Take a photo of a barcode or cover
947 reviews for:
Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church
Megan Phelps-Roper
4.15 AVERAGE
947 reviews for:
Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church
Megan Phelps-Roper
4.15 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
challenging
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Please don’t take my rating too harshly, I very rarely read non fiction books so I find it harder to keep my attention but it was very well written and so eye opening. I think everybody could benefit from reading this.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
I read this book in part because I needed to explore the phenomenon of leaving a cult. Which is to say, I began it with a purpose in mind.
The first part of the book was just good. Not great, good. It detailed the author's backstory and early life, and while this section was read too quickly by the narrator/author (though oddly the later chapters weren't), it was interesting to learn about the inside world of something I'd known from the national news and discover the sometimes-unexpected reality of it. As both just general interest and character study that was interesting.
Then the fascinating parts came. Namely, how/why did she leave? What was the last straw? How did it actually occur? How did it go? What's it like to have left certainty behind and face the world after? How does one build a life again?
Not only did I get that in detail, but the last chapter in particular became deeply fascinating and bumped the book from a 4-star to a 5-star for me. This was particularly because it had one of the most thoughtful, considered explorations I've encountered of how/why someone begins to question, and then leave, groupthink. I expect to come back to this chapter in the future, and to save myself some time at bottom here are a few of the major quotes that felt most important. This chapter as a whole felt like a timely meditation on our broader political moment. Just as Ross Douthat's [b:The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery|57341765|The Deep Places A Memoir of Illness and Discovery|Ross Douthat|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631506792l/57341765._SY75_.jpg|89747087] has become one of the most useful explorations I've encountered of the complex terrain one is forced to navigate when the experts fall short - timely in that his personal experience proceeded the group version of it during the Covid pandemic - this book feels like an equivalent personal experience that illuminates the broader one whole societies are encountering. Genuinely illuminating in the sense of "casting light" on that issue, not just for her story but for the perspective that story gave her and the thoughtfulness she brings to it.
For me, I have been struggling greatly to understand these dynamics of late, wrestling with them deeply, and while Megan's perspectives didn't change anything in my sense of it, her clarity of thought, particularly in the below quotes, felt instructive for me to understand the path people can take out of it and to have hope it can happen. And, perhaps more crucially, the encounter with the whole story left me with a sense of being able to put the topic down a bit more. I'm not quite sure how it did this, but by the time I reached the end, even knowing I will likely encounter and struggle with these dynamics my whole life, I felt more resolved and accepting of that reality in a way that let the struggle recede. That was a gift I am grateful for. And for the wisdom it brought also, I will come back again.
The first part of the book was just good. Not great, good. It detailed the author's backstory and early life, and while this section was read too quickly by the narrator/author (though oddly the later chapters weren't), it was interesting to learn about the inside world of something I'd known from the national news and discover the sometimes-unexpected reality of it. As both just general interest and character study that was interesting.
Then the fascinating parts came. Namely, how/why did she leave? What was the last straw? How did it actually occur? How did it go? What's it like to have left certainty behind and face the world after? How does one build a life again?
Not only did I get that in detail, but the last chapter in particular became deeply fascinating and bumped the book from a 4-star to a 5-star for me. This was particularly because it had one of the most thoughtful, considered explorations I've encountered of how/why someone begins to question, and then leave, groupthink. I expect to come back to this chapter in the future, and to save myself some time at bottom here are a few of the major quotes that felt most important. This chapter as a whole felt like a timely meditation on our broader political moment. Just as Ross Douthat's [b:The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery|57341765|The Deep Places A Memoir of Illness and Discovery|Ross Douthat|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631506792l/57341765._SY75_.jpg|89747087] has become one of the most useful explorations I've encountered of the complex terrain one is forced to navigate when the experts fall short - timely in that his personal experience proceeded the group version of it during the Covid pandemic - this book feels like an equivalent personal experience that illuminates the broader one whole societies are encountering. Genuinely illuminating in the sense of "casting light" on that issue, not just for her story but for the perspective that story gave her and the thoughtfulness she brings to it.
For me, I have been struggling greatly to understand these dynamics of late, wrestling with them deeply, and while Megan's perspectives didn't change anything in my sense of it, her clarity of thought, particularly in the below quotes, felt instructive for me to understand the path people can take out of it and to have hope it can happen. And, perhaps more crucially, the encounter with the whole story left me with a sense of being able to put the topic down a bit more. I'm not quite sure how it did this, but by the time I reached the end, even knowing I will likely encounter and struggle with these dynamics my whole life, I felt more resolved and accepting of that reality in a way that let the struggle recede. That was a gift I am grateful for. And for the wisdom it brought also, I will come back again.
The church’s garish signs lend themselves to this view of its members as crazed doomsayers, cartoonish villains who celebrate the calamities of others with fiendish glee. But the truth is that the church’s radical, recalcitrant position is the result of very common, very human forces—everything from fear, family, guilt, and shame, to cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. These are forces whose power affects us all, consciously and subconsciously, to one degree or another at every stage of our lives. And when these forces are a coupled with group dynamics and a belief system that caters to so many of our most basic needs as human beings—a sense of meaning, of identity, of purpose, of reward, of goodness, of community—they provide group members with an astonishing level of motivation to cohere and conform, no matter the cost...Others with stories like mine have shown me repeatedly that the root of Westboro's ideology — the idea that our beliefs were 'the one true way' — is not by any means limited to Westboro members. In truth, that idea is common, widespread and on display everywhere humans gather, from religious circles to political ones. It gives a comforting sense of certainty — freeing the believer from existential angst and providing a sense of stability — a foundation on which to build a life. But the costs of that certainty can be enormous and difficult to identify. Ultimately, the same quality that makes Westboro so easy to dismiss–its extremism–is also what helps highlight the destructive nature of viewing the world in black and white, the danger of becoming calcified in a position and impervious to change."
