Second Radio Interview - Part 2

Daniel: Our guest today is Mark Phelps. He is the son of the late pastor Fred W. Phelps, Sr. Fred Phelps was the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a group known for their thousands of picket protests against the US Military and the homosexual agenda. Mark Phelps has come forward to testify about what it was like to be inside of the church the process of healing he had to go through in order to overcome the negative impact his father had on him and his family.

Daniel: How did you cope with the environment in your mind? Here you are, your dad is using the Bible to preach on Sundays. You are told that Jesus is Lord and your dad is a religious leader. People come to him to get advice for their lives then you see him doing these things, and you are going through beatings. I mean, how do you cope with that?

Mark: Well, I disconnected to a large extent, is what I realized years later. But the main coping mechanism that I particularly, specifically had as one of the 13 children living there was I drew close to the abuser. I became the yes man. I became his executioner. He even had me beating the children, my siblings, during that last couple of years I was living there. I became everything he wanted. I figured him out and I became just like him. I became exactly the way I knew he wanted me to be and I figured out how to get safe after some horrible beatings I had endured. In a nut shell, that’s how I did it. And yet I was still terrified that I was going to hell the night I left because you just don’t get through that kind of stuff without that kind of terror, you know.

Daniel: Would you say that you drew closer to your dad then you did to Jesus?

Mark: I didn’t even know who Jesus was. My father took my older brother and I to a Bible Conference when I was 11 and I got saved. I’m sure my father must have been preaching something from the Bible about that, before this time, but the Bible Conference was the first time I actually heard the words. My dad never focused on the New Testament, or very seldom did. He focused on his doctrines; he focused on the Old Testament a lot. I certainly had not the foggiest idea that there was any such thing as a personal relationship with The Lord Jesus who loved me and gave His life for me to save me. I just knew He had died for my sins and I was overwhelmed by that and knew I was saved when I was 11. But I felt more guilt. I would regularly go through this 7-day guilt cycle. I would hear more about what I should be like on Sunday and then knew how I was the other 6 days of the week. I pretty much was in the business of extreme guilt.

I want to clarify . . . I didn’t draw close to my father. There was no intimacy or affection or closeness or relationship. I figured out how to stay safe with him which made him think that I was an ally. But I did not grow close to him at all! I just figured out how to stay safe around him. That’s all there was to that! I don’t know of a single human being who ever was genuinely close to my father. My father was an abuser all the years I knew him. People do not draw close, genuinely, intimately close, to an abuser! They are not capable and those around them are too frightened!

Daniel: So as you watched your dad’s ministry develop, how did he begin to branch out into this picketing and attacking different groups. How did you see that in relation to his character?

Mark: Well, I didn’t see it all because I was gone by age 19 but it fits perfectly. Basically the way I’ve been able to figure that out by watching and hearing things from the family; although they don’t have contact with me you can’t help but get some pieces of information. To put it simply there was a certain point along the line there where he did not have the need to abuse his children; his family. The other children were more compliant and they were doing what he wanted to do and he kind of lost his family as a venue for his hate. He no longer had the stresses as high as when there were a lot of children at home, and perhaps there was not quite as much financial pressure; I can’t be certain about this.

He had been an attorney and then he had his license suspended for two years and the family had no income for quite a while so he had all the kids selling candy for the church. He abused the candy companies by not paying them for their product after it was delivered and sold. So we would sell the candy and he would keep the money. He also had most of the children running every day, 10 miles a night, literally. At least the older kids; the younger kids couldn’t get that far in the time allotted each day for running at the track. But all the children were working from the time we got up in the morning until we went to bed at around 10 or 11 at night. We were going to school, selling candy, and running around the track. I think he had less of a need and less opportunity to be hateful as the children got older.

When he lost his law license in the early 1990’s; remember I left in 1973; but as I’m watching it, he ran for governor of The State of Kansas thinking that might be a venue in which he could function. He only got about 30 percent of the vote thankfully.

After that, he was so hostile with the local officials, the district attorney and county commissioners, and so on. Somehow he got personal information about the local district attorney and some of the others; county commissioners. (So here’s the next step Dan) He started sending faxes with hateful, vulgar language regarding those local officials and sent thousands of faxes to the local businesses. He just kept fax blasting his hateful messages. I don’t know how long that went on; for quite a period of time; months if not years; until the FBI shut down his faxing operation. Then he got his idea to do the picketing.

To me it’s all consistent. My father finds ways to be hateful. I think there’s a part of him probably that’s a little five year old who wants attention from his mommy who died. Anybody that has observed that situation very closely figures out that if you leave them alone that’s where they are the most vulnerable! They want attention. They crave attention! My father has just been a master at figuring out how to get attention. I told Rick last week this is not about God and the Bible, this is about his need and desire to be hateful and he has just used God and the Bible as a venue to vent his hatefulness onto the world! That’s what I believe he has been doing.

Daniel: What you are saying is, absolutely whatever it was that inspired him, it was not the Spirit of God that motivated him to take the stands that he took.

Mark: That’s right! John 3:17 says: “Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved”. There’s a New Testament folks! There’s the Lord Jesus Christ. And He came and He died. He gave up His wealth in Heaven and He came to this earth and He gave His life. And there is now hope! There is none of this hope in my father’s words. He doesn’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as far as I can tell. I’m just going by his behavior. I just can’t see it. I’m not attempting to judge my father. I’m bearing witness to the behavior I have observed. Where is Christ in my father’s behavior?

Daniel: In my mind, I’m wondering; I have two questions at this point. 1. How did he get licensed and instated as a pastor. Did those that put him in his position really have an idea of what kind of person your father was? Or did he just work his way up? Did they know what he was preaching? I mean, maybe you don’t know the answer to these questions.

Mark: I do because that local newspaper was trying to do some research and Jon Bell wrote about it in his book ‘Addicted To Hate’. Basically what he learned was those folks there at Eastside Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas; my father had gone in there as an associate pastor; and those men tell the media in 1994 that they were deeply concerned for him. They told the press that they watched him. When I was 9 months old they watched him slap my face with his open hand and cuff my face with the back of his hand, jerking my head back and forth with his hand because I had begun to squirm in the church service. They said that several of the men approached my father and told him not to do that again. They were concerned about his behavior but nevertheless that pastor there, and those leaders, set him up across town at Westboro Baptist Church. And Dan, I wasn’t aware or old enough to know, but from what I learned from what those folks told the media, was that just about as soon as they set him up in his own church, he cut himself off from Eastside Baptist Church and my father has been on his own, by himself, from that moment until the hour he passed away, with no outside contact or accountability. He has had no accountability! No human on this earth can function effectively without healthy, meaningful, willing accountability! My father had none!!

Daniel: Our guest is Mark Phelps. He is the son of the late pastor Fred W. Phelps, Sr. Fred Phelps was the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a group known for their thousands of picket protests against the US Military and the homosexual agenda. Mark Phelps has come forward to testify about what it was like to be inside of the church the process of healing he had to go through in order to overcome the negative impact his father had on him and his family.

When we left off we were talking about what it was like to cope with everything that was going on and now I want to get to the point where you know; this has been abuse, there has been different things going on; and you are ready to leave. You left at age 19. What brought you to that crisis moment and what was it like for you to actually walk out the door and not look back?

Mark: What led to it was, I meant a young lady who was not like anybody I had known. She was just a gentle soul, peaceful, very loving. My father liked her at first. She was there at the church one day at the end of the church service on a Sunday evening and she heard my father cursing and beating my sister upstairs shortly after the church service. My father thought she had already gone; he had no idea she was at the bottom of the stairs listening to his rage and filthy language. This young lady walked right out of that place and down to the local grocery store and called her dad to pick her up. She told me she was not going to be a part of this and refused, absolutely refused to keep seeing me, if I was going to stay there. This is what started the process of my leaving.

At that time, also, my father was doing some particularly savage, brutal beating of my oldest sister and my older brother. Some incredible things were going on. My father was at his very best worst in his violence and abusing. He confined my sister for 40 days with only water after he had beaten her so horribly. I’m the yes man and I’m standing around watching all of this horrific abuse and I walk in from all of my college classes one day and see him savagely beating my oldest sister. He is bending her backwards over the church pew hitting her in the face with his fist and spitting in her face. Then he is beating her with the mattock handle. And he is cursing and screaming and berating her. All I am able to do is stand there and watch this and listen to his rage at my sister.

All of this is starting to wear on me and I’m seeing this young lady that I had recently met, and her family. Oh my gosh and I’m thinking the two families are worlds apart in their character . . . And then the thing that probably led up to it was finally, it was coming into the end of the semester there in December and I knew I wasn’t going to have a 4.0 GPA. Well, we didn’t have to have a 4.0 but we had to be pretty close. And I just wasn’t ready to be there when that report card came.

