The North-East branch will be closed Monday, August 26 for staff training.
One prominent theologian calls Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church “arguably the most obnoxious Protestant congregation in American religious history.” It is known for its “God Hates” slogan and all-be-damned picketing of funerals, scenes of national tragedy, and other sites and occasions of church members’ choosing.
In a discussion of her new book God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right, Arkansas State University sociologist Rebecca Barrett-Fox goes inside the church and its hyper-Calvinist ideology. She makes a case that the Westboro movement isn’t so distanced from more mainstream segments of today’s religious right, where tragedy is commonly attributed to God’s ability to punish sin.
Barrett-Fox is a visiting assistant professor of sociology and director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Arkansas State.