Did You Know . . . (Fred Phelps Edition)

. . . infamous funeral protester, preacher-of-hate, and abusive father Fred Phelps was raised a Methodist? When Phelps was growing up, his family was active in Meridian, Mississippi congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, one of the three Methodist denominations that merged in 1939 (during Fred's boyhood) to form The Methodist Church.

Phelps actually traces the development of his warped theology back to a 1946 Methodist Revival in Mississippi. According to Wikipedia, the sermon preached at the revival that Phelps credits with his conversion was a rather tame homily on the parable of the great banquet (Luke 14:15-24). Absent from this sermon was the violence and hate that Phelps became famous for.

Fred Phelps went on to start an unaffiliated Baptist church of his own, a congregation in which 90% of the members are related to Phelps by blood or marriage and that is considered by many a cult. I suppose old Fred is just another example of "mainline decline."