Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church (24 page)

For example, they now condoned divorce. While talking to Pastor Judd, Shirley learned that he had remarried, which he was allowed to do as a widower. However, other parishioners had divorced and remarried, which was considered adultery in our faith. We started yelling at them, chastising them for changing the rules of their church, and they became really angry.

Shirley, who believed it was the pastor's new wife who was steering the congregation in a new direction, was crazy upset. She was convinced that Iva had been the last good person from that congregation. The WBC

believed that one good person could keep a church and a country alive, but now this congregation was doomed.

In our own community, though, the pastor really and truly wanted the people to stay in the church. He wasn't a condemning, debasing fire-breather all the time. In fact, he was actually a little compassionate. "You've learned your lesson--let's move on," he'd say. There couldn't possibly be constant humiliation, or nobody would stay. "You're not going to leave me? You're not going to do anything foolish?" the pastor would ask all of us, usually leaving it to the other elders to keep everyone in line and dispense the hard-core humiliation.

I saw a few people get kicked out for various sins. Chris Davis had been kicked out before my family got to Kansas, and I saw him get kicked out for the second time. He was married to Becky Phelps, the eighth of the pastor's children, who worked as an attorney at Phelps Chartered. Becky once told me that she had been a wild child when she had been my age. She used to go dancing and skating, and actually smoked cigarettes and wore makeup.

She said her disobedience had gotten her in a lot of trouble with her father, but as she matured she had come around. Becky and Chris had been married a long time and had four children together.

Chris was in his late forties when the pastor started having serious doubts about him. The pastor's biggest grievances were that Chris was lazy and not a proper head of his household. He was considered a slacker because he rarely went to pickets and never showed up at the construction projects to pitch in. It was not required, but it was expected that guys would help, since they were the sole source of labor for these renovations. Five to ten guys would show up on any given day and put in a few evening hours working on whoever's house was being remodeled. Otherwise the jobs would never get done. Chris was reminded to put in hours, but he never did.

Chris was also overweight, and the pastor said he hadn't been instructing his kids to do physical exercise, and they were becoming overweight, too.

He thought that Chris and his kids were simply not making the effort to stay in shape. Besides the laziness and weight issues, Chris's kids were also being unruly and not doing their chores, which meant Chris was not serving as an effective head of the household.

I heard that Chris's supposed laziness and lack of familial authority were enough for the congregation to vote him out, although if he could prove himself worthy they would allow him back in. He was permitted to remain in his house with his wife and children during this probationary period. There was no absolute set rule as to the length of time for a suspended membership. In Chris's case, about a year passed before they voted to allow him back in. Of course, he was married to a Phelps, which helped his case.

I was there when Chris was thrown out for the second and final time. He had been back in the church for about a year, and his children were still misbehaving. I thought Chris was a decent guy, but I agreed with the consensus of everybody who had known him a lot longer than me, that he was lazy and a slacker. This time, Chris was not going to be allowed to stay in his home. Members held a secret meeting to come up with an eviction plan. Shirley was going to be the leader of a big SWAT team-style effort.

Church members knew that as soon as word got out that someone had been deemed unworthy, there was no telling how he or she would react, and that he could potentially freak out and get violent.

"He is dangerous; he is the devil," Shirley would say about anyone who was being disfellowshipped; in this case, it was Chris. The church needed to protect the wife and children in case of violence, so members would sneak them out of their houses before delivering the news. The leaders of the operation against Chris thought they should surprise him when he was sleeping to minimize his chance of reacting badly. The okay to proceed always came from the Holy Ghost through Shirley. She'd get an

overwhelming feeling and know the time was right.

That very night, the eviction took place. First, Chris's wife and children, already on board with the plan, were quietly removed. Then, with a heavy shake, the disfellowship team woke Chris up, ordering him, "You need to get out, get your stuff out." While he was still packing, they told him he would be divorcing his wife. Technical y, it was going to be a separation because marriage was a lifelong covenant. They also told him he needed to give the church monthly financial child support for his four children or risk being sued for the money.

After Chris got kicked out, Becky started telling everyone how unhappy she had been in the marriage, and how peaceful the household was now that he was gone. She knew she'd never marry again, but she also knew she couldn't bear living with slovenly Chris anymore. Sometimes, I wondered if Becky wasn't behind a plot to get rid of Chris because she was tired of him.

Chris, though, was totally distraught. Hoping he could still win back the favor of his church and his family, he picketed some places by himself using a GOD HATES FAGS sign he still had in his possession. However, pickets were church-sanctioned events, and anything related to them--T-shirts, picket signs, printed materials--was owned by the church. Disfellowshipped former members were not supposed to be in possession of any of our materials, so when Shirley learned what Chris was doing, she ordered him to turn in his signs and told him he wasn't allowed to picket anymore. Chris then tried other things, such as e-mailing Shirley about money issues he was having, but she told him she couldn't help him. Several months later, some of us ran into him in the city. He looked like he had lost a hundred pounds, probably from all the stress. At one point, there was some discussion about whether he would be allowed to come back, but Shirley never acted on it, and Becky never particularly pushed for it, either.

The saddest event was when Bill and Mary Hockenbarger, after having been in the church for almost five decades, found themselves under intense scrutiny. For years, the pastor had been trying to get them to move to the block, saying the world was ending soon. They lived about half an hour away, but the Phelpses wanted everybody close. Shirley and others who had money were still buying up houses, and they had one they thought the Hockenbargers should occupy. Bill and Mary said no; they were happy where they were. Shirley thought it was because they were older, so moving would be too much trouble for them.

