S1E3 Narcissists in the Pulpit. A look at the "God Told Me" Complex

In this episode, we unpack the dangerous blend of narcissism and spiritual authority often found in evangelical pulpits. What happens when a leader claims divine direction to justify control, manipulation, or abuse? We explore the “God told me” complex—how it silences dissent, elevates ego, and blurs the line between faith and fanaticism. Drawing from personal stories, psychology, and cultural trends, we examine the warning signs of spiritual narcissism and why so many are walking away from toxic authority in search of truth.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to The Backslider Diaries, the podcast for the
faithful, the frustrated, and everyone caught somewhere
between a pulpit and a panic attack.
I'm T. And I'm Jay.
So today we're diving into the world of self-proclaimed
prophets and asking the question, are they truly hearing
from God or are they just feeding their egos?

(00:20):
It's a big question. What do you think?
I'm jaded. We grew up with a
self-proclaimed prophet and I feel like it was just a big ego
trip. God is telling you what to do
and you're basically the man. Everyone looks at you like you
are on some sort of pedestal andit's intoxicating and addictive.

(00:40):
Yeah. And I think that it's kind of
interesting to note too, People fundamentally none of us know
what we're doing, right? Like when you become a parent or
you become a grown up and you realize, man, I really thought
I'd get like the secret handshake and the rule book by
this point, but I don't know what I'm doing and none of us

(01:01):
do. And I think that at some level,
especially when it's times of distress or confusion, at a
larger level, people really findsome kind of comfort in feeling
like, well, this dude has the answers.
We'll just do what he says. So today we're we're going to
talk about, you know, what comesfirst?
Is it the chicken or the egg? Is it the personality that then

(01:23):
creates the position or does theposition grow and exacerbate
personality tendencies? And also what about the cult of
personality? You know, can you have a cult
without a narcissist? Because this doesn't just
pertain to our particular branchof religious trauma.
I mean, the idea of a coercive control, cult of personality

(01:45):
kind of narcissistic leader could probably be right across
the spectrum all the way from, you know, the Moonies to what
was the Kool-aid club, the JamesJonestown.
Jonestown. Yeah, yeah, to David Koresh all
the way through, you know, if you've watched right, right.
No, for sure, MAGA. And if you've ever watched a

(02:05):
show like Big Love or, you know,even to some extent popular
culture like reality TV is Sister Wives or, or things like
that, the idea of a prophet can be a very compelling idea.
So. One thing was we had in our
family, as I mentioned before, everybody in our family was a
preacher, but there was only oneprophet, right?

(02:28):
Right. And I've overheard many a
conversation, people calling andasking for advice from the
prophet. And as a child of of that
person, there were times where Ijust wanted advice from a dad.
I didn't want to know what the future may hold or what what he
thought might happen. I just wanted advice, advice,

(02:49):
you know, just as a kid, I don't, I don't really care what
God said. I want to talk to my dad.
And so I'm very jaded when it comes to this.
I have a lot of built up anger. So this podcast has been really
hard for me when it just brings up thoughts and I still have
PTSD from it. But I digress.
Let's continue on. Well, no, and, and just, you
know, to kind of put a point on that I remember as a kid and I'm

(03:12):
showing my age here, but that's OK because aging is a privilege.
I remember back in the day, you know, that used to have the,
gosh, what was it called? It was Dionne Warwick and it was
the soul. Train solid.
Also great shows, but no, it wasthe Psychic Friends network, do
you remember that? I do, I do.
And that's The thing is people believe in things like that, and

(03:35):
our parents or people in the religion would call them crazy.
I remember watching some of that, you know, periodically or
seeing flickers of it here or there at friend's house who
actually had TV. And I would think to myself, OK,
I know that the people in the group that I'm involved with at

(03:56):
church and my parents, my family, you know, people in this
religion would call this witchcraft.
Like it's not just, OK, that's alittle bit woo woo or that's not
my cup of tea. Like that was equated to
witchcraft and like literally having familiar spirits and, you
know, just all that kind of stuff.
And it was so taboo and such a big, big no.

(04:19):
And I remember kind of looking at it and being like, OK, but
what where is the defining line?And I remember actually asking
that question and being told, well, you have to line it up
with the Bible. And if, let's say someone says
they're hearing from another spirit, if what they're hearing
doesn't line up with the word ofGod, then you know that that

(04:39):
person is literally a false prophet.
And that's what's kind of been so interesting for me.
And my deconstructing is realizing that how the term
false prophet gets assigned has shifted in times and, and we can
maybe discuss that next week in our topic that we're going to
tell our next show and the topicwe're going to discuss, but it

(05:01):
no longer means that. And so it's been a real curious
place for me. Well, with my deconstruction
happening a lot later than yoursto now, sort of look at some of
the political ideas and things that people who claim to be
prophets on YouTube and TV and things, because those things
definitely don't line up with the word of God.
But anyway, we can go into that maybe next time.

(05:23):
But I always thought that was such an interesting dichotomy.
Yeah, a rich man has a better chance of getting wait, a camel
has a better chance of going through an eye of a needle than
a rich man does of getting into heaven.
And yet we have this prosperity doctrine and people like my
parents, I don't know if there'sanybody else out there, but my
parents who are real hardcore Pentecostal really have bought

(05:45):
into that TV church lifestyle doctrine.
And Even so much as, and you know this, we're on some shows.
Yeah. And from my point of view, not
being in the church, you know, just knowing how my parents were
when I was in the church, when Iwas little, when I was around,
that, that would have been something that they thought was,

(06:05):
I want to say evil. They, they would not have bought
into that. And during my, I guess
deconstruction, that was one of the things that verified what I
was thinking, that if, if what you said was true back when I
was a little kid, it should still be true now.
And the fact that you're not living that now makes me realize
that no, you have no idea what you were talking about either.

