Isaac Hockenbarger: The brainwash of “God loves everyone” is sad. It’s spelled out so many times in so many different ways across the Bible.
McAfee: Does the WBC accept outsiders as new members?
Isaac Hockenbarger: Absolutely, it happens on occasion. But it’s going to come out if you don’t actually believe. You have to prove you believe it; it’s called the fruits—the fruits of their work. You’ve got to show that you believe, not just say it.
McAfee: Do you think that your sect of Christianity is more biblically literate than the majority of other denominations?
Isaac Hockenbarger: I don’t think you can call yourself a Christian without being biblically literate, and it’s an everyday thing. It’s constant learning. The most fundamental law of logic is that if there is but a single counterexample to your theory, you are wrong. As it is written, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” We can’t just change definitions of words because we don’t like them. Hated means hated, but we aren’t talking about human hate. We are talking about a fixed determination to punish those who don’t follow his commandments.
McAfee: I agree that the Judeo-Christian god is portrayed in most of the Bible as hating homosexuals, or whatever your version of hating is, but you’re working under the presupposition that Christianity is true and that all that exists. You’re really just working with ancient texts like everybody else.
Isaac Hockenbarger: We could work under the presupposition of atheism being true, and what then?
McAfee: Since there’s no evidence to support the existence of any deities or supernatural entities of any kind, not believing should be the default position.
Isaac Hockenbarger: We can all think that we’re the smartest people in the world and “Stephen Hawking it up” and what would it gain us?
McAfee: Intelligence, intellect, and education. By pursuing scientific advancement, we can understand the world how it actually it is.
Isaac Hockenbarger: If you’re right, so what. If I’m right, you’re screwed. That’s the simplistic version.
MEMBERS OF THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH PICKETING THE GOLDEN GLOBES IN LOS ANGELES. PHOTO TAKEN IN 2014.
McAfee: That’s called Pascal’s Wager, and it’s long been debunked. But the typical wager there would be that you lost nothing. You guys have kind of lost your whole lives, following this really extreme sect.
Isaac Hockenbarger: What would you have gained?
McAfee: Living an evidence-based life is great. You don’t just listen to whatever your family tells you, or your culture, or anything. You just look at facts.
Isaac Hockenbarger: You keep acting like you don’t want to offend me by saying cult, but you tell me I listen to my family. No, I don’t.
McAfee: Just like any Christian, you were born into a family and you listen to them. It’s still indoctrination if it’s a small cult or a big religion. You teach your children something and you don’t allow anything else other than that.
Isaac Hockenbarger: That’s a lie. We live absolutely normal lives.
McAfee: Are you encouraged to question your actual faith and interact with people who have left the church?
Isaac Hockenbarger: Absolutely, people leave all the time. Most of my family doesn’t belong to the church anymore.
McAfee: And you have nothing against them for that?
Isaac Hockenbarger: No, absolutely not. But I’m not “buddy buddy” with them.
McAfee: Why not? They’re still your family. Have you been taught not to be “buddy buddy” with them?
Isaac Hockenbarger: Because it’s simple. They went their way; I’m going my way. It’s in the Scriptures.
McAfee: But what if you look at the Scripture from another religion? Why is your religion’s Scripture the “right” one?
Isaac Hockenbarger: It’s what you choose to believe, just like you can choose to believe in the Big Bang, or whatever.
After speaking with Isaac, I learned more about his and others’ experiences at Westboro Baptist Church through his older brother and former WBC member Michael Hockenbarger. Michael, 25 years old at the time of our e-mail discussion, graciously agreed to share his perspective on the WBC’s true motives and intentions.
McAfee: What is your relationship to Isaac? When was the last time you spoke to him?
Michael Hockenbarger: Isaac is my brother, the youngest of seven. I am number five. It has been a little over eight years now since I have seen him or spoken to him.
McAfee: When and under what circumstances did you leave the cult? Do you consider yourself religious now?
