The Westboro Baptist Church and Popular Culture- How the WBC integrates pop culture inside and outside the church

By: Margaret Hamm   

A tweet from Paul McCartney the day after WBC members picketed his concert

      Throughout its history, the Westboro Baptist Church has worked to connect its message with popular culture in multiple different ways. For example, most people who are generally familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church are aware that the church is notorious for its public use of, and frequent attacks on, popular culture through their social media and picketing efforts. However, church members also incorporate popular culture into the internal life of the church community, such as through mention of pop culture figures and events in their sermons. Therefore, although it is clear at first glance that WBC members actively integrate pop culture references into their public messaging, what may not be clear to the casual observer is that pop culture plays a role, although more subtly, in the internal teachings of the Westboro Baptist Church.

      Two of the most common ways that the church publicly connects its teachings to pop culture are through their social media outreach and, perhaps most well-known by observers, their parodies of popular songs. A recent example of this tactic is a video on July 22nd, in which church members took part in the “Keke Challenge”, a viral video challenge in which participants dance to Drake’s “In My Feelings”.  While the content of the challenge is similar to most other “Keke Challenge” videos (i.e. the dancer in the video gets out of a moving car and performs the dance while keeping up with the car), the lyrics featured in the video have been changed to fit the WBC’s message of their praise and love for Jesus, and members featured in the video are holding picket signs as they dance. In a similar vein, the WBC makes a concerted effort to picket many pop culture events, including concerts and funerals of pop culture figures. For example, when the Miami research team visited the church last year, a group of church members picketed a Paul McCartney concert. Notably, these pickets also serve as ways in which the church’s integration of popular culture into their messaging draws more attention to their work. In the case of the picket at the Paul McCartney concert, McCartney posted a photo on his Twitter after the concert of some of the WBC protestors, which, whether he realized it or not, gave the WBC a significant platform.

      The second, much less recognized way in which the Westboro Baptist Church incorporates popular culture into their teachings is through using certain pop culture events or phenomena as main topics and as introduction points for their sermons. Over the past few months, I have been analyzing 630 WBC sermons for our research team. Generally, the sermons focus on analyzing Biblical texts through the lens of the present day, specifically in light of what WBC sees as a corrupt society. However, their familiarity with popular culture also comes through clearly in these sermons.  While this evidence of pop culture fluency has often been true of WBC sermons and American politics (the 2016 election, as well as former President Barack Obama, have been mentioned multiple times in recent years), the trope applies to more lighthearted aspects of pop culture as well. For example, in a recent sermon preached on Sunday, July 22nd, the preacher opened the sermon with a mention of a new show on Netflix, entitled “How It Ends”. He offered a brief summary of the show and consequently used it to connect to the theme of the day’s sermon, “The Drawing of the Jews in the Last Days”.

      Though there may be a misconception that church members do not engage in discourse on present-day politics, technology, and culture, in reality, they do much more than just read the Bible. Most members of the Westboro Baptist Church are highly educated, with many having law and other professional degrees. As a result, many members are well-read and skilled at discussing current events related to American political and social life. In addition, although members do spend a lot of time reading and studying the Bible, they are not limited in their consumption of media to Biblical texts; they watch movies, play video games, and take part in social media. Members of the Westboro Church are well aware of the popular culture trends that are going on in the world around them; in turn, they respond to these phenomena by not only taking part in them but also by altering or interpreting them to further the church’s message.

      Whether this strategy of incorporating pop culture references into their messaging makes the WBC’s argument more or less appealing to others is up for debate. However, at the most elementary level, it is indicative of the fact that the Westboro Baptist Church makes an effort to intertwine its message with popular culture, whether through informal mentions in their sermons or formally through certain topics in their social media messaging.