(06:28):
You were indoctrinated also, andyou're too scared to break away
of it and too scared to ask questions, especially when that
is your livelihood. That's all you've ever known.
You don't have a fall back. You got to double down.
It is sad. And you know, then that kind of
leads you into a, if you're looking at it critically, it
becomes a real challenge to try to look for authenticity there.

(06:52):
Because I do believe, as with most things, there are people
that are very authentic in theirbeliefs and they truly do
believe, you know, that they have insight or where they're
coming from. But it's so easily convoluted
when you add in the element of narcissism and ego and kind of
what that looks like. So it's you're the smart one

(07:15):
with the all the degrees on the wall.
So why don't we just breakdown what a narcissist is because
there's a there's a term a psycho.
Yeah, no, there's a term. You can't, you can't diagnose
somebody without being their doctor.
And that's not what we're tryingto do.
We're just pointing out that a lot of these people that are in
the pulpit have these narcissistic tendencies.

(07:36):
And once you spot them, it's, it's like, you know the picture
you look at that where you crossyour eyes.
You can't Unsee it once you've seen it.
For sure. And then I wonder am IA
narcissist because I'm doing a podcast?
Well, I once had a therapist tell me, and I don't know if
this is true or not, but I did. I asked that same question once
in therapy and I had the therapist tell me, Typically if

(07:57):
you're asking if you're a narcissist, you're not one.
You know, that's not a hard and fast diagnostic criteria, but
typically one of the hallmarks of narcissism is you're very
much prone as a narcissistic person to point that lens
elsewhere and not ever in the words of the ephemeral Taylor
Swift. You know, I'll still stare

(08:17):
forever in the sun, but never inthe mirror, right?
So let's start with a clinical definition, according to
Psychology Today of a narcissist, narcissism is
characterized by a grandiose sense of self importance, a lack
of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and
the belief that one is unique and deserving of special

(08:38):
treatment. So that's really the definition
of a narcissistic person. Now, that's not diagnostic
criteria from the DSM, but we'renot here for that.
But there is a distinction between narcissism as a
diagnosis and having traits of narcissistic behavior.
So you know, one of the the key things there that is important

(08:59):
to note. And again, I'm going to read
from this definition. Going further, the disorder is
suspected when narcissistic traits impair a person's daily
functioning. That dysfunction typically
causes friction in relationshipsdue to their pathological lack
empathy. It may also manifest as
antagonism fueled by grandiosityand attention seeking.

(09:20):
The need to see themselves as superior and the need to be a
desired part of an end group. And just to kind of tease that
out further, again, people can have narcissistic
characteristics. They can have, you know, that
word, my gosh, if you're on any social media these days, the
word narcissist is doing a lot of work.
And I'm really glad to see, you know, the coming generations

(09:42):
talking more about mental healthand doing more awareness.
But by the same token, we have to be really careful to serve
the distinction between a diagnosis and traits of
behavior, right? So I think that's important.
And where, I wonder in that matrix, would it fit in that
someone claims that they hear from the Most High?
I think we also have to point out we don't know what we don't

(10:04):
know, right? And look, I'll throw some tarot
cards with the best of you. So I'm not out here to say, but
I know all the inner workings and outer workings of the
universe and the human psyche. However, what I will say is that
in my experience, whether it's true or false that someone may
or may not hear from God or whatthey conceive of as a God, I

(10:26):
think that we can say that we'vedefinitely seen that got
maligned as a point of control. For sure, that's, that's been a
big thing in our life, not necessarily to us directly, I
don't think as saying, you know,I've heard from God that this is
going to happen if you do this more of a, I have a feeling with
a knowing wink or a knowing nod.Now in church, obviously there

(10:50):
has been messages from God. And one I remember really well
is we had a very small church and our dad had heard from God
that it was going to be the biggest church in our area.
And he had plans and God had told him that he was going to be
a light to the world. And that didn't happen.
And a lot of things like that didn't happen.

(11:11):
And I know God works in mysterious ways and everything
is on his this timeline, which is just great, man, to have
that, you know, I wish I had I could tell my kids that well,
you know, we didn't get to go toDisneyland this year, but I work
in mysterious ways. So.
And I may not come when you, I may not come when you want me,
but I'm right on time. There's all these caveats and

(11:33):
all these loopholes that are just awesome if that's your gig.
You know, trying to, I feel liketrying to just fool people.
And there are people, and here Igo off on another rant.
There are people I feel like my cousins, who are genuine.
Genuine they. Really believe, I know there.
I think that there's reasons forthat that are psychological, but

(11:55):
we're not going there right now.But there are people that really
believe and then there are people out there also that take
advantage of that and what ballsit takes to get U somewhere and
not only get up in front of people and to say that you heard
from God. What if you're a person who is
hyper attuned? You know, there are those people

(12:16):
who are highly attuned to the circumstances to other people.
I mean, let's in a more, I don'twant to use the word malevolent,
but we'll say commercial type ofaspect.
You can watch psychics like they, you know, do cold reads of
an audience and they'll be like,I feel like I'm hearing from
someone special to you. And I've watched kind of deep

(12:39):
dives as far as like how that works.
And a lot of what they're doing is they're really picking up on
micro expressions of people in the crowd and noticing when I
say I hear from a deceased lovedone who's kind of grimacing, who
gets teary eyed, who's kind of, you know, looking upwards with
longing. Like there's so many things that

(12:59):
we as human animals have evolvedto notice that if we attenuate
those gifts back to the point ofkind of being sharp and and able
to pick up on things, then there's a lot of information
that our brain has access to that we don't necessarily clock
every 5 minutes, right? So if it's somebody who maybe

(13:20):
does have that predilection and then you start sprinkling in,
oh, hey, there are some cool benefits that come along with
being the dude or the girl in the know.
You know, how does that mix in the Petri dish of culture with
narcissistic tendencies to become something really
malevolent? Because it can and it does.