Michael Hockenbarger: I was forcibly thrown out in October 2005. It wasn’t my choice, and I didn’t want to leave. They had excommunicated my father earlier that year, so I was sent to live with him. School was not pleasant. Isaiah [another WBC member] and his friend constantly ridiculed, humiliated, and assaulted me, but I was too afraid to confront them or talk to teachers. That was my only semester at Topeka West High School.
Strangely enough, it is their emphasis on education that led me to doubt in the first place a few months after being kicked out. The research into ancient religion led me to a revelation of sorts. It is all the same. All of it. Hindu, Zoroastrian, Christian, Wicca, it doesn’t matter. It is an outdated, primordial attempt at explaining the world around us, and exerting control over the masses.
My parents still believe in all the same bigotry that the cult does. Many of us who left found other churches and religions, or fell off somewhere in the apathetic department. I’m the only outright atheist I know of (aside from Nate).32 The idea of continuing to believe in a deity that would allow its adherents to torture each other the way they do is appalling to me. Add that to the fact that zero evidence has ever actually been presented for sky wizards, and you get an atheist.
McAfee: Isaac told me that, while he is not “buddy buddy” with friends and family who left the cult, he is still allowed to interact with them regularly. To your knowledge, is that accurate?
Michael Hockenbarger: Should Isaac even look at us, he would be thrown out. Same with Jennifer, Charles, and Katherine (my other cultist siblings). They say to the outside world that they can, but it is a bald-faced lie. Should he do so, he would face the exact same ostracism, torment, and eventual excommunication that the rest of us did. Paul (from the Bible) says that those without faith are a poison to the church, to be cast out and shunned. (Matthew 18:15–20, 1 Corinthians 5:1– 12, 2 Corinthians 6:14, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, Ephesians 5:11, and many more).
McAfee: Did you hold a protest sign for the Westboro Baptist Church? What can you tell me about that experience?
Michael Hockenbarger: Of course. It is expected of the children to attend the pickets. I’ve been to several places around the country, including a time when I was on the front cover of a Pennsylvania newspaper. Most of the time, it was pretty boring, to be completely honest. The most that happens is some moron will flip them the bird. That being said, there were more than a few instances where I have been in legitimate fear for my life on the picket line. People throw things, pop their cars over the curb and swerve at us, initiate brawls, and shoot at them. Once, a guy stopped in the middle of traffic at 17th and Gage [in Topeka, Kansas] to accost me (15 at the time) for my sign “Thank god for 9/11.” He hit me, knocked me over, and tried to take the sign from my possession. This isn’t one of those little hand-held signs you are used to. This is a big billboard type with support trusses that is nearly six feet tall. It wasn’t pleasant being tangled in that mess with a guy 100 lbs. and a foot bigger than me. Another time, when leaving a gay pride parade in Chicago, a woman chased us down despite police paddy wagon transport, and threatened James [Hockenbarger] with a switchblade. At the time, he claimed an angel barred her path. Now, I’m sure she just didn’t have the courage to tangle with us.
I enjoyed the antagonistic debates and arguments in those days. I still do, and from time to time play devil’s advocate to argue the points from their perspec
tive. I don’t believe in sky fairies, but enjoy debate, and have had the dogma drilled into me my whole life. As Big Josh once said, “You can take the Phelps out of the compound, but you can’t take the compound out of the Phelps.”
McAfee: What is the real goal of WBC? Do they want to convert others, or to publicly humiliate homosexuals?
Michael Hockenbarger: This cult has but one purpose. The purpose isn’t conversion, or anything like it. That purpose is merely gaining attention for their message. The reason they use the terms and strategies they do is purely for the shock factor, purely to convince you, and other authoritative figures and media outlets, to talk about them. They truly don’t care if you call them a cult. By talking about them at all, you have given them all they could ever want. The only way to mitigate the damage they do, not only to me, my parents, and my friends, but also to the public, homosexuals, atheists, and everyone else is NOT give them attention!
