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God hates : Westboro Baptist Church, American nationalism, and the religious right / Rebecca Barrett-Fox.

Barrett-Fox, Rebecca, author.
2016
286.5 B274g 2016
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Title
God hates : Westboro Baptist Church, American nationalism, and the religious right / Rebecca Barrett-Fox.
Author
Barrett-Fox, Rebecca, author.
ISBN
9780700622658 (cloth : alk. paper)
0700622659 (cloth : alk. paper)
9780700622665 (ebook)
0700622667
Published
Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2016]
Language
English
Description
x, 254 pages ; 24 cm
Call Number
286.5 B274g 2016
System Control No.
(OCoLC)928490411
(OCoLC)928490411
Summary
"In God Hates, sociologist Barrett-Fox takes us behind the scenes of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church. The first full ethnography of this infamous presence on America's Religious Right, her book situates the church's story in the context of American religious history--and reveals as much about the uneasy state of Christian practice in our day as it does about the workings of the Westboro Church and Fred Phelps, its founder. God Hates traces WBC's theological beliefs to a brand of hyper-Calvinist thought reaching back to the Puritans--an extreme Calvinism, emphasizing predestination, that has proven as off-putting as Westboro's actions, even for other Baptists. And yet, in examining Westboro's role in conservative politics and its contentious relationship with other fundamentalist activist groups, Barrett-Fox reveals how the church's message of national doom in fact reflects beliefs at the core of much of the Religious Right's rhetoric. Westboro's aggressively offensive public activities actually serve to soften the anti-gay theology of more mainstream conservative religious activism. With an eye to the church's protest at military funerals, she also considers why the public has responded so differently to these than to Westboro's anti-LGBT picketing. With its history of Westboro Baptist Church and its founder, and its profiles of defectors, this book offers a complex, close-up view of a phenomenon on the fringes of American Christianity--and a broader, disturbing view of the mainstream theology it at once masks and reflects."--Book jacket.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-248) and index.
Formatted Contents Note
The history of Westboro Baptist Church
The theology of Westboro Baptist Church
The means, ministries, and mission of Westboro Baptist Church
Cobelligerents in antigay activism: Westboro Baptist Church and the religious right
Civility, civil liberties, and religious nationalism
After Westboro.
Record Appears in
Books > Print Books
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