Last week, Fred Phelps son posted on Facebook that his father, the longtime head of the notoriously venomous Westboro Baptist Churchfamous for protesting military and other high-profile funerals and events with neon God Hate Fags signswas now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in To
Most intriguing about Nate Phelpss Facebook post was not the news that an octogenarians health was failing, but that Fred Phelps Sr., who founded the hatemongering church in 1955 and turned his progeny into some of the loudest and most despised people in America, had been excommunicated last summe
f elders, Nate says. During this time, more of an emphasis was placed on Bible passages highlighting female inferioritypart of the effort, Nate says, to remove his sister Shirley Phelps-Roper from her role as the churchs spokeswoman and, in Fred Phelps later years, as its de facto leader.
Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. founded the Westboro Baptist Church in 1955. He, his wife Margie Marie, and their oldest son, Fred Phelps Jr., then a newborn, had moved to Topeka the previous year for Phelpss job as an associate pastor at the East Side Baptist Church. He was then chosen by the churchs lea
ring series include Beast Watch, Jews News, and WBC Video News, in which Drain, Fred Phelps and his son Timothy offer the Primitive Baptist take on the latest news. One of the more recent ones, for example, is titled God Hates Malaysia, and is pretty self-explanatory. Drain also writes and r
According to Lauren's book, like the late Phelps, Drains relationship with his parents was strained, to say the least. Fred Phelps Sr.s mother passed away when he was five and his father went on to marry a divorcee. Phelps would eventually alienate himself and his children from his father and step
An expansive 1994 series on the Phelps clan by the Topeka Capital-Journal offers a fascinating look at the life of the Westboro Baptist Churchs founder. Unlike the young Fred Phelps Sr., who was known for being disciplined, studious and athletic, if not somewhat antisocial, Drain was rebellious, ac
Four of Fred Phelps 13 children have defected from the church and approximately 12 grandchildren that Nate knows of, but I suspect there are more, he says. Both Nate and Lauren describe a deep lack of empathy, even for family members, which, they say, is promoted within the WBC. Defectors are use