(13:42):
I think everybody wants to be inthe know, wants to be behind the
scenes and to be that guy. Even as a pastor, as a prophet.
Actors will come to you, sports stars will come.
Yeah, everybody will come to youfor advice.
So these people that are, you know, famous around the world
make millions of dollars come toyour for advice.
Or even at your small churches, you know, your guys that own

(14:03):
their own companies and stuff and and look like they have it
all together are still going to the preacher for advice.
So that just builds on that trait of being narcissistic.
And you know, I've seen before preachers sit back and it's like
they're holding court. You know, everybody is just
coming up to them and basically to to kind of be put it in the

(14:24):
Bible context, they want to washtheir feet and anoint them.
And when you when you grow up with that person and you see
that everything's not perfect, that they don't know everything,
that they make mistakes. But then you're.
Totally make mistake. God's anointed.
It's not that they're just mistakes.
Everybody does. I mean, it's a human.

(14:46):
We're human. They don't believe what they
preach. And you can tell that by the way
they live. But if you OK to make an
analogy, and this is going to sound so weird, hopefully you
guys will understand what I'm saying.
But like with the analogy of thepastor being a shepherd, right?
If we were going to write this in old SAT analogies, pastor is

(15:07):
to shepherd as prophet is to maverick is to cowboy, You know
what I mean? Like they're sort of that, that
underlying essence, the prophetsin town.
And they don't have to necessarily follow all the
rules. It's OK if maybe they, you know,
do this thing or that thing because they are highly attuned

(15:28):
and they've got a special, gosh,so many of them, the songs that
we used to sing Jesus on the main line.
You remember that one? Don't.
Please don't because I'm going to get it stuck in my head.
Sorry, sorry about that brain scrub, but no, I mean, it's just
really this Nexus of again, whatcame first, the personality or
the pulpit? It's it's hard to say.

(15:49):
And you know, something that that stood out to me when you
were talking. It's one thing to go to a pastor
for advice. There are many pastors again,
and we, we do have to make the distinction.
There are many pastors that havegone on to to get degrees in
pastoral counseling and they give loving support to people
and they truly try to be a placewhere, you know, we listen and

(16:11):
we don't judge and that exists. And so for that good work that
folks are doing, you know, kudosto them.
That's not quite what we're talking about, though, because
we're not just talking about people going for advice.
We're going for people who are literally kind of looking for
that. Almost like it's like opening
the Bible and flipping through the Bible with your eyes closed
and putting your finger on a scripture and whatever it says,

(16:33):
that's what you're supposed to do.
It's really looking for the supernatural.
It's not looking for advice based and reason or counseling
theory or social dynamics or family systems or anything like
that. It's really saying I want
supernatural answers and I thinkyou're the person that can hook
me up with that. And where that can become

(16:54):
dangerous is is such an open point of potential exploitation.
Would you agree? They have that fear that they
hold over you because they heardfrom God and this is going to
happen. So they'd use that fear to
manipulate. Right.
And on a small scale basis, I'veseen that look in certain ways
like I don't feel like you should marry that person.

(17:15):
You know, the Lord told me that that's not the person for you.
Or I've even seen it at the point where young girls who got
pregnant out of wedlock and there were other couples who
wanted to have a child but couldn't.
And you know, the pastor kind ofweighing in with God told me
that it'd be better for you to give this child to them and let

(17:35):
them raise it and adopt your child, You know, all the way
across the board. Why?
Do you even have to do that? Why can't you just approach him
as a person and say, hey, you know, there's this opportunity?
If you know you're young and youknow all that stuff, why do you
have to even bring God into it? But see, because there's an
authority there that is conveyedright?

(17:56):
And then it there's a weight on that where it's not just, hey,
I'm concerned about you making this trip because you know
you're going to get tired and you're driving alone and it's
going to be bad weather. That's that's a point of concern
and advice and experience. And that's a welcome thing.
But when you add to that, I prayed about it, I don't have a
good feeling about you going. There's there's an implication

(18:16):
there that because and you have to go back again to the culture,
the way we grew up and the way many of us in this world grow up
in churches is you coupled alongwith the pastoral experience,
you're also hearing stories of people who didn't heed the
warnings of people who didn't listen to the voice, you know,
when when that was given and they've almost uniformly met

(18:38):
some type of terrible end, you know?
Turned into a pillar of salt. They turned into a pillar of
salt, they wound up having an accident, they rebelled against
the prophet and then XYZ happened.
They wound up on drugs. You know, who knows which?
The irony that. Anyway, that's not here or nor.
There, but how many times have you in your life say your kids

(18:59):
are going somewhere or you know,your spouse or partner or
whatever and you just have a badfeeling about it?
You know, well, you don't say that's God.
You just say, you know what, I got a weird feeling about this,
and I think that's just part of being human.
That is part of being human. Because if any of my kids, if my
wife, if they're having a bad day or they're mad at me, which
quite often, I can feel it in mygut.

