Recap: Interviews and other interactions

Our trip to Topeka was very productive. It demonstrated significant and observable progress. While progress comes partly through the quality of interactions that we’re pleased to have with the WBC community, it helped to have a good quantity of interactions. We recorded more than 20 hours of interviews.

We appreciate WBC for its hospitality, cooperation, and devoting so much personal and family time to the interviews.

Here’s a breakdown of the main interactions in the field, with (random) highlights:

  • Steve Drain, welcoming interview, 0:30 hr:min
  • Tim Phelps, scheduled interview, Thursday, 1:54
    • Understanding employees; personality traits; childhood and young adult experiences; Israelite tribes and priestly classes; idea of co-authoring an eschatology piece with Dr. Gray; “you write one article a week and I got your back” (1:31); interest and curiosity about where our project is going
  • Abigail Phelps, scheduled interview, Thursday, 1:50
    • Her work on offender re-entry; knowing someone with an abusive father; understanding personality types (My True Colors, e.g., helper, right thing to do, control, cerebral); experiences of prejudice; compartmentalization and Others; she recommends distributing our “Principles of Harmful Speech and Violence” to SPLC, ADL, etc.
  • Rebekah Phelps and Kathy Griffin, scheduled interview, Thursday, 1:49
    • Kathy into and through law school, with Becky’s help; Kathy’s journey in and out of the church; family relationships; Becky’s work in family law, its stress and emotions; “he took my client’s child when she was nursing that baby” (1:40)

  • Singing hymns in the church (not recorded,  ad hoc participation)
  • Jonathan and Paulette Phelps, ad hoc scheduled interview, Friday, 2:53
    • Students conducted this interview on their own.
    • Originally, six students were to accompany Jon and Paulette to Kansas City and observe their picketing. WBC canceled it, they said, due to safety concerns for our students.
    • School situations and family relationships; Paulette’s joining the church; racism and class; doctrinal matters; their impressions of our project, “fair not accurate,” Ps. 68:11 and “he’s simply enrolled in the army of the lord”  (2:42:28)
    • “What possessed you to traipse across [many] miles… to come here and to want to sit through this? Seriously.” (2:43) As a teacher, I appreciate that Jon took the time to listen to the students reflect on their reasons for voluntarily signing up for this trip.
  • Field-observation of WBC picketing, Friday morning (not filmed)
  • Shirley Phelps-Roper and Brent Roper, scheduled interview, Saturday, 1:40
    • Charity in the WBC sense; Brent’s relations at work and charitable volunteerism; their early relationship; personality, temper, passion; Brent’s love for Pastor Phelps; posters that were eliminated; newborn babies’ names
  • Jonah, Gabe, and Noah Phelps-Roper, with Shirley, scheduled interview, Saturday, 2:02 (G and N after 1:40)
    • experiences at school and college (e.g., bullied to “say you’re gay”); career plans; their questions about practicing Jews; participation with our project
  • Margie Phelps, scheduled interview, Saturday, 2:26
    • her work on the SCOTUS Snyder v. Phelps case, “I gotta know the story” (1:54:15 to 2:06:01); anti-WBC prejudice in agencies; managing chaos; style to improve: “how to effectively navigate a negative, disruptive, bullying person” (~32); possibility of co-authoring an op-ed on the draft “Principles of Harmful Speech and Violence”
  • Spaghetti dinner with Steve, Luci, Boaz, and Faith Drain (not filmed), Saturday. Thank you!
  • Family Bible reading led by Steve Drain, Saturday, 1 hour. Ecclesiastes ch.5
  • Bekah Phelps-Roper, Deborah Phelps-Davis, Faith Drain, Becky and Julia Jaques, Esther Griffin. Scheduled interview, Saturday, 1:08 hr:min
    • This was, in effect, a “bridging conversation” conducted by the Miami student team. Topics included personal interests, career ideas, relations within the church and with schoolmates, and popular culture.
  • Field-observation of WBC picketing, Sunday morning (not filmed)
  • Church service, including sermon by Jonathan Phelps, prayers by Steven [H] (07:00) and Brent (39:50), two hymns, 0:49 min.
  • (Tim Phelps and Hillel Gray, ad hoc planning of a co-authored article on eschatology and Zionism, Sunday, 0:33 min)
  • Sam, Jen, Isaac, and Moriah Phelps, (minors in room), scheduled interview, Sunday (1:42)
    • Hospice and nursing work; transgender girl in school and other challenges (“Why do you believe in a God that created people just to destroy people?” 19:05); dealing with emotions and religion in the workplace; missing the Hockenbarger parents; their “courtship” narrative
    • Value of retelling emotional stories and participating in the project’s interviews (Jen, Isaac, and Sam separate times)
  • Charles, Rachel, Steven, Ruth, Bethany, (Jeremiah and Gideon) Hockenbarger, scheduled, Sunday, 2:10 hr:min
    • Rachel as a Judge Pro Tem working on state custory; Steven at work (40:20) “I am a robot” <joke>, Bethany at 47:30; Charles on our project different than media, and other scholars, by not having a certain end-product

