Writings by Westboro Baptist Church

From Freepedia

WBC Epics are a series of stories and poems written by members of Westboro Baptist Church as a loose "gospel" to document their activities and opinions. Their rationale is that they believe their leader, Fred Phelps, is the last prophet, and that they, as members of the group and follows of Phelps, are the last group of "chosen people" to go to Heaven.

The stories and poems (which portray the members of the cult as superheroes) are descriptions of members of Westboro stalking, harassing, assaulting, ridiculing, and mocking various public officials, celebrities, and above all, murder victims and funeral mourners (whom they describe themselves laughing at and condemning to Hell).

WBC Letters to Heretics (meant to emulate Paul of Tarsus' letters to the Corinthians), are "hate letters," in which members of Westboro mock, insult, and declare their superiority to assorted anonymous individuals to whom the letters are addressed.

1 Authorship
2 Audience
3 Characteristics/content
- 3.1 Prose and poetry
- 3.2 Letters
4 Links

Authorship

There is no one author of these writings; they have been written by Phelps' grandchildren, children, in-laws, and other members of the group; nor are the works of the various authors grouped in any kind of order. Rather, the poems and prose are arranged chronologically according to what the group refers to as "Epics." The Epics consist of specific incidents of church members publicly picketing, harassing groups of people, etc. The Letters to Heretics are all written anonymously and also grouped according to date.

Audience

Even though the church explicitly states that only members of Westboro "have any chance" of entering Heaven, and that everyone else is "irreversibly bound for Hell," the gospel is still intended for "the entire world." Members of Westboro claim two reasons for this:

1) They believe, "foolishly," that they might "turn" someone to their cause

2) They want to cause the world to hate them, thereby "worsening" the world's damnation

Though these are Westboro's stated motives, it is widely held that their actual motives are:

1) To preserve their own history and bolster themselves as being on par with the Biblical prophets and original gospel scribes

2) Cause the reader to experience feelings of pain, suffering, anger, and hatred, thereby validating the Westboro crusade

Characteristics/content

Prose and poetry

In the prose and poetry work, the members of Westboro portray themselves as superheroes called "The Tachmonites," named after a servant of King David. (In her slang-filled "Epic" entry, Abigal Phelps referred to herself as a "Tishbite" [1]).

The Tachmonites "powers" are:

They are always right about matters or theology
They are incapable of committing sin
They possess superior intellect to everyone else in the world
They are directly supported in their adventures by God
No one can ever win an argument with them, make them look foolish, prove them wrong about anything, or defeat them in any way.

Most of the prose works begin as short stories. Invariably, the narrative is interrupted with non-sequitur insults to various groups or individuals, lists of Biblical quotes and recitations of scripture, and boasting about the greatness of the author and/or Westboro.

An example of a typical paragraph from a prose epic:

The Lutherans were the first to learn of their damnation. The quiet, tree-lined street came alive with the sounds of beautiful hymnal music … and preaching. Charles cried against the alter [sic] of Baal, reminding them that “Martin Luther had 95 theses … not a bucket of feces”... Abi, Luci, Kay, and Lizz turned from their singing and tattooed the Jezebellian bitches until they retreated to lick their wounds. Many of the whores, it turned out, were catholic rentals who came to stand in solidarity with the Lutherans. No surprise there – we told them – since the Lutherans are in second place (behind the Catholics) in the money being paid for molesting little boys. [2]

When reporting incidents in which the Tachmonites are physically attacked, the tone abruptly shifts, depicting the powerful Tachmonites as having suddenly become weak and defenseless, incapable of protecting themselves against attackers who are invariably referred to as "faggots." They must rely upon police officers or "Good Samaritans" to help protect them from their aggressors. The aggressors are summarily condemned to Hell, whilst any police officers or intervening civilians are automatically deemed to be "eligible" to receive a reward from God in the future (though this is in direct contradiction to their stance that only they are in God's favor). Those who ignore the Tachmonites' cries for help are irreversibly damned to Hell without hope of ever redeeming themselves.

The Tachmonites frequently voice their negative views on a variety of social topics ranging from popular culture to current events (one author likens listening to Elton John music to literally having human feces rubbed in one's ears, because John is a homosexual)[3]. These insights, presented as having greater intellectual validity than alternate opinions, as well as possessing superior wit. Each view stated inevitably paraphrases the exact same WBC principle: "God hates fags and fag enablers".

The authors portray themselves as in perpetually good spirits, especially when mocking funeral mourners, stalking their enemies around a city, ridiculing the dead, and condeming others to Hell. The Writings repeatedly state that WBC members are incapable of ever experiencing negative emotions. According to their Writings, the "leisure activities" of members include miming physical assaults, engaging in name-calling, and screaming obscenities.

Letters

The Letters to Heretics are supposedly letters written in response to people who have written into the website godhatesfags.com.

The tone of the letters is decidedly passive aggressive; the original letter writer is always reduced to an anonymous, insulting pseudonym such as "Vulgar Suzy" or "Dumb Dick." (The author of one letter maintains that Suzy is a "stupid name." [4]) Whereas the author always begins by thanking the author of the original letter for taking the time to write and uses proper salutation, the letters quickly degenerate into extended insults, condeming the original author, pronouncing the infallibility of members of Westboro, and further solidifying the group's positions. Several letters end with the admonition, "You're going to Hell. Have a nice day."

The letters are all written anonymously, save for a handful signed "Magormisabib." While in the Old Testament this is what God renames a king as a symbol of his damnation, the authors of the letters use it as a curse.