# Gods of the Smoke Machine (with Scott Latta)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 2 Dec 2025, 58 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/68570122/podcast845_godsofthesmokemachine.mp3

Author Scott Latta's new book examines and exposes the dark side(s) of the American megachurch. Get the book: VIDEO of this conversation. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists in this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not
[0:22] Speaker 1: because I put my hand on a book and made
[0:24] Speaker 1: a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 3: Truth, Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: There is video of this conversation which was recorded in
[1:00] Speaker 2: my home just a few weeks ago. If you want
[1:02] Speaker 2: to watch the YouTube version, that link is in the
[1:05] Speaker 2: description box. Talking here with author Scott Latam. He has
[1:15] Speaker 2: a new book out called Gods of the Smoke Machine, Power, Pain,
[1:19] Speaker 2: and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch. Scott's
[1:24] Speaker 2: been kind enough to stop by. Heybro Hey, I was
[1:27] Speaker 2: in the neighborhood, thanks v So. I used to be
[1:30] Speaker 2: a video producer for a company that served churches, and
[1:33] Speaker 2: we did a lot of fundraising and promotional videos, and
[1:38] Speaker 2: sometimes those were megachurches, like we went to Fellowship Church
[1:41] Speaker 2: in Dallas pastor Red Young Junior.
[1:44] Speaker 3: Like twenty thousand people, you know, a weekend, massive pac
[1:50] Speaker 3: huge stage, lights.
[1:52] Speaker 2: Fog and I remember I was there with a fellow
[1:56] Speaker 2: Christian and they said to me, wow, you know after
[1:59] Speaker 2: the service, they said, enjoyed the show? Right, Yeah, was
[2:02] Speaker 2: that your experience when you walked away, did you think, oh, yeah,
[2:05] Speaker 2: enjoyed the show.
[2:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, that was actually our exact experience, my wife and I.
[2:10] Speaker 2: Is that sort of the vibe of the modern megachurch?
[2:12] Speaker 2: I'm with fireworks?
[2:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[2:15] Speaker 4: I mean I think that's kind of what distinguishes the
[2:17] Speaker 4: megachurch actually, and what I actually think makes megachurch is
[2:20] Speaker 4: kind of contradictory as even an idea, which is that
[2:24] Speaker 4: they exist to look completely like the.
[2:27] Speaker 2: World around you.
[2:27] Speaker 4: Right, the brand, the fonts, the music, the clothes that
[2:31] Speaker 4: the pastors wear. It looks just like the modern world.
[2:34] Speaker 4: But the problem is, and where people get hurt is
[2:36] Speaker 4: you get in there and you discover what one woman
[2:39] Speaker 4: told me in the book, which is a fundamentalist core
[2:42] Speaker 4: of steel at the heart of it, which is that
[2:44] Speaker 4: you get in and they tell you, well, you can't
[2:46] Speaker 4: look like the world around you. You have to follow
[2:48] Speaker 4: these fundamentalists, these legalist strictures, and I think that's where a.
[2:52] Speaker 3: Lot of people get hurt.
[2:53] Speaker 2: So it's Batan's well, it's not. I don't know. It's
[2:56] Speaker 2: like Scientology is the extreme example, but starts with just
[3:01] Speaker 2: this really happy, clappy, benign, non dogmatic you can be
[3:06] Speaker 2: successful in your life, and you deserve happiness and common
[3:09] Speaker 2: we will life coach you. And then people join Scientology
[3:14] Speaker 2: and then once they get deeper into the system, that's
[3:16] Speaker 2: when the hard dogmas and the high control stuff comes out.
[3:19] Speaker 2: That's what you're talking about.
[3:21] Speaker 3: Yes, So megachurches they open the doors.
[3:23] Speaker 4: Why, they want as many people as they can bring
[3:25] Speaker 4: your friends, and they really prioritize getting as many people
[3:28] Speaker 4: in the doors as they can.
[3:30] Speaker 3: And then when you get in the doors, they really.
[3:31] Speaker 4: Start pushing small groups a lot, because that's really the
[3:34] Speaker 4: only way to form a community in a church that large,
[3:36] Speaker 4: especially if we're talking about the ultra megachurches where there's
[3:39] Speaker 4: ten even forty thousand people, the only way to form
[3:43] Speaker 4: community is with a small group of people.
[3:45] Speaker 3: So they start pushing small groups.
[3:46] Speaker 4: But the more you get pulled into that funnel, that's
[3:49] Speaker 4: where you start to hit issues where people get hurt. Legalism, fundamentalism,
[3:54] Speaker 4: and so you might come in thinking one thing and
[3:55] Speaker 4: then discover quite quickly that it still is a fundamentalist
[4:00] Speaker 4: angelical church at the core.
[4:01] Speaker 2: I mentioned at Young Junior's church at twenty thousand. I
[4:04] Speaker 2: know Lakewood down in Houston with ostein. I don't know
[4:07] Speaker 2: how many they run, Like, is there a there's a
[4:10] Speaker 2: forty thousand member church in this country.
[4:13] Speaker 4: Yes, So actually the largest church in the country is
[4:16] Speaker 4: not far from US Life Church, which is based.
[4:18] Speaker 3: Out of Oklahoma.
[4:20] Speaker 4: And then I think the second largest church in the country,
[4:22] Speaker 4: Church of the Highlands, has they claimed sixty thousand people.
[4:25] Speaker 4: The third largest church, CCV christ Church of the Valley
[4:27] Speaker 4: and Phoenix claims fifty four thousand people. But what's really
[4:31] Speaker 4: interesting about megachurches is the model for a megachurch is
[4:34] Speaker 4: really completely flipped in the last really specifically in the
[4:37] Speaker 4: last twenty years. So the large church that I grew
[4:40] Speaker 4: up in and maybe the ones that you grew up
[4:41] Speaker 4: or worked in, was the big building, the big auditorium,
[4:44] Speaker 4: kind of the righteous Gymstones church, right, But that has
[4:47] Speaker 4: really flipped. So the most common if you want to
[4:50] Speaker 4: be a mega church now that prioritizes growth, you're going
[4:53] Speaker 4: to start franchises in a city. And so Church the
[4:56] Speaker 4: Highlands in Alabama and the second largest church in America.
[4:58] Speaker 4: They have twenty six locations across the state of Alabama.
[5:02] Speaker 4: Or CCV in Phoenix has eighteen locations across Phoenix, and
[5:05] Speaker 4: so that's franchises.
[5:07] Speaker 3: Really, it's not a huge auditorium. It's a small building.
[5:10] Speaker 4: And when I was reporting the book, I went to
[5:12] Speaker 4: CCV in Phoenix and they had bought the building of
[5:16] Speaker 4: a church that didn't make it, and so we were
[5:18] Speaker 4: sitting on pews, there was stained glass around us.
[5:21] Speaker 3: The band would come on stage and.
[5:22] Speaker 4: Perform megachurchy sort of music, and then they would step
[5:25] Speaker 4: aside and the pastor would appear on a screen. He
[5:28] Speaker 4: was miles away, and there were probably one hundred and
[5:30] Speaker 4: fifty two hundred.
[5:31] Speaker 3: People in the building with me.
[5:33] Speaker 4: And if I hadn't known any better, I wouldn't have
[5:36] Speaker 4: any idea that there were fifty four thousand people at
[5:38] Speaker 4: that church. So it just looks and fields very different,
[5:40] Speaker 4: which I think says a lot about what we look
[5:42] Speaker 4: for in community right now and why megachurches actually are
[5:45] Speaker 4: thriving in a lot.
[5:46] Speaker 2: Of ways, like the blockbuster video of churches just the
[5:50] Speaker 2: same thing every well. Well, I used to be a
[5:52] Speaker 2: video producer for churches and that model was starting to
[5:55] Speaker 2: take off. And the rationale or the reasoning that the
[5:58] Speaker 2: pastors and the church staffs were using was well, even
[6:01] Speaker 2: if the pastor was live on stage at a big
[6:03] Speaker 2: enough church where you had a screen, people are looking
[6:06] Speaker 2: at the screen anyway. So if you go to a
[6:09] Speaker 2: satellite church, you're looking at the screen. It's really nothing different.
[6:14] Speaker 2: You still got the live music, you still probably have
[6:16] Speaker 2: the associate pastors.
[6:17] Speaker 3: Did they have those not a campus pastor?
[6:19] Speaker 4: Yeah, and they'll always come up and welcome people and
[6:22] Speaker 4: then they would step side.
[6:23] Speaker 2: So there are some people, though I'm sure, who are
[6:28] Speaker 2: attracted to the megachurch because of the anonymity. Yeah, you
[6:32] Speaker 2: walk in and there's seven thousand people at the nine
[6:35] Speaker 2: am service. You can go, you can sing, you can
[6:39] Speaker 2: feel good, hear a few words, high five, and you're gone,
[6:44] Speaker 2: and that's it, like you punch the time clock anonymously.
[6:48] Speaker 2: That's got to be part of the attraction for some.
[6:51] Speaker 3: I think that's a huge part of it.
[6:52] Speaker 4: And I could say even my personal experience just reporting
[6:55] Speaker 4: the book and going to megachurches for a year and
[6:57] Speaker 4: a half was I never shook anyone's hand, no one
[7:00] Speaker 4: asked me my name.
[7:01] Speaker 3: I didn't have to personally interact.
[7:03] Speaker 4: With anyone, which was someone for someone who's kind of
[7:05] Speaker 4: introverted and like with social anxiety, is kind of the
[7:07] Speaker 4: dream reporting gig because you could just float in, you
[7:10] Speaker 4: could sit there, you can flow back out, and you
[7:12] Speaker 4: don't have to speak to another soul. But it is
[7:14] Speaker 4: I mean, there are a lot of reasons people are
[7:17] Speaker 4: drawn to these churches, and you know, the anonymity, the
[7:20] Speaker 4: ease with which you can just go to this church
[7:23] Speaker 4: and then flow back out is a huge part of that.
[7:25] Speaker 4: Because I also went to some really small churches when
[7:28] Speaker 4: I was reporting the book, and I had forgotten it
[7:30] Speaker 4: could be really difficult to go to a small church
[7:32] Speaker 4: where you feel very seen. So it's easy, I think,
[7:35] Speaker 4: to go to a megachurch and just do your thing
[7:37] Speaker 4: and then just float back out.
[7:38] Speaker 3: And that's that's certainly a big part of it.