(19:20):
I swear I'm not anywhere around it.
But I can just tell that you know, something's off, I think.
And that's just part of if you're in tune with your
surroundings, you're good at context clues.
The same thing at a job where I've been at a job before where
they're laying off a mouse amount of people and you can
just feel it in the air. There is something wrong.
And that's not a God thing. That's just us.

(19:42):
That's people. And I think we'd be remiss too
if we didn't point out, you know, I thought for a long time
that maybe I, you know, had these special people gifts.
Come to find out, part of PTSD is called hyper vigilance.
And part of hyper vigilance is when as a child or even as an
adult, you're innocent. Situation where you're kind of

(20:04):
physical or emotional survival. You see this a lot in children
of Alcoholics, More addicts, when your survival depends upon
your ability to literally read the room really quickly and then
make decisions about how you're going to act in a given
situation based on the clues that you're picking up from the
other person. Again, micro expressions,

(20:25):
shifts, the voice, their attitude.
You know if you grow up in an abusive home, you know when that
parent hits the front door. What if, if you're going to be
hiding in your room, are you going to be trying to spend the
night at a friend's house that day?
Or is this going to be a day where you can joke around and
laugh and, you know, sit around and and shoot, shoot the breeze,

(20:47):
as it were? Well, even on those days you're
not sure what you're going to door say that might awaken the
bear. Right.
Every statement is a potential loaded weapon.
You know, it's like the old saying of walking on egg shells.
But when you grow up in that or when you live in that situation,
which by the way, when you are taught that there's a God

(21:08):
watching your every move and that you can be sinning without
even realizing it and potentially land yourself in
hell, that's that's religious trauma, that's spiritual trauma.
And that brings its own form of PTSD and all of those things
definitively and clinical clinically can be noted by the
presence of hyper awareness. So you know, to some degree it

(21:32):
becomes sort of a self perpetuating cycle because when
you are hyper aware of what other people are doing and how
they're behaving, then, you know, are you having a
predictive sense or are you justgood at pattern recognition?
And you've become a really good read of people.
You know, those are all things that have to be considered in
that sense. But it's very easy, easily

(21:54):
exploited. And not to digress too far, but
you know this. My oldest child is 21, came to
me at spring break and was like,mom, I have an opportunity to go
to a South American country for spring break.
I'm going to be going on my own and meeting a friend that I've
known for years on the Internet.And as mom, like, everything in

(22:15):
me is like, the hell you are. I try to be cool and realize,
OK, hey, he's 21. Like, what am I going to do?
So I said, let me think about it.
I did have a bad feeling and I had to really sit with my own
self and be like, OK, like am I picking up vibes?
Like, is this a sort of awareness that is coming from a

(22:35):
higher presence or is this just me as his mom realizing that,
you know, he still wants me to make his dentist appointments
for him? I had to sit with that for a
second and be like, yeah, this is just me as his mom and some
very legitimate red flags. But at the end of the day, I
caution him about, you know, hey, look, let's take these
precautions. I would feel better if we would

(22:57):
have this and that safety plan in place.
But at the end of the day, you're an adult, and I trust
you. And I'll sit with my anxiety and
not use that from my position ofauthority as your mom to try to
sway you into making decisions that I want you to make.
I've noticed growing up that they would use a scripture to
manipulate people, so it's just a way of controlling and

(23:22):
manipulating, and it's unfortunate that we had to deal
with that in our own personal lives as well.
Right. And, and so many are now, you
know, even, and again, we'll, we'll touch on this in a later
topic, but even to the extent ofpolitics, you know, there are
people that although churches are tax free and part of their
tax free status means that they're not supposed to be

(23:44):
influencing anything political. That's long gone out the window.
And you know, I've been in many churches where the pastor will
stand up and say I've been praying about it and I've heard
from God or God's laid on my heart, or I feel impressed or
I'm not going to, this is a goodone.
I'm not going to tell you how tovote.
I'm just going to tell you that I'm going to vote the way that

(24:04):
the Lord told me. And that is?
I heard that. I heard that every four years
for 18 years I think. Right.
And you know, there's there's a lot that goes along with that.
But now it's taken on another level because now we've got
social media, now we've got platforms where it's not just,
you know, your family member or the preacher in your church or

(24:28):
in your hometown. Now, those voices have a real
worldwide, global megaphone impact.
And yes, yes. And when you have people,
because let's face it, like we're in a very dramatic cost of
living crisis, our nation and the factions within are at a
point of identity crisis. You know, we're at a point where

(24:50):
you and I both are raising Gen. Z.
And for me Gen. Alpha kids who I have to really
sit there and think, OK, are they ever going to be able to
afford a home? Are they going to be able to
rent a place? I mean, my kids right now are
looking at college apartments. And I mean, gosh, it's a minimum
1500 sixteen, $100 a month and wages haven't gone up.