So on December 27, 1973 at about 10:30 at night I spent about an hour and a half leading up to 10:30 p.m. just taking two or three clothes items at a time and putting them in a basket. I had a little ’66 Pontiac that I had managed to get and I put a basket full of clothes in the trunk of that car. I had met a young guy who told me if I ever needed it I could have a room to stay in for a night or two. At about 10:30 I slipped out that night and drove away with nobody knowing I was leaving. When I was at that house that night sleeping in a strange bed at a house where I didn’t even know anybody, I vividly recall I figured I was going to wake up in hell! That’s basically how I got the transition made. I just was terrified and I just did it anyway. I just felt something wasn’t right. That’s the best I could do at that time Daniel.

Daniel: And in leaving, did you begin to go through what they call survivors guilt? In other words, ‘well now I left but now I feel guilty that my siblings are still back there with that heavy situation’?

Mark: Well, it was that, and guilt and fear. I had an automobile accident a couple of months later and I was sure; I poured over the New Testament; and I just felt sure from reading Hebrews that God was giving me one last chance and then that was going to be it. He was going to squish me! But I just stayed the course.

Then I got a job, got married, my wife and I started our own business, my wife miscarried three boys all during the first ten years of our marriage. For ten years, Dan, I was in limbo. I just didn’t know how to focus on anything related to God and the Bible. I felt guilty. I felt frightened. I started to get a little bit into the positive thinking arena; Napoleon Hill, his book ‘Think and Grow Rich’, W. Clement Stone. A little bit of the positive thinking material from Norman Vincent Peale. I was trying to figure out how to manage all the feelings I had stuffed down into my heart. Stress was starting to build a little bit; normal life stress in my life. Operating a business we had locations in four different states. Things were going well but I was really struggling from the stress; from my past. I didn’t understand the psychological aspects of it as far as how the mind works. But I was spending such a large amount of my energy keeping that garbage all stuffed in there. And it was leaking out!

I’ll tell you bluntly and frankly, although I wasn’t aware of it, and that’s the simple truth of it. I wasn’t aware of it but I was damaging my wife. I wasn’t sensitive. I wasn’t present. I didn’t have the foggiest first idea of what it meant to be a husband or an intimate partner. And it was taking a toll on this precious little soul I had married! All she knew was that she loved me. It shook me to the core when she was finally able to come to me one day and tell me she was having some problems. I just fell to the ground, emotionally. It was still another year or two; I was so busy with business and so on. Then when my business partner who had helped us start our business crashed his plane and died, that was the final shake. By 1988 . . . I don’t know if people can understand this, but when you are broken and you don’t know you are broken, it’s hard to know what to do. I’m driving along with my wife up into one of the little mountain communities there in southern California for a little time away. She is still so gentle with me as she’s always been. I said to her: ‘Honey, do you think I could benefit from some therapy?” That’s all I said to her. She said: ‘Maybe you could’. And so I knew that’s what I needed to do.

I had to find the right person though, folks. I had to find a guy who was a pastor, a psychologist and an attorney who could take the brunt of what I had to dump out. There wasn’t going to be any little mealy mouth for me; and I don’t feel this way today about therapist; but understand this massive garbage that I had. And I had the same attitude as my father; fundamentally I disdained people. I said to myself, I’m not going to sit with some mealy mouthed little person that wants to ask me how I’m feeling! I ain’t going to do that! But if there is somebody that can take this doctrine of Calvinism and if somebody can take this massive intensity that is roaring inside my soul then maybe I’ll do it. And it was two years with this guy and I finally started to get to my soul. I got all the garbage off the top of my soul, enough so that I began to feel terrified and all I could feel were all the emotions that were laying underneath all that cognitive diversion I had put in place to protect my soul.

And then I found a husband and wife team, bless their hearts, and I spent five years. Two of those years I spent going two or three times a week. And I found a woman’s group. And I’m telling you, that woman’s group, going once or twice a week at night for three hours, working with women who had been abused in every kind of way. Listening and seeing and watching and hearing and then every now and then I would join in and work on stuff I needed to work on. And they were a big part of my healing. I began to understand women and I began to understand feelings and I began to understand what it was like to be a human being.

Daniel: Now, uh, man, and see, this is the problem folks. The problem is that when we think we can bottle everything up and just bulldoze our way through life no matter what we’ve been through, what we’ve endured or what kind of abuse, this philosophy doesn’t work in the long run! There has to be a breaking point where we allow God to touch those deeper parts of us and take out the poison. What Mark is beginning to tell us is that he had a lot of poison on the inside of him. Some of you have a lot of poison on the inside of you. Be encouraged! We have a God who has a plan to take it out.

Mark is describing how he had come to the point where God began to heal him on the inside, to pull out the garbage and the poison. You know Mark I want to ask you this question. Could you be where you are today if you had not submitted to a season of internal healing; going back and allowing God to deal with all of the pain that you had been storing up in you from all those years of abuse?

Mark: No! Absolutely not even close. It would not have been anywhere near possible to know the Lord as I have come to know Him. There is a normal sanctification process and I know folks understand that. But if there is nothing there to work with; if you are going to die to Christ, if you are going to put yourself on the cross and die to yourself and live to Christ and walk with Him, you have to have a self with which to do that, you know? So I glory in that. I now know and I’m alive and I can give that life to Christ because I just didn’t know anything.

Daniel: Now let’s talk about the whole experience that you had with Jesus, in light of everything you have told us. So you actually genuinely received Jesus as your Lord and Savior when you were 11 and then continued to go through many years of abuse after that. And it was just terrible and you were terrified of hell but you had no relationship or intimacy with Jesus. You didn’t have intimacy with your father. Frankly it was hard to have intimacy with anyone. Now you leave your family and then there is a span of years. Now during those years, were you just keeping Jesus as far away as possible? Were you like kind of dancing on the sideline with Jesus? What was that element of your story like?

Mark: I was just so frightened and I just figured God felt the same way about me as my father did. I heard that I had become a primary part of my father’s sermons, that I was a heretic and I was a reprobate and I was the evil one and my father used me as an object lesson often, as I understood it, in his messages. And I just felt God hated me and I was just holding on by some kind of faith and hope that I wouldn’t just end up in hell.

What I didn’t mention earlier, that I want to mention now, in about 1984 I was finally able to start back into a church body. I still had the same arrogance and pride, with a chip on my shoulder that every single person in my family has, which we received from our father . . . that we had superior head knowledge about the Bible and a lot of doctrinal understanding. I joined a men’s Bible study that was a part of this church. It was the men in this men’s group that were the primary source of change for me. The leader simply had us memorize verses, and there was a lot of conversation and discussion. It was a Bible study with men and we would talk about our lives. And I just stuck with these men in this group. So by the time it came to 1988 and 1989 and I was beginning to do some of the formal therapy work, I had a relationship with the Lord that I had never had before. And it was by that, by taking what I had learned from these men that helped me so much. And I would listen to Focus on the Family a tremendous amount and I was ‘fathered’ a lot by Dr. James Dobson. And then some of those men; they all know it personally, I’m not telling anything here that they don’t already know personally; some of those men are like fathers to me and like big brothers to me. But these men were the way the Lord started getting into me.

So when I would go into those times when I would be driving my car from my house into the therapist office to do healing work, that time was spent in prayer. This is just as real as I know how to get with folks. This is not some holy stuff. I’m talking bluntly in conversation with the Lord, saying “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what is coming next. I am scared. I need your help! I am begging you, Lord, to go with me into this next period of time with these guys and help me face what I have to face.”

The professional therapists had me lying on the ground, helping me to try and relax. Then, for example, they would start raging and throwing books off the shelves and they would try to recreate a little bit of the environment that I had been raised in. And I just asked the Lord to help me and to please be there with me in it as I faced the fear. And I began to be able to allow myself to open up very slowly.

When I was still living there, as long as I could avoid getting beat, I just shut off. The raging of my father and his beating of my brothers and sisters . . . I just shut myself off to all of that violence Dan. And I had to go back in and face all of that. So these professionals tried the best they could, bless their hearts, to recreate the reality of what I had faced. And it was sufficient because the Lord was with me and I just kept asking over and over for Him to go with me and to be with me and to go into my heart with me and to help me see this and help me face this and help me deal with this.

Also, I would drive my vehicle for business. We had businesses in Orange County and San Diego about an hour and fifteen minutes apart. It was just as common for me to pull off at an exit between Orange County and San Diego as it was for me to just drive all the way through to a normal day. I would be working on some aspect of my healing the night before in therapy, or some audio tape that I may have gotten from Focus on the Family that I had been listening to. I worked at my recovery day and night. I’d be in front of the Lord and I would be listening to stuff and I’d have to pull off at an exit and park my car and deal with whatever the Lord was bringing up for me to deal with. I would weep and roar with pain, and cry, and cry out, and I just had to take it as it came. My wife would head off to her work in her profession and my daughters would be off to school and I’d be there in the living room or family room, just laid out on the floor listening to something or reading something and dealing with the emotion of what it was bringing up for me.

I remember, for example, when I learned what love was. I learned that my father had replaced the word love with the word evil. What my father tried to pass off to me as love was his evil! I had to learn my whole vocabulary. I just had to be remade in the Lord Jesus Christ and He was with me every second, every moment of that time, and He held me up and He brought me through it. And He was with me and He still is!