[7:40] Speaker 2: I used to go to a small church and we
[7:42] Speaker 2: would visit other churches, like we're seeking our home, our
[7:45] Speaker 2: church home, so you go visit and I remember One
[7:49] Speaker 2: of the most terrifying parts of that would be when
[7:51] Speaker 2: you were visiting and the pastor at a small church
[7:54] Speaker 2: would be like, is there anyone here who's visiting with us?
[7:56] Speaker 2: Please stand up so that we can welcome you.
[7:59] Speaker 3: And that's the last thing I wanted to do.
[8:02] Speaker 2: Man, you know, I just want to sit here, quietly,
[8:05] Speaker 2: unseen and check it out. That was kind of my thing.
[8:08] Speaker 4: I know, right, how many times have you heard turn
[8:11] Speaker 4: to the person you're right and the person your left,
[8:12] Speaker 4: shake their hand and welcome them to church this morning.
[8:14] Speaker 4: I mean, it was a nightmare for me growing up.
[8:16] Speaker 4: So I mean I think that's why the last churches
[8:18] Speaker 4: my wife and I were going to before we walked
[8:20] Speaker 4: away were megachurches, because you know, it's just easier to go.
[8:23] Speaker 4: And I will say, like, it is a viable community,
[8:26] Speaker 4: it's a viable faith experience for a lot of people.
[8:28] Speaker 4: And so there's a large church in Alabama, so Churchill
[8:31] Speaker 4: Highlands in Alabama. They have a ministry specifically for kids
[8:35] Speaker 4: with serious special needs. And so if you're a parent
[8:37] Speaker 4: of a child with serious special needs, it just makes sense.
[8:41] Speaker 4: I mean, what a gift for you to be able
[8:43] Speaker 4: to go to church to drop your child there in
[8:45] Speaker 4: a trusted environment that you feel is safe. It's just
[8:47] Speaker 4: easier to do that than to go to First Baptist,
[8:50] Speaker 4: which has you know, seventy five people, and they're not
[8:52] Speaker 4: equipped to provide those level of resources. But I just
[8:55] Speaker 4: as a writer, I was drawn to I think that's interesting.
[8:58] Speaker 4: I think there's something curious about it because I think
[9:01] Speaker 4: the numbers we've seen about evangelicalism is so evangelicalism is
[9:06] Speaker 4: flattening out or dropping in the US. Fewer people are
[9:08] Speaker 4: going to church now than ever, but megachurches are actually growing,
[9:12] Speaker 4: They're thriving. So from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty, the
[9:15] Speaker 4: median megachurch grew ten percent. So while evangelicalism is going down,
[9:19] Speaker 4: megachurches are going up. And so I was drawn to
[9:22] Speaker 4: just why. The question is why, what is it about
[9:24] Speaker 4: these churches? The pie is getting smaller, but they're cutting
[9:27] Speaker 4: themselves a larger piece in some ways.
[9:30] Speaker 3: And I think there's a lot of reasons for that.
[9:32] Speaker 4: I think the pandemic had a lot to do with that,
[9:34] Speaker 4: But I just think it's a curious kind of sociological trend.
[9:37] Speaker 2: I think too, a lot of the bigger churches are
[9:39] Speaker 2: not selling the hard theology. I mean the old school
[9:42] Speaker 2: guys like John hay Gee, etc. You know, they're pretty
[9:46] Speaker 2: hard line. But Joe Loustein was asked once about homosexuals
[9:51] Speaker 2: and where a lot of pastors who are fundamentalists with
[9:55] Speaker 2: draw from the Old and New Testament and say this.
[9:58] Speaker 3: Is an abomination or at the very least it's a sin.
[10:03] Speaker 2: Ostein responded, it's not God's best And I wonder if
[10:09] Speaker 2: the empty calorie version of it. You know, these guys
[10:13] Speaker 2: largely unless you've seen something I haven't in the big
[10:16] Speaker 2: mega environments, they're not going hard at people going to hell,
[10:20] Speaker 2: and they're not going hard at gay people, and they're
[10:22] Speaker 2: not going hard at you know, all the people that
[10:27] Speaker 2: most of the fundy church used to target. Was that
[10:29] Speaker 2: your experience or I know, mind's a narrow view. What
[10:32] Speaker 2: do you think?
[10:33] Speaker 3: No, one hundred percent.
[10:34] Speaker 4: And megachurch pastors will actually say that they're on records
[10:37] Speaker 4: saying that Sunday mornings are not for hard theology.
[10:41] Speaker 3: So you don't want to turn people off. You want
[10:43] Speaker 3: people to feel welcome.
[10:44] Speaker 4: You're not going to get into really obscure books of
[10:46] Speaker 4: the Bible and hard fundy theology and things.
[10:48] Speaker 2: Like that, now do they get there? What once you're
[10:51] Speaker 2: deeper into the well.
[10:52] Speaker 4: That's I think one of the reasons they push small
[10:54] Speaker 4: groups so much is because small groups are really the
[10:56] Speaker 4: context where people go deeper. And so that's a group
[10:59] Speaker 4: of ten to twelve people in your stage of life.
[11:01] Speaker 4: You go to their house on a Thursday night, and
[11:03] Speaker 4: that's where you go deeper into the scripture and things
[11:05] Speaker 4: like that. But on a Sunday morning, I mean, there's exceptions,
[11:08] Speaker 4: it's certainly not a rule, but on Sunday morning, the
[11:10] Speaker 4: message is going to be a lot lighter. And I
[11:12] Speaker 4: think this is where you see a lot of people
[11:14] Speaker 4: get hurt in megachurches, because I spoke to a therapist
[11:17] Speaker 4: in the book who works with people who have experienced
[11:19] Speaker 4: serious spiritual abuse who came out of megachurches, and she said,
[11:23] Speaker 4: what her clients tell her is that you go to
[11:26] Speaker 4: these churches and you get to feel like all these
[11:28] Speaker 4: people are cool, especially if you're in the city. You're like, oh,
[11:31] Speaker 4: they're kind of down, like we could go get a drink,
[11:33] Speaker 4: or maybe they don't, you know, they're more progressive to
[11:36] Speaker 4: her gay people. But then you get in and you
[11:37] Speaker 4: start to unpack the theology, and there's this fundamentalism at
[11:41] Speaker 4: the core of it because there's still, you know, evangelical churches,
[11:44] Speaker 4: there's still fundamentalist churches, and they have fundamentalist beliefs, and
[11:47] Speaker 4: so it really becomes a very different environment the deeper
[11:50] Speaker 4: you get into it.
[11:52] Speaker 2: Are you religious?
[11:54] Speaker 3: No, So, I grew up in a large Southern Baptist church.
[11:58] Speaker 2: You know what I want? Who I asked, don't you are?
[12:00] Speaker 2: Are you an atheist? Dunt, dun, duh. I'm not going
[12:03] Speaker 2: to ask you to paint yourself into the corner. I'm
[12:05] Speaker 2: asking the question many of my viewers and listeners of
[12:07] Speaker 2: wanting to ask.
[12:08] Speaker 3: I mean, it depends on the hour. I think.
[12:10] Speaker 4: I think so I live in Portland, and so I
[12:13] Speaker 4: think it's it's more of a spirituality where like anything's possible,
[12:18] Speaker 4: like what do we know?
[12:19] Speaker 3: Like what do I know?
[12:20] Speaker 4: Certainly me personally, like there's nothing, there's no I don't
[12:23] Speaker 4: know enough to be confident that I know what the
[12:26] Speaker 4: meaning of life is or anything. So I'm open to everything.
[12:29] Speaker 4: I mean, the truth is some of my this may
[12:32] Speaker 4: be very difficult, but some of my most pleasant conversations
[12:35] Speaker 4: in reporting the book were with pastors, which really surprised me.
[12:38] Speaker 4: I would get off the phone with the pastor and
[12:39] Speaker 4: I would feel good about the way our conversation went,
[12:42] Speaker 4: which may have just been kind of taking me back
[12:44] Speaker 4: to my upbringing in church. But I'm on most days,
[12:47] Speaker 4: you know, I have. I'm in a place now where
[12:50] Speaker 4: I've found peace with you know, what I believe in
[12:52] Speaker 4: and the way my family and I live our lives.
[12:53] Speaker 4: But it took a while, and it can be a
[12:56] Speaker 4: real grieving process when you leave church.
[12:57] Speaker 3: I think that is is underreported. I don't know what
[13:00] Speaker 3: you felt. Sethan, with your background, we talk a lot about.
[13:03] Speaker 2: You know, it's easy for people who are non believers
[13:07] Speaker 2: to look at religious people and be condescending and say, oh,
[13:11] Speaker 2: suck it up. It's Santa Claus for adults, you know,
[13:15] Speaker 2: join the rest of us here in the hotel reality.
[13:18] Speaker 2: And many people don't realize what they're asking believers to
[13:22] Speaker 2: sacrifice because and you'd mentioned the ministries that the church has.
[13:27] Speaker 2: The church really has provided childcare. It's the place where
[13:32] Speaker 2: you make often lifelong friends. It's divorce recovery, it's addiction recovery.
[13:38] Speaker 2: It's a sense of belonging. It's a chance to have
[13:41] Speaker 2: an identity that gives you really good feelings. It alleviates
[13:45] Speaker 2: the fear of death for many people. And so when
[13:48] Speaker 2: you say, well, the Bible falls apart upon even the
[13:52] Speaker 2: most cursory scrutiny, That's not why I really think most
[13:57] Speaker 2: people attend church, not for reasons of theology. I think
[14:01] Speaker 2: they go for identity and community. Am I wrong?
[14:04] Speaker 3: No, especially in very large churches.
[14:06] Speaker 4: I mean, there is a feeling when you get in
[14:08] Speaker 4: that really the doors closed behind you, and the people
[14:11] Speaker 4: who are there become your whole community. It's not just
[14:13] Speaker 4: your church on Sunday. It's your friend group. It's your
[14:16] Speaker 4: kid's friend group. It might be where they go to school,
[14:18] Speaker 4: it might be where you work. It's the podcast you
[14:20] Speaker 4: listen to, the coffee mug you drink out of, the
[14:23] Speaker 4: beanie on your head, the hoodie that you wear it.
[14:25] Speaker 4: Megachurches reach into all these different parts of your life.
[14:28] Speaker 4: And so if something painful happens, if you experience harm
[14:31] Speaker 4: or abuse, or if you just end up walking away,
[14:33] Speaker 4: you don't just lose your church.
[14:35] Speaker 3: You lose all of that stuff. You lose your whole life.
[14:38] Speaker 4: And I spoke with people in the book who experienced
[14:40] Speaker 4: really profound pain in large churches, and that was compounded
[14:44] Speaker 4: so much more by the fact that they lost everything.
