WATCH: BBC documentary reveals divisions and defections within the Westboro Baptist Church

In a sequel to his hugely popular and critically acclaimed 2007 BBC documentary The Most Hated Family in America, Louis Theroux returns to Topeka Kansas to once again pay a visit to the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in America’s Most Hated Family in Crisis.

The fire-and-brimstone church made up mostly of the Phelps family, have become notorious for their picketing of funerals, most notably of U.S. soldiers killed in action.

This time around, the atmosphere is a little more contentious since the church members have seen the first documentary and now view Theroux as an adversary. But what the filmmaker also finds is a church that has been hit with numerous defections, with the remaining Phelps children growing older and facing the temptations of an outside world along with questioning their own roles in the church.

Theroux manages to track down the members who escaped and reveals how their lives in the hateful cult reached a boiling point, leaving them no choice but to abandon their families. But most revealing is when he interviews the parents of the defectors, seemingly exposing the hidden pain of the parents who assume a cold exterior and dismiss their lost children as apostates.

Watch the entire film below.

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