(25:13):
So people are kind of living in desperate times.
And I think also it's, you know,needs to be noted.
Our culture has changed. We no longer have some of the
support groups that we used to go to, to like, hey, man, let
me, let me kick this idea aroundwith you.
We've lost some of those relationships that we used to
have in person. And where do we go with that

(25:35):
need for collective, for community and truly for the
sense of a community elder or for voices of experience that we
can maybe not take as a Direct Line statement of truth, but
sort of sift through in our own matrix of how we make decisions
and solve problems. So we have a lot of isolated
people in a lot of desperate times, and where are they going

(25:57):
to turn, you know? And that's where they they turn,
they turn to the church because if you're not happy in your life
right now, then you can go to heaven and for the rest of
eternity, you'll be one of the guys in the know.
You'll be a behind the scenes guy.
Great if you need that, but justnot build stuff on a line.
Let's build it on love and trustand having a community and

(26:17):
wanting to help each other. I'd, I, I really wish there was
a place that you could go for that sort of thing that wasn't
religion related, that wasn't church related.
It's. Called therapy.
Well, no, I mean, you know, a group of people, and I know
there are some actually like atheist.
I'm not going to call him a church because atheism isn't
even a religion, but place whereatheist and agnostics can get

(26:41):
together just to have a community, you know, so kids can
get together, so you can do things like that.
And have you know, especially with me, the last last 10 years,
I've made major moves across country and trying to find
friends is really tough and. It's very hard.
Unless you want to turn into an alcoholic, there's a lot of good

(27:02):
guys at the bar, you know what Imean?
Like, if you wanna have, it's hard to find.
Maybe you find a friend, but that friend isn't married or
doesn't have a wife that your wife gets along with.
And that's one thing I do miss about the church experience and
I don't, and this is a I hate this word to trigger a trigger

(27:22):
word for me. I hate the word trigger.
So I know you don't. I'm an old man, leave me alone.
But fellowship that word. And there's been a lot of words
like that that are ruined for methat just give me flashbacks to
that time. But I do miss that sort of
community in that bonding that comes with the church.
Right. No, just to add on to that, like

(27:44):
reflecting on my own experience,I moved across the country.
The last church that I attended,I moved there with two very
young kids, my 2 oldest, you know, my oldest at the time,
they were my only kids. They were three and two, I think
just turning 2. And I was a very overwhelmed
stay at home mom in the midst ofthis cross country move.

(28:05):
I didn't know anybody. And we joined that church, the
church that later I wound up, you know, being very involved in
leadership and eating worship and various things and got to
see how the sausage is ate, so to speak.
But when we joined, that was oneof the most compelling things.
This church was phenomenal at community.
They were wonderful at building relationships.

(28:27):
I mean, within the and you know me, I'm not a joiner.
I'm kind of like a stand back and do my own thing.
Or if I see somebody I know in the grocery store, I tend to
turn around and go the other way.
But I didn't there. And it's because it just, it was
so warm. And now you're in a group.
Oh, we have a mom's group that meets up and there's a group
that meets at the park. And oh, yeah, we do activities

(28:49):
in the summer. And now you're in come to my
Bible study. And we meet on Wednesday nights.
And, you know, there's women's pajama party weekend.
Like, it's just, it felt like finding a group of friends that
I really hadn't had in a very long time.
And when eventually my first husband passed away, you know, I

(29:10):
have to say, man, it was the people from that community that
literally, physically, bodily came and held me while I fell
apart. And I'm eternally grateful for
that. And I miss those friendships.
And I've lost a lot of those friendships because I came to
recognize that particular churchwas a cult.
You know, cults are really good at culting, but even the non

(29:33):
culti ones, there is a sense of community there, like you said,
and there's a sense of belonging.
And as humans, we are programmedfor those communal responses,
even of the feeling of standing all together, as we've said
before, in a concert or singing the same song.
There's a reason why things likesaying the Pledge of Allegiance
or singing the national anthem gives you that sense of

(29:54):
belonging. And when you leave the faith,
that's sometimes one of the mostdifficult things to walk away
from. And I think especially in our
post COVID world, you know, there's a lot of folks that
maybe used to get that communityfrom a church that then they
kind of stopped. And you, you probably aren't as
aware of this because you weren't in this at the time, but
during COVID, a lot of churches really kind of took, not in a

(30:18):
negative way, but took advantageof the moment to start streaming
their services and streaming them on YouTube and, you know,
lots of other platforms. And from that, people got very
used to going to social media tofind that connection that was
gone. And at the same time, you know,
you've had the old school televangelist like Robert Tilton

(30:39):
and Kenneth Copeland and a bunchof, you know, folks like that.
Well, now, now you kind of had anew breed of anybody with a
microphone and an iPhone can nowbe an Internet prophet.
And a lot of that got mixed up with the cult of personality and
folks who do have narcissistic tendencies.
And it kind of became kind of, Iguess the Christian example of

(31:02):
what would be the manosphere podcast with like the toxic
alpha male kind of thing. Some of that really exacerbated
and took off in that space with now you've got a lot of people
who claim to hear from God that are telling people how to vote,
what to do, how to live. And if you remember back when I
first read the definition of narcissism, not only is it that

(31:23):
sense of grandiosity, but there can be, for people that have
those tendencies, a real sense of empowerment.
When there's antagonism of the other, right, there's an other
ring that happens. Have you seen that to be the
case? Yeah, there's just so much hate.
I feel associated with those type of people that all they

(31:45):
kind of spew is hate for the other people.
It's US against the liberal people.
It's US against anybody that actually is following the
teachings of Jesus and wanted tofeed the poor, you know, help
the hungry feed the poor. You know what I mean?
Yeah, but, but like I've said toyou many times, you know, that's

(32:05):
so true. My husband now is an agnostic.
He's the best Christian I've ever known.
And then there are so many people like that.
You know, they're truly, if you're going by what the Bible
says, which says by the fruit ofthe Spirit, you will know them,
Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, forgiveness, you know,
mercy, all these things. They truly live that in their

(32:27):
day-to-day life and walk that out without a sense of ego
wrapped up in it, You know, and I think that's really a
distinction that I have noticed.And this again, like pointing
back to our cousins that you mentioned, there's such a
difference between speaking the truth because you believe it and
seeking attention. There was something you said
there. Just reminding, if you need

(32:48):
religion to have morals, do you really have morals?
Somebody like your husband, somebody like my wife, they are
some of the most honest people that I know.
And my wife wouldn't lie. If you're going to cut her leg
off, she wouldn't. She just, it's not in her.
Name she would. It's not in her house.
No, she's like you. She's going to tell you the
truth. Yeah.