[14:47] Speaker 4: They were shunned, the doors closed behind them, and they
[14:51] Speaker 4: lost all of their friends, They lost all of their
[14:53] Speaker 4: kids' friends, and they might have gone to their church
[14:54] Speaker 4: for twenty years and it was the only friends their
[14:56] Speaker 4: kids have. And so it is easy to say, oh,
[14:59] Speaker 4: just walk away, like this isn't your boss, this isn't
[15:02] Speaker 4: the law, you don't owe them anything, just walk away.
[15:05] Speaker 3: It's hard to walk away.
[15:07] Speaker 2: Really hard. I was working for an employer, making a
[15:11] Speaker 2: good living, and I was exiting the faith, and I
[15:16] Speaker 2: thought he was hardcore religious. Most of our clients were churches,
[15:19] Speaker 2: and I thought, he's going to find a reason to
[15:22] Speaker 2: fire me. And if he does, how in the world,
[15:28] Speaker 2: how will I pay my mortgage? How will I pay
[15:30] Speaker 2: the bills? How will I support my family? What's my
[15:32] Speaker 2: future look like? And that's a reality for a great
[15:35] Speaker 2: many people.
[15:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
[15:37] Speaker 4: And I think that's what makes a megachurch distinct is
[15:40] Speaker 4: that they have the resources to really reach into all
[15:42] Speaker 4: the different parts of your life. And also I think
[15:45] Speaker 4: it's harder to do that the older that you get, too.
[15:47] Speaker 3: So I walked away.
[15:48] Speaker 4: When I was younger when I was in my twenties,
[15:50] Speaker 4: and that was really difficult. But if you're in your
[15:52] Speaker 4: fifties or sixties or older and you're starting to question
[15:55] Speaker 4: and maybe leave a more fundamentalist church, that can be
[15:57] Speaker 4: really difficult if it's all you've known for DEAs and
[16:00] Speaker 4: it also leaves you spinning, like where do I belong now?
[16:03] Speaker 4: Like this has been my whole community, my whole life,
[16:05] Speaker 4: and now you have to replace your belief system the
[16:08] Speaker 4: way you feel about the universe.
[16:09] Speaker 3: And life and death.
[16:10] Speaker 4: But you also have to just fundamentally replace the people
[16:13] Speaker 4: you got to eat with and that your kids hang
[16:15] Speaker 4: out with.
[16:16] Speaker 2: We struggle with that in the secular community. We're playing
[16:18] Speaker 2: catch up the churches at thousands of years to figure
[16:21] Speaker 2: out the model for community, and we're hurting cat. We've
[16:25] Speaker 2: got a few models Oasis, you know, Sunday Oasis, Sunday Assembly,
[16:29] Speaker 2: and some other ones that are doing some great work
[16:31] Speaker 2: out there, But you know it, a lot of the
[16:34] Speaker 2: secular groups are copying the agendas, the formats the churches
[16:39] Speaker 2: are using, because the formats actually are pretty effective. Right,
[16:42] Speaker 2: Why create mediocrity when you can copy genius? I guess
[16:47] Speaker 2: I don't.
[16:47] Speaker 3: Know that's interesting still to come.
[16:49] Speaker 2: I want to get into some of the darker shades
[16:52] Speaker 2: of the megachurch. And yes, we're talking about abuse in
[16:55] Speaker 2: many of the worst forms. What's going on and how
[16:59] Speaker 2: have many churches attempted to sweep abuse under the rug.
[17:03] Speaker 2: We're going to talk more next. My guest for the
[17:12] Speaker 2: broadcast this week is Scott Lata, is author of the
[17:16] Speaker 2: new book Gods of This Smoke, Machine, Power, Pain, and
[17:20] Speaker 2: the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch. So why
[17:27] Speaker 2: are you doing this? I guess the question that might
[17:32] Speaker 2: be asked by someone who attends a megachurch and loves
[17:35] Speaker 2: it is why do you hate God? Scott Lata? Why
[17:39] Speaker 2: would you publish this affront to the faith? What motivates you? Brother?
[17:44] Speaker 4: I would say, it's not about hating God. It's about
[17:47] Speaker 4: probing it a system that has coalesced power and influence
[17:52] Speaker 4: outside structures of accountability. So megachurches have very little to
[17:57] Speaker 4: know external accountability.
[18:00] Speaker 3: Much of religion.
[18:01] Speaker 4: It's all internal, which is not real accountability. And so
[18:04] Speaker 4: these are systems and so it's the same. I think
[18:07] Speaker 4: it's the same reason you would say, well, why would
[18:09] Speaker 4: you write a book about the military, or why would
[18:10] Speaker 4: you write a book about.
[18:11] Speaker 3: Abuse in universities.
[18:13] Speaker 4: These are large systems where people have experienced pain, and
[18:16] Speaker 4: with megachurches in particular, it's about spiritual influence in a
[18:21] Speaker 4: person's life, which is really powerful. I think that's one
[18:24] Speaker 4: of the most profound kinds of power you can have
[18:26] Speaker 4: over a person's life, is spiritual authority.
[18:28] Speaker 3: It's hard to question.
[18:29] Speaker 4: That, and especially if it's led by one man at
[18:32] Speaker 4: the head of a system, and it's always a man,
[18:35] Speaker 4: almost always a man. It's impossible to feel like you
[18:38] Speaker 4: have a voice in that system. You have to leave
[18:40] Speaker 4: it to have a voice. And so what I wanted
[18:42] Speaker 4: to do in the book was to flip the table
[18:45] Speaker 4: on that and to give people a voice, to give
[18:47] Speaker 4: them a platform, because you have no power in a
[18:49] Speaker 4: large church, you have no voice. Your pastor doesn't know
[18:51] Speaker 4: you exist. The truth is you could drop dead and
[18:54] Speaker 4: your pastor wouldn't know at a large church. And so
[18:56] Speaker 4: if you experience pain or harm, where can you go?
[19:00] Speaker 4: I mean, there are people in the book who experience
[19:03] Speaker 4: abuse in a large church and the pastor's relative was
[19:06] Speaker 4: the director of HR or you know, one pastor's mom
[19:09] Speaker 4: was the director of HR and his dad was the
[19:11] Speaker 4: associate pastor, and so she literally said, who can I
[19:14] Speaker 4: go to with this? You know, you were trapped by
[19:16] Speaker 4: so many layers of protection for these men in power,
[19:19] Speaker 4: and I think it was just important to kind of
[19:22] Speaker 4: unpack what that looks like and how it hurts people.
[19:24] Speaker 2: I'm stair stepping us further into the abuse questions because
[19:28] Speaker 2: I have a lot of them. I went back to
[19:30] Speaker 2: I got to bring up Fellowship Church. It's just where
[19:32] Speaker 2: I go. It's a great example Dallas, Texas. They have
[19:35] Speaker 2: a place where people can apply for membership, and I
[19:38] Speaker 2: made some notes. There was a form and it asked
[19:40] Speaker 2: a lot of questions that I mean, the church is
[19:43] Speaker 2: giving itself permission to really get into our personal lives.
[19:47] Speaker 2: Are you single? Are you married, divorce, widowed, remarried? How
[19:51] Speaker 2: many kids do you have? What is your salvation scripture?
[19:54] Speaker 2: The date of your baptism? Will you promise to serve
[19:57] Speaker 2: our church? Do you to live daily to please the
[20:02] Speaker 2: Lord Jesus Christ and allow him to control your life? Now,
[20:07] Speaker 2: control your life doesn't really sound like freedom through faith
[20:12] Speaker 2: to me?
[20:13] Speaker 4: Well, and who actually are you giving control to when
[20:16] Speaker 4: you answer that question? Because I think very practically you're
[20:19] Speaker 4: giving the church control. You're giving the pastor control when
[20:21] Speaker 4: you say yes to that, because the pastor you are
[20:24] Speaker 4: told as God's representative on earth. The church is God's
[20:27] Speaker 4: representative on earth. I think we've probably heard that our
[20:29] Speaker 4: whole lives, and so to relinquish control to God very
[20:32] Speaker 4: practically means to give the church control over your life,
[20:36] Speaker 4: which gets into really hairy issues of legalism and fundamentalism
[20:39] Speaker 4: and morality.
[20:40] Speaker 2: At the end of the offering plate at a church
[20:42] Speaker 2: that has ten twenty thousand people, come on this big business, right.
[20:49] Speaker 3: Huge business. I mean.
[20:50] Speaker 4: I tried to not be cynical in my reporting of
[20:54] Speaker 4: this book, but it was hard not to feel like
[20:56] Speaker 4: a lot of these really big churches in some ways
[20:58] Speaker 4: are just kind of tax free, realistic companies. And I
[21:01] Speaker 4: think here it's important to distinguish what we mean by
[21:03] Speaker 4: a megachurch. So kind of the statistical definition of a
[21:06] Speaker 4: megachurch is any church that has at least two thousand people,
[21:09] Speaker 4: but it's kind of an arbitrary number. A church with
[21:11] Speaker 4: nineteen hundred people is not that different from a church
[21:13] Speaker 4: of twenty five hundred, and a church with fifty thousand
[21:16] Speaker 4: is a completely different animal. So I tend to take
[21:18] Speaker 4: a more I think sociological view of a megachurch, where
[21:21] Speaker 4: it's this kind of church that can have so much
[21:22] Speaker 4: influence in your life. But if we're talking about the
[21:25] Speaker 4: ultra megachurches, maybe ten twenty thousand people and up, yes,
[21:29] Speaker 4: very large, very large revenues and assets that they hold,
[21:33] Speaker 4: and no transparency. They're not required to report anything to
[21:36] Speaker 4: the IRS. They're not required to file a Form nine
[21:38] Speaker 4: ninety or anything like that. And so an any church
[21:41] Speaker 4: that does report that stuff is doing it of their
[21:43] Speaker 4: own volition, and there's not many that do it. And
[21:46] Speaker 4: so when you do start to see the numbers, I
[21:49] Speaker 4: mean Life Church, which is the largest church in the US.
[21:51] Speaker 4: They in twenty twenty three they reported they had over
[21:54] Speaker 4: five hundred million dollars in total assets, over two hundred
[21:57] Speaker 4: million dollars in revenue, and that's bigger than the GDPs
[22:01] Speaker 4: of some countries. And so yeah, I think that is
[22:05] Speaker 4: I think that's fair.
[22:05] Speaker 3: Different.
