The Westboro Baptist Solution to the Problem of Evil

The Westboro Baptist Church is repulsive to nearly all other humans. But their "thank God for dead kids" approach is internally consistent in a way that less vile theodicies are often not.

In a key early scene in Megan Phelps-Roper’s memoir Unfollow, Megan and her sister Bekah are sitting in the back seat of the family’s Toyota while their mom tells them about the Doctrine of Predestination. The girls are playing with Barbie dolls in their laps during the lecture.

Jacob and Esau had been grandsons of the patriarch Abraham—twin grandsons, M…