Nathan Phelps was raised in his father's church, the Westboro Baptist Church, with his parents Fred and Margie Phelps in Topeka, Kansas. He lived in the compound owned by his father's church and worked for the church until he left on his 18th birthday. He worked outside the church and maintained contact with his family, but his father never accepted him back, and eventually denounced him.After his permanent break with the Westboro Baptist Church, Phelps moved to rural British Columbia, and he now lives in Calgary, Alberta, where he is the Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry Calgary, a secular organization that educates and advocates reason and science. He is a public speaker on the topics of atheism, skepticism, and secularism, and LGBT rights.