[22:06] Speaker 2: If the Lord prospers those who donate unto him, Cast
[22:09] Speaker 2: your bread upon the water, I mean, how much of
[22:11] Speaker 2: this is the prosperity gospel. Give until it hurts, and
[22:15] Speaker 2: it will be given to you. It may not happen
[22:17] Speaker 2: until you're dead when you're in heaven and you get
[22:20] Speaker 2: the jewels in your crown, but a blessing is coming
[22:23] Speaker 2: just sacrifice? Now, Is that how they're making their money?
[22:26] Speaker 3: You literally hear that.
[22:27] Speaker 4: So I went to Dream City Church in Phoenix, which
[22:30] Speaker 4: is a very outspoken political church.
[22:31] Speaker 3: It was Charlie Kirk's.
[22:33] Speaker 4: Church in Phoenix, and it was at the beginning of
[22:36] Speaker 4: the service, which I clocked that because I thought that
[22:38] Speaker 4: was interesting because growing up in the church, the offering
[22:40] Speaker 4: came at the end in so many churches.
[22:42] Speaker 3: It's now at the beginning, which is interesting.
[22:43] Speaker 2: Well, normally they you know, they soften you up. You
[22:45] Speaker 2: get worship music and everybody's high fiving and your hug
[22:48] Speaker 2: and all that stuff, and then they prime that pump.
[22:51] Speaker 3: You know.
[22:51] Speaker 2: No, they might at the start.
[22:53] Speaker 4: Right at the start, and you can give through QR codes.
[22:56] Speaker 4: You could text dollars signed to a five digit number.
[22:58] Speaker 4: They're also passing big bucket. There's any number of ways
[23:01] Speaker 4: to give, I assure you, But that was exactly the
[23:03] Speaker 4: way they framed it was. Even though it might hurt
[23:05] Speaker 4: a little, God will bless you. And so they asked
[23:08] Speaker 4: people around the building to hold their cash up to
[23:12] Speaker 4: the sky, and so the gentleman in front of me
[23:13] Speaker 4: was holding a folded twenty dollars bill to the sky,
[23:16] Speaker 4: and it was framed as, you know, an investment in
[23:19] Speaker 4: a future blessing from God.
[23:21] Speaker 3: Hunterson.
[23:22] Speaker 2: I remember when TBN was a big deal. This was
[23:26] Speaker 2: eighties and nineties. Mostly it was Paul and Jan Crouch,
[23:29] Speaker 2: you know, those flamboyant televangelists that were just caricatures, but
[23:33] Speaker 2: they had a following and they got freaking rich. And
[23:36] Speaker 2: I remember Jan Crouch was in the news because she
[23:38] Speaker 2: bought one hundred thousand dollars luxury RV for her dogs.
[23:44] Speaker 2: You know, So we do see excess and other five
[23:47] Speaker 2: oh one c threes have to follow all of these rules,
[23:51] Speaker 2: and churches are not total double standard. The parsonage exemptions
[23:57] Speaker 2: alone just seemed like a way to shield red. How
[24:01] Speaker 2: much of this is in your opinion subjectively, how much
[24:04] Speaker 2: is kind of shady?
[24:06] Speaker 3: Well, it's hard to know.
[24:08] Speaker 4: So I spoke with a tax expert in the book
[24:10] Speaker 4: who said that, you know, if you wanted to hide something,
[24:15] Speaker 4: this is kind of the system you would set up.
[24:17] Speaker 4: And you do see, I mean the really predatory televangelists
[24:20] Speaker 4: that have been widely reported on. I mean, that's kind
[24:22] Speaker 4: of really the worst of the worst. But I think
[24:24] Speaker 4: there's a more kind of subversive form of predation happening,
[24:28] Speaker 4: which is the more prosperity gospel, where you feel emotionally
[24:31] Speaker 4: manipulated to give, which I think is the wrong spirit
[24:34] Speaker 4: to kind of put people in if they're going to
[24:36] Speaker 4: give money to a church body. But yeah, I mean
[24:39] Speaker 4: the seven million dollar personage, the million dollar parsonage on
[24:42] Speaker 4: the lake, the three private jets that you see among
[24:45] Speaker 4: the really predatory guys. I mean, that's really it's it's
[24:49] Speaker 4: shameful obviously. Now.
[24:51] Speaker 2: I I know the kraflow dollars are very extreme into
[24:55] Speaker 2: the scale. I mean, I get that. But you know,
[24:59] Speaker 2: you and I could start a religion. You know, we
[25:00] Speaker 2: could call it the Church of the Wholesome Brothers, and
[25:03] Speaker 2: we could go out and you know, declare, and then
[25:05] Speaker 2: we could pass the play. You and I could clean up. Man.
[25:07] Speaker 3: We should do it. Buy a bus or a van,
[25:10] Speaker 3: tour the country.
[25:10] Speaker 4: We could do it today. We would not have to
[25:12] Speaker 4: tell the irs we existed. If we folded, we wouldn't
[25:15] Speaker 4: have to tell them either. Also, we could design our
[25:17] Speaker 4: own form of accountability, and if we didn't like it.
[25:20] Speaker 4: We could just quit and start a new church. I mean,
[25:22] Speaker 4: that's you know, really just.
[25:24] Speaker 2: We kind of both look a little churchy and we
[25:26] Speaker 2: could pull that off. I don't know, I'll have my
[25:29] Speaker 2: people call your people. A running threat in your book
[25:34] Speaker 2: relates to a term that we hear but often don't
[25:36] Speaker 2: fully understand. Power dynamic a person of influence who uses
[25:43] Speaker 2: their clout, celebrity, authority, et cetera to exploit people. We
[25:49] Speaker 2: had a local church here and there was a children's minister,
[25:54] Speaker 2: and it was brought to the pastor's attention or the
[25:57] Speaker 2: church leadership's attention, that he was being and appropriate. He
[26:00] Speaker 2: was touching, molesting children. The church decided, this is a
[26:05] Speaker 2: spiritual issue, so we're going to handle it internally. We're
[26:09] Speaker 2: going to pray for him, and we're going to counsel him.
[26:11] Speaker 2: We're not really going to tell anybody. But they allowed
[26:15] Speaker 2: him to keep his position, and for a further several
[26:19] Speaker 2: years he continued to use his power and position to
[26:24] Speaker 2: exploit and abuse vulnerable children. When I say handle it internally,
[26:31] Speaker 2: you and I both hear cover up right.
[26:35] Speaker 3: I hear.
[26:37] Speaker 4: An obvious lack of interest in external accountability, which is
[26:41] Speaker 4: probably a little wordy.
[26:42] Speaker 3: We of say yes because.
[26:44] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I guess there are some people who
[26:48] Speaker 2: I'm not trying to give cover to the freaking abusers
[26:50] Speaker 2: or the abuse apologists, but there may be some people
[26:53] Speaker 2: so brainwashed that they're like, they really do believe.
[26:57] Speaker 3: God can fix it. That's not an excuse. Well, I mean,
[27:01] Speaker 3: here's the truth.
[27:01] Speaker 4: If you want to be a pastor, you don't have
[27:03] Speaker 4: to be licensed, you don't have to appear before any
[27:05] Speaker 4: sort of legal board or accountability board. In many states,
[27:08] Speaker 4: pastoral abuse is not a crime. And so the practice
[27:12] Speaker 4: that I unpacked a little bit in the book is
[27:14] Speaker 4: a process called pastoral restoration, which is where essentially a
[27:17] Speaker 4: pastor at one church can commit some kind of quote
[27:20] Speaker 4: moral failure, which is often an extra burrital affair, but
[27:23] Speaker 4: many times it's much worse. They will step away from
[27:26] Speaker 4: that church. They'll go to another church. They're kind of
[27:28] Speaker 4: laundered through that church for a couple of years. They're
[27:31] Speaker 4: often brought on staff in a paid position for a
[27:34] Speaker 4: year or two, and then they'll put back in the
[27:36] Speaker 4: pulpit and they'reither sent back to where they came from,
[27:38] Speaker 4: or they stay on staff where they go to another
[27:39] Speaker 4: church and there's no set standard for what that practice
[27:44] Speaker 4: looks like. And the big problem with it is that
[27:47] Speaker 4: pastoral accountability is completely internal and opaque, and the pastor
[27:51] Speaker 4: choose their own accountability. So a mega church is overseers,
[27:55] Speaker 4: which is a group of men, usually five to seven men,
[27:58] Speaker 4: who will be called in in a moment of crisis.
[28:00] Speaker 4: They handpick their own overseers. It's their friends in many cases.
[28:03] Speaker 4: And there's a pastor, a megature's pastor in the book,
[28:06] Speaker 4: who gave an interview with local news in Florida about
[28:09] Speaker 4: this issue, and he said, I have two forms of accountability.
[28:12] Speaker 4: I have my trustees and I have my overseers. They're
[28:15] Speaker 4: chosen by me. He saw that as real accountability because
[28:18] Speaker 4: he said, they're my friends, they can be honest with me.
[28:22] Speaker 4: A lot of people would look at that situation and say,
[28:24] Speaker 4: is that accountability. If it's your friends and you do
[28:26] Speaker 4: something abhorrent and you hurt someone, can they be trusted
[28:30] Speaker 4: to hold you accountable.
[28:31] Speaker 3: I think that's the big question in the book.
[28:33] Speaker 2: I find when someone's preaching hard about a specific sin.
[28:37] Speaker 2: I watched those people very closely, because it doesn't take
[28:41] Speaker 2: long in many cases before it's that particular sin. It's
[28:44] Speaker 2: like Colorado's Ted Haggard, right, another big pastor, and he's
[28:48] Speaker 2: like homosexuality is an abomination that he's going hard at
[28:52] Speaker 2: the I mean it turned out literally apparently at gay people.
[28:56] Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden it blows up that hey,
[28:59] Speaker 2: look what he's been doing. He's been having an affair
[29:02] Speaker 2: with a guy, and he leaves in disgrace. But the
[29:05] Speaker 2: model is, you know, whether it's Jimmy Swaggered in the
[29:08] Speaker 2: eighties or whether it's the Hillsong past or whatever it
[29:12] Speaker 2: seems to be, maya culpa, I've sinned against the tears
[29:18] Speaker 2: performative apologies disappear for a few months, and then they
[29:23] Speaker 2: come back waving and smiling, and hey, the slate is clean,
[29:26] Speaker 2: thank you Jesus.
[29:27] Speaker 4: Right yeah, Ted Haggard, who by the way, is now
[29:30] Speaker 4: back and started his own church in Colorado.
[29:32] Speaker 3: He restored himself. So yes.
[29:35] Speaker 4: I mean, the truth is, any pastor who goes through
[29:37] Speaker 4: this process gets kind of their own bestoke restoration process.
