Many of us have seen the newspaper photos and read the articles about Westboro Baptist church, which began picketing to protest LGBTQ people being accepted by society, and moved on to protesting at military funerals, carrying hate filled signs. The author of this memoir grew up in the church, starting her picketing 'career' at age 5. She became the chief social media face of the church. But a funny thing happened along the way; arguing online with people who challenged her ideas eventually caused her to begin questioning the theology she had been taught. She eventually left the church, thus being exiled from all contact with her family. This excerpt from the book says it all:
Doubt was nothing more than epistemological
humility: a deep and practical awareness that outside our sphere of knowledge
there existed information and experiences that might show our position to be in
error. Doubt causes us to hold a strong
position a bit more loosely, such that an acknowledgment of ignorance or error
doesn’t crush our sense of self or leave us totally unmoored if our position
proves untenable.
Certainty is the opposite: it hampers
inquiry and hampers growth. It teaches us to ignore evidence that contradicts our ideas, and encourages us to
defend our position at all costs, even as it reveals itself as indefensible.
Certainty sees compromise as weak, hypocritical, evil, suppressing empath and
allowing us to justify inflicting horrible pain on others. Doubt wasn’t the
sin, I came to believe. It was the arrogance of certainty that poisoned
Westboro at its foundations.
In today's fractured world, we would all do well to listen to her words and experience.
293 pages
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