(33:11):
And then on the other hand, I'vemet people in my family that
would, would lie to tell a good story.
They would, you know, fudge the truth a little bit or embellish.
It was always really funny in myhouse that, oh, your dad
embellishes a lot. I'm like, well, yeah, he's not
supposed to because like, he's hearing from God.
You don't embellish what God says, right?
But when I embellish, it's called a lie and I get in

(33:33):
trouble. But you know, to that point, I
wanted to talk about for a second some modern examples
because as we've stated, you gotout of this earlier than I did.
And I've seen some doozies. I have seen some long haired
leather jacket wearing, piano playing really weirdness so.
If you, when I see the guys withtattoos, I'm like, that's in the

(33:57):
Bible. It says you're not supposed to
mark your skin. Yeah.
So you're not really following the Bible.
You're following trends and culture to try to get followers,
just like on Instagram or anything else.
Well, there are Christian influencers now, which that begs
the whole question, yeah. When I found out that mom and
dad were going to Benny Hinn's church and they were friends

(34:19):
with him, I, that was, I mean, Oh my gosh, you know, even
though I was out of it, you still, you've been indoctrinated
so long. You have these thoughts.
You can't escape these thoughts.And the first thing that when I
first saw him on TV and my friends are in college smoking
weed, laughing about it. I'm like, this dude's a false
prophet, right? And I could not believe my

(34:40):
parents had bought into it. And it just made me realize at
what at some point it stopped being about God and started
being about money. Well, yes, I think also again,
we have to go back to the ego aspect, right, Because you know,
there and I don't mean that necessarily in a in a harsh or

(35:00):
negative way, although there aredefinitely those aspects.
But it's kind of like, you know,in any industry and you have to
kind of pull back and look at itas an industry.
Okay, do you want to be a list or do you want to be unknown?
Do you want to be this super successful actor with integrity
who's working in community theater and doing parts they

(35:21):
believe in? Or do you want to be making
millions because you're on commercials in Japan selling
deodorant and wearing baby diapers on your face?
There's a difference between being an actor who's dedicated
to his craft, who may want to bea stage actor and think that's
more genuine or that's more of areal thing than doing a movie.

(35:42):
Because that's all in Christianity terms, that's all
of the world. But right, if you really believe
in God, if you really believe inand what you're selling, then
you better walk the walk and youbetter talk the talk.
And if you're going to follow the Bible, follow everything in
the Bible, you can't just pick and choose.
And that's the thing that got me.

(36:03):
You, you can't just say, well, Ibelieve this part of the I
believe the part of the Bible that says you shouldn't be gay.
But the thing about tattoos, that's kind of vague.
I don't believe that. That's hit or miss.
Money lenders in the in the temple and Jesus throw them out.
Well, that was kind of a proverb, you know, He really
Jesus wants us to prosper. Or how about, how about the part

(36:24):
that says the widow and the orphan that is among you?
The person that takes care of those is living the true gospel?
How about that? Least of my little ones, right?
Right, right. So there's a lot there.
When we talk about next week or next show, we're going to talk
about the intersection of politics and religion.
And there's a scripture that I'mgoing to save, but it really,

(36:47):
really speaks to that. And you know, again, those point
to the two things that were so pivotal in leading me to
deconstruction, which number one, I was realizing, why do
they keep putting glitter on thegospel?
Either it's the gospel and it has been and it shall always be,
or else it's glitter, but it doesn't.

(37:08):
You know what I'm saying? Why is there this continuation
of the need to to make the singers sexy, to make it shiny
and HD and all. And the other point that kept
coming up where I realized this and I'm like, Oh my gosh, when I
realized that truth was what serves the narrative of the
moment. That really was a game changer.
And I'm not saying that I believe that.

(37:29):
I'm saying when I realized that the the axioms of truth that
were being purported by people in the pulpit were kind of
shifting to be whatever serves them narrative for the moment,
not they're not absolute. That really was a game changer.
You know, I think that talking about some some things that we

(37:52):
see now, like there was just this dude who got in big trouble
because he locked all the peoplein the building and said, you
know, God told me that we can't leave this building until we
raise $40,000. It always has to do with money.
And like George Carlin said, Godis all knowing and all powerful
and, you know, omniscient, omnipresent.

(38:13):
But he's horrible with money. So we need you to send us money,
please. Right, or or OK, I have to go
into a few examples. OK, so I don't know if you've
heard of Kat Kerr, but she's thepink, the pink haired prophet at
which by the way, I have to shout out Owen at fireside chat.
If you have not heard his story,he's recovering Jehovah's

(38:34):
Witness and he just does some phenomenal breakdowns on some
some YouTube prophets and and various things.
And he does some great coverage of Kat Kerr.
But there was footage of her when a couple of the Hurricanes
a few years ago, we're about to hit the East Coast, and she went
out with this big stick. And she's like standing in front
of the wind and waving her stickand saying, I command you to go

(38:59):
this direction or that direction.
And, you know, prophesying that the storm is going to turn and
telling people they don't need to leave their houses.
Well, it didn't shake out that way, you know, go figure.
But she's also claimed that she's gone to heaven and that
she saw Santa Claus in heaven, which there's a lot to question.