McAfee: The WBC has a strong emphasis on illuminating what they call the “sin” of homosexuality, but the Bible itself deals with homosexuality in only a relatively small number of passages. Do you have any insight into why the cult is so focused on it?
Michael Hockenbarger: It has to do with the “zeitgeist,” or the spirit of the times. Our country has had sweeping advances in the administration of homosexual rights recently, so that is the issue they glommed on to, and the issue the media covers the most. They preach against adultery, fornication, Catholicism, and just about anything else you can think of. This is just the issue that garners the most attention.
McAfee: Would you say WBC members are well versed on the Bible?
Michael Hockenbarger: We spent a great deal of time studying theology, not just the Bible, when I was young. I’ve read apocrypha, sutras, the Dao De Jing, the Qur’an, Torah, Talmud, etc. We were required to be well versed in Martin Luther, Joseph Caryl, John Gill. We did comparative translation analysis on individual Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words to understand the source material. I don’t come from a group of inbred hillbillies, like most “experts” say. Highly intelligent and well-read are much more accurate phrases. As teenagers, we were required to memorize and recite on demand large passages of the Bible, especially segments that came up on the picket line, like the ones Isaac rattled off to you.
Are they well versed? This is subjective to me. Personally, yes, I believe they are more biblically literate than most modern seminary students by the age of 10. I know I out-quoted and debated priests and preachers at that age. Many liberal Christians would point out some verses they appear to disregard, but they know these passages, and can fully explain them. You know as well as I do that there are thousands of contradictions in that amalgam of rhetoric and fables known as the Bible.
McAfee: Do you think the WBC practices a warped extremist form of fringe Christianity, or do you think it teaches strict adherence to the Bible?
Michael Hockenbarger: They are Christians. They preach what Jesus preached. He chased people with whips, threw people out of the temple, cursed fig trees, flipped some tables, and caused all kinds of hell without breaking too many laws. He didn’t kill anyone, he never condoned rape, and he defined marriage in the Christian sense. They are the ugly truth of Christianity, not extremists. When they start razing cities and killing every man, woman, child, and livestock beast, we can talk about extremism. They have an opinion, and they state it, the same as you or me, or the most vocal homosexual advocate.
McAfee: Do they really believe what they preach?
Michael Hockenbarger: Without a doubt. They also believe they are always right, and nobody else has anything of value to say. How could someone preach such vitriol without believing every word? Anyone who doesn’t tends to leave. The children are harder to understand. We have been taught that the Bible is the infallible word of God since before the age of reason. We didn’t know anything else. The children there have no alternative system, because they were never exposed to them in earnest. We look at other holy books and disregard them as lies and propaganda. In some ways, these people are no different than the psychotic Muslims who blow themselves up to garner attention. Yet they don’t commit acts of violence. Is what they say wrong and offensive? Yes. Do we have a right to stop them? No. They are doing no actual harm to anyone outside the cult.
McAfee: Would you say WBC members are dumb or generally uninformed, as they are often portrayed?
Michael Hockenbarger: Nurses, attorneys, computer engineers. These people aren’t stupid. They know they don’t follow conventional logic. They know what they do infuriates people. Gramps learned from his time in the Civil Rights Movement. They know every means of spreading their message. People like you and the news are the easiest and most effective. They won’t stop. Their message is pretty clear. “We are right, you are wrong, and we are going to mock you for eternity while you are in Hell.” No matter how sociopathic that sounds, they firmly believe they are correct, and that they are doing exactly what Jesus commanded them to do. 2 Timothy 3–4 is a great example of what they feel their duty is.33
McAfee: Do you think the WBC shows what religious fundamentalism can do when taken to extremes? Do you see a difference between commonplace religious indoctrination and what the WBC practices?
Michael Hockenbarger: I don’t see a difference. “Commonplace” Christians send checks, cash, money orders, and letters of support to the church all the time. “Commonplace Christians” just don’t have the cojones to stand on the street corner and say it. Jack Wu, a recent addition to the cult, ran for school board solely on the platform that he was from the cult and wanted to instill biblical values in the school. He got nearly a third of the votes, as I recall. These beliefs are far from isolated. This is what Christianity looks like, all over. Most just try to cloak it in deceptive words.