Daniel: So you are telling us that your very vocabulary and definitions of things had been so tainted by your dad that even when you would try to read the Bible, for example, you were almost reading a different book then the love letter that God has really given to us.

Mark: I wasn’t almost reading a different book. I WAS reading a different book! And I heard from my niece recently near the time my father was passing away, bless her heart, she and her sister had left the church, and of course, therefore, had left their family. And in their words, they are ‘trying to do good’. This is second generation now. She tells how she and her sister; how all of them; have been told that what they are doing is good. Bless their hearts. God bless them. I don’t know what’s going to happen for them. I pray for them.

But yes I’m telling you, Dan, you’re right, I read the Bible as an instrument of hate to be beat over the head with. I never understood the Lord Jesus Christ! I had NO IDEA of His love! I had NO IDEA of His heart! I just didn’t know. And now I know Him intimately! And I’m telling you, the heart and love of Christ is LIFE!

End of “Second Radio Interview – Part 2”

Second Radio Interview - Part 1

Daniel: Our guest today is Mark Phelps. He is the son of the late pastor Fred W. Phelps, Sr. Fred Phelps was the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a group known for their thousands of picket protests against the US Military and the homosexual agenda. Mark Phelps has come forward to testify about what it was like to be inside of the church and the process of healing he had to go through in order to overcome the negative impact his father had on him and his family.

Please speak candidly about what it was like to grow up with your dad and what made him tick. What was it like in the early days of your childhood?

Mark: I would say fear is the dominate experience. My first memory is when I was five years old and I remember being frightened because my mother had gone to have the next baby. I just remember being upset and scared and somehow I had figured out the phone number and I called her after my father had left the house. I was not smart enough to figure out where he was and that he had gone to visit my mother in the hospital. I called her at the hospital and I was crying and told her I was upset and asked her when she was coming back home. In the middle of my conversation with my mother my father took the phone; of course he had gone to visit her; and he told me “what the blankety blank do you think you are doing calling here bothering your mother?! You are going to catch it when I get home”. When he got home he gave me a beating. He used a leather strap at that time which he got at the local barber shop. He went through three leather straps beating his children.

By the time I was nine my father had purchased a mattock. A mattock it an instrument that has a steel or iron head on it and it is used to remove the roots of bushes and trees from below the surface when you want to rid your yard of a bush or a small tree. My father had purchased it because he wanted my older brother and I to remove sixty plus bushes that were on our property. This is what led to his decision; his bright idea; to use the mattock handle to beat his children. He started off beating my older brother and I with it, and my older sisters. But the main development from his beginning to use the mattock handle is that by the time my younger brother, Nathan, was about five years old, he began beating Nate with the mattock handle. It’s about the size of a baseball bat. One hit with the mattock handle on your back side stings and burns and hurts and shoots pain all through your body. But my father rejoiced in giving fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty hits at a time. The worst I remember for my brother Nate was 120 hits. Following that beating, my brother Nate was in the bed for about five days and was going in and out of consciousness.

So it was brutal, it was frightening, it was terrifying and it was Sunday morning and Sunday evening in the church service where he would use the Word of God to preach.

This generally characterizes our family experience and it got progressively worse as I got older and some of the children began to have a little more independence.

Daniel: What does a five year old do to push their dad to give them a beating like your dad would give to you and your siblings?

Mark: Well it was anything that was against his will, or if he was under stress or upset. That was all it had to do with. As I look back on it and understand my early years more broadly, it was just who my father was. His behavior was not about the children. It was not about my mother; my mother was a peaceful, quiet, gentle soul. My father would beat my mother, he would beat us; clearly his behavior was about who he was as a person, it was not about his children and his wife. If we did not do exactly what he wanted and if we didn’t do it when he wanted, and if we didn’t do it the way he wanted it, his response was habitually harsh, rapid, cruel and violent. This is the best way to characterize my father’s behavior.

Daniel: So, you are growing up in this environment, and you would watch your father do these things throughout the week, and then you would have to be in church on Sunday listening to him preach. Was he a preacher throughout your entire childhood or did he become a pastor at some point?

Mark: No, not at some point. My father was a pastor before I was born. He had already been set up in his own church by the time I was about a year old. And he was intense; the same voice that the public would hear now days, before he passed away; it was that same intense voice. He was a fiery preacher.

Daniel: Now, when we hear stories like this, the question becomes: ‘What makes a person like that?’ When you see somebody that says ‘well, I’m going to dedicate my life to the gospel of Jesus Christ’ you think the motivation should be that they have the heart of Jesus Christ. They want people to be saved, healed and delivered. Well, it doesn’t seem like that was really present in your father, from the kind of person you are describing here. What went in to making your father who he was? I mean, did he have an overbearing father figure as well? Was it just that he went to a bad school system, maybe, and he was bullied all the time? I mean, what was there that caused him to go this route?

Mark: Well Daniel that local Topeka newspaper sent two reporters to Meridian and Porterville, Mississippi, to the area where my father was born and raised. They learned a lot of things but nothing that would clearly explain his behavior. My father lost his mother when he was five years old. His father had an outstanding reputation in the local community. His mother was, by all reports, a wonderful Christian woman who played the piano and, like I said, passed away when my father was five. I just have not been able to find the direct cause of his behavior.

One thing that kind of factors in here, my father’s father told my father that if he is going to be in a fight he needs to kick the other person in the shin as hard as he could, hit the other person in the mouth as hard as he could. And keep on hitting and keep on kicking! Whatever else my father’s father taught, that is certainly one of the things my father learned from his father. My father repeated this and told this story several times. My father was also a boxer in high school, and maybe early college, and I heard he had won some significant fights in competition.

But there is not anything that explains my father’s behavior other than the fact that every person has to make their own choices, everybody makes their own decisions. Everybody has, to a large extent, the responsibility to make their own choices. The Lord allows that for each of us. I don’t have any other information or anything else I have ever been able to learn to explain why my father made the choices that he made. But this is how my father was!

Daniel: Now, did your father play favorites, as a father? Did he have a certain one of you that he put on a pedestal and then punish the others around that one or was it pretty universal that everybody caught it when he was in a bad mood or just found someone who wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted?

Mark: Well, my father never played favorites. There was never anybody that felt more favored. His favorites for beating were my sister Katherine and my brother Nathan. Everybody else got more of an equal amount of his abuse. My brother Nathan experienced extraordinary, extreme abuse over a long period of time; for years and years, for at least 12 years of his life. Also, there were some specific experiences with my older brother Fred Jr. and my sister Katherine who is one-year younger than I am that involved extreme abuse. There was a specific period of time as they were coming of age where my father did some of his most outrageous, extreme, brutal abusing. But most of the time, any time any of us would not do what he expected; whether he had communicated his expectations or not; if my father was unhappy or did not like what he saw, that’s when things would happen, which was quite regular.

Daniel: What was it like growing up with your mom in this household; how did your dad treat her; how did you guys relate to your mom?

Mark: Well, she was more . . . you might describe her more accurately as being one of the children, in terms of the way my father related to and abused her. My father would beat our mother also. One time he through our mother down the stairs and, in trying to catch herself as she fell, she pulled her right arm out of socket. Then in the months and years following this event, when my father would be upset at her, or just upset, he would reach for her bad arm. I do not even know the number of times my mother suffered a dislocated shoulder; at least 6 or 8 times.

Another general characteristic of where our mother fit into the picture; she would try to keep little offenses and daily events that would happen that she knew he would not be happy with; she tried to do some of that kind of hiding and keeping information from him. Unless there was something specific that one of the kids had done, our mother was usually the first and main person to receive our father’s abuse. Our father would rage and curse and scream and beat her. If our father was beating one of the children and our mother got too frightened, she’d try to interfere and he would curse her and turn his attention to her and beat her or hit her in the face, then turn his attention even more intensely back on one of the kids. So it was a mutual war zone for her together with us. I just don’t know how it changed after I left after age 19. I know at some point there appears to have been a lessening of the abuse toward the family.

But for all the time I was there, and have memory, this is how it was. He would empty the refrigerator, throwing things about the room and against the walls; mustard and ketchup and mayonnaise (glass bottles in those days) and whatever might happen to have been the leftovers in the fridge. Then he would just leave the mess for others to clean up when he got done throwing his fit. I mean it was just a very difficult environment. My father was not raging 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but it was difficult for us to hide the stains and the holes in the walls. I mentioned earlier, we lived in the same building structure where the church auditorium was and the children were required to clean it every Saturday in preparation for Sunday services. We had a difficult time hiding the holes in the wall when he would have just thrown a rage the precious week. The children and our mother, we were the ones who knew that on the other side of the walls or the door, there was a hole in the door or a hole in the wall. Or there was stain on the wall.

