"An incredible story of how one individual left the Westboro Baptist Church. If this story does not prove that those barriers can be broken down, I don't know what will." It all started when Megan Phelps-Roper stepped onto the TED Talk stage and told her story about leaving Westboro Baptist church. If you haven't seen her talk, stop reading and watch the video below. Megan ends her talk by saying, "Each one of us contributes to the communities and the cultures and the societies that we make up. The end of this spiral of rage and blame begins with one person who refuses to indulge these destructive, seductive impulses. We just have to decide that it's going to start with us." So often is hard to engage people who are still stuck in the cult, I have experienced this so many times in my few years I have been away. Normal conversations just don't happen, the people in the cult are taught to disengage from any confrontation and just spout off Bible verses and things that have been drilled into their brains from day 1. Logical conversations are pretty much impossible to have with someone who is still living within the confines of the church, and for me that is very difficult to comprehend. My desire is that I can have a logical conversation with people still in the church that need to see the light from the outside (my family, some of my old friends, etc.), but every time I attempt a logical conversation I am met with contempt, name calling, Bible verses and closed ears. Listening to Megan's TED Talk made me realize that this barrier can be broken, but it will take time, patience, and a knowledge on how to approach someone who is still in the church. Megan goes through four crucial points on engaging someone in a conversation: 1. Don't assume bad intent "Assuming ill motives almost instantly cuts us off from truly understanding why someone does and believes as they do. We forget that they're a human being with a lifetime of experience that shaped their mind, and we get stuck on that first wave of anger, and the conversation has a very hard time ever moving beyond it. But when we assume good or neutral intent, we give our minds a much stronger framework for dialogue." 2. Ask questions "When we engage people across ideological divides, asking questions helps us map the disconnect between our differing points of view. That's important because we can't present effective arguments if we don't understand where the other side is actually coming from and because it gives them an opportunity to point out flaws in our positions. But asking questions serves another purpose; it signals to someone that they're being heard." 3. Stay calm "This takes practice and patience, but it's powerful. At Westboro, I learned not to care how my manner of speaking affected others. I thought my rightness justified my rudeness — harsh tones, raised voices, insults, interruptions — but that strategy is ultimately counterproductive. Dialing up the volume and the snark is natural in stressful situations, but it tends to bring the conversation to an unsatisfactory, explosive end." 4. Make the argument "This might seem obvious, but one side effect of having strong beliefs is that we sometimes assume that the value of our position is or should be obvious and self-evident, that we shouldn't have to defend our positions because they're so clearly right and good that if someone doesn't get it, it's their problem — that it's not my job to educate them...We can't expect others to spontaneously change their own minds. If we want change, we have to make the case for it." 5. Take heart (not included in the original TED Talk) "Changing hearts and minds is incremental work and takes patience and persistence. You are not going to see results immediately, but we can't give up. You might not be the person to persuade a person to turn away from a bad situation, but every interaction is a chance to help turn the tide, so stay the course, trust the process, and take heart." After three long years of getting nowhere with my family I was beginning to lose hope, thinking they would never understand why I left, wondering why they don't just open their minds and try to think of themselves in my shoes. Both of my parents are very smart, both have science degrees from very good universities, both are very strong willed and passionate and smart, but it seems since they have been pulled into the church all of that makes no difference now. I hear over and over "your parents were not raised that way", or "they are smarter than that", but yet that doesn't change the present situation. This goes to say that the ploys of the church are so strong and alluring that anyone can be caught up with it and before you know it they are completely swallowed up by the cult. Needless to say, after watching Megan's TED Talk I was beginning to see a glimmer of hope for my family, a way to engage them in conversations that would make them think instead of just being defensive and offensive. Megan says another thing in a radio interview later (links below) that really hit home to me: "the nature of that loving family is part of what makes it so hard to leave, or even consider leaving". So many countless times I've cried myself to sleep over the fact that my family has basically disowned me, the loving and supportive family I grew up, the siblings that were my partners-in-crime, my best friends, sometimes my rivals, but always the people I could go to were no longer there, most of whom will not talk to me and a few who are not allowed to talk to me. One of the hardest things for me was leaving knowing that I probably would not have that relationship with my siblings any more, knowing that they would be forced to shun me, to "deliver me to Satan for the destruction of the flesh". So many times my parents played the "family card" to try to guilt me into coming back, sending pictures, videos, reminding me of special times, telling me they did a special family thing and because I wasn't there it wasn't the same, etc. One of the hardest things was letting my family treat me like that and not being able to make them see why it was so important for me to get out of that church, that even though I had to make extreme sacrifices I was in a better place, I was happy, safe and loved. The barrier is real, it is one of the most daunting things in my life right now, and breaking down that barrier is always on my mind, not just to get my family back, but to help them see that the place they are in right now is very destructive, negative and is destroying them from the inside out. I know it will take time and patience, part of me wants that to be over with and for them to see the truth right now, escaping from a cult like that takes time, courage, a plan, and a very strong desire to do what is best for you and not what the church says is best for them. Barriers are usually put up for protection, but in the case of Falls and Westboro and other such churches, the barriers that they set up are for seclusion, so the people inside can't see what is going on in the real world and so the real world can't see what's going on in the church. Churches like this seclude themselves from the world, only going out into the world to bring more people into the church (as I've mentioned before, we weren't allowed to have outside jobs, go to outside schools, go to outside places of entertainment or have friends from the 'outside world', etc.). Anything can be a good thing until you have too much of it, and in this case the church is trying to control way too much of everyone's lives to a point that they are making brainless puppets on strings that dance to the tune they compose for them. People are making it out all the time, myself included, so I know there is hope for the people still stuck in the church. The hard part is they need to realize and understand that they are in a cult, that there is life beyond the walls of the church, that the church is not the ultimate authority, that their opinions and beliefs are important, and that personal happiness is not a sin, that the quality of life isn't determined by what church you go to, what you wear, how or if you worship God, your education or even your family, quality of life depends on how happy and joyous you are within yourself, something that people involved in cults never really get to experience. There is hope, barriers can be broken down, people can be freed from the enslaving cults that are all around us, it just takes a small percentage to lead the way, to show there is a life outside the church. If you are in that percentage, don't give up, joy comes in the morning! Links to Megan Phelps-Roper's radio interviews:
Megan Phelps-Roper left Westboro Baptist Church 1/2 Megan Phelps-Roper left Westboro Baptist Church 2/2
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorCanadian born and raised, I am an independent spirit that has always longed for freedom. I have experienced a lot of contrasting things over the years, and finally now have the courage to write it down. Categories |