This is a work-in-progress. We hope to prepare better summaries down the road.

6 thoughts on “Recap: Interviews and other interactions”

  1. CM

    Grayhc, I cannot reply to you directly, so I’ll write a new comment: Thanks for posting that SCOTUS interview. It is interesting to see. One thing I wondered is how they frequently say they strongly support the separation of church and state, while at the same time arguing the government should follow Biblical principles or else God will destroy them, and also the government should implement the death penalty for homosexuality. That could’ve been brought up with Margie.

    Were Shirley’s sons more difficult to speak to than the other males their age? When speaking with younger members, do you think you have a rough idea of who may become future leaders in the church when their parents generation (Shirley, etc) become too old? I know Megan Phelps-Roper was considered to be a likely future leader, but she left. Who among the youth seemed to possess the traits (intelligence, etc) most likely to make them the next leaders?

    Also curious, is Taylor (Steven Drain’s daughter) still in the church? I don’t think she goes on pickets, does she?

  2. CM

    Will you upload many of these interviews to YouTube, or elsewhere online? I know you can’t upload 20 hours of interviews online, but it’d be interesting to hear Margie Phelps speaking of Snyder v. Phelps or anti-WBC prejudice in her workplace. Similarly, hearing lengthy interviews with Shirley’s children would be interesting too.

    1. grayhc Post author

      I’ve started to put excerpts in our Facebook group and my YouTube channel.

      I think her comments (2017 and 2018) on SCOTUS could be uploaded.

      For anti-WBC prejudice in her workplace, I may need to screen to see if any non-WBC people (although none are named) might worry about the public exposure.

      I may try a segment with Shirley’s 3 sons. I don’t want to embarrass them. But it’s instructive to observe the difficulty I had in connecting with them personally, whereas I generally found WBC women more amenable to discussing and showing their emotions.

    3. CM

      Thanks for posting that SCOTUS interview. It is interesting to see. One thing I wondered is how they frequently say they strongly support the separation of church and state, while at the same time arguing the government should follow Biblical principles or else God will destroy them, and also the government should implement the death penalty for homosexuality. That could’ve been brought up with Margie.

      Were Shirley’s sons more difficult to speak to than the other males their age? When speaking with younger members, do you think you have a rough idea of who may become future leaders in the church when their parents generation (Shirley, etc) become too old? I know Megan Phelps-Roper was considered to be a likely future leader, but she left. Who among the youth seemed to possess the traits (intelligence, etc) most likely to make them the next leaders?

      Also curious, is Taylor (Steven Drain’s daughter) still in the church? I don’t think she goes on pickets, does she?

    4. grayhc Post author

      I don’t know about future leaders. The current elders have varied personalities and strengths. Several are under 50 y.o., so there’s no need to speculate 20 yrs down the road IMO. You can see some of the young women in a video (on FB or our YouTube channel).

      Taylor — she’s married and has another new baby.

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