps And The Literature of a Post-Cult Memoir

By Michael Hooper

The memoir has become a popular genre for writers in this modern era. Rock stars, movie actors, journalists, recovering drug addicts, politicians are all producing memoirs. Add to that the literature of the post-cult memoir documenting the descent and rise from a cult.

Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper, and the Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther, fall into this post-cult genre. Both books are by the granddaughters of the founders of their cults. Both women grew up in a very strict fundamental household. And both somehow found the courage to escape.

Each book hits close to home for me because I live in Topeka, Kan., where my wife and I were both verbally assaulted by the Phelps clan. When they protested at soldiers funerals, I actually sent money to a grieving parent to fight the Phelpses in a lawsuit against them. The lawsuit against the Phelpses' protest at a soldier's funeral went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Phelpses, known for their slogans God Hates Fags and Thank God For Dead Soldiers, won the lawsuit. And I was a member of Elizabeth Esther's grandfather's cult in the early 1980s.

Unfollow is the dramatic look inside of a cult that hurt a lot of people. The author tells the story of Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church. Megan Phelps-Roper takes us back to the beginning when Fred Phelps first saw two men come out from the bushes at Gage Park in Topeka. He discovered that gay men met in the park to have sex. Phelps had previously been an advocate for the rights of African Americans. As an attorney he helped them win lawsuits against people and employers for discrimination. But after Phelps was disbarred from practicing in Kansas, he looked for another passion.

When I first arrived in Topeka in 1999 I was shocked to see all of these protesters holding repulsive signs raging against homosexuals. I said something to them at the corner of 10th and Gage, "Why are you doing this? This is terrible." And one protester called me a "fag." 'Oh really, you don't even know me," I said. My wife was going to a midnight mass on Dec. 31, 1999, and they taunted her and called people derogatory names. The Phelpses, many of them lawyers, want you to get angry at them and sue them so they could collect attorney fees. They knew they had the protection of the First Amendment, the right to free speech. But you don't see them protesting in England or Germany, where hate speech is not allowed.

The author Megan Phelps-Roper does a good job describing the hypocrisy of the positions in the church. Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself. Yet how come church members show so much hatred and antagonism toward their neighbors? Jesus says pray for your enemies. Yet Fred Phelps prayed that God would kill his enemies. The Phelpses lied about being at protests in London when they weren't actually there. Yet the Bible says the Lord hates a lying tongue and a false witness that speaks lies. The Phelpses also advocated death for criminals. Yet Jesus said he who is without sin may cast the first stone.

All these hypocrisies finally got to the questioning mind of Megan Phelps-Roper. She tried to question the elders but she was always put down. She was disturbed by the way the elders had disgraced her mother. Her sister Grace wanted a Mac but an elder named Steve said she should get a PC. Steve pestered her parents for weeks afterward arguing that his reasons for remaining with the status quo were worth following. "It seemed embarrassing at the time because it was clear that Steve only cared about the issue because he wanted to be obeyed," the author wrote.

Eventually Megan woke up to all of these hypocrisies and realized that the elders really wanted superiority and control. They had developed a toxic sense of certainty in their own righteousness.

A key moment for Megan is on page 159:

"I crossed a chasm in that split second, pursuing a thought my mind had never truly imagined and now could never take back. With stark clarity I understood that whether the church was wrong or right, I was a monster. If we were wrong, then I had spent every day of my life industriously sewing doom, discord and rage to so many -- not at the behest of God but of my grandfather. I had wasted my life only to fill others with pain and misery. And if the church was right? Then asking those questions and even beginning to consider their implications was an unforgivable betrayal of everyone I had ever loved and the ideals I dedicated my life to defending. In my mind I was a betrayer already."

Megan and her sister Grace eventually left the church. They received help from former members of the church who had left in exile, and a family in South Dakota. They also received help from people they used to argue with, the Booksteins of Jewlicious.com, who took them in and cared for them. It's funny I used to see the Phelpses protest in front of Temple Beth Shalom in Topeka on Friday evenings. Years later, here are the Jews helping two exiles of the Phelps clan. In this case who is loving their enemies?

The story of Elizabeth Esther in the Girl at the End of the World is also very personal because I was a member of that group in 1982-83 led by Rod, Mike and Dave Zach in Hastings and Omaha, Nebraska. Elizabeth was the granddaughter of the founder, George Geftakys based in Fullerton, Calif. They did not believe in celebrating Christmas, they did not believe in employing psychologists; they were fundamentalists who targeted college students because they were vulnerable and wanted a community to be part of. They lived together and made high demands of members, about 20 hours per week of Bible study, prayer meetings and worship. They made women be subservient to men and wear head coverings in meetings. They spanked their children. They took the Bible literally as the Word of God.

Eventually, members of the Assembly began to question the integrity of their leader George Geftakys. A web site geftakysassembly.com exposed the corruption in his ministry. George was removed from the Fullerton Assembly around 2003. George was having adulterous affairs and covering up his son’s domestic abuse. What’s sad is that many people gave over 20 years of their life to this man and his group and now feel ashamed and duped. The geftakysassembly.com says, “It is crushing to realize that for 20 years we gave our lives to something that was wrong on so many levels. We are deeply grieved for the damage we perpetrated on others. Our work on this website is part of our effort to try to make amends in some small way.”

The Zachs would say, “He’s no longer walking with the Lord,” when I asked about a person who stopped coming to meetings. Who are they to judge? How do they know whether someone is walking with the Lord? I finally woke up to their wrongs. Some wrongs I didn’t see right away. They always had a Bible scripture to back of their behaviors. I feel lucky that I got out after about 18 months. My salvation was really my free will, the ability to make decisions for myself.

And that is the heart of the issue: control. Leaders of cults want total control over their members. The Zachs didn't want me to leave Hastings, Neb., they wanted me to stay there and build up their church. I am so glad I had the fortitude to leave!

Megan Phelps-Roper discusses the last days of Fred Phelps when he was removed from the church. He walked out of the church to address the young people running the Equality House, a global symbol of the LGBT rights, across the street. "You're good people," he said to them before he was hustled back inside by church members. Shortly thereafter Fred Phelps was put in hospice and died.

It's interesting how the third generation of the cults mentioned here found themselves inside a place they knew they didn't belong. I wonder how the fourth generation of Phelpses will feel about their behaviors? I still see them protesting from time to time. I hope some day the Westboro Baptist Church either implodes or changes and stops hating gays and starts loving people, all people.