[29:41] Speaker 4: There is no rhyme or reason for it. And if
[29:43] Speaker 4: you ask pastors and religious research organizations have done this.
[29:47] Speaker 4: If you ask them, how long should a pastors step
[29:50] Speaker 4: away from the pulpit if they commit an offense like this,
[29:52] Speaker 4: there's no consistent answer. Some say a year, some say
[29:55] Speaker 4: ten years, some say for life. And so if you
[29:58] Speaker 4: have your own hand chosen group guys who are going
[30:01] Speaker 4: to restore you, there's no example in the Bible of
[30:04] Speaker 4: this happening. So there's no standard for them to even
[30:06] Speaker 4: look to. It's completely case by case. It's completely different,
[30:09] Speaker 4: and it leads to I think men with predatory histories
[30:12] Speaker 4: being put back into the pulpit.
[30:13] Speaker 2: You think it attracts predators. Let me stop here because
[30:18] Speaker 2: I have to put an asterisk even more than an asterisk,
[30:22] Speaker 2: and I know a lot of people hate it when
[30:24] Speaker 2: I say this. A ton of Christian and other pastors
[30:31] Speaker 2: are wonderful people who are respectful and responsible, and they
[30:35] Speaker 2: are true believers. They aren't getting rich, they're making very
[30:40] Speaker 2: low wages. They're on call twenty four to seven. You know,
[30:43] Speaker 2: they're at hospital bedsides, and they're you know, they're doing
[30:47] Speaker 2: charity work in their communities, and they're serving literally in
[30:51] Speaker 2: productive ways the members of the church, and they love people.
[30:55] Speaker 2: I mean you, and I have to admit a lot
[30:59] Speaker 2: of the more powerful pastors are not necessarily the norm
[31:02] Speaker 2: and this whole idea that all pastors just want to
[31:05] Speaker 2: lie at the end of an offering plate, and it's
[31:06] Speaker 2: totally reductive and wrongheaded. Right.
[31:08] Speaker 4: Yes, So fewer than one percent of the churches in
[31:11] Speaker 4: America or megachurches. The average church in the US has
[31:14] Speaker 4: less than sixty people in it, So I think it's
[31:17] Speaker 4: a third of pastors now are bivocational. So the average
[31:20] Speaker 4: church in the US is very small, and the pastor
[31:23] Speaker 4: may be working a second job. You're exactly right. These guys, statistically,
[31:26] Speaker 4: they are the exception. I think what makes them worth
[31:30] Speaker 4: questioning is the fact that their influence is so disproportionate
[31:33] Speaker 4: to that minority. So the rock stars exactly so. And
[31:37] Speaker 4: it's not just the people who come to church on Sunday.
[31:39] Speaker 4: So I think Mark Driscoll, pastor Martors School, who is
[31:41] Speaker 4: at mars Hill Church in Seattle. He's not at Trinity
[31:43] Speaker 4: Church in Scottsdeal. He's a great example of this because
[31:46] Speaker 4: on a Sunday morning he'll have between four to six thousand.
[31:49] Speaker 3: People come through his church.
[31:51] Speaker 4: But if he puts a video to YouTube, he gets
[31:53] Speaker 4: over one hundred and fifty thousand views, and so the
[31:57] Speaker 4: influence extends well beyond the pulpit, which I think is
[31:59] Speaker 4: unique these kinds of personalities. So back to your question
[32:02] Speaker 4: of who does that attract, I think it attracts narcissistic personalities.
[32:06] Speaker 3: And that's not me.
[32:07] Speaker 4: I mean that's experts in the book saying that as well.
[32:09] Speaker 4: Because you have to believe that God called you to
[32:12] Speaker 4: stand in a spotlight in front of sixty thousand people.
[32:15] Speaker 4: You have to believe that's your purpose in the universe,
[32:17] Speaker 4: is to be seen, to be on camera and to
[32:20] Speaker 4: guide people spiritually. And I think that's an interesting and
[32:23] Speaker 4: it's kind of a weird belief to have in a person,
[32:25] Speaker 4: to feel that the creator of the universe specifically called
[32:28] Speaker 4: you to that. But I think that that's where you
[32:31] Speaker 4: would start to understand. The kind of personality that gets
[32:33] Speaker 4: called into the ultra megachurch setting is someone who has
[32:36] Speaker 4: to has to believe that they are set apart, that
[32:38] Speaker 4: God set them apart, to lead that many people.
[32:42] Speaker 2: Well, let me jump down to this question. This note
[32:44] Speaker 2: I made about Mark Driscoll. Salon did a profile of
[32:48] Speaker 2: him eleven years ago and that called his culture a
[32:52] Speaker 2: cult of personality. It was suspected that he wanted controversy
[32:58] Speaker 2: to be seen and heard to boost his brain, and
[33:00] Speaker 2: he would sometimes speak an uncomfortable and even sexual terms
[33:04] Speaker 2: from the stage. Why did he step down from mars Hill?
[33:08] Speaker 4: So Margriskill was the lead passor of mars Hill Church
[33:11] Speaker 4: in Seattle, which had I think fifteen campuses at its
[33:14] Speaker 4: peak across five states. And so there's a podcast called
[33:18] Speaker 4: The Rise and Fall of mars Hill that unpacks this
[33:20] Speaker 4: and they did a great job.
[33:22] Speaker 2: Wait, there's a whole podcast about the scandals in one church.
[33:27] Speaker 3: From Christianity Today. Yes, there is, and it's quite good.
[33:30] Speaker 4: It was very thoroughly reported and it really unpacks the
[33:32] Speaker 4: culture of abuse that he fostered there. And it wasn't
[33:36] Speaker 4: like sexual abuse or aything like that. It was spiritual authority.
[33:40] Speaker 4: It was the things that he did behind closed doors
[33:42] Speaker 4: to make people feel submissive to him.
[33:44] Speaker 3: He was a bully in a lot of ways.
[33:46] Speaker 4: Higgs had a lot of power over his subordinates, and
[33:49] Speaker 4: the church really worked hard to try.
[33:51] Speaker 3: To hold him accountable.
[33:52] Speaker 4: There was a lot of evidence they were going to
[33:54] Speaker 4: put him through a restoration process where he stepped aside
[33:58] Speaker 4: for a number of months and would go throughnseling and
[34:00] Speaker 4: then come back, and he refused it. He just said no,
[34:03] Speaker 4: and he resigned and the church dissolved instantly. Instantly, Mars Hill,
[34:07] Speaker 4: one of the biggest, most influential churches in the US, dissolved,
[34:10] Speaker 4: and driscoll moved to Arizona and started a Trinity Church
[34:12] Speaker 4: where he is now and which I think I would
[34:15] Speaker 4: not be surprised if that ended up being as large
[34:16] Speaker 4: as Mars Hill five years from now, because he's very
[34:19] Speaker 4: good at what he does and he has something that
[34:20] Speaker 4: people are daunting.
[34:22] Speaker 2: One guy leaves Mars Hill, the entire freaking thing dissolves.
[34:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.
[34:27] Speaker 4: I mean, so much of the identity of the church
[34:30] Speaker 4: gets caught up in the identity of the pastor. When
[34:32] Speaker 4: you're at this level, these pastors are the churches, Like
[34:34] Speaker 4: what would Lake would Church be.
[34:35] Speaker 3: Without Joel Lostein.
[34:36] Speaker 4: I mean, we may find out one day, but they
[34:39] Speaker 4: become synonymous with the church brand. And that was one
[34:42] Speaker 4: hundred percent in the case in Mars Hill. So you
[34:44] Speaker 4: talk about a cult of personality, and I was really
[34:47] Speaker 4: interested in Driscolle, and I spoke with a woman who
[34:50] Speaker 4: had researched him for a number of years in Seattle,
[34:52] Speaker 4: because now I see him very differently than when he
[34:55] Speaker 4: was in Seattle, and I'll say when he was in
[34:57] Speaker 4: Mars Hill, I was streaming his sermons on iTunes while
[35:00] Speaker 4: I was at work on the other side of the country,
[35:01] Speaker 4: a young guy in my twenties, because I was really
[35:03] Speaker 4: drawn to way he was preaching.
[35:04] Speaker 3: Then, was he like the hip you know, a shirt
[35:07] Speaker 3: sleeve kind of passed her?
[35:09] Speaker 1: Yes.
[35:09] Speaker 4: And he was in Seattle, which I think really mattered.
[35:11] Speaker 4: Like if he was in Dallas or Orlando, I don't
[35:12] Speaker 4: think I would have cared. But there was something interesting
[35:15] Speaker 4: that he was in this really stereotypically secular part of
[35:18] Speaker 4: the country and was really appealing. So he had a
[35:21] Speaker 4: lot to say about masculinity. He had a lot to
[35:22] Speaker 4: say about what it meant to be a man. And
[35:24] Speaker 4: I look back now and I see how toxic that
[35:27] Speaker 4: stuff was, but I was really drawn to it in
[35:28] Speaker 4: my twenties. I did not see him as a very
[35:32] Speaker 4: outspokenly far right political commentator. I think that's the big
[35:36] Speaker 4: difference in him now is he is very, very openly
[35:39] Speaker 4: political and aligning with the far right. And so I
[35:42] Speaker 4: spoke with the researcher Jessica Johnson, and I asked her,
[35:45] Speaker 4: when you were studying him at Mars Hill and Seattle
[35:47] Speaker 4: was he this way? And she said yes and no,
[35:49] Speaker 4: and she compared into a chameleon that he can just
[35:51] Speaker 4: assume the colors of the culture around him. And Scottsdale,
[35:55] Speaker 4: Arizona is very different from Seattle, Washington. And so I
[35:58] Speaker 4: visited his church in Scottsdale and reporting for the book
[36:00] Speaker 4: and the sermon series that he was preaching. The night
[36:04] Speaker 4: I went there was called should a Christian Be a
[36:05] Speaker 4: Globalist or a Nationalist?
[36:07] Speaker 3: And this was a couple.
[36:09] Speaker 4: Weeks before the election, the twenty twenty four election, and
[36:11] Speaker 4: it was very much just a screed of.
[36:14] Speaker 3: Far right talking points.
[36:16] Speaker 4: It was about foreign aid to Ukraine, it was about
[36:19] Speaker 4: climate changeing COVID, of course, but the World Bank, the UN.
[36:23] Speaker 4: I mean, he was reading off a list of far
[36:25] Speaker 4: right talking points and about how globalism is what Satan
[36:29] Speaker 4: would want, and globalism and issues in the last days
[36:31] Speaker 4: and God wants you to be a nationalist. And there
[36:33] Speaker 4: was a guy in a Maga hat in front of me,
[36:35] Speaker 4: in American flags everywhere, and that was very different from
[36:38] Speaker 4: the Driscoll that I remember seeing in my twenties, and
[36:40] Speaker 4: I just thought that was a really interesting contrast.
