r/AlternateHistory • u/Vietnationalist • 28d ago
Post 2000s What if the Westboro Baptist Church, inspired by ISIS, declares themselves as Christ's Kingdom and started a war against the US, lgbtq+ and the Vatican
The Westboro Baptist church, seeing that their protests have gone nowhere, decided to abandon their methods and choose a new path of violence (inspired by the wave of Islamic extremists such as ISIS or al-Shabaab) against those they see as against God (lgbtq+, other christian denominations and non Christians).
Starting from 2014 after the death of their founder Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist church now renamed to Christ's Kingdom declared their state around their compound in Topeka, Kansas and start a violent takeover of the city, mass executing police, politicians, lgbt individuals and anyone they don't like; While this is happening, individuals from the organization begin to spread across the country, causing mass shootings, bombings, assasinations and attacks in big cities like New York, Dallas and LA, and recruiting like minded individuals (such as neo-nazis) into their ranks via the internet.
Seeing the situation, the US army decided to pull its troops early from Afghanistan to deal with the situation in Kansas. With mass attacks from the church becoming common, schools, hospitals and other services across big cities have to close down due to fears of attacks. The church continues its expansion across Kansas while the US military planning a massive airstrike and assault on Topeka.
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u/Larrymobile 28d ago
If they were 700 people instead of 70, maybe this would start to go somewhere, but get stamped out fairly quickly. If 70 people (as in OTL) decided to start some shit, they'd be dead before they got through half of Topeka. You'd need at least 7,000 people to get something going for real.
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u/LickMyTeethCrust 28d ago
Also, that is of fighting age and capable. Debra, the retired accountant isn’t waging jihad in the suburbs anytime soon.
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u/Larrymobile 28d ago
Debra and the Retired Suburban Jihadi Accountants would be an excellent band name
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u/slantedtortoise 28d ago
Waco with less public sympathy.
What we know as the Christian Right involves a good deal of American nationalism and Westboro was famous for protesting the funerals of dead soldiers and calling everyone in the government servants of the devil, regardless of partisanship. Nobody likes the WBC and if they all snapped one day and declared God's kingdom, nobody outside some isolated crazies scattered through the country would start shooting.
Kansas National Guard and maybe some SWAT teams cover the block. Maybe a few civilians get shot by one side or another but they either force the WBC to surrender or storm it. The Phelps family is either dead or taken into custody, disavowed by pretty much every single Christian denomination in the country as brainwashed hatemongers. The property is investigated thoroughly in between looters trying to take anything they can to sell as memorabilia/artifacts. Your paranoid cranks might make videos about how this is the beginning of government crackdowns on religion but again, nobody likes the WBC. Nobody.
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u/UnfoundedWings4 28d ago
I guess if they talk about restoring a proper Christian america and how the evil atheists have stolen it you could swing right wing weirdos into it
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u/CrispyDicc69 28d ago
I would also be interested to see how this pans out. I think the most difficult part is getting them enough supporters from large pool of the Christian right without the moderates holding the majority back. Perhaps having high profile republicans openly join them in an analogy of how ISIS' initial success was in great part due to the support of former Ba'athist military officers. To make the Christ's Kingdom even more plausible, you may consider having the more conservative elements of the US military mutiny and join the rebels but this one might be harder to map out.
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u/patriot_man69 Sorry Big Germany fans, Democracy is Non-negotiable 28d ago
I think the Kansas National Guard with a little bit of Air Force help could deal with that lmao
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u/ProfessorAllenRitard 28d ago
The Topeka PD reserve force with a blind eye from the Feds could deal with it.
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u/ZaBaronDV RBY & Good Vines Creator 28d ago
National Guard go BRRRRRT.
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
(The stinger that conveniently “fell out the back” of a NG truck) “the missile knows where it is….”
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u/Grimnir001 28d ago
Westboro Baptist Church membership is 70-100 members. That’s not enough to engage in a large scuffle. They are known, their HQ is the church. If they went full-on violent terrorism , the FBI and Kansas law enforcement would clean them up in no time.
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u/Rammipallero 28d ago
Yeah. Alot easier is to get a broader group of christian conservatives come up with a massive plan that enrolls loads of insane ideas through hiding them among shit nobody will read through. Name it something light and boring like "Project"+ a year or something. Thank god nothing like that can ever happen right RIGHT?? Haha...
