Westboro Baptist Church=Left Wing Cult?

[Tiberius]

I don't think it is possible for Louis Theroux to make a bad documentary.

[Rev. Rye]

Shit, the last quarter of the documentary takes place in my hometown. How the hell did I miss that?

[downbeatplumb]

I don't think it is possible for Louis Theroux to make a bad documentary.

Missed a bit of a trick with his Jimmy Saville one though.

[Annik]

Well I see you guys have the left/right wing topic covered already, I'd nitpick about calling WBC a "cult". While it is true they practice ex-communication (which is itself somewhat Biblically based, although their interpretation of it is extreme), I wouldn't call WBC a "cult". They're very well organized, very intelligent and fully integrated into society. To label them as a cult is to attribute to them traits which are not true.

They aren't a violent or criminal group they are a pressure group, a political group and a hate group. Bikie gangs tend to be associated with organized crime (or is that only here in Australia) - at any rate, protesting funerals is just their way of expressing their freedom of speech - and they are not allowed to protest too near to funerals anyway (the distance is actually quite far). The one positive thing about WBC is that they defend very diligently the right to free speech.

Well, WBC doesn't integrate well within the host culture. They are hostile towards it and the host culture is hostile in return. This is the definition of a cult, minus the part about cult beliefs not coming from main stream religions. I say they are a culty sect.

[Aractus]

I don't really doubt that they would get in people's faces, I just haven't really seen it myself, and I have a special place in my heart for watching stuff about the WBC. Still, who cares. Crazy homeless people yell at me from time to time. I don't have an emotional breakdown over it. You know that people actually assault the WBC members from time to time. That is how the church finances, by suing them. Most of them are lawyers. I think this is my favorite WBC documentary:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtfgxo_...shortfilms

Lawyers make money anyway, lol.

Annik, they're actually productive members of society, just they want to change society as well. Lots of people want to change society, there's nothing unique about that, or 'culty' about that in and of itself.

[Deicide73]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Trctc_fqU

[Tiberius]

I don't think it is possible for Louis Theroux to make a bad documentary.

Missed a bit of a trick with his Jimmy Saville one though.

Not really. He spent a weekend with him to find out what he is like to live with. It wasn't really about investigating his past.

[CapnAwesome]

Annik, they're actually productive members of society, just they want to change society as well. Lots of people want to change society, there's nothing unique about that, or 'culty' about that in and of itself.

They aren't a cult because of what they believe, what they believe is no different than many Muslims, and in fact more moderate than some. In much of the middle east Homosexuals are actively killed, as far as I know the westboro baptist church hasn't killed anyone, or even committed any violence. I'm not sure that their beliefs are even outside the mainstream of fundamentalist Christianity. Their beliefs are similar but their actions are different. They are just saying what mainstream churches are saying, but they are saying it in public.

Despite that I still believe that they are a cult, because of they have the real trappings similar to other things that we call cults. They live in a compound, they have a leader who psychologically and physically abuses and manipulates them. They isolate themselves from the mainstream of society. Those are the things that I believe make a cult, real things and not beliefs, since mainstream religions have beliefs no more ridiculous or less ridiculous than those of things that are called cults.

[Annik]

Annik, they're actually productive members of society, just they want to change society as well. Lots of people want to change society, there's nothing unique about that, or 'culty' about that in and of itself.

I think you misunderstand how a cult is defined. Let me dig up the verbatim description for you from my psychology of religion textbook (as it will probably explain a little better).

Cults are novel forms of religion, which not surprisingly, are likely to emerge in tension both with established religious groups (such as churches and sects) and with the host culture. As such, we can expect that sects and cults share a rejection of their host culture or at least some aspects of their host culture, and are likely to be rejected by their host culture in turn. As with sects, there are belief differences between cults and their host culture. There are also likely to be close patterns of interaction among cult members, as well as retaliatory actions on the part of the host culture towards them-- all of which create a more defined religiously deviant subculture for cults rather than for sects. This occurs not only because cults are novel and hence lack previous religious legitimation, but also because their leaders likely to be a solitary, powerful, charismatic figures.