[36:43] Speaker 2: When you're sitting in the audience. I mean, it's not
[36:45] Speaker 2: like you're a mole or anything. I mean, if you're
[36:48] Speaker 2: not there under false pretenses, you are there to be there.
[36:52] Speaker 2: It's kind of feel weird.
[36:53] Speaker 3: Like I'm a secret agent.
[36:55] Speaker 2: I'm doing forensic research on the church man, and you're
[36:59] Speaker 2: scanning to find out what's going on. You're you know,
[37:01] Speaker 2: you're an observer.
[37:02] Speaker 4: Is that the vibe you have when you're sitting there?
[37:04] Speaker 4: It was kind of that's a great question. So it
[37:07] Speaker 4: was kind of an awkward pasture for me to be
[37:09] Speaker 4: in because I grew up in these spaces, and so
[37:11] Speaker 4: it did feel a little subversive to kind of be
[37:14] Speaker 4: in there taking notes and guilt.
[37:15] Speaker 2: Did you a are you?
[37:16] Speaker 3: Like?
[37:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, like the emotional part of you has got to
[37:19] Speaker 2: be like, you know, you still have the baggage.
[37:23] Speaker 4: Well, I can remember a version of myself that sat
[37:25] Speaker 4: in those spaces, and they felt very set apart.
[37:29] Speaker 3: They felt very special in some way. But I'll also
[37:32] Speaker 3: say like, as a white dude with a beard, it
[37:33] Speaker 3: was very easy for me to kind of flit in
[37:35] Speaker 3: and out of these spaces, right Like, no one cast a.
[37:37] Speaker 4: Second glance at me because I looked like everyone around me,
[37:40] Speaker 4: especially when I was doing the more political stuff like.
[37:42] Speaker 2: White Jesus painting on the wall anyway, right, would you
[37:45] Speaker 2: fit right in? Yeah?
[37:46] Speaker 4: Everyone looks like me, so like it was if it
[37:49] Speaker 4: would have been very different if I had been, you know,
[37:52] Speaker 4: from a different background.
[37:53] Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it was.
[37:54] Speaker 4: It was difficult, but a lot of times I just left,
[37:57] Speaker 4: Like I walked out of Trinity Church, Mark Diriscos Church,
[38:00] Speaker 4: I walked out early. I walked out of a bunch
[38:02] Speaker 4: of the more political spaces I just I had Physically
[38:05] Speaker 4: it was hard for me to be there, Like it
[38:07] Speaker 4: felt like oppression on my body just to be in
[38:10] Speaker 4: that room.
[38:10] Speaker 3: It felt dark.
[38:11] Speaker 4: I went to a conference led by Sean Foyt, who
[38:14] Speaker 4: is kind of a far right worship white supremacist fluencer.
[38:17] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[38:18] Speaker 4: I went to his conference in Washington with a megachurch pastor,
[38:21] Speaker 4: and I walked out at lunch like it was just
[38:24] Speaker 4: dark and I just didn't want to be in that space.
[38:27] Speaker 2: You've seen enough. I've seen enough.
[38:29] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[38:29] Speaker 4: I was asking myself like, if I sat here three
[38:31] Speaker 4: more hours, what would.
[38:32] Speaker 3: I get that I don't already have? And it was
[38:35] Speaker 3: that made me feel sad.
[38:37] Speaker 2: Lots more to come with author Scott Latta. Let me
[38:40] Speaker 2: take one last break and be right back. Thanks for
[38:49] Speaker 2: listening and thanks for your support. On Patreon, you get
[38:52] Speaker 2: the show early and commercial free by becoming a supporter there.
[38:56] Speaker 2: Go to patreon dot com slash seth Andrew and the
[39:01] Speaker 2: final segments of my chat with author Scott Latta. His
[39:06] Speaker 2: new book is called God to the Smoke Machine, Power, Pain,
[39:10] Speaker 2: and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch. Okay,
[39:15] Speaker 2: In the book, you tell the story of an abuse
[39:18] Speaker 2: victim named Cindy. Her ordeal went on for a long,
[39:24] Speaker 2: long time months year's what years?
[39:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Cindy Clemischer.
[39:29] Speaker 4: This story was in the news last year's She was
[39:31] Speaker 4: when she was a child, she was abused by a
[39:33] Speaker 4: pastor named Robert Morris, who at the time was kind
[39:36] Speaker 4: of a traveling pastor. It happened in Oklahoma when she
[39:39] Speaker 4: was a twelve year old child.
[39:40] Speaker 3: He was sexually abused by Robert Morris for four years.
[39:45] Speaker 4: When she came forward when she was a teenager, her
[39:47] Speaker 4: father reported it to the church and Morris stepped aside
[39:50] Speaker 4: for a couple of years, but he came back. He
[39:53] Speaker 4: was restored and over the next four decades he really
[39:55] Speaker 4: grew his cachet into becoming one of the most influential
[39:58] Speaker 4: megachurch pastors in the country at Gateway Church in Texas.
[40:01] Speaker 3: Now this is after it has gone public.
[40:04] Speaker 4: Well, it's after she came forward to the church, and
[40:06] Speaker 4: she struggled for decades to seek accountability, including calling the
[40:11] Speaker 4: church and speaking to Morris directly, and she was rebuffed
[40:14] Speaker 4: every time.
[40:14] Speaker 2: Okay, So the accusations are still sort of protected under
[40:17] Speaker 2: the bubble of the church itself.
[40:20] Speaker 3: But they were known by the church certainly, okay.
[40:22] Speaker 4: And it wasn't until last year that she came forward
[40:26] Speaker 4: to a Christian blogger actually from a website called the
[40:30] Speaker 4: Wartburg Watch run by a former nurse in North Carolina,
[40:34] Speaker 4: and she came out with her entire story about how
[40:37] Speaker 4: she was abused as a child by Robert Morris, and
[40:39] Speaker 4: it finally landed and which is why Robert Morris is
[40:41] Speaker 4: in jail right now because he was just he played
[40:44] Speaker 4: guilty to I believe five counts of sexual assault of
[40:47] Speaker 4: a child.
[40:47] Speaker 2: I think they gave him six months. That's probably said
[40:50] Speaker 2: we'll pray for you.
[40:51] Speaker 3: That's what it was.
[40:52] Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, And when he comes back he could go
[40:55] Speaker 4: back to the pulpit if he wants, he can start
[40:56] Speaker 4: a new church. His son was set to inherit Gateway
[40:59] Speaker 4: Church and he left started a new church immediately. But
[41:02] Speaker 4: that story was really sad for me. It was probably
[41:04] Speaker 4: one of the biggest megachurch scandals of the last decade.
[41:06] Speaker 4: I think the Robert Morris issue because of how long
[41:09] Speaker 4: it took for her to find accountability and how long
[41:13] Speaker 4: she struggled through therapy and trying to move forward and
[41:17] Speaker 4: to find anyone who would listen because the system was
[41:21] Speaker 4: set up to protect him, and he got so wealthy,
[41:24] Speaker 4: he got so much influence. He was in Trump's inner circle.
[41:27] Speaker 4: He was a multi multimillionaire many times over, and while
[41:31] Speaker 4: she struggled moving forward, and so it was really gratifying
[41:34] Speaker 4: I think to see her reclaim a lot of her
[41:36] Speaker 4: power and autonomy in that process and finally seek a
[41:39] Speaker 4: form of accountability.
[41:40] Speaker 3: So you spoke to her and you had conversations.
[41:43] Speaker 4: I spent some time with her attorney, Boz Shavisians who
[41:46] Speaker 4: is actually a really interesting character. He's Billy Graham's grandson
[41:49] Speaker 4: and he is an attorney in Florida and now he
[41:51] Speaker 4: seeks accountability for abuse survivors and he sues churches.
[41:55] Speaker 2: And so he is a descendant of really a Christian
[41:59] Speaker 2: nationalist fundamentalist, and he's fighting for accountability directed at churches.
[42:06] Speaker 2: That's refreshing.
[42:07] Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really interesting actually, because he tried to go
[42:12] Speaker 4: another way. So Bo's chevision. He founded an organization called Grace,
[42:16] Speaker 4: which was meant to give churches all the tools they
[42:18] Speaker 4: would need to prevent abuse in their church.
[42:21] Speaker 3: And then he went to teach law at Liberty for
[42:23] Speaker 3: a while.
[42:24] Speaker 4: And then these problems kept happening and it kept getting
[42:26] Speaker 4: worse and worse and worse. And so he's now in
[42:28] Speaker 4: private practice and he represents survivors of abuse, and he
[42:31] Speaker 4: sues churches. And the day before I met him in Florida,
[42:33] Speaker 4: he sued First Baptist Dallas, which is a huge church,
[42:37] Speaker 4: for on behalf of a teenage boy who was allegedly
[42:40] Speaker 4: abused on a church trip by another teenager and the
[42:43] Speaker 4: church was working to cover it up. And so you know,
[42:46] Speaker 4: he is sat at the tables with these churches. He
[42:48] Speaker 4: has sat next to abuse survivors. And he told me
[42:51] Speaker 4: the pastors never show. They send their lawyers, they send
[42:54] Speaker 4: their representatives, but the pastors are never there.
[42:56] Speaker 2: And so.
[42:59] Speaker 4: I Honestly, I think he's one of the heroes of
[43:00] Speaker 4: the book. And I think he is, you know, like
[43:03] Speaker 4: a lot of us still kind of unpacking what it
[43:05] Speaker 4: means to be spiritual and to be to believe in
[43:07] Speaker 4: something right now.
[43:08] Speaker 2: Now, even if he's a Christian, if he's on the
[43:10] Speaker 2: right side of these issues, you know, I'm okay.
[43:13] Speaker 4: Well, yeah, And what he told me was that there
[43:15] Speaker 4: was no one really equipped to take on abuse in
[43:17] Speaker 4: the Protestant Church like it was seen as a Catholic
[43:19] Speaker 4: issue for a long time. Abuse in the Catholic Church
[43:22] Speaker 4: has been reported on over and over again, but no
[43:24] Speaker 4: one was really equipped to do it in the Protestant Church.
[43:26] Speaker 4: He was really the one that was equipped to do it.
[43:29] Speaker 4: And the phrase he used to me was he described
[43:31] Speaker 4: himself as a unique bird because growing up on the
[43:34] Speaker 4: knee of Billy Graham, he saw it all right, and
[43:38] Speaker 4: so he you know, he gets it, he understands it,
[43:41] Speaker 4: and he knows what it means to.
