“It's because the church believes in predestination. So literally everything is predestinated by God… God doesn't hate you because you sin. You sin because God hates you.”
Conversations with Coleman · Ideas & Essays · October 2026
Phelps-Roper, who grew up in and left the Westboro Baptist Church, explains its theology to Coleman Hughes. When misfortune hits an outsider the church calls it punishment meant to harden their hearts; when it hits a member, it's "chastisement" meant to correct them. Hughes had asked why God would want to keep anyone in their sin.
Transcript
…anyways, like the idea of it being chastisement is like something that will cause you to change your ways. Whereas when it happens to an outsider, it's something that God is using to harden their hearts, to keep them in their sin rather than to cause them to change their ways. Interesting. That's
interesting. Why would God want to keep someone in their sin?
So this is, it's because the church believes in predestination. So literally every everything is predestinated by God. And so you can think about it in terms of like, you know, you are not sinning, like God doesn't hate you because you sin. You sin because God hates you.
Right.
God preserves you. It says Romans 1, this is three times, you know, God hardened their hearts. And Jesus actually talks about this, hardens their hearts, stops up their ears, and blinds them. Their eyes. So, yeah, to keep them, to preserve them in their sin. So, where were we? So, you were
just finishing up the story of the Good Samaritan and why this is a good entry point for people that don't appreciate biblical stories.
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