Nate Phelps thought his way out of a notorious family cult that you’ve quite certainly heard of: the Westboro Baptist Church founded by his late father Fred Phelps. The church, classifed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, is known for its outrageous and inflammatory slogans, obsessive anti-gay views and picketing of funerals. Nate, who last year received the $10,000 Henry Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism Award from FFRF, talks on the show about what it was like to grow up in this church and his abusive family and how and why he was able to break away. He tells some pretty shocking stories — and also how he came to embrace freethought despite his upbringing.
“My father believed God was going to, or Christ was going to, return by around the year 2000,” he recounts to “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. “So I had done the math and I figured, ‘OK, I’ve got another 20 some years. I'm going to live my life on my terms, away from the violence.’ It was safer.”
Learn more about the Freedom From Religion Foundation at ffrf.org.