And of course, with my dad, also we were taught very rigid, fundamental beliefs. One teaching was women are not supposed to cut their hair. I remember when I was eleven years old, returning home from school one afternoon, and my mother called me upstairs. She was sitting on the side of the bath tub upstairs in their bedroom. I had been looking for her and was calling out to her. I finally found her sitting up in her bedroom and she had a towel on her head. And apparently that day . . . she looked at me with pursed lips and ripped the towel down off of her head and her hair was chopped close, all the way down to the scalp and maybe as long as two inches in other parts. Apparently at some point during that day, while we were away at school, our father had gone into one of his rages and our mother did not respond the way he thought she should. My father accused her of not being in subjection to him and he cut her hair off. My mother was abused as much or more; I would put three children ahead of her; otherwise, my mother probably got more abuse than any of the rest of us, other than those three. Other than these three, my mother got most of my father’s abuse.

Daniel: Now I have to ask this question . . . you know, we have statistics for women that are battered. There is this balance where, on the one hand, we see in the Bible certain messages like God hates divorce, and these kinds of things. But then we have situations like this where it is such extreme abuse and it is destructive. The relationship is destructive. It is unsafe, for both the woman and the children, it is destructive. How have you reconciled the balance between some of the things the Bible says and what you witnessed your mom go through as you were growing up? How has that shaped your thoughts on these tough questions?

Mark: Well, first let me answer that question directly. And I hope anybody listening will make no mistake about this! The Lord says in His word, men are to love their wives as Christ loves His church. Hardly ever do these so-called fundamentalists, when they are preaching, do they get to that part of the Bible. They get to the part about wives being in subjection, Daniel, but somehow they have blinders on or somehow they just don’t happen to get to that part of the Bible where it clearly instructs men to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave Himself for it; and to love their wives as they love their own bodies! It is absolutely and unmistakably; I am saying this as an adult at my age today, I am saying this as clearly as I know how to say it; abuse of women is absolutely and unmistakably . . . UNACCEPTABLE for a man to abuse a women!

You are not going to get perfection from a man, but when the situation gets to the point where the pattern is clear and the verbal abuse starts to evolve into physical abuse, I say it needs to stop right there. Ideally, way before marriage or even serious dating, women must learn to season any man they are going to get involved with and spend any significant amount of time with FOR AT LEAST A YEAR before they are allowed to have anything to do with you other than spending time together getting to know one another. I know this is not realistic so let’s get to the reality of it.

So let’s say you are a woman in a relationship, and you have children, and you are being beaten and you feel there is no hope. There is no question about the fact . . . there is hope, especially in today’s world. You have got to get out of that relationship and you have got to find a way to get those children safe, and that man has to take accountability for his own behavior or he is not to be around his wife and children. The church body ought to be able to help with this. But there are resources today that will allow her to get safe.

The other thing I wanted to say, to clarify. There was still no excuse for it in 1963, but my mother was unable to get away from my father. Maybe there was a reason for not getting away from my father. I still say my mother in this situation was responsible to get her children away from this abuser; the children were not. The adult should have done something. My mother should have done something.

When I was 9 years old my mother had me pile the vehicle that we had, high with clothes and then the kids sat in on top of those clothes on a Saturday afternoon at about 4:00 o’clock. My father had fallen asleep to take a nap after one of his rages. I had hope for a few hours. My mother told us all to get in the car and she drove from Topeka to Kansas City to her sister’s place. But at about 2:00 in the morning, Sunday morning, my mother had a conversation with my father on the phone and we were back at the house of abuse by about 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning. And my father did his same normal dogmatic preaching at 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning as if all was normal. That was the only time we ever had even a scent of a bit of hope of getting out of there.

But today it is different. Today there are shelters and safe houses. My wife has a master’s degree and she works primarily with abused women. I know there are ways, today, to get away and get safe. And I strongly urge anybody who is being abused to get away from the abuser and get your children safe. I am not saying to walk out at the drop of a hat. I am not saying take your marriage vows lightly, I am not saying to be irresponsible; this isn’t a license to destroy families. But if the marriage and the family have any chance of surviving then the relationship has to change and the man’s abuse of the woman must stop! And you have to use your leverage to get the abuse to stop. And if the man still doesn’t do something to take responsibility for his own behavior and stop mistreating his wife and his children, then that may be the end of the marriage. But something needs to change. You can’t just sit there in that situation and do nothing!

Daniel: Those are powerful words, and the truth of the matter is, there may be someone out there, someone listening to this program . . . you need to hear what’s being said right now. And there are little ones whose safety may be in your hands.

You know, I remember reading an account of the pinnacle of how we can get things wrong. There was a woman in a church whose husband was an upstanding citizen, made a good amount of money, and who was extremely abusive to his wife. She was trying to get some help and she went to the pastor of the church and the pastor, not wanting to get into it with the woman’s husband, or cause any kind of thing, just basically read her the riot act and said: ‘listen, you are called to submit to your husband; just pray for him and it will be fine’. And her spirit was broken from that day forward and she just continued to submit to her husband’s heavy beatings and then the day came; and this is what she was told by her pastor. She was told that ‘you staying in this situation brings glory to God’. Well, you tell me how much glory God got when she died and her husband went to jail for manslaughter because he killed his wife in a beating! This is what actually happened. And the reason why she stayed was because, well, her pastor told her that by staying, she was bringing glory to God. Folks that did not bring glory to God! That broke God’s heart! And you know, this is a problem and I’m so glad you are willing to talk about this Mark, to speak to it and to be open and candid about it. It really hurts me that people have had religion used to put them in situations that are the exact opposite of healing and deliverance and salvation. It is just heart breaking.

End of “Second Radio Interview – Part 1”

First Radio Interview

Rick: Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps passed away last month. He described himself as an old school Baptist. He said his theology was based on the five points of Calvanism. Over the years however he became a lightning rod for controversy as Westboro Baptist Church became famous for its protests against homosexuality and picketing the funerals of American soldiers as a way to protest American’s foreign policy and its support of abortion and homosexuality.

Rick: My guest today is Fred Phelps’ son, Mark Chandler. Mark is a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. He is currently battling a lung disorder. And I asked him to come on Trunews as a member of the family and to share with the whole world some very personal thoughts about his dad and the controversy that has surrounded his father. And I am very grateful that he was willing to accept this invitation and be on the program. Mark Chandler Welcome. Welcome to Trunews!

Mark: Thank you very much Rick. Glad to be here.

Rick: Yes sir. Glad to have you on the program. Mark is this a difficult interview for you to do?

Mark: It is not particularly difficult, no.

Rick: Okay, good, because you know I want to be respectful and sensitive to you.

Mark: Thank you.

Rick: You know I honestly do not know that much about your dad and Westboro. It is just what I have read in the papers myself you know. I never really followed his ministry or anything. It was a name that would pop up from time to time in the news. But he had his followers and he had his distractors and so he was a very controversial man. Now your name is Chandler. You changed your name from Phelps to Chandler. Let’s just start there. Why did you change your name?

Mark: That was just simply to protect our daughters. I left my family and that church in 1973 so it was not for any purpose other than to give our daughters a different last name as they started into the school system and began their lives. We have two adopted girls.

Rick: Okay. Well great! Great! I’ve got some adopted grand children in my family.

Mark: It’s wonderful. Just absolutely wonderful!

Rick: Yes and we are about to have more! My daughter and son-in-law are about to adopt five more so our family is about to take a big leap forward.

Mark: Oh that is so wonderful!

Rick: Okay you say when you left the church in 1973 you must have been what, in your mid 20’s or so?

Mark: I was 19.

Rick: 19. Okay. Was it that you just left home or was it an actual break with Westboro Church?

Mark: There was no leaving home or separating that from the church. It was only our family and a couple of other families. I was just so . . . at that point I did not have clarity, I was scared. I had met a young lady that was the way I believed a young lady ought to be and she was different than any girl I had ever seen or known. And I thought I was doing the wrong thing and I literally believed the first night that I left that I was going to end up in hell! But I left anyway. I just left! When you leave you are done and they cut you off and that is just all there is left . . . you are done. You either leave or you stay.

Rick: Was Westboro or is Westboro what is commonly referred to as fundamentalist Baptist?

Mark: Westboro has, certainly, some focus on the Bible and certainly they have some focus as Baptists, in terms of some of the aspects of that denomination as I have learned it. That church is a group that is mostly my family and they have been under the control and influence and abuse of my father from the time I was born. They broke off from a little Baptist church there in Topeka in 1954 when they got there to the city of Topeka. Maybe it was 1955. They cut that church off after that church had helped them set up their little place there at Westboro; they cut them off and it was only my family for a number of years than a couple of other families came along and that is how it was up to the time when I left. I started playing the organ for Westboro when I was five years old. My brother played the piano starting when he was six years old.

Rick: At the height; the peak of Westboro Baptist what was the membership, the attendance?