She started to send e-mails about them, beginning with lines like "I wonder what is going on with them." E-mails and church gossip started to intensify. "I kind of want to go over to their house and see what is going on, because maybe they have too much to do to move," Shirley would say or write. The Hockenbargers had no idea they were the center of discussion, because they were older, didn't use e-mail, and weren't around the church to hear the gossip. Finally, one day Shirley said, "Let's just go do it. Let's go help them move." Everyone listened to Shirley about things like this. She had a very generous heart and knew the collective action of the community would really make the task manageable, like a barn raising.

One day about thirty of us showed up at their house. As was typical, the workforce was mostly the young people, sprinkled with a few elders like Dad and Shirley, who liked this kind of hands-on work and acted as the overseers. Two of the Hockenbargers' grandchildren, Charles and Katherine, were also with us that afternoon. We descended on the Hockenbarger property in a few vehicles and parked along the street to begin the surprise cleanup, pack-up, and move. Mary and Bill met us at the door.

We were almost in shock when we saw what was ahead of us. We'd known that the Hockenbargers had a hobby of going to garage sales and buying things, but we thought it was a casual pastime, something they did on Sunday afternoons. It turned out that they had so much stuff, we couldn't get through the rooms. It looked like a hoarder's mess, with garbage, clothes, and useless things everywhere. The garage and shed were filled with rusted tools, an old tractor, and a big rusted snowplow.

Shirley ordered a Dumpster to be delivered immediately to get rid of the

"idols." She was always talking about "idols," which weren't just images but any worldly possessions you had become attached to, as well as attitudes and behaviors. Anything that was put before God in somebody's life, such as pride, vanity, or even a child, could be labeled an "idol." The church members would find your idols if you did something wrong before God.

As soon as the Dumpster arrived, we followed Shirley's order to throw everything in it. The Holy Ghost was telling Shirley to tell us to clean this house now, and we got started immediately. There was no reason to postpone a decision to think it through. If you were not doing it right away, you were not serving God.

The thirty of us began throwing away everything in this house of idols, from lamps and knickknacks to household appliances that no longer worked. We began tossing things into the Dumpster with abandon, and having all the kids together made the gigantic task fun. Bill Hockenbarger had no choice in the matter. He was stunned and shaken. "Your idols are gone," Shirley preached at him in front of everyone. She was practically taunting him. "Are you upset we are doing this? If you are, then you are going against God."

My father was trying to use a more practical approach, explaining to Bill that getting rid of things that had no function was for the best. He found a set of rusty levels that were totally outmoded. Dad thought he needed to show him how useless these tools were by demonstrating how the metal piece of the level toppled over when he tried to use it. He was trying to reason with him, but he was being really overbearing and controlling. I wasn't sure why watching the way my father was speaking to Bill struck me as really funny, when it was really so sad.

This was Bill's lifetime hobby, collecting all this stuff. He was freaking out and pacing. When we moved toward his old snowplow in the shed, he began screaming. Normally, he was a soft-spoken, gentle, skinny old guy, but the anxiety was killing him. "You are not throwing this away! Get out!" he screamed, throwing himself onto the plow. A few people wrestled him away, picked up the rusted heap of metal, and dragged it into the Dumpster.

We all stopped what we were doing. We looked to the elders for what to do next. Shirley said, "We are done, we are done with them." She looked at Bill and said, "You are over. You are out"--just like that.

"We're leaving them with their idols," Shirley announced to the group. As we walked to the vans, she threw up her hands. "Well," she said, "we had to kick someone out because of their love of trash." As quickly as we had arrived, we left the Hockenbargers with half their possessions in the Dumpster. The consensus was we didn't need them any longer. The church was a complete body. If there was a member missing who was supposed to be there, the church would be off balance until it was complete again. On the other hand, people who weren't supposed to be in our community were like a cancer, and the sooner we got rid of them the better. Leaving there that day, I knew that the disfellowship process was about to begin.

The process of banishing someone was the strangest thing I'd ever witnessed. Some people were just stunned, like the Hockenbargers. Others, like Chris, were unbelievably distraught. I personally had a weird feeling of entitlement before another member was kicked out. There was so much power in telling someone he was unworthy. Sometimes, I couldn't wait until the day came when we would disfellowship someone. But other times, I was so heartbroken over the loss I would bawl my eyes out.

The official meeting to declare the Hockenbargers disfel owshipped took place in two parts: first, the members met to discuss the matter in private, and then the Hockenbargers were invited in to make their case. The private meeting took place in Shirley's basement. Those who were out of town or couldn't make it joined by conference call. We were all invited to share remarks about their transgressions. "They are rebellious and not part of God's people," someone said. Everyone started making fun of Bill and how he liked old tools, an old snowplow, and garbage more than God. Even his son and grandson joined in, with his grandson repeating, "Just get him out, just get him out."

I was crying and very upset, but I didn't have anything to add in their defense or to further the attack on them. The harshness was overwhelming. Mary and Bill had been in the church since 1955, had raised their children and grandchildren there, and had great-grandchildren on the way. Most people were red-faced mad at the Hockenbargers, but Bekah, like me, was crying, too.

Jael's mother, Paulette, tried to console me. "This is the way it is supposed to go down," she said, telling me to get a tougher skin. "You can't avoid God's will."

As the discussion continued, I got the sense that the members were leaving the final decision about the Hockenbargers' fate until after they heard from Mary and Bill.

When the premeeting was over, the Hockenbargers were invited in. I watched them shuffle in slowly and take two chairs placed just for them.

Once everyone was settled, Shirley asked Bill if he had anything to say, but all he did was lament the loss of his snowplow, and said nothing about wanting to stay in the church. Mary didn't have much to add, either. The meeting started to get a little out of control, as the expectation had been that Bill was going to admit to his transgression and atone for it. When Mary and Bill got up to leave, some of the members surrounded them outside the meeting room. Through the taunts, I could hear Bill yelling, "Just give me my snowplow back!" They managed to get to their car and drove off.