Are they a little more extreme than others? Only in the way they deal with one another. I know of few other cults that actively attack and vilify one another for any perceived flaw. Jehovah’s Witnesses and more fundamentalist Mormons are the only others I can think of that do anything similar. My experience hasn’t been all that different than boys thrown out of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints compounds because they were competition for teenage girls. They will seemingly at random choose a person, then attack them relentlessly. Secluding them, mocking them, harassing them. In my case, they forced me to ridiculous amounts of manual labor. It went beyond the usual eight or so hours a day to new heights.
McAfee: Do you think the WBC plays a role in showing Christians the dangerous nature of their religion, or do you think most people simply write them off as “not True Christians”?
Michael Hockenbarger: As reprehensible as what they say is, it is the beliefs passed down for nearly two millennia in that faith. That is what Christianity looks like, whether some Christians want it to be or not. Every time a Christian votes against gay marriage, they are showing their colors. The exact same colors as the WBC. The truly dangerous Christians are the sneaky “God loves everyone” Christians. At least you know where my family stands. I have no idea how anyone can get love out of that cesspool of hate and vitriol of a book. They are liars, plain and simple. I don’t see talking as dangerous. “My book says gay people are gross” or head chopping? Which is actually dangerous? They don’t burn people at the stake, many other Christians still do. They don’t kill people for being accused of fornication, other Christians still do. These people are mild compared to some Christians.
McAfee: What do you think your family members still with WBC say about you now?
Michael Hockenbarger: I don’t have to guess. I know what they say. Nothing they have to say about me is nice, despite all I did for them when I was there. The children are taught to hate those who leave, and more so for those they throw out. There is no forgiveness.
McAfee: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Michael Hockenbarger: I’m serious when I say that there is only one method to deal with people like them. They will nev
er engage in violence, so they cannot do harm you don’t do to yourself. Like any bully, ignoring them is the only answer. Dragging them to court is a waste of time and money, because they will win and spread their message. Talking to them affirms their goal. Counterpicketing provides them entertainment and spreads their message through the coverage of the counterprotest. The only way to mitigate them is for everyone to ignore them. Don’t honk. Don’t flip them off. Don’t write an article about them. Don’t give them the time of day. Ignore them.
In order to get a more complete picture of the WBC cult, I reached out to one of the most well-known former members: speaker, author, and LGBT rights activist Nathan “Nate” Phelps. Like Michael Hockenbarger, Nate is an atheist—and perhaps the only other WBC escapee who publicly holds that position. I asked Nate via e-mail to put the first two interviews into perspective so that we can have a more accurate look into the WBC and its beginnings.
McAfee: In your mind, what’s the difference between a “cult” and a “religion”? What is Westboro Baptist Church to you?
Nate Phelps: Definitions talk about a charismatic leader, isolation, Us vs. Them, etc. as the descriptors of a cult. That doesn’t make sense to me because you see these same variables in groups called religions or even political groups. There is also a general inclination to label any group that has odd ideas as a cult. But, let’s face it, every major religious organization in the world makes claims far more bizarre than what we hear from marginalized groups like WBC. I tend to see the differences narrowed down to the size and community acceptance of the group. With that in mind, WBC would be a cult.
McAfee: Your father, Fred Phelps, died in March 2014 and was reportedly excommunicated from the church prior to that in August 2013. Are you aware of the circumstances surrounding that intrachurch conflict?
Nate Phelps: Unfortunately, most of what I know is hearsay. One niece was still there during the creation of the eight-member board of elders that apparently makes the decisions now. She indicated that there was a conflict between them and my father that ended with him being removed from his position and the building. One story was that he was kicked out for treating other members bad. I literally laughed out loud when I heard that. If that were the criteria he never would have started WBC. Another story was that he was beginning to show signs of softening his beliefs, which is a death knell at WBC.
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