Mark: I’ve just heard since I’ve left, with all the nieces and nephews, and then I believe there was one other family that came in, it might have pushed 100. But what I want to emphasize, just for clarity, for anyone that would ever benefit from clarity . . . I mean this is years of boiling down Rick so I hope no one misunderstands . . . but I’m jumping over a lot of years of healing and experience and I’m boiling it down to . . . this is about my father and his hatefulness. And I have never been able to determine why he was so hateful. Certainly he used the Bible. My father used the Bible to abuse and he uses it now publicly to abuse. He is not doing anything different now, from my perception, to the outside world, than he did to his family. He had some visceral need to be hateful and mean and violent and cruel. And that’s not judgment; that’s just the truth of the experience that I had with my father. And it’s not about God and the Bible, as much as he tried to make it that. It’s about, for some reason or other he just has a need to be hateful. The concern I have is all those children that are there; my brothers and sisters, and now the nephews and nieces; they were born into it. And it is very difficult to undo the first few moments, weeks, months and years of your life. And so they have the same approach and the same words and the same passages from the scriptures they will refer to, the same speech style often; they have the same behavior as my father had and it denies; and this is what is so important to me; it denies the finished work of Christ on the cross and His love and for why He gave His life to redeem us. It is as if that never happened! Where is the hope? Where is hope? That’s what I want to know! If I am in that situation there at Westboro Baptist Church I’d like to know where the hope is! Where is Christ in that?!

Rick: Mark I just always assumed, and I know that assuming is not a smart thing to do, you know but I just always assumed that your dad, you know, as the years went by and he is getting older, you know, he maybe just didn’t know how to deal with America’s slide into debauchery and paganism and its sinful state. It’s gotten worse over the years. I just assumed well, you know what, he’s just an old fashion, old time preacher who is just going about this the wrong way but maybe his heart is right. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his heart is right and he is just going about this the wrong way and trying to take a stand. But what I’m hearing from you was that this was a lifetime of being an angry bitter person.

Mark: Yes and to please not mistake that. I mean for folks that are confused and possibly, I don’t know, troubled. It is about his hatefulness and it is about abusing. And it started, I don’t have recall of this, but when work was done in 1994 the local newspaper was trying to research and understand my father and they hired a guy and he worked with my brother and I for a year and produced a written work that I named. This writer let me name the work he completed, the writing he did, he let me name it. I named it ‘Addicted To Hate’. And my only condition, and my brother’s only condition, for working with this gentleman, was that he be true to the truth. If we were going to take the time to talk with him and work with him; and it happened to be during the years I spent doing professional healing, you know working with professionals to heal; and that was our only request, that he just tell the truth and not change that. And the local newspaper was unwilling to publish his completed work. So the writer put his writing on the internet so it is available. And the truth about what my father’s life was and about what he did, even though that local newspaper was unwilling to publish it for whatever their reasons were, I don’t blame them because my family was so litigious; they are all attorneys as you know. But the newspaper did not publish the writing and the writer put it on the internet and that is; you can rest assured; that is the absolute truth about my first 20 years of life with my father. And that it is about abuse and that is about my father’s hatefulness to his family and to the world around him. It had not evolved to the point where it had evolved this last twenty years when that writing was being done but it had already begun. He was already doing the hateful faxes to the local community. Somehow he would get information about their personal lives, some of the political leaders there in Topeka, he would put it in a fax and my brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces would spend the whole day faxing, literally. They would spend the whole day faxing to the local businesses. Filth . . . absolute filth about the local leaders there in Topeka. My father’s life is just a litany of details about a man who was hateful. My father said of himself that his father taught him that ‘if you are going to be in a fight you need to kick the other person in the shin as hard as you can and hit them in the mouth as hard as you can’ as his first lessons of how to relate to another human being. And that is what my father apparently learned. I cannot understand it from any other basis and it has taken me years to recover from that.

Rick: And through the years Mark, as you have wrestled with this, you still have not uncovered the root of this hatefulness, what was driving it, have you?

Mark: That local newspaper sent two of their reporters to Meridian and Porterville Mississippi and they spent two weeks in those little towns talking with people and asking questions. Thankfully I learned quite a little bit about my family because my father was quiet on the subject of his family. My father had rejected his dad and his family where he came from so I didn’t know anything about them, some wonderful things. My father’s mother was a wonderful Christian woman and his father had a tremendous reputation in the community and had gotten my father an appointment to West Point Naval Academy which my father declined when he was 16 years old. But those reporters could not find the root of the hatefulness. My father’s mother died when he was five years old. That is the only thing that I can speculate about as to the reason for my father being the way he was. His mother’s death must have been so disruptive to his soul is my best guess. I just do not know. The reporters were not able to really identify the reason for my father’s behavior. I look at my father’s behavior and I look at the behavior of Christ and there is something wrong here. Something is wrong!

Rick: Yes, a deep rooted bitterness and anger.

Mark: Yes.

Rick: And perhaps towards him-self which manifested. Maybe it was almost like a self-hate which he manifested in the world around him by lashing out at other people. I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe or explain it.

Mark: Yes. That’s why I just focus on behavior because it is just so hard to tell a person’s motive. And I am not judging Rick. I am bearing witness to the heart of Christ and I am bearing witness to the heart of my father and I am telling anybody that wants to hear it that there is no relationship between those two hearts.

Rick: Uh huh.

Mark: The heart of Christ has healed me completely. I have a full heart. And I am born again. And I walk by the Spirit. And I did not have that. I was born again when I was 11 years old but I had no idea who Christ was until 15 years later. There is just no relationship or comparison there between my father and his life and the life of Christ. Just no relationship! It is supposedly in the name of fundamentalism that my father was so mean and harsh and hateful. And Rick it breaks my heart because the most fundamental, and I believe this with all my heart, the most fundamental is when the woman taken in adultery was brought before the Lord and The Lord said: “Any of you standing here, any of you people right here; and he could be saying it to us; any of you that has no sin cast the first stone. If we could simply understand the grace of God! He drops grace bombs; he slops grace; he literally covers us with his grace.

Rick: Yes

Mark: And his love and his mercy and his goodness and his kindness. He is light and life.

Rick: And he also said to the woman ‘go and sin no more’.

Mark: Yes, that’s right.

Rick: But he said it with love. He didn’t threaten her. He forgave her and then he told her ‘now go and sin no more.’

Mark: Because He loves her and doesn’t want her to hurt herself any more.

Rick: That’s right!

Mark: And when the Lord tells us that it is his kindness and all of you who are judging . . . see Rick I had to work this out because I was terrified of hell. I had to work this out in the deepest core of my being. And I know it is true now. All of you who are judging are you now under the same exact condemnation as those you are judging!? Romans 2 is clear about that and that it is His kindness and His goodness. We need a soft response in our broken lost darkness. And that is exactly what the Lord supplied! When they released Barrabas and Jesus stood there quiet. And Jesus died for his sins and he died for my sins. What do we need? That is all we need. We need to understand the heart of Christ and His love and His gentleness and His goodness and His meekness and His humility and we need to try to be that way with the people in our lives. And it heals people Rick. That is what heals the soul. And it is breaking my heart to think that people are moving away from the Lord Jesus Christ who loves them and He gave His life for them and now He is up from the grave. And people are moving away from the hope and the light because of the hatefulness and meanness and nastiness and cruelty of my family. We must not do this. We must speak the truth in love.

Rick: That’s right. Uhm . . . Mark how many years did it take for you to be healed emotionally, spiritually, of the experiences that you had with your dad?

Mark: It took me until about 20 years ago. So I’ve been gone 40 years and that means it took me 20 years Rick. And the last 20 years I would say have been ‘normal’, whatever that is, a more normal sanctification and growth in The Lord. It took me 20 years to not be terrified, to not believe the lies about who God is and that God is my Father. And now I have a father. Took me 20 years! And I had a loving wife who is the same girl that I left there with. I have been married to her for 38 years . . . all of the love that she has given me and her father was everything you could ask for from a father, to me. I mean, Rick, you just can’t even comprehend the pervasiveness of the injury and the damage and the destruction caused from living with hate and from violence and abuse. Even with all of the support The Lord has provided for me, and all of that time . . . it took me 20 years even with all of the love and support I had since leaving. And I had to work at it on purpose and 7 years of that 20 years was sometimes two or three times a week going and facing myself and facing the wretchedness within me and facing the abuse and praying and begging The Lord to help me get through it and get out of it. I worked hard to get the lies and poison out of my soul. And now I can play the hymns on the piano and rejoice in the truth of the words instead of remembering what it was like when I was a little boy.

Rick: Mark I know that there are people listening to you and me right now who have either gone through a time of physical, emotional, spiritual abuse or they are in it right now. I read letters and emails that come in here every week from listeners that are trapped in very destructive relationships.

Mark: Yes

Rick: What would you say to them? How can you help them through it?

Mark: I think the first step is just to say . . . the first step is to say ‘this is not working, I’m broken and I need help!’ And do not turn away from The Lord! By pure faith, pure blind faith if you need to, say ‘I don’t understand this, I can’t figure this out, but I know The Lord is what I need; The Lord is Who I need! I need to just give myself to Him and go get some help!” If they want to send me an email or call me, whatever they can do. They can get connected to people who know The Lord and understand how to help people heal. The people don’t heal you, they help you heal. And that is the hope, to just say that’s what I need and to go get help. And it is going to take some time.

Rick: How important is forgiveness?

