Jesus is complicated. He’s the man who said turn the other cheek — and the man who said he came not to bring peace, but a sword. The man who dined with outcasts and sinners — and the man who promised to set a daughter against her mother. Two thousand years of readers have found both men in the same book, and built entire lives, entire churches, around the parts they chose to hear.
Westboro Baptist Church built its whole identity on winning that argument — insisting theirs was the real Jesus, the hard one, not some softened-up, sanded-down savior. Megan Phelps-Roper grew up trained for that fight, and when she left the church, she assumed she was leaving the fight behind — and Jesus, too.
But recently, she found herself yanked back into the fray again.
After listening, please share your own stories as well as your questions and comments below.
Discussion (5)
Hi Megan, Just a quick note to say how much I any enjoying your work here. I am a professor of physics at Caltech, agnostic, studied with jesuits in high school. I love these stories and the complex and beautiful interpretations. I will share these episodes with my children, so much great philosophy and wisdom. You asked about Bible stories we find interesting. I remember my mind opening to the possibility that the Bible had simply amoral stories when I realized in high school how perverse it would be for a God to demand a human sacrifice (Abraham and Issac). Love to hear your thoughts on this one.
Megan, I was raised in one of the many fundamentalist groups who share more or less exactly the same doctrine as yours, minus the protest signs. (Called the Plymouth Brethren by other churches, while our churches felt themselves far too scripturally obedient to actually take “any name other than Christ’s“) Enjoying your podcast because I have an abiding fondness and reverence for the Bible, but decades later it’s still inexorably tied up with two things I don’t want connection with: -an insular, isolationist group that thought it was more correct than any other one, that punished by expulsion and shunning (see: my username. Given to me by my church) -one of the feel-good “positives only,“ Jesus is my Buddy churches that don’t seem terribly interested in using the Bible as anything other than a source of brief “eat pray love” axioms. I was raised to judge them, and although I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, it’s very much not for me. I can’t take them seriously. I don’t feel the euphoria. So for me, the Bible and my beliefs in all of that are very complicated, and are certainly not comforting, nor part of going along with a group of any kind. I’ve written books about my experience, did six seasons of a podcast, and all of this did more for me than any theoretical listeners or readers. Haven’t found a whole lot of people in that rare position of retaining some respect, interest, or beliefs in the Bible, but not being able to relate to any specific group we’re supposed to join and duty report Sunday morning mornings “because the Bible says so.” Eagerly awaiting the next episode of the podcast.
Hi Megan, thank you so much for making this podcast and for sharing such deeply personal insights. I first read your recent essay for the Tangle, then have listened to the first two episodes. I look forward to continuing. I am so touched by your story because on many points it connects with my own. My grandfather was also a pastor. I was raised in a Baptist church. Like you, my family made daily Bible reading a priority throughout my childhood. I have studied the Bible, cover to cover, in different settings and different ways, my whole life. It has influenced me far and away beyond any other book. But the God and Savior I came to know and develop a personal relationship with is radically different from the way you describe your family's teaching. I know Him as the God who is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love," (Psalm 145:8) and also "is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (2Peter 3:9). I very much enjoyed both the stories I've heard you tell so far and I agree with the themes and application you brought out. I also firmly believe the Bible is one big story of God and His love for the world He has made, and His redemption of the people He made in His image. I wonder if you have ever studied the Bible from that perspective? Where each part fits together to tell one grand story? Not that I have figured it all out. There are many parts that don't make sense to me or don't sit comfortably. But I keep going with faith that "now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (I Corinthians 13:12) Like you pointed out, each time through, you look at the text with more experience, more life behind you. I hope that this exercise in delving into the stories you know so well already brings you a new peace, and a deeper relationship with the God they are all about. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Hey Megan! Your reporting and story telling for this series has been incredible. Thank you for sharing your experiences, stories, and insights into these classic tales. As a Jewish person, it's not common to find people who simply read the bible cover to cover, and even then we only read the Torah/First Testament. Instead, we are a people who study text and debate and read arguments and contribute to arguments going back thousands of years as we try to interpret what these stories and even individual words mean. In this instance, I feel that your podcast feels similar in how I approach the text, and you've inspired me to go digging to better understand the bible and what it says. The Good Samaritan is a story I'm familiar with through its popularity in culture (how could you not be?), and I appreciated your in-depth analysis of the story as you told it. It really stuck with me, about what it means to be a good person especially when you pointed out that it's framed in the concept of other-ness, that the Samaritan would be quickly identified as an "enemy" of the folks listening to the story. As the world is so deeply divided and increasingly violent, it felt more important than ever that we truly listen to what this story means and how to truly apply its message to our lives. It falls into the concept in Judaism of "Tikkun Olam," or repairing the world. As you point out, our concept of the afterlife is so vague it's almost nonexistent in our religion. Rather, our purpose on earth is to help repair it and leave the world a little better than when we found it.
Hi Megan, as someone who has been deconstructing from evangelical Christianity over the last 15 plus years, I have appreciated you and your perspective for awhile now, and I imagine it hasn't been easy for you deconstructing from such an extreme version of evangelical Christianity, and doing so in the at times skeptical and antagonistic public eye as well. I also admire you for how you have tried to be gracious to your detractors (including in the fallout from the Witch Trials Of JK Rowling podcast, which I admit I had some mixed feelings about, but resonated with the intention behind it) just as others have been gracious to you, and respect you for trying to model that, as difficult as that may be to do in these divisive times. Anyways, I'm enjoying this series so far, and I appreciate how you have been open and vulnerable about your own personal life and what you have had to give up and wrestle with, and I like how you are trying to take a 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' approach to the Bible and to the Christian faith in general, which I think is a thoughtful way to approach it. I was going to add that I can very much relate to your mixed feelings about the Jesus of the Bible, and as someone who read the whole of the Bible when I was in the church (and at times felt like throwing it across the room) I don't believe that Jesus, at least how he is presented as in the Gospels, was the cookie cutter paragon of compassion and grace that he is often painted as the masses, but was a contradictory figure (unless people want to do mental gymnastics to claim otherwise), which always bothered me, as though people were projecting something onto him that wasn't really accurate, and like he wasn't really what people were selling. I've said for awhile now that there are others, like the late great Fred Rogers for example, that I would uphold as being more consistent figures of compassion and grace, more so than I would Jesus (which makes me think of how Jesus said that some of those who followed him would be greater than him, which is something to think about). Like you I am no longer a believer, although I fall somewhere in that growing 'spiritual but not religious' category, and am trying to find my way. I have been very interested in the nature of reality and consciousness, and authors like Michael Talbot and Jeff Kripal and others have been helpful in that exploration, and then people like yourself have been helpful in my deconstructing from my past beliefs and trying to move forward, so thank you for that and for helping others like me to feel less alone in this journey. I look forward to hearing more of this series and hearing more from you in the future. 🙂 - sincerely, Matt W.