When I was reading the first six pages, I was very upset. What her family said about God, what she was taught to believe, was so wrong. God loves ALL people, there should be no hate no matter what. Also as human-beings, God does not control what happens to us, we make our own decisions and our own future. Its hard because at the beginning I was saddened that people still think like this, that everything that happened was not that long ago, but in the end of this reading, I felt happy that Megan and her sister Grace were able to get out.
Megan Phelps-Roper had the possibility of changing due to having intellectual humility. This does not come until later on but she starts having these realizations that hey, maybe what they are doing is wrong. She had contact with other people, like C.G. or Abitbol that made her look at other things, and when she did decide to leave the church, the activism really helped her feel more encouraged that she was doing what is right. Its sad that due to her family and what she grew up with she believes the bible is false, but I would tell her that I am proud because she broke the cycle instead of continuing to hurt people. NO ONE deserves harm, no one. Phelps-Roper had the strongest connection with C.G. and I think he is what helped motivate her change the most; he inspired her in a way. After everything, C.G. and Phelps-Roper ended up living together! I think that shows that sometimes just one individual can change the way you view things. The church changing also pushed Phelps-Roper to change, she even stated “It was like we were finally doing to ourselves what we had done to everyone else.” “Seeing those parallels was really disorienting.” Because of the church changing and relying on men to control everything, contact, activism, and intellectual humility, Megan Phelps-Roper was able to change and create a better life for herself due to all of those things and of course she is still going to love her family, there is nothing wrong with that. All that matters is she was able to break a unforgiving cycle. I want to say again that to those who believe in God, he loves all. If you were to read the bible, look at what he says about love.
“love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back” -Luke 6:35
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” -John 13:34
^ EVERYONE, is loved. What I lastly want to say with this reading is give my favorite bible verse and why.
“Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins” -Ecclesiastes 7:20
That is my favorite verse because none of us is perfect. We can all be good people that may have done wrong, that may have messed up, but we don’t get punished for it because WE ARE HUMAN! Megan Phelps-Roper is human and I think the things she did with her family were absolutely terrible and disgusting, but the main thing to take away is she did change. She used strategies and met people and looked at new perspectives and she changed.