Mark: Forgiveness is central! Defining forgiveness . . . meaning The Lord and you working in your heart to forgive the abuser and to forgive those who need to be forgiven. If you define it that the person who has been the abuser apologizes or says they are sorry or changes their behavior then you are going to wait forever in some cases. But it is very important to forgive as far as working that out of your own cells. You have to work it out of your own cells. Get it out of your body! Because it will kill you! Because if you do not, it will kill you! If you don’t do the work of forgiveness it will wear your body out just trying to maintain that non-forgiveness. The Lord knows that and that is why He expresses so strongly that we must forgive. We are not even able to experience His forgiveness of ourselves, Rick, until we have forgiven. Not fully! We get stuck in it and we have to get out of it!

Rick: I know. He told me one time when He was dealing with me. I had a terrible offense done to me and I was wrestling with it for a long time and one day He began to deal with me to forgive the perpetrator. And I told Him I can’t. I don’t know how to forgive.

Mark: Yes!

Rick: I said I don’t know. I don’t know how to forgive. I don’t know how to do this . . . because of the severity of the pain. And I remember He told me, Mark, he said Rick if you don’t forgive like me you won’t be able to live with me.

Mark: Yes!

Rick: And I said ‘Oh Lord! I have to live with you!’ And He said: ‘Then you have to forgive like me!’

Mark: Yes! There is something about the way He made our minds, the way He made our beings. We have to forgive Rick!

Rick: And the healing doesn’t start until we forgive the wrong-doer.

Mark: Yes!

Rick: And that opens up the Spiritual door for healing balm to be poured in from heaven and it begins to heal our hearts and minds. It starts with the forgiveness!

Mark: I call The Lord ‘The Wounded Healer’! He was wounded for us and He understands our deepest pain, our most painful feelings. His word is clear, expresses it clearly, He understands everything about what we are going through and what it is like and what it feels like. All of it!

Rick: If anybody had a reason to carry a grudge He had one.

Mark: Yes! And He didn’t!

Rick: When we think about what was done to Him. He had a reason to carry a grudge! But He forgave them. He forgave them!

Mark: Yes. He endured such harshness and such horrible treatment. I couldn’t endure it. I just don’t know how He did it. But He endured it and He asked the Father to forgive them and He is still doing it today! He is our intercessor.

Rick: Yes He is! Mark I appreciate you being here today.

Mark: Thank you!

Rick: I know this is blessing someone today. This is bringing healing to somebody today. I just know it. In my spirit I can feel the presence of The Lord right now in our studio.

Mark: I hope!

Rick: I know right now there are people that the Holy Spirit is dealing with you right now!

Mark: I hope!

Rick: Both to forgive and there are some people that need to forgive somebody else and then there are people that need to forgive themselves.

Mark: Yes!

Rick: Because sometimes it is not what somebody did to you but it is what you are doing to yourself!

Mark: Yes!

Rick: And you are your own worst enemy; you are abusing yourself!

Mark: Yes! I stood and watched my father, as a teenager Rick, abuse and mistreat and savagely beat and then I also joined in. I was either going to be beaten or I could beat my own brothers and sisters. So I joined in and I did the beating for my father. You don’t think I needed to forgive myself?!

Rick: Uh huh! Yes! Just forgive yourself. Just don’t punish yourself forever about something you did a long time ago!

Mark: That’s Right!! It’s past and it is removed.

Rick: Mark thank you so much. I appreciate you spending this time with us.

Mark: Thank you Rick!

Rick: Mark Chandler, son of Fred Phelps. Thank you Mark!

Rick: I wish I had more time to continue this conversation with Mark Chandler because I’m going to tell you, the presence of The Lord filled this studio. I don’t know what you were feeling but I could feel the presence of The Lord during this interview with Mark Chandler. I am really sensing that the Holy Spirit is dealing with a lot of people right now about forgiveness because The Lord desires to deliver you from the bondage that you are in. Either you are punishing yourself for past mistakes and sins or you can’t let go of what somebody has done to you or is doing to you right now. Regardless you are paying the price! And forgiveness is the beginning. God’s grace and miracles and love won’t flow into your life to bring healing until you first let go and forgive!

End of Radio Interview

Cutting Through The Opposition

I have what is called a type ‘A’ personality. As a young man I would eat my food within 60 seconds, whatever it was. What was the point of slowing down? I had things to do! Two things characterized my life. One was time management with an accompanying impatience with not being able to “manage” it enough, and the other was a free floating hostility. I didn’t want to waste time with things I considered trivial. I was driven and impatient. I routinely upset people and often hurt my wife. I ran over people like a steam roller! I don’t say this to brag, though I would have possibly bragged in the past. I say this as a way of telling you how God has worked in my life to change me.

Over the years God has gradually changed my behavior. These changes have come mostly through what I’ve learned in the difficulties and struggles of my life. Some hard fought battles in my life have helped me to have the ability to better control my personality and I would even say have changed my personality.

I believe God truly gave me a gift through the crucible of my failures, struggles, disappointments and difficulties. For those of you who know my abuse history let me explain this part. Much of what was done to me in the form of physical and mental abuse was just evil. And God truly hates evil. So while God never sanctioned someone else’s evil as being a change agent in my life, I have learned so much from God as I have struggled through my life. And it was God who truly helped me change as I went through a very long healing process.

I am talking about the kind of struggles and difficulties that hit hard and kept hitting and kicking and striking me in my heart and my body, and they keep hitting and kicking me over and over in ways that seem to never stop. For those of you who have been abused, you know how it feels to let go and move past the horrible aftermath of abuse. And if you’re like me, you can understand how often I pleaded with the Lord to change certain circumstances and situations in my life and His answer has continued to be a clear ‘No’.

But I hope to explain how I understand this “no” from God. I see that He has allowed me to live out my life day by day having to lean on Him instead of having the instantaneous resolution to my problems that I wanted. God instead allowed me to go through the difficult journey of healing that most of us from long-term abuse have to go through.

I have read the Apostle Paul repeatedly in my lifetime and he is one of my heroes. Both a powerful teacher and preacher and yet very tender hearted toward those who were going through difficult circumstances. Paul had something he repeatedly asked God to take away from him in the form of some difficult circumstance. Like Paul, God’s answer to my pleading for deliverance has been: “My grace is sufficient for you. For my strength is made perfect in weakness!” In Paul’s case and in my case, we learned amazing things about God in having been left to actually live through our difficult circumstances. I believe we both became much better men for it. And we had to learn to rely on God all the time to get through.

This is how I understand God’s grace: Grace is the hand of God working in my heart and life circumstances so that I have His strength to endure tough things with patient joyfulness. And let’s be real, on some days just to endure! I believe God will give me, in whatever my circumstances, the strength I need to allow His grace to work in my life. And this is a gift in my life. Grace is a big concept and it has worked out in my life in a whole lot of ways. Sometimes it’s come in my ability to keep breathing and take the next step. Sometimes it has been in my ability to accept help from another human being when my perpetrator told me seeking help was a weakness. Sometimes that grace has come in seeing a baby smile or a flower grow in the desert and realize that there are little joys that come with each day.

And whenever this gift of grace comes in my life I have gradually learned to accept it and submit to whatever circumstance is in front of me and accept the beautiful good He can bring from that circumstance. Part of what I’ve learned is that God keeps being faithful and getting me through tough times so I’ve learned to be less fearful when a new one comes along. I’ve come to understand God can give me the power to deal with the circumstance and the grace to move through it, and that the grace is truly from His hand. And it’s definitely not just me “gutting it through.”

I often will keep pleading and seeking a different answer from God as escape from the pain of a difficult situation. I don’t think God minds in the least that I do this! But in the mean time I accept and submit to the circumstances at hand. Instead of complaining and being filled with anger. I tell the Lord while I wait for Him I need His grace so I can keep perspective. Often I think of that verse that says “We don’t have the right to claim that we have done anything on our own. God gives us what it takes to do all that we do.” So routinely as I am going through experiences I am thanking God for His help in real time. He really is giving me what I need to take each step. I have seen this through experience. I am not just saying this because it sounds good!

Does this mean that God’s grace will always stop the trial or difficulty? No, that’s not the promise. The promise is: “My grace is sufficient because my strength is made perfect in your weakness.” Notice the weakness often remains. God will give us the strength to endure the trial and let it work its perfect work.

James, a Bible author, says: “My brothers and sisters, when you have many kinds of troubles, you should be full of joy.” Now that can only happen when you receive the grace of God in to your situation. James goes on to say: “because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience. Let your patience show itself perfectly in what you do. Then you will be perfect and complete and will have everything you need.” The strength of Christ is made real in my life in the midst of my weaknesses. Oh how this flies in the face of the world’s system of thinking! The world sees weakness not as a sign of victory but a sign of failure. But in the kingdom of God, being weak physically gives God an opportunity to really advance His purposes in our lives. Or it could be weak emotionally, or weak in any way that causes us to have to rely on someone outside our circumstances, and especially on God. That is a hard statement! It means you have to humble yourself and let God orchestrate what you cannot.

James also says: “Blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he has been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” This crown of life is given at the end of life on earth when we see Him face to face.