(39:19):
She also claims, I don't know ifyou know this one, that when
she's gone to heaven to visit Jesus.
Okay, which PS isn't that astraltravel, which is prohibited?
I don't know. It's so much overlap and
confusion, whatever. But she claims that in heaven
there are warehouses of like spare body parts.
So if you need healing that the angels in heaven can go like get

(39:42):
you a new arm and I don't know if that comes from Amazon or DHL
or UPS. I'm not really sure how you're
supposed to get the new body part.
Well, I know how it happens. Well, it makes perfect sense.
You know how babies are born sometimes without an arm,
without fingers? They're in the warehouse in
heaven. Maybe so, maybe so.
Maybe. I don't know, man.

(40:03):
There's a lot to question about that.
And, you know, she had some prophecies about Trump that he
was going to win the 2020 election, and of course, he did
not. It depends on who you ask.
Yeah, right. Again, truth serves the
narrative of the moment, doesn'tit?
And for those of you who may be questioning, we are being
sarcastic, but you know her famous quote.

(40:25):
And think about this again through the lens of narcissism.
I don't care what the news says.I don't care what the facts are.
I know what God told me. And that's sort of like, again,
no pun intended, the trump card for profits because they can
always say, you know, it doesn'tmatter what the facts are.
I know what God told and if the facts aren't presenting that

(40:47):
that's just because the devil's a liar.
And furthermore, let's add to that with that narcissistic
power and control by telling youhow dare you question the
prophet? Because if I was raised to
believe and to, you know, think that if a person questioned the
prophet, they were going straight one way ticket straight
to the pit of hell. So there's a fear there that

(41:09):
again goes back to that coercivecontrol.
And it's like I said last time, truth wants to be discovered.
Truth is not afraid of questions.
Truth is never afraid of questions.
Well, and there's that story in the Bible, I think, about the
kids that were making fun of, I forget who it was now, but then
the bear attacked kids and ate the kids.
That's a horrible story, by the way.

(41:30):
But yeah. That's just, you know why?
Well, it's just kind of holding that over your head, that fear,
so you don't make fun of somebody who's saying they're
they've talked to God. Right, and and.
What's the besides Besides, you know, the whole I talked to God
thing? What is the attraction for
people with narcissists? What is the psychological
attraction? Is it because they're so

(41:51):
charismatic? Is it because they're so
confident? Why would you, why would you be
attracted to a personality like that who's obviously, maybe it's
not so obviously out for the. Well, let's talk about that for
a moment. There is some research that
indicates that people who have been previously traumatized are
much more likely to be drawn into narcissistic relationships.

(42:14):
And you know, even you could saythat at the macro level, right?
But even at the micro level, I'll speak for myself.
I grew up in a high control situation with someone with
narcissistic tendencies. I married an abusive person with
narcissistic tendencies. You know, that's why patterns of
certain types of abuse tend to tend to repeat.

(42:37):
One could make the argument thatthere's a lot of that that takes
place again on a micro and a macro level.
Besides just sort of that the trauma seeking behavior,
narcissists also tend to be drawn to people who've been
traumatized because there there's different types of
narcissists, right? There's malignant narcissism,
which is truly set out with an intention of I want to control

(43:00):
people and have them do my bidding.
But there's also other types of narcissism.
There's covert narcissism where it plays out in a very different
way. There's a type of narcissism
where you're being the martyr and the victim.
And there are narcissists that really their narcissistic food
is taking care of other people. That's where they get their

(43:21):
narcissistic supply is feeling like they are helping people.
Well, and I think it depends on the people they're helping
because in our situation, our father was always gone helping
other people in the church. And I think it kind of fit his
ego to help them when at home. We never got that kind of
support or understanding that hewas a lot more understanding to

(43:41):
other people. We were more of, you know, the
perfect family image. One boy, one girl, a prop.
Yeah. Children, this is one thing you
always heard. Children are to be seen and not
heard. Not heard.
Yeah. So I think when you say that
narcissists want to take care ofsomebody, it's kind of like the
same way that somebody trying torehab their image would go to a

(44:01):
soup kitchen or donate time or money and then throw it on
Instagram. No, if you're really going to be
that person, then you don't careabout any of that, you know?
And let's let's clarify too, when I say taking care of
there's no glory in dirty diapers, right?
There's no glory in that taking care of needy, helpless children
in that regard or, or kind of doing that work.

(44:24):
There's no public platform for kind of the drudgery of
caregiving in that way. There is glory, however, in
having a platform or having people who are able to tell you,
wow, I, I don't know what I would have done without you, or
it was only by your grace or your help or your support that I
was able to come out of my bad situation.

(44:45):
So there's a lot, there's a lot of levels to that, but there's,
there's definitely a seeking of the task that gives the most
what what's called narcissist supply.
That's a big topic, but narcissistic supply coming from
people who are literally saying,I was at my rock bottom and the
service, the, the companionship,the words that you provided

(45:07):
changed my life. Like that's intoxicating.
You know, that can be an intoxicating and, and there's
good places for that. Like as a teacher, you have
students that tell you, Hey, your class changed my life and
that's a great thing. But that's a really different
thing than narcissistic supply per SE, you know?
No, that's if you're a teacher and a kid tells you that you're
like, OK, I can keep going. Another couple.