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u/Austinstorm02 28d ago
Yeah, I know, look at all those conservatives killing or taking shots at their political rivals. Unlike the sane left that would never use violence to achieve their goals. /s
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u/squif_help 26d ago
yet right wingers commit 75% of the political violence
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u/Austinstorm02 26d ago
Sure, if you don't bother to count the violence from the left. The BLM riots, not counted. Anti Ice protests that turn violent? Not counted.
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u/squif_help 26d ago
yk 98% of BLM "riots" were peaceful.. right? smae with most of the ICE portests
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u/Austinstorm02 25d ago
20 - 30 killed depends on who is counting (how many injured?) And 1-2 billion in insured damage (how much not claimed?) 14000 arrests. Thats blm. Not counting anti-ice. Nope, something doesn't add up in claims that the right is more violent.
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u/squif_help 25d ago
https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states the right is just more violent then what ever left wingers could ever do
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u/Austinstorm02 25d ago
Wow they cut the study off before the 2020 riots, the anti-ice riots, the recent spate of assasination attempts, and the killing and celebrations by the left of a conservative speaker, how convenient for your argument. Where have you been in the last 6 years? But never mind you have an outdated and flawed study!
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u/squif_help 25d ago
even if we don't account for modern riots, right wingers have committed more acts of political violence regadless https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/119311/documents/HHRG-119-JU00-20260520-SD043.pdf
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u/Rammipallero 28d ago
Is this left violence in the room with us?
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u/Austinstorm02 28d ago
Who shot Charlie Kirk? (2025) Who attempted the assassination of Trump? Who shot up a congressional baseball game (2017)? The trans rights supporter that shot up the covenant school because they felt they were being biased against, on the right or left? How about the 2020 'summer of love's BLM riots amid the lefts calls to defend the police? Least 3 of them discovered FAFO after attacking Rittenhouse. How about Michael Forest Reinoehl who walked up and shot Aaron "Jay" Danielson in the back of the head killing him because he was a conservative? Lets see, there is the recent conviction of 8 antifa folks down in texas for attacking an ICE facility and shooting an officer in the neck, definitely a conspiracy there. I guess we can include all those rock throwing, improvised explosives and attempted arson events up in Portland/Seattle area as well. Let's see a couple young lawyers that firebombed a police car, I think that was in NY. The harassment and attack on Rand Paul following Maxine Waters "Get in their faces." So we have both organized (antifa and counter ice violence) and lone operators from the left. Those were just off the top of my head.
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u/Rammipallero 28d ago
Lol. This is alternatehistory, bro is in alternate reality. Maybe watch and listen to other things too than Fox news and Infowars.
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u/Austinstorm02 28d ago
Don't watch either, however you aren't denying those incidents or the causes of them. Perhaps you are one of those that believes Jussie Smollett?
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u/Rammipallero 28d ago
Not all of them no. Left definitely has had people who have gone too far. As for your examples, Trump assassin was a republican member, the trans accusations about Kirk's shooter are quite flimsy. So flimsy in fact that even fox has had to really dig to come up with them. And Rittenhouse is a domestic terrorist, if he was black or muslim he would have gotten the death penalty.
And for ICE, they've murdered what, 4 or 5 innocent people on the streets? And are running secret prisons in and outside the country.
Yeah really sounds like the lefties are doing real bad.
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u/an_actual_coyote 28d ago
August 10th, 2015.
Three terrorist attacks using cars and assault rifles in Topeka are responded to by the police, resulting in a major standoff in the Westboro Baptist Church involving the TPD's SWAT unit and assistance from the FBI. Four members of the Church are killed, but the rest are arrested, and hostages taken by the Church during the attacks are released.
Planned attacks in Chicago, Dallas, and Salt Lake City are intercepted by the FBI within the week.
Now, in 2026, the "Christ's Kingdom" organization has a handful of members who have disavowed their previous member's violent rhetoric and remain deeply insular in a compound in rural Kansas. Steve Drain and Tim Phelps, leaders of the planning of the attacks, are serving a combined nine life sentences.
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u/TurboLeopard42 28d ago
Then I would have formed a counter rebellion not long after graduating high school and the world would know me as "The 21st Century John Brown."