As I hope the above makes clear, WBC is a sect, but it also shares many, many similarities with cults. In fact, the only difference is that WBC is not a novel religion, but is based on Christianity. Whether or not the members are productive in society is irrelevant. The WBC is obviously hostile to the culture they are hosted in (doing such things as protesting at funerals of soldiers and massacred children) and in return, the host culture retaliates (by doing things like trying to keep the protestors from getting close to the funerals, trying to get WBC classified as a hate group, Anon. attacks, ect.). Since it is not a true cult, as WBC is not novel, it is a sect. However, the group toes the line with cults, making it resemble a cult-like sect (or, as my stellar word-smithry produced, "cult-y sect").

[Rev. Rye]

Just for the record, there's a sequel to the Louis Theroux documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF1oAsgzchA

One highlight I found interesting starts 36 minutes in, and it strikes me on the fact that the WBC's plans for the future seem to hinge on some of the most insane bullshit.
Here is their plan for what they expected in the wake of the supreme court ruling.
* The Supreme Court would side with them.
This actually happened: See Snyder v. Phelps
* The people will rise up against them and demand that the WBC leave the country.
OK; let's set aside the fact that this hasn't happened. Demanding that someone leave the country can only work if they're citizens of another country (like Polanski or Chaplin). To make matters worse, every time I've heard of the WBC going to another country, they've been either refused entry or threatened with arrest if they returned. And to quote RationalWiki:

Banishment... is not a good idea. This is because other people don't want your criminals either. Can you imagine the diplomatic fallout if one of our criminals ended up somewhere else and committed crimes? (And they would probably be immediately banished by whichever state they went to, leading them to become homeless nomads.) Banishment relies on a sense of a "wild space" that, in most of the world, doesn't really exist anymore. Except for certain parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, there are no more "tribal lands" that people can just escape to. Even Mexico has become a fully functioning state (except perhaps in Oaxaca--and good luck trying to disappear to there!) This is an archaic idea with no place in the modern world.

What might have happened is lynching, which is still technically frowned upon, and, even if it came to pass, it would have been at an unprecedented level; how many times has there been a lynching of 75 people (and, as of December 2012, that's how many people were there in the church) executed successfully in one go?
* Ideally, they'll go to Israel, specifically Jerusalem
Where do I start with this? Well, first off, given that every time I've heard of them going abroad, they've either been threatened with arrest if they returned (Canada), or flat-out denied entry (The UK), I can't see them being able to go on this. In fact, given that they've become increasingly anti-semitic, and even went so far as to film a video that's visible about 8 minutes into the special rejoicing at the prospect of impending doom for Israel, can anyone see the Jewish Homeland even allowing them entry? The only possible scenario that would end with them living in Jerusalem is them going to East Jerusalem, which is technically under control of the West Bank of Palestine, and who'd bet that they'd last long there?
* 144,000 Jews will convert to Christianity and the WBC'll ally with them.
Note: when WBC means Christianity, they mean that they consider themselves the only true Christians. In the WBC's 57 years of existence, and in the 21 years they've been picketing, it seems like they've only amassed less than .1% of the number they're expecting. And, meanwhile they've alienated far more than that number, and I'm sure that, if anything, the Jews may be the WBC's #2 most hated group; and they expect that they'll convert en masse, and increase the WBC's numbers almost 2000-fold! Oh, and bonus points, they expect that these Jews will accept responsibility for killing Christ, even though even if the Jews had the authority to commit execution in the time of Christ (and it's not likely that they did), they wouldn't have crucified him because it's far too bloody for Jewish tastes.

So, I'm sure many people would agree with me on this: if your "Bibilcal Prophecy" hinges on six impossible things happening before breakfast, you're doing it wrong.