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This memoir takes you on a journey from the perspective of Megan Phelps-Roper, born and raised in the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) notorious for its fire-and-brimstone style and aggressively homophobic and anti-Semitic positions it displayed in full view of the world with its notorious public pickets of soldiers' funerals and celebration of tragedies worldwide. Unfollow is able to give us a unique insight into the history of Westboro, its beliefs and how its foundations were lay, as well as chronicling the slow-and-steady process of how one of its most ardent and dedicated family members born into this belief system and surrounded by it for as long as they had known began to question their doctrine and eventually forged their own path outside of the church.

Before talking about the subject material itself, I just want to express how absolutely amazingly written I found this memoir to be. Megan Phelps-Roper's use of language and the way she articulates her points are a joy to behold, as she waxed poetic on what was no doubt a very emotionally challenging subject for her. She is an erudite wordsmith and her prose and thoughts were a joy to read.

The story told by her is profoundly moving and emotive, but not one I wholly expected. I first became aware of Westboro Baptist Church when I was fairly young. Back then it was pretty easy for me to dismiss the group as just a bunch of hate-filled idiots purely looking to get a rise out of people without thinking too much more of it. It was interesting to learn from this memoir the actual roots of the organization, which was surprisingly tied to the civil rights movement and Fred Phelps work as a lawyer at that time. It was very easy for me to assume stupidity on their part, as we often can tend to do when faced with those who disagree with our own principles, but for most part the family members are extremely well-read and educated, as Megan herself demonstrates.

This memoir was also about love; familial love mostly and the strong bonds and care shown to community members within the church. This was one of the most difficult things to comprehend for me: the juxtaposition between the outward messages of pure hate and antagonism yet the deep sense of caring that Megan describes which her family showed to her when she was living there, and which she showed to fellow family members. It's so difficult to comprehend how one can hate with one hand so much, yet love and cherish so deeply on the other.

This comprehension becomes a little easier when you learn their interpretation of the bible and their religion. That they don't really see what they do as "hatred" at all; if anything they see it as a form of love. They truly do believe that they have the divine authority to rebuke, absolutely and disregarding the feelings of others, as they spread the word of God as supported by the scriptures. The memoir includes direct quotes from the bible which were given to Megan to justify their activities, and which she truly believed herself and was taught couldn't be questioned and had only one way of being interpreted. It was very interesting to have these highlighted to me as a reader to get a real sense of where the WBC's sense of righteousness stemmed from. It also highlighted the very cherry-picked way that these passages were chosen by those at the head of the religion to keep everyone in line and putting them in a position where they felt any questioning of this doctrine would be akin to questioning God; a mortal sin.

Throughout the memoir, it was interesting to see the beginnings of Megan awakening to the possibility that the dogma she'd been indoctrinated with all her life could be wrong, or at least potentially different interpretations were possible. This was one of the most powerful parts of the memoir of all, since it brings to light some of the positive sides of humanity that are very easy to lose sight of in the world. Despite her beliefs, despite her actions and despite how abhorrent her views were at the time, people out there still found it within themselves to respond to the outright hate they were shown with a kind of love and compassion themselves. Again, it would have been very easy to respond to someone like Megan on Twitter with abuse or in kind with the same type of rhetoric she was giving. Many people did. However, it was the few that took it upon themselves to engage with her in a more reasonable tone that actually got through to her and started sewing the seeds in her mind of potential doubt as to the validity of what she was taught. These people were from the very same groups who the WBC was showing hatred towards, including those within the LGBT community and the Jewish communities.

One of the most emotional parts of the book was the day she decided to leave the WBC. Again, as an outsider it would have been so easy for me to only see the happy side of this choice; she was finally free from this hate-filled cult, yay! But as always the full story is a lot more nuanced. Ultimately in walking away she knew that her entire family would cut her out of their lives, as they had done many times before with the other who left before her, and as she herself had done to those people also as required by the WBC doctrine. She was also walking into a world she'd been told had been nothing but evil, which she truly believed. It must have been terrifying to finally step out of the threshold of that door knowing you'd not return but it also highlighted her resolve and her principles, that she was truly incapable of being there due to seeing the cracks in the rhetoric. It was an act of bravery, but also a necessity to be honest with herself and those around her due to her principles.

It would have also been easy to assume she would have felt some degree of animosity towards her family for raising her within this system and been glad they'd be out of her life, but she wasn't how she felt. She felt and still feels love towards them and cherishes the love they showed to her when she was living under their roof. It must be so, so painful to know there's a chance you'll never get to interact with your family again purely due to their belief system; this is one of the hardest things about some religions to comprehend for me. Just because one doesn't share your beliefs doesn't mean you can't love them as a person or family member: Can we walk alongside someone with whom we do not agree? Megan learned the answer to this was "yes" from outside of the church, which is precisely why she still does feel that love for them and desire to help them see the error of their ways. This is a powerful thing, but also heartbreaking knowing the likelihood of them not changing. But her own reformation and reconstitution of her beliefs are her constant driving factor to never give up on anyone, and perhaps this is a noble lesson that we can take too.

The parallels one can draw from her journey and the WBC story and the wider world are a major take-away for me from this memoir. As she states herself:

Ultimately, the same quality that makes Westboro so easy to dismiss - its extremism - is also what helps highlight the destructive nature of viewing the world in black and white, the danger of becoming calcified in a position and impervious to change.

But as I watch the human tribal instinct play out in the era of Donald Trump, the echoes of Westboro are undeniable: the division of the world into Us and Them; the villification of compromise; the knee-jerk expulsion of insiders who violate group orthodoxy; and the demonization of outsiders and the inability to substantively engage with their ideas, because we simply cannot step outside of our own. In this environment, there is a growing insistence that opposing views must be silenced, whether by the powers of government, the self-regulation of social media companies, or the self-censorship of individuals. At the heart of this insistence lie several false assumptions, including a sentiment that Westboro members would readily recognize: We have nothing to learn from these people. This sentiment was troubling to witness even among our tiny fringe movement, and I was relieved to abandon it when I left the church - but watching it spread among a vast and growing populace has been altogether more alarming, filling me with a growing sense of unease.

These positions really made me think deeply about how polarized society can be today, on a wide variety of issues, and how we treat those from the opposite sides of arguments whom we don't agree with. I see this default position of: "We have nothing to learn from these people." all of the time, and can identify instances where I've subconsciously assumed this myself. Megan's story typifies in quintessense the importance of being willing to step out of our own views, no matter how foundational those may be, and at least attempt to learn and understand where others might be coming from, even if we ultimately disagree with their position.

Overall this was a powerful story that provided a lot of material to contemplate on and take away. It would be easy to see this as a simple girl-escapes-cult tale, but it is so much more than that. It is essential reading for anyone who has a desire to meditate on how one holds their fundamental beliefs, and the power of being open to changing one's mind.