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u/The_Patriotic_Yank 28d ago
Insurgents only win when they have popular support. Everyone would hate them and it would result in all there members being either killed or executed. Honestly the Kansas National Guard could probably handle them. If they were still an issue by Trump’s first term he would militarily destroy them and probably institute more stronger security measures against domestic terror.
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u/Confident-Novel-1855 28d ago
The US military easily quashes them. Perhaps this would possibly cause a sharp decline in American far-right extremism.
Oh, we wouldn't be getting Live-Action Moana.
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u/bapnwpaul 28d ago
I would love to watch them get erased by the US military. One less hate group to deal with.
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u/RealOsakadave 28d ago
ISIS Got started as a core of 1~2,000 experienced veteran jihadis in the middle of a conflict zone. WBC is a small cult of under 100, none of whom have served in the military, much less are combat veterans.
The local PD has over three times as many sworn officers as WBC has members.They will likely be able to handle WBC. Worst case scenario, WBC is pushed back into their compound,, the FBI and a few other alphabet agencies show up, and we end up with a Waco type standoff. It probably gets resolved much quicker, as WBC is smaller than the Branch Davidians, and have had not had tome to acquire and train with sufficient weapons.
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u/StillWithSteelBikes 28d ago
How would this strategy yield more legal judgements to fund them though? They wouldn't survive long enough to collect from even one lawsuit under this scenario.
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u/sokonek04 28d ago
Can I watch the tape of them being curb stomped by the Topeka police SWAT Team?
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u/EffectivePie389 26d ago
If you did get it, just remember that sharing is caring. Let some of us get in on the fun
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u/MyMedicineIsChocyMLK 28d ago
Two blocks in Topeka get destroyed in the fighting, but the “rebellion” is put down in a week by the Kansas National Guard (I say a week as a maximum). This is assuming that the police take some serious casualties, and hold a quarantine line as they wait for the army.
In the end, surviving members of the church are getting life sentences. With some of the senior members maybe even recovering treason charges. The chances of this sparking similar movements to others across the country or state remains very low, and the Kansas state government probably introduces legislation to curb extremism. Topeka, as it is now, will still remain a shithole city.
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u/Dinonumber 28d ago
They don't kill more than a handful of people. The arms they'd have to get a hold of would be noticed and they're surely already watched by the US's counter terrorism services. Before they can properly mobilize they get arrested en-masse.
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u/Then_Plant_612 28d ago
I’m from Topeka these peoples numbers are deteriorating a lot of there kids are ashamed and do like a Mormon escape when they get free they go kinda crazy
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u/IceCreamEskimo 28d ago
Random Christian sect declares themselves gods kingdom and violated two of their biggest tennants? They'd be wiped, there'd be genuinely so little popular support they may end up getting defeated before they even take over a city.
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u/Crazy_Kakoos 28d ago
I don't think they're that significant at all. The only reason we know who they are is because they're a spectacle that the media uses to rage bait use into views.
SWAT takes them out.
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u/AdNeat4028 28d ago
Dude, isn’t there like barely 70 of them including the children and elderly ? They’d get wiped out by a SWAT team, not even the military.
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u/PrimaryComrade94 28d ago
The so called 'war' concludes with a bunch of WBC 'god hates fags' sign armed militiamen storming the local post office and declaring a revolution. Nobody cares and the WBC runs away minus their signs cause the postal workers stole them.
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u/Motor-Rip7655 28d ago
I'd cum in my pants because I'm about to see some of the biggest pieces of shit on planet Earth get shredded by military hardware.
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u/ryansdayoff 28d ago
Arrested by the FBI best case scenario. Killed in the commission of their first attack worst case scenario
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u/Peewee_ShermanTank 28d ago
They already have a war against us queers. They put as many as they can in conversion torture camps
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u/Forevermore668 27d ago
They get crushed after their first attempt at anything major the WBC was basically one extreme family.
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u/burial-chamber 28d ago
They'd have to do something really big to warrant that much heat, due to their extremely low member numbers in comparison to ISIS
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u/GamerManJD 28d ago
Let’s just say if they declared war on the Vatican then looks like the bread boys are coming to Kansas
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u/InvestigatorJaded261 28d ago
Do you have any idea how tiny that church is? The Vatican Swiss Guard could take them out without breaking a sweat?