Paul says: “Therefore most gladly I will boast in my weaknesses . . .” Paul made the decision, by faith, to embrace His weaknesses. Does this mean it is a lack of faith? No! His faith was strong in the Lord. But he said: ‘alright, if you are not going to take this away, Lord, then I want to learn everything about you in the midst of this. I want to learn every facet of who You are. I want to know what this strength is all about. What this power of Christ resting upon me is all about.’ Paul made a decision! “Most gladly therefore I will boast in my weaknesses.” Paul was willing to do the difficult work to bring about the best end.

So what are your weaknesses today? What things are going on right now in your life that you see as weaknesses? Are they physical weaknesses? Do you have disabilities or deformities? Do you have a debilitating disease or sickness that is not being healed? Are your weaknesses emotional? Do you suffer from bouts of depression or tend to always see the world in a negative mindset? Are you regularly seeing yourself through the verbal abuse you grew up with, battling it all the time? Or maybe your weaknesses are relational. It seems that no matter who you strike up a friendship with no one will allow you to get close with them. Or vice versa. Or perhaps you have experienced an unbearable loss which could never be compensated for in this life and the pain is never ending! No matter in what way God chooses to answer your prayers in these matters, one thing is certain. His grace is sufficient for you. It really is.

Paul says “this thorn in the flesh (this difficulty) was given to me as a gift. Most gladly then; I take pleasure in…” Something clicked in Paul where he saw that this power of Christ resting upon him was worth the sufferings . . . it was a decision on his part to make that statement. This is one of the hardest decisions to make! The Bible says once we belong to Christ that we are put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymore—it is Christ who lives in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to save me.” Some folks called it the “crucified” life because our old sin nature is put on the cross. What this means is our sin nature is going to end up on the cross a little bit every day . . . with our permission. And our help! But with the Lord right in the middle of that with His grace. It is not anymore that my life will be for ‘my benefit, my good feelings but it is whatever you want Lord. I ask God’s help to allow me to submit to His work in my life because the glory at the end is worth the temporary suffering. The strongest step of faith for me is to surrender and submit to the Lord in this way.

Paul mentions five areas of hardship that were going on in his life in his description of his suffering. And eventually Paul got to the point in his life where he embraced these five areas. But he did this all for Christ and not because of a lack of wisdom or a lack of tact on his part. Let’s look at the five areas.

Weaknesses for Christ’s sake! Physical afflictions that we have no control over. They include sicknesses, diseases, deformities . . . any weakness in our bodies. Paul said he was going to ask God for His strength and His grace in his infirmities.

Disgrace for Christ’s sake! This could include slander of character, malice on the part of others misrepresenting our motives, rejection by those you love.

Needs for Christ’s sake! These needs come as a result of choosing to live a godly life in Christ Jesus. It may include being written out of the will because you became a believer in Christ. It may have to do with the hardship or real lack in your life that comes in the midst of obeying what God has set before you to do. There are times because of the economy or some other reason you lose your job. And all of a sudden you are faced with desperate need and your family’s needs are at stake and there is this tremendous pressure on you. Wait a second. God said “My grace is sufficient for you.” Hold the line. Look to God. Is God really in charge of your future or is it just people? If God is in charge of your future and you have lost your job, God will help you find a way. He is not surprised by this circumstance in your life. He is not puzzled. He knows what to do. So you have to trust Him and say ‘okay God give me your grace to patiently and joyfully endure and keep my focus on you.’

Persecutions for Christ’s sake! Sometimes this happens! The Bible says “All who live a godly life in Christ Jesus WILL suffer persecution. When you make a decision to really obey the word of God, even when it is difficult, you are going to end up being persecuted eventually by someone because you are going to end up eventually having to take a stand that is going to be unpopular. It could mean the loss of a relationship. It could mean trouble, physical persecution, physical attack and harm. Something may be done to you which causes you complete upheaval in your life.

Distresses for Christ’s sake! This has to do with the dangers and pressures that come against you while you seek to do what is right in God’s sight according to His word. You stand up and blow the whistle and say ‘wait a minute that’s not right, you can’t be doing that, that’s illegal.’ And someone says ‘you keep quiet or you lose your job.’ That’s a press. That’s a stress. What do you do? “My grace is sufficient for you, do not fear.” Walk in love and do what is right.

Paul says: “I take pleasure in weaknesses, disgrace, needs, persecutions and distresses because I get to watch what God is going to do.” Isn’t that what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount? To rejoice, jump for joy, spin around in joy when you are persecuted for His name’s sake for so were the prophets persecuted before you. Blessed are you when men persecute you, say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. We have to learn that God’s grace is sufficient. We have to stop complaining and say: ‘okay God I’m going to take a different strategy because I want the real deal. I don’t want to play church. I want the real deal! If you say your grace is sufficient then you are going to have to show me what that means. And I’m asking you. I’m coming to your throne of grace to find mercy and grace in time of need. So Lord, show me what that is!’

What does it look like when the strength of Christ is working in us? We find that no matter what the matter is it does not take out our hope. We are confident of His hand being with us, His presence never leaving us, and His ability to take care of our future. And this becomes a witness to the world of God’s glory. Not because we have no problems but precisely because we do. And we walk through them in a unique way because God is stepping through each day with us.

This reminds me of what Paul spoke about when writing to the Philippians. "I want you brothers and sisters to know that what has happened to me has helped to spread the Good News." Philippians 1:12

The word "spread" is an interesting word used here. The Greek word used for spread is "Prokope. "Pro” means forward and “Kopto” means to cut. It could mean something like a pioneer cutting his way through thick brush. We might picture in our military, the Seabees plowing through the obstacles to make way for an outpost or runway for planes. You might say cutting through the opposition.

Here we have Paul with his liberty gone, chained to a guard continually. In a way you could say he was fenced in. He was limited and handicapped. Paul's circumstances were not at all desirable.

But he says that these circumstances have actually turned out to be cutting through the opposition.

The Good News about God coming to save mankind was being proclaimed through the Praetorian Guard and right into Caesar's court. You might say Paul’s pulpit was right in Caesar's palace. I have a friend who visits women in jail and she never knows what to expect when she shows up on any particular night. But looking back, no matter what happens, she can see the good that comes from the out of control circumstances that run counter to what she had planned. The difficulty or confusion cuts through the opposition in the spiritual realm and gets her to the person who was in need that particular night!

There could be circumstances in our lives that hedge us in and handicap us . . . test us and tempt us. Hope that is not realized. Illness or other difficult circumstances that hamper us. People in authority throwing us way off schedule and off kilter taking control of details we thought we had under control. Just maybe these circumstances that tend to fence us in are really opportunities for cutting through the opposition. Maybe we are pioneers in a new wilderness God has seen the need to place us in. These limitations placed on us could be when our best work for the Lord is performed because we are more dependent on Him.

As Paul proclaimed in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 "And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in disgrace, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

For when I am weak, then I am strong. Now that just doesn't make sense in the world we live in does it? Well it's not supposed to make sense to the world around us. Only the ones born of God and realizing their circumstances are "cutting through the opposition" can identify with that kind of attitude.

Lord, help us all to realize that your grace is sufficient in all our circumstances; that you will never leave us or forsake us; that you are our strength. Help us to remember and trust in your promises. We will break through the opposition and reveal your glory in our lives that others may see and believe.

Mark Phelps

This World Is Not Our Home

Why should we be discouraged?

What is our expectation as Christians living on this earth?

Do we expect smooth sailing? There is honestly no way we could get that idea from reading the Bible!

Do we want our government to always support our faith in their laws and judicial decisions?

Is our purpose to change our culture and its values or is our purpose to seek and save the lost, and build up the body of Christ with the gifts we have been given?

How are we to live?

Perhaps you are discouraged because our culture is becoming less and less like God wants it to be and you feel our country is less and less comfortable to live in. I understand this. But in light of our purpose here on earth, how are we to live?

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

Our hope is not here in this life, but we are going to be here for a while until this body, this church is complete. And we are scattered all over this earth in every nation and under all forms of political systems. And God gives us instruction through Paul in (1Timothy 2:1-3) on how we are to conduct ourselves here in this life now while living in anticipation of His coming back for us and our being with Him.

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior…” 1Timothy 2:1-3

Remember at the time Paul wrote this that Nero, one of the harshest, most evil rulers that ever lived was ruling the Roman Empire and Paul would soon face him and would be eventually beheaded. We are to pray for our leaders that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

Paul goes on in (1Timothy 2:4) to say "who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1Timothy 2:4

God desires that all be saved and who knows which leader might just come to that saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ because of our prayers. Some won't come to that knowledge and will be cruel toward Christians and many members of the church will suffer. But God has purposes and plans for His world in spite of persecution and He will continue to build His church. And when it is complete our Savior will come for it. We are to remember what our purpose is in this life now and where our true citizenship is and where our true hope lies. And keep reminding ourselves any time our courage starts to wane.

