AllMovie

For fifteen years the Reverend Fred Phelps has been unleashing a torrent of hate-filled fire and brimstone rhetoric on his congregation at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and in this documentary filmmaker K. Ryan Jones sets out to interview both current members of the church and former members have since turned their back on Rev. Phelps and his followers. Well-known for his inflammatory condemnation of the homosexual lifestyle, Rev. Phelps claims that America's tolerance of the homosexual lifestyle is leading the country down the path to certain destruction. In recent years his congregation has courted more controversy than ever by targeting military funerals as a venue to preach their particularly confrontational brand of Christianity. In addition to interviewing the Rev. Phelps and various outspoken members of his fellowship, director Jones also turns his lens towards other dissenters, theologians, and ministers in an effort to explore precisely how religion can be interpreted to suit any agenda given enough passion and a talent for skillful manipulation.