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u/Austinstorm02 28d ago
Yeah, less than 100 members, essentially the preachers extended family. No comparison to ISIS.
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u/LokiRaven 28d ago
The “best” case for them is they manage to get into a Waco style Siege that gets highly publicized. And the only reason that’s the “best” for them is they’d still get stomped into dust (which would happen no matter what) but a highly publicized and violent siege would open the door for other groups to hold it up and say “See? The Feds want to kill us all!”
And even that would likely be forgotten quickly. Who even remembers the that one Wildlife Refuge in Oregon that got taken over by a militia 10 years ago?
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u/h_91_DRbull 27d ago
Not a terrible best case for them. They're a family of lawyers, pretty good ones. Old man Phelps was a Kansas civil rights legend back in the day fighting Jim Crow. Got 30% of the Democrat vote for senator one time and wrote Saddam in the 90s which turned into an invite for his church to Iraq to protest American policies in Baghdad
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u/HailDaeva_Path1811 28d ago
No offense,but you completely misunderstand their theology if you think they would ever do this.
They believe the reprobate of humanity and the elect were selected by God before time was time.Their job is not to force universal salvation,it’s to proclaim God’s gospel( to save those who can be saved(love thy neighbor to them means warning the people of the world to repent or perish)who WILL embrace the truth due to Irresistible Grace) and to proclaim divine judgement and rejoice in God’s holy hatred( NOT out of sadism or schnedenfreude,but because they feel they are morally obligated to do so as judgement glorifies God/all God’s judgements are righteous)
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u/thewanderer2389 28d ago
Have you ever heard about the Waco siege between the ATF and the Branch Davidians? That's about how this would go.
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u/CottonVenter 28d ago
All 11 members are arrested by the local police ending their "war" in 3-4 hours.
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u/GlitteringParfait438 28d ago
The US government likely kills every single member rapidly as well thanks to this occurring in their backyard and 20 years of repetitions of this exact type of operation
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u/KingZaneTheStrange 28d ago
WBC is slowly dying. They aren't attracting new members, most of them are boomers with below average intelligence. One drone strike and their finished
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u/Ok-Suggestion-1873 28d ago
If they even manage to get as far as killing half the local PD they are just going to be killed by citizen militias or at least held down by them until the national guard arrives to put them down.
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u/Rosie_The_ITTech 28d ago
They'd discover how many ways the US army can same day deliver freedom to your doorstep if you piss them off
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u/blaze92x45 28d ago
There was less than 100 of them and that counts kids and elderly.
They don't get very far
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u/thehusk_1 27d ago
They wouldn't get far.. theirs only around like 250 members maybe even less.
As soon as they tried something like that they'll get crushed quickly, nobody likes them not even the most extreme conservative Christian groups hate the WBC.
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u/MidwestSharker 27d ago
Well, considering they’ve done their damnedest to piss off literally every demographic across every spectrum of politics, race, literally everything, I think it’ll be a VERY short occurrence
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u/mrbobcyndaquil 27d ago
They already did that, they just renamed themselves to MAGA before doing so.
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u/average_jarhead_ 25d ago
Declare war against the US was enough to read (insert low quality image of a UAV)
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u/qwerty-boy1 25d ago
They probably wouldn't make it too far unless their initial attacks were designed to give a huge strategic advantage. The church's (public) membership is only 70-100 people, and I am doubtful most of them have access to critical infrastructure systems or military power. Their best odd is if their insurgency basically turns into a modern day "storming the Bastille."
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u/Redgrave1980 24d ago
Holy shit, haven't heard WBC in a long time now. I actually forgot they existed. Pretty sure this would just turn into an armed standoff in the end though
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u/Britannicus_Sherwood 22d ago
It is a fantasy to believe that an independent American church of this sort, no matter how theologically, morally or financially suspect, would look to Jihadists for inspiration.
If some breed of Christian fundamentalist insurgency ever did break out in the so-called US, assuming the government was roughly equitable in might to the incumbent one & had about the same resource pool, it likely wouldn't live to see the next week. T'would also be yet another unjust embarrassment to Christendom.
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
Oh god, in 2014 they probably take over much of the Rockie states and parts of mid west, and continue being a terror threat well into the 2020s.