[43:43] Speaker 3: Be hurt in a really large church.
[43:45] Speaker 4: And so yeah, I thought he was a fascinating character
[43:47] Speaker 4: and he's doing really important work.
[43:49] Speaker 2: We could talk all that. I have like a few
[43:50] Speaker 2: more quotess are you doing Okay for time.
[43:52] Speaker 3: I'm good.
[43:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, because I could. We could chat about this for
[43:54] Speaker 2: a long time, and I'm sure our viewers and listeners
[43:57] Speaker 2: have you know, this is it's relevant stuff because the
[44:01] Speaker 2: United States really is a culture of churches of all shapes,
[44:05] Speaker 2: striped sizes, etc. We've seen some major players in mega
[44:10] Speaker 2: church or mega ministries that are female. Paula White advising
[44:15] Speaker 2: the President, didn't she a piece of work? Victoria Ostein
[44:18] Speaker 2: she's down next to Joel at Lakewood, Joyce Meyers huge.
[44:23] Speaker 2: I mean they're at a point position to be fair.
[44:26] Speaker 2: So does that refute the whole Hey, women are secondary
[44:30] Speaker 2: claim by many, it's the defense of the church. We'll
[44:33] Speaker 2: look at all these frontline women. Is it still a
[44:35] Speaker 2: man's world?
[44:36] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think in those cases, the exception kind of
[44:38] Speaker 4: proves the rule. So if you look at large church staffs,
[44:44] Speaker 4: it's all male.
[44:45] Speaker 3: I mean it's all male.
[44:46] Speaker 4: So Church of the Highlands, which is a church in
[44:47] Speaker 4: Alabama that it's spent a good bit of time reporting
[44:49] Speaker 4: in the book they have I think at last count
[44:52] Speaker 4: they had forty they had fifty one pastors and staff members,
[44:55] Speaker 4: campus pastors and overseers, trustees, et cetera. And forty nine
[44:59] Speaker 4: of them. We so they had two women among their staff.
[45:01] Speaker 4: And that comes back to fundamentalism. That comes back to
[45:03] Speaker 4: a belief that women are not to be in leadership
[45:05] Speaker 4: positions in the church.
[45:07] Speaker 3: Which so I had someone in the church.
[45:09] Speaker 4: Bring me a note of criticism when I was speaking
[45:11] Speaker 4: to him in the book, and I had asked him,
[45:13] Speaker 4: is there something about megachurches that makes them more.
[45:15] Speaker 3: Prone to cases of abuse or harm?
[45:18] Speaker 4: And he told me no, He said you should if
[45:21] Speaker 4: you're going to ask that question, then you should also
[45:23] Speaker 4: look at universities, nonprofits, in the military, that the cases,
[45:27] Speaker 4: the stats are even among all of these industries. And
[45:30] Speaker 4: if there's harm in megachurches, it's because the staffs are bigger.
[45:32] Speaker 4: It's just a math case. Well, what sets megachurches apart
[45:35] Speaker 4: versus the corporate world of the military or universities and
[45:38] Speaker 4: nonprofits is that women are just not in leadership positions
[45:41] Speaker 4: inside these large churches, whereas you know, there are very
[45:45] Speaker 4: high Also, if there's very high rates of abuse in
[45:47] Speaker 4: the military, which I thought was interesting, he told me
[45:49] Speaker 4: to look at that, which a.
[45:50] Speaker 2: Male dominated culture even today, misogyny running rampant.
[45:54] Speaker 4: And cover ups some internal accountability and so I thought
[45:57] Speaker 4: it was interesting that he said that because I went
[45:59] Speaker 4: in looked at the numbers, and there's widespread cases of
[46:02] Speaker 4: abuse on college campuses. A quarter of women on college
[46:06] Speaker 4: campuses report being rapist, sexually assaus it. So like that's
[46:09] Speaker 4: the math case inside these large churches. Okay, fine, But
[46:13] Speaker 4: also women can't be in power in so many of
[46:14] Speaker 4: these larch churches.
[46:15] Speaker 2: No, they can't. Another point that a lot of people
[46:18] Speaker 2: don't realize. We'd like to talk about abuse, specifically child
[46:21] Speaker 2: abuse in the Catholic Church, but I think the statistics
[46:24] Speaker 2: across the Protestant Church are pretty close. I think it's
[46:27] Speaker 2: like six percent, which is massive in the Catholic Church.
[46:30] Speaker 2: But I mean that number kind of jives with what
[46:33] Speaker 2: we're seeing here. The Southern Baptist Convention's been going through it.
[46:36] Speaker 2: Of course, they're acting like it's the year eleven hundred
[46:39] Speaker 2: over there. They're still casting votes that women should not
[46:43] Speaker 2: preach in church.
[46:44] Speaker 3: Have you touched the forgive the phrasing?
[46:48] Speaker 2: Have you touched the Southern Baptist Convention thing at all
[46:51] Speaker 2: in your research?
[46:53] Speaker 4: Well, I grew up in the Southern Baptist Comision at
[46:54] Speaker 4: a large Baptist church in Alabama.
[46:56] Speaker 2: And no wonder you walk away from the church. I
[46:58] Speaker 2: get that.
[46:59] Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean also, it was interesting when I
[47:02] Speaker 4: was a teenager they took the word Baptist out of
[47:04] Speaker 4: the name of the church, which I think a lot
[47:06] Speaker 4: of churches were doing at the time.
[47:07] Speaker 2: Now this was back what was it nineties?
[47:10] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[47:10] Speaker 2: So was it white podium on the stage and you
[47:15] Speaker 2: had the big Bible open in front of it, and
[47:17] Speaker 2: wooden pews and the standard sanctuary Baptist church.
[47:21] Speaker 3: Yes, that's the church that I grew up in.
[47:23] Speaker 4: And then when I was kind of a teenager, a
[47:26] Speaker 4: transitioned into more of the like modern large church which
[47:29] Speaker 4: was like individual chairs, big screens, no more choirs and
[47:33] Speaker 4: orchestras and things like that. So I saw both of
[47:35] Speaker 4: it so edgy. Yeah, I know, right, very edgy. So
[47:39] Speaker 4: what about you, Like, what was the churches.
[47:40] Speaker 3: That you grew up in?
[47:41] Speaker 2: Word?
[47:41] Speaker 3: Were they?
[47:41] Speaker 2: I had thirty one flavors? You know, Mom was Pennycostals,
[47:45] Speaker 2: so she wanted she took us to these sort of
[47:48] Speaker 2: Sunday go to meet and speaking in tongs, very experiential places.
[47:55] Speaker 2: We had one pastor, Reverend Billy Wheeler was his name.
[47:58] Speaker 2: I don't think he even graduated from college. He's one
[48:01] Speaker 2: of those guys who I think just had passion, but
[48:03] Speaker 2: he didn't really have education. He used to preach with
[48:06] Speaker 2: the tambourine in his hand. It was crazy. But my
[48:09] Speaker 2: dad was ex Lutheran and my school was Baptist, and
[48:13] Speaker 2: so I sort of got and one of the Baptist
[48:16] Speaker 2: churches that we did go to, my attendance, I remember,
[48:19] Speaker 2: was perfect. When my girlfriend went to that church. I
[48:22] Speaker 2: was there Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday. It was always there
[48:24] Speaker 2: until you know, we broke up. But it was that
[48:26] Speaker 2: kind of deal. It was just as I am, you know,
[48:30] Speaker 2: and it had the everything was white and brown. They
[48:33] Speaker 2: had those big silver offering plates that they would pass around,
[48:37] Speaker 2: and every agenda was exactly the same. You come in announcement, song, announcement, offering,
[48:43] Speaker 2: one more song, preaching, and then you have to be
[48:45] Speaker 2: done at eleven point fifty nine or people are going
[48:49] Speaker 2: to be late for lunch and they're going to get pissed. Right.
[48:52] Speaker 2: Was that it? I'm on target, Right.
[48:55] Speaker 3: You nailed it, man.
[48:56] Speaker 4: That's the church I grew up there, and that's what
[48:58] Speaker 4: I still think about and I still have, honestly, like
[49:01] Speaker 4: so many fond memories of that of growing up in
[49:03] Speaker 4: that world, and it was a very you know, you know,
[49:06] Speaker 4: that was my community, that was our family community.
[49:08] Speaker 3: But it's changed a lot. It's really has changed a lot.
[49:11] Speaker 2: Magat churches often have big and often financial ties to
[49:15] Speaker 2: the university scene. Liberty University is obviously going to be
[49:19] Speaker 2: the easy one, but you covered some major college players
[49:22] Speaker 2: in your book. These are not education first institutions. They
[49:27] Speaker 2: are really ideology first.
[49:29] Speaker 4: So this is I think one of the most interesting
[49:31] Speaker 4: trends about really large churches in the US, which is
[49:33] Speaker 4: that almost all of the largest churches in the US
[49:36] Speaker 4: have now started some kind of college or education or
[49:39] Speaker 4: ministry training program. And it can be really hard to
[49:41] Speaker 4: parse out what that means and what it looks like
[49:43] Speaker 4: if it's accredited or not, if it's accredited by a
[49:46] Speaker 4: legitimate accreditation organization or a scam accreditation organization, which.
[49:49] Speaker 2: Is more it's like a church accreditation. Which is that
[49:52] Speaker 2: in five Bucks, they get you a cup of coffee.
[49:54] Speaker 4: At Starbucks, Yeah right, they all demand a lot. But
[49:58] Speaker 4: I think this is a strategy among large churches to
[50:01] Speaker 4: really keep young people in the fold because what we
[50:04] Speaker 4: heard growing up and I'm sure you did too. Was
[50:06] Speaker 4: that that's when people walk away from church, right, is
[50:08] Speaker 4: when they leave high school, they leave the home, they
[50:10] Speaker 4: walk away.
[50:10] Speaker 3: That's when you really lose people.
[50:12] Speaker 4: Well, I think this is one of the overt strategies
[50:14] Speaker 4: to keep people coming back, is they're just building education
[50:16] Speaker 4: institutions now. And so the one that I spend a
[50:19] Speaker 4: lot of time reporting on in the book is Highlands
[50:20] Speaker 4: College in Alabama. Then it's attached to a megachurch, and so, yeah,
[50:25] Speaker 4: this is a really fascinating trend, which is that they're
[50:28] Speaker 4: not education first institutions, they're instruments of the church. And
[50:31] Speaker 4: this is where a lot of people really have gotten hurt,
[50:34] Speaker 4: young people. And these were some of the most difficult
[50:37] Speaker 4: but also interesting conversations that I had, was hearing the
[50:41] Speaker 4: different kinds of harm, abuse, and trauma that people have
[50:46] Speaker 4: experienced in these institutions spiritually but also physically, like physical
[50:50] Speaker 4: trauma to the body. Because these churches they have a
[50:53] Speaker 4: very interesting and curious focus on the physicality of the body.