Let's just remember from our view point when everything looks like it is coming apart, it could be just coming together. It doesn't matter where we are living in this world or under what circumstances, God is intimately connected with us in this and His love is ever present through what we are going through. This Church, His Body belongs to Him. And we who are made in His image have been given the very big task of taking on the things God cares about. Injustice, human trafficking, caring for orphaned children and desperate widows, to meet with those in prison, and to feed the hungry.

These big jobs are not ones we delegate back to God. We ask for God’s help, but we are the laborers in the fields. And one day, a day only the Father knows, the Lord will bring us together as one and raise us up to meet Him in the air. We mustn't allow this hope of heaven to get bogged down in the problems of this world system. We are living in the world but we are not OF the world. Our anticipation of one day getting to be with the Lord on the New Earth with Him should be at the forefront of our thinking continually. Encouraging us!

I don’t want you to be frightened or discouraged. God’s purpose has not changed. And we are not surprised if those who do not know God do what they want to do and don’t acknowledge God and His will. We would be doing the same were it not for God. Let's remember "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7

So instead of focusing on painful changes in our culture, and being frightened by changes lets focus on finding those who are lost and need a Savior. And let’s encourage one another in our daily lives and pray for our leaders so we perhaps can still have some peace in our lives.

It is not outside the realm of possibility to expect far worse as we follow Christ. We know we must enter heaven through much tribulation. So far we have not resisted sin to the point where we are bleeding as Christ bled. Paul provides a more realistic expectation when he writes: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

Most of us have not had to endure hardship to this degree, yet, in our country. Let us persevere and not faint in well doing. Let’s find those who need a Savior and encourage one another today while today is still today.

Even so come Lord Jesus! But in the meantime, Lord, find us faithful doing your work. With a will and a certain hope that you are coming!

Mark Phelps

Speaking Words Of Life

We live in an amazing country. And the freedoms and benefits of living here are enormous. We live in a country that has a healthy food supply. We are not actively at war in this nation. We have medical care for many of our citizens and a free public education system for both genders. We have 50 states but there is freedom of travel among those states without passports. We attempt to support freedom of religion or no religion and if you post something negative about the government on social media you live with the expectation that your post will still be there in the morning. These are just a few of the privileges of living in a free society.

You and I are living in one of the freest societies that have ever existed. But if you look at some of the indexes for civil and political freedoms for 2015 you can see quickly that freedoms have been dropping for 9 consecutive years for many countries in the world.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2015#.VY26qPlViko

In the U.S. our “great experiment in democracy” has not been without ups and downs to be sure. And the expectation of freedom remains strong for most of us in this country. But is it possible to misunderstand our amazing liberties and the effect they have had on us? Do we have this sense that they “belong” to us forever? Have we read enough history to know better? Do we sometimes find ourselves getting angry when something we hold dear in this society gets encroached upon by others in society who look at life differently than we do?

I think it’s almost impossible not to get a sense of entitlement about American freedoms. It is one thing to feel incredibly blessed by living in a free society but it is another thing to believe you are forever entitled to those benefits.

I have noticed something troubling in the last few years in our culture as social media has allowed us to speak quickly and sometimes vehemently about our political and cultural views. What I’ve noticed is we are getting grumpy and sometimes we are getting just plain mean.

Jesus gave us some specific commands in the Bible about how to live. He said “I’m giving you a new commandment. Love each other in the same way I have loved you.” Christ said a lot to his followers when He was here but He continually repeated His command to love each other the way He did . . . personally and unconditionally. The Bible has many positive commands of what we are to do. Love. Give. Be with people who are suffering. Make sacrifices in your giving. Keep loving and don’t stop.

But do you know there are things we are also told we are NOT to do? One verse says “Do everything without complaining or arguing. Then you will be blameless and innocent.” That is an incredibly high standard. And it seems to be so especially in our social media generation. We can speak almost instantaneously into any situation. We don’t have to slow down anymore to be thoughtful in our responses to our friends, our families and our communities. We can be practically instantaneous in what we communicate. The verse that says we are not to complain or argue goes on to say if we will follow that high standard we will shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the word of Life. The word of Life is the powerful truth of what Christ can do for us as he sets us free from sin and helps us turn back to God.

But notice this verse all starts with whether we decide whether we will indulge in complaining and arguing. If we do this we will not be blameless and can’t really hold the word of Life out to anyone. Our choices of what we post on social media really have consequences.

It took me awhile to understand that a country like this one was going to live on compromise. There really is no way to have a free society without having us all a little dissatisfied all of the time. What helps me is to realize that when I am excited about something going on in our society that someone else probably is not. Someone who, like me, cares about his family, pays his taxes, and does the best he can every day. I need to try to see him as a real person. So what do my friends and acquaintances notice about me when my party is not in office? Do they see me being respectful of the president or do they see something else? Do my Facebook posts make Christ happy? Do the people on the other side of whatever the issue of the day is feel honored by my comments?

I have lived long enough to see a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions come down. All the way from back in the civil rights movements in the 1960s. When a decision comes down that I might have wished had gone differently do I complain? Or do I get really grateful to live in a country that has branches of government that check each other every day I have been alive. Branches of government staffed by people who have tried to do the best job they know how to do on most days.

So let’s look at our lives. Let’s look at Facebook pages. Let’s listen to our conversations. And let’s listen to the things our children hear us saying every day. And the next time something happens we don’t like (an election, a Supreme Court decision, or the guy who cuts us off in traffic) let’s listen hard to what we think and what we say. And then if we ever get the privilege as believers to live in Malawi or Syria or some of the very toughest places in the world, we might, just might have practiced enough self-control to even think about being ready to live in those places. And be shiners of the light we are privileged to shine to all.

We have become arguers and fighters, not for the gospel, but for our rights as Americans. We are not fighting for the salvation of the lost but are fighting for our freedom of religion in America. We are not called to fight for our freedoms. We are called to set people free with the good news of the gospel.

Followers of Christ all over this globe are suffering horrendous persecution and anguish simply because they confess the name of Jesus and cling to Him as their Savior and Lord. Many of these individuals have no idea what it would be like to have the protections and privileges Christians have in America. But not having those freedoms does not slow them down in living amazing lives of integrity, love and humility in their cultures. And many would have a very difficult time understanding our consternation over the present circumstances we have in America just because we think some of our rights under our constitution seem to be slipping away. To them they would be unable to relate to rights and protection under the laws of their country.

I don’t imagine anyone in America who has enjoyed our present rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms (or as my wife says, ‘freedom to bare arms’) wants to give up any of these rights and I understand the fear, discomfort and upset we can feel personally regarding changes that are taking place in America.

So what are we to do as American Christians? Curse and spew hate at the individuals we perceive as responsible for these changes? Fight and bite and scratch and claw at these individuals? Speak evil of them? Write our Congressmen but not show the simplest of kindnesses to other people? What would a Christian in Syria advise us to do? What would a Christian in Malawi advise? What would Christ advise? Or command? “Go into all the world and preach the gospel making disciples of all men.” Something like that!

Is our focus to be on the political structure of our country and our freedoms or are we to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness? Are we to be cursing and condemning other religions or are we to be loving the individuals within those religions and telling them about our Savior?

Some of you may be feeling like it’s a real challenge to care about people who oppose your views. Perhaps those people even feel like enemies to you. Jesus said something very powerful in the Sermon on the Mount. He said “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.45 In this way you show that you are children of your Father in heaven.” Notice Jesus was and is a realist. He knows we will struggle with relationships and that some people on earth will seem like our enemies. But also notice his command. That we LOVE those people and pray for them.

Jesus told us if we were his friends we would obey His commands. And that includes following Him in choosing to love and pray for our enemies. Just like He did! But, I have seen Jesus give us blessings that went far beyond our having the ability to pray for our enemies. And that is that He would break down the walls between us and our enemies by letting us reach out to them. What might that look like the next time there is someone in the political realm we disagree with? What if we picked up the phone and asked that person what it felt like when his side won? Could we walk in his shoes just for a minute and hear his side of the story? Could we listen to why that issue matters to her so much?

But what if we realize we don’t have any friends right now on the “other” side? If that is the case have we only been hanging out with people who think like we do? Well we can change that. We can ask God to give us someone right in our neighborhood or at work or at the gym to get to know a little better. Even if it’s just to have polite conversation about life. God is faithful to answer those kinds of prayers. Because He cares very much about how we get along with others on this planet. Let Him give you someone you least expect. And just watch what happens to your heart. You may have been commissioned by God to be His ambassador, but He cares as much about your heart as he does anyone else’s. And ours can become hardened. Without us noticing!

In America we have more freedom and privilege than most of the world. Many Christians on this earth know nothing of an environment or government that has affirmed their beliefs. Rather they have had to stand strong in utter darkness at risk of their own lives. We may soon share their experiences in America. We need to prepare for that day to be sure. Perhaps God is preparing you right now. In a world where communication is moment by moment He might be asking you to respond to the Scripture about not complaining and arguing anymore and challenging you to love people. The way Jesus asks us all to love. One person at a time. Who knows? That person might be on the social media you are going to be on today. Do you have an encouraging comment for an “enemy?” Watch out! One day that person might become a friend.

Mark Phelps