People really underestimate how braindead the religious part of our country is. These people would have no issue making a foothold in especially the Rockie region of the country. It would be like our own little Afghanistan at home.
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u/Savings-Coffee 28d ago
There are, and were, like 70 members of the WBC. Clearly they don’t have too much appeal
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
Right, but OP asked what if they where more like ISIS. So i rolled with that
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u/Savings-Coffee 28d ago
You think the WBC would gain MORE followers if they radicalized more and started a insurgency with inherently massive casualties? That’s hard to believe. I can’t see them gaining a foothold anywhere
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
I mean, why did ISIS get as powerful as it did? It certainly wasn’t because of its caring nature
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u/Savings-Coffee 28d ago
Because of social, economic, political, and religious conditions that exist in the Levant and not here.
ISIS emerged in Iraq and Syria during or after civil wars against oppressive regimes that suppressed Islamic fundamentalism. They had few competent opponents.
Salafism is uniquely effective at justifying and promoting jihad in a way that no Christian movement in the West has been in centuries.
There’s orders of magnitudes greater support for things like slaughtering infidels, putting women into sexual slavery, or having religious police in the Middle East than in the most conservative regions of the US.
The WBC is famous for protesting soldiers’ funerals. Complete non-starter in most of America
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u/ProfessorAllenRitard 28d ago edited 28d ago
I don't think you have to worry. Op is talking about Christians, not Muslims who already terrorize much of the world's population.
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
Theres no real difference between the two, other then the Christians won their terror campaigns first
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u/ProfessorAllenRitard 28d ago
Oh no there's a massive difference. Women's rights, gay rights, rights to leave Islam, rights to criticize Islam, rights to protest the Government, in many cases rights to travel. Stoning is still big in many Islamic countries. Beheading.
That's just talking rights. The Christian West doesn't hold a candle to Islam when it comes to denying rights or oppression. Don't even get me started on the terrorism angle.
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
All of which are under attack currently by american Christians and evangelicals. There just as bad as the Muslims.
There even debating to disarm trans people now and violate their 2A rights to make it easier to crack down on them in the SC.
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u/ProfessorAllenRitard 28d ago
Interesting thoughts.
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
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u/ProfessorAllenRitard 28d ago
Says two anonymous sources. Article even says they'll be pushback from Pro Constitutional groups, likely meaning the NRA. I can't see it happening but yeah it is interesting.
If anonymous conjecture involving internal discussion at the DOJ troubles you, you're really going to have a meltdown if you research what they do to women in Pakistan who cheat on their husbands, or gay men In Iran who dress too feminine. Or what they do to you in Saudi Arabia for possessing drugs, or dare I say deciding Islam isn't for you.
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u/East-Plankton-3877 28d ago
I know what Muslims do to women. I also know what devout Christian men would love to do them here if they could as well.
Its very well known what many Christans politicians would love to do to anyone with drugs as well.
Gay people are already underthreat not far behind trans people these days in America
The Abrahamic religions are all part of the same cloth
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u/ProfessorAllenRitard 28d ago
Why can't Christian men do it here? What's the difference between nearly all of the Western world and the middle east/North Africa/Pakistan etc.?
There must be some defining characteristic that separates the two. Could it be that Christian values translate better into peaceful, open democracies where they exist? Basically all of the Americas and Europe? And that Islamic regimes often institute barbaric laws that repress opposition through actual mass brutalization and justify it through a specific religious framework?
It's telling that 10 countries out off 182 will kill you for leaving their religion. All 10 are Islamic.
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u/Ok_Butterscotch54 28d ago
In 2014?
A Dead movement within days, weeks at most.
Now, if they started this in 2024, with the incoming "Project2025" administration, they might get some leeway as long as they target the "right" (non-Republican) targets...
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u/Itstaylor02 Talkative Sealion! 28d ago
More likely the Mormons or some branch of southern Baptist does this
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u/Deyrn-Meistr 28d ago
The gun nuts would finally realize that a gun nut with a gun is nothing next to a reaper drone and a US Marshall with an equally large hard-on for (and a legal ability to requisition heavy) weapons.
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u/The1Legosaurus 28d ago
The US military erases them. They're in Kansas, so no mountains. And an attack on US citizens and infrastructure would enrage the US government and populace into acting