"One of the earliest sources of doubt had been incredibly trivial matters that highlighted internal inconsistency and a deeeper issue - a dawning awareness of human perception coloring and altering apparently divine laws. In the stories of others departing similar high-control groups I would notice this pattern again and again - an unshakeable faith first called into question by the groups failure to live up to its own standards."
“. . . I started to understand that doubt is the point–that it was the most basic shift in how I experienced the world. Doubt was nothing more than epistemological humility: a deep and practical awareness that outside our sphere of knowledge there existed information and experiences that might show our position to be in error. Doubt causes us to hold a strong position a bit more loosely, such that an acknowledgment of ignorance or error doesn’t crush our sense of self or leave us totally unmoored if our position proves untenable. Certainty is the opposite: it hampers inquiry and hinders growth. It teaches us to ignore evidence that contradicts our ideas, and encourages us to defend our position at all costs, even as it reveals itself indefensible. Certainty sees compromise as weak, hypocritical, evil, suppressing empathy and allowing us to justify inflicting horrible pain on others. Doubt wasn't the sin, I came to believe, it was the arrogance of certainty that poisoned Westboro at its foundations.”
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
Really interesting view from someone within the church, experiencing the changes. I am sadden when children of churches have to spend so much of their adult life finding who they are and what they believe once they leave. I am glad Megan and her sister found people who could help them in this beginning period.
Really interesting read, I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in religion/extreme religions etc.
Really interesting read, I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in religion/extreme religions etc.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
informative
slow-paced
This memoir is a powerful one. I won't lie - several times it angered me and often made me quite sad. But ultimately, it teaches lessons about humility, family, the power of speech, and the dangers of certainty.
Phelps-Roper is one of the grandchildren of the late Fred Phelps, he of the "God Hates Fags" signs and the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets at synagogues, gay rights events and the funerals of soldiers. Phelps describes what it was like growing up in the church as part of a large family - the strictness, the supportive atmosphere, and sometimes, the fear.
As the manager of the church's Twitter account, Phelps-Roper is in contact with many people with differing views, and over time, among the vitriol, the questions asked through this platform sow the seeds of questions that lead to her leaving the church. A large portion of this memoir is tied up in her agonizing decision to leave her church and her family, and the aftermath of that decision.
I have to say that I did not come at this book with much sympathy for her and her relatives, but I did end up feeling for her and the position she was in. And all we really are and can be judged by are the decisions we make and the life we lead. She's definitely headed in the right direction. And this woman can write. The constant interspersion of italicized bible verses got to be a bit much for me, but it made sense given her upbringing. But boy, can she write. I was especially taken with a passage about free speech near the end of the book:
"...the principles enshrined in the First Amendment are no less relevant to social media than they are in public spaces: that open discourse and dialectic is the most effective enabler of the evolution of individuals and societies. That the answer to bad ideas is to publicly reason against them, to advocate for and propagate better ones. And that it is dangerous to vest any central authority with broad powers to limit the bounds of acceptable discussion -- because these powers lend themselves to authoritarian abuse, the creation of echo chambers, and the marginalization of ideas that are true but unpopular."
(In a weird bit of reading synchronicity, both this book and Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments," which I read two books back, refer to the horrific story of from the book of Judges, which I'd never heard before reading about it in these two books.)
Phelps-Roper is one of the grandchildren of the late Fred Phelps, he of the "God Hates Fags" signs and the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets at synagogues, gay rights events and the funerals of soldiers. Phelps describes what it was like growing up in the church as part of a large family - the strictness, the supportive atmosphere, and sometimes, the fear.
As the manager of the church's Twitter account, Phelps-Roper is in contact with many people with differing views, and over time, among the vitriol, the questions asked through this platform sow the seeds of questions that lead to her leaving the church. A large portion of this memoir is tied up in her agonizing decision to leave her church and her family, and the aftermath of that decision.
I have to say that I did not come at this book with much sympathy for her and her relatives, but I did end up feeling for her and the position she was in. And all we really are and can be judged by are the decisions we make and the life we lead. She's definitely headed in the right direction. And this woman can write. The constant interspersion of italicized bible verses got to be a bit much for me, but it made sense given her upbringing. But boy, can she write. I was especially taken with a passage about free speech near the end of the book:
"...the principles enshrined in the First Amendment are no less relevant to social media than they are in public spaces: that open discourse and dialectic is the most effective enabler of the evolution of individuals and societies. That the answer to bad ideas is to publicly reason against them, to advocate for and propagate better ones. And that it is dangerous to vest any central authority with broad powers to limit the bounds of acceptable discussion -- because these powers lend themselves to authoritarian abuse, the creation of echo chambers, and the marginalization of ideas that are true but unpopular."
(In a weird bit of reading synchronicity, both this book and Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments," which I read two books back, refer to the horrific story of from the book of Judges, which I'd never heard before reading about it in these two books.)