[50:57] Speaker 4: They put them through very extreme physical events. There's a
[51:01] Speaker 4: program called twenty four to seven that a lot of
[51:03] Speaker 4: megachurches ran a New Life church in Colorado. Did this
[51:06] Speaker 4: church on Highlands did this where it was like a
[51:09] Speaker 4: missions boot camp that young people would go through and
[51:12] Speaker 4: they slaughtered animals. Their ankles were shackled, they shaved their heads.
[51:16] Speaker 4: They had simulated martyrdom situations and old warehouses and barns.
[51:21] Speaker 4: Like it is like messed up training.
[51:23] Speaker 2: Times type stuff, right, is that what it was?
[51:26] Speaker 4: They it was like persecution. They gave us preparation to
[51:29] Speaker 4: go to the mission field and it was like, as
[51:31] Speaker 4: a missionary, you're going to be persecuted. It was like
[51:33] Speaker 4: exposure therapy to these kids, but they were like mock
[51:36] Speaker 4: kidnapped in the middle of the night where they were like,
[51:38] Speaker 4: you know, jerked out of bed at two am and
[51:41] Speaker 4: driven to an old barn, like that's what happened to
[51:43] Speaker 4: one of the guys in the book. And so now
[51:45] Speaker 4: like that is like, you can't do that now, And
[51:47] Speaker 4: so they've started these like glossy colleges. That's the new
[51:49] Speaker 4: form of this, But still there's still an interesting focus
[51:53] Speaker 4: on the body and there's a lot of body shaming.
[51:56] Speaker 4: It leads to a lot of pain.
[51:58] Speaker 2: We did show years ago about some of the more
[52:02] Speaker 2: extreme religious summer camps and someone called in and they're like,
[52:06] Speaker 2: we were in our little cabin and in the middle
[52:09] Speaker 2: of the night we were rousted out of our bunks
[52:11] Speaker 2: by people in masks screaming that were holding what looked
[52:14] Speaker 2: like rifles, and it was they were creating a scenario
[52:21] Speaker 2: where it's the tribulation and the Christians who have remained
[52:26] Speaker 2: are being persecuted. Right, they accepted Jesus too late, so
[52:30] Speaker 2: christ had already come. I'm doing this from memory, but
[52:33] Speaker 2: I believe I'm close. And so this is the meat
[52:35] Speaker 2: grinder of the seven year trib right, And they verbally
[52:40] Speaker 2: abused him, and they sort of kicked him around, and
[52:42] Speaker 2: they locked him in a room and it was horrifying,
[52:46] Speaker 2: And of course the message was you don't want this
[52:48] Speaker 2: to happen to you, so accept Jesus and commit now
[52:52] Speaker 2: before the final trumpet sounds right.
[52:55] Speaker 4: Yeah, I went to one of those two where they
[52:57] Speaker 4: put you on a bus and said close your eyes
[52:59] Speaker 4: and we're going to drive around and you wake up somewhere.
[53:01] Speaker 4: So do you remember Ray Bolts, Ray Bold, the singer.
[53:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, he came out as gay. I remember that was
[53:07] Speaker 2: a big deal.
[53:07] Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So his song I still remember the music
[53:09] Speaker 4: video for his song, I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb.
[53:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a huge song in the nineties, and
[53:13] Speaker 3: that's what it was.
[53:13] Speaker 4: It was like a father being taken to his death,
[53:16] Speaker 4: like during the Tribulation era, and he's like speaking to
[53:18] Speaker 4: his son.
[53:18] Speaker 3: That was so disturbing to me as a child to
[53:20] Speaker 3: watch that video.
[53:21] Speaker 2: So you were a Christian music guy too, big time?
[53:24] Speaker 3: Oh dude, that's a whole other interview.
[53:26] Speaker 2: What time is it? What to No, I can't do it,
[53:28] Speaker 2: I can't do Have you ever seen the Patent Oswald?
[53:31] Speaker 2: The comedian Patton Oswald has a great bit on new
[53:35] Speaker 2: songs the Christmas shoes, Oh no, Christmas shoes, and the
[53:38] Speaker 2: way he phrased it. We used to play that song
[53:41] Speaker 2: on the holidays, and I remember I didn't even think
[53:43] Speaker 2: about it until Patton Oswald was like, Okay, So there's
[53:47] Speaker 2: this kid and his mom has terminal cancer and he
[53:51] Speaker 2: has like a few pennies to his name, and he
[53:53] Speaker 2: goes into a store because he wants to buy Christmas
[53:56] Speaker 2: shoes so his mom can be dressed in pretty shoes
[54:00] Speaker 2: in case she dies and meets Jesus in heaven. But
[54:04] Speaker 2: he doesn't have enough money to buy the shoes, and
[54:06] Speaker 2: so he's like turned away and he goes out into
[54:09] Speaker 2: the street. I don't know if he's begging for money,
[54:11] Speaker 2: and then Jesus provides the bounty that he needs to
[54:15] Speaker 2: buy the shoes for his mom to die in to
[54:17] Speaker 2: go to heaven. He's just wacky.
[54:20] Speaker 3: That's really That song's gonna be in my head for
[54:22] Speaker 3: the rest of the day.
[54:22] Speaker 2: For the rest of the day. You are welcome, You
[54:24] Speaker 2: are welcome. Okay, some final thoughts. I'm going to link
[54:29] Speaker 2: to the book in the description box. I thought it
[54:32] Speaker 2: was fascinating and compelling. It's really well written. It's something
[54:35] Speaker 2: anybody can really I mean, you get specific, but there's
[54:41] Speaker 2: there's a lot there that just keeps me going, you know,
[54:43] Speaker 2: from one one to the next, which is why I
[54:45] Speaker 2: reached out and I was like, dude, I know you're
[54:47] Speaker 2: coming to Tulsa. We got to talk, but you know,
[54:50] Speaker 2: pitch the book. Give me the elevator speech before we
[54:52] Speaker 2: wrap up, would you.
[54:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, thanks for offering you.
[54:55] Speaker 4: So the book really unpacks power dynamics in really lif
[55:00] Speaker 4: arch churches. And so the subtitle of the book is Power,
[55:02] Speaker 4: Pain and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch.
[55:04] Speaker 3: And it's broken into three parts.
[55:06] Speaker 4: So the first part is about pastoral abuse and sometimes
[55:09] Speaker 4: that's physical abuse, but also.
[55:10] Speaker 3: Emotional or spiritual abuse.
[55:11] Speaker 4: The second part is about megachurch colleges, administry training programs,
[55:15] Speaker 4: and the third part of it is about politics and
[55:17] Speaker 4: the eighteen months.
[55:18] Speaker 2: Leading up to the election, which is, you know, oh, yeah,
[55:20] Speaker 2: these places are and now the Trump administration is totally
[55:24] Speaker 2: uncuffed them. I mean they were pitching and endorsement candidates anyway, right,
[55:28] Speaker 2: they have some churches handing out voter guides totally illegal, totally,
[55:33] Speaker 2: and now I think Trump has essentially said, go ahead,
[55:37] Speaker 2: we're not going to you know, it's not like they
[55:39] Speaker 2: were being prosecuted anyway.
[55:40] Speaker 3: But gees yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, totally. It's bad
[55:43] Speaker 3: and it's going to get worse.
[55:44] Speaker 4: But I think what I really wanted to do with
[55:46] Speaker 4: the book was I wanted it to be driven by
[55:47] Speaker 4: people's stories because I think a lot of what you
[55:50] Speaker 4: see in these kinds of books a is they're either
[55:52] Speaker 4: written by people who are still in the evangelical world,
[55:54] Speaker 4: and so they're interested in things like reform and like
[55:57] Speaker 4: what what do we see in scripture? Like I was
[55:59] Speaker 4: approaching it from a different place. I was approaching it
[56:01] Speaker 4: more from a reporter's perspective to try to unpack what
[56:03] Speaker 4: was happening and what accountability looks like. But it was
[56:06] Speaker 4: important to me that they were driven by people's personal
[56:08] Speaker 4: stories and experiences, because what we said earlier, like you
[56:10] Speaker 4: can't have a voice, you can't have a story in
[56:13] Speaker 4: these large churches, and so I wanted to find some
[56:15] Speaker 4: people who could really kind of humanize and exemplify what
[56:19] Speaker 4: it looks like to suffer the grief and pain of
[56:21] Speaker 4: experiencing harm in a large church, but also what it
[56:24] Speaker 4: looks like to walk through that process and where you
[56:26] Speaker 4: come out on the other side. And sometimes it takes years,
[56:29] Speaker 4: and it takes therapy. Sometimes you're not there. There's people
[56:32] Speaker 4: who I met who were there's still not there it's
[56:34] Speaker 4: been years, and some people who are in a much better,
[56:37] Speaker 4: more peaceful place. And so that's my pitch for the
[56:39] Speaker 4: book is that I hope that people feel people who
[56:42] Speaker 4: have had adverse experiences in churches, I hope they feel
[56:45] Speaker 4: seen in some way, because I think that that is
[56:46] Speaker 4: really the first step is to normalize conversations of spiritual
[56:50] Speaker 4: abuse in large churches and make people feel like it's
[56:53] Speaker 4: okay to have experienced that and to be willing to
[56:57] Speaker 4: talk about it. That there's a lot of people around
[56:59] Speaker 4: you who can walk that path with you.
[57:01] Speaker 2: I would suspect for a lot of people this will
[57:03] Speaker 2: be part of their healing journey. I really think they'll
[57:06] Speaker 2: feel related to They'll feel seen and empowered, you know.
[57:10] Speaker 2: I think I'm sure you feel the same good stuff.
[57:13] Speaker 2: Scott ladder Man, It's been an honor to have you
[57:15] Speaker 2: and all my best. All success with the book, and
[57:17] Speaker 2: I will link it in the description box of the
[57:20] Speaker 2: interview with an encouragement.
[57:21] Speaker 3: To everybody check it out. It's worth it. Thanks again, brother,
[57:25] Speaker 3: Thanks thanks for having follow.
[57:26] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter. For a complete
[57:30] Speaker 1: archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and t
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[57:41] Speaker 1: log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

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