(45:28):
Of right, I can deal with another week of this.
I say that as a former teacher too, for.
Yeah, spot on. But you know, I want to say
something too. There's that real fine line
between equating disagreement orhaving a question with spiritual
rebellion, and the idea of spiritual rebellion really does

(45:50):
tie into that religious trauma, you know?
Well, and that ties into the whole narcissistic thing.
You know they want unquestioned loyalty to what they say in
their. Guilty.
Right. You got to suppress any of your
doubt, you know any of your emotions that you have, and God
forbid you criticize them. Well, and you know, there are
people, I won't name any names, but there are people that are

(46:12):
currently in high positions of national leadership that their
first response when asked a question is that's a dumb
question. Why would you even ask me that?
And you know, I think I think there's a lot of overlap there,
which again, we have to point back to the fact that a lot of
people in modern day evangelicalreligion have been so

(46:32):
conditioned to not question and to accept the words of a dear
leader that it's really kind of cross pollinated now into our
political spectrum. Let's look at the fact that
Paula White is now serving as a spiritual advisor to the
president. And for those of you who don't
know Paula White, I have. I have been on Paula White's

(46:55):
platform in the realm of music. I know Paula White.
And let's just say there's a lotof big personalities at play
there. And you know when when Trump
lost the 2020 election, she wenton YouTube and had streaming
prayer services of her calling in angels from various
continents to come in and take him back to his rightful place

(47:19):
in her. You as president.
Man, and if you think Trump believes any of that, then.
You're so. Bridge to sell you on the moon.
I think I told you this the other day.
There's how many people, how many men in America and the best
God can do is that, and you're going to believe that that God
has a plan to use him. Right.

(47:41):
Well, and the spiritual answer to that is they like to then
bring up the example of David and say David was an adulterer.
David acted in rage when he killed Goliath.
He had someone's husband killed so that he could sleep with the
wife. He was not a perfect person, but
the Bible says that he was a manafter God's own heart.

(48:02):
There is so many people in current day evangelism,
Pentecostalism, Christianity that say he is the modern day
David. And those those statements have
been made by people calling themself prophets and saying that
this person is appointed by God to be the modern day David.
You know, But then here's what'stricky with that.

(48:23):
You have other people, you know,there's a prophet,
self-proclaimed prophet named Brian Carne, who's been caught
plagiarizing psychic predictionsand holding them up as prophecy
and continuing on to lead large groups.
And really it's just a show of how the cult of personality can
outweigh facts. Because you know, when you have

(48:46):
people that are in such a place of suspended judgment, where
you've really put your own judgment and, and sense of
interpretation on hold and you're really buying in with
somebody who says, don't it, dude, it's the quintessential.
Are you going to believe me or your lion eyes?
You know, and that's trouble that's troubling.

(49:06):
My test in looking at some of these things is this, if it's
not bringing unity, if it's not bringing healing, if it's not
bringing kindness and compassionand love, then then what is the
motivation? I tend to think it's ego and
greed and a position of power and control.

(49:27):
And like then you get into the Kenneth Copeland of it all, you
know, and you have somebody who's really manipulated those
things to such an extent that they have multiple private
planes, $1,000,000 properties, you know, look at God, the whole
Joni Lamb fiasco. And I know, I know those people
like I've again sung on their platforms and seen them over in

(49:50):
our parents home. And there, there's a real
question there of when you're sitting there hoarding millions
of dollars, but yet you truly say you have the voice of God,
The voice of God that I was at least in my childhood, taught to
believe was due unto others. Give to those who have less than
you. Seek to serve.

(50:11):
Seek the ways that you can be. If you have anything that's been
given to you, as it says in X, take from the community and come
together and give so that everybody has sounds.
Like socialism, we can't do that.
You know, one time when I was teaching, I was teaching in a
private Christian School and I had my students, I took off all
of the annotations so they didn't know where the words were

(50:33):
coming from. And I had them read that passage
of scripture. And then I had them read
literature that was, you know, talking about some of those
things. And I asked them to tell me
where they thought each one was coming from.
And it was really interesting tosee the overlap, that it was
kind of an eye opening experience for them to realize
that. Wait, the true sense of the
gospel is watching out for your neighbor.

(50:55):
It is feeding the hungry like the scripture says.
When? When Christ said I was hungry
and you didn't feed me, I was inprison and you didn't visit me.
I was sick and you didn't take care of me.
So get away from me with your fancy words and your shiny
Cadillacs and your planes and your everything else because you

(51:16):
never knew me. That's in the Bible.
Well, not the Cadillac part, but.
The planes, yes, I remember. That, yeah, right.
And I mean well. No, I've thought about that a
lot. And I don't know how anybody,
regardless if you're a pastor orJeff Bezos or whomever, how you
could have that much money and realize how much suffering is

(51:37):
going on in the world and feel good about yourself.
I think that would be the great thing about having that much
wealth as being able to help other people.
And that was something that I always thought about too, when,
when we would hear these Bible verses, I'm like, well, what are
we doing? What do we do to do that?
We don't do anything like that. And again, not to get political
because especially this is a sort of issue, but just to

(51:59):
borrow the phrasing, it reminds me when people make the
distinction of those who are pro-life versus those who are
pro birth right. Because it's one thing to want a
child to be born, but it's a whole another thing to want that
child to be educated and fed andhave medical care and a safe
community to grow up in. And, you know, safe and secure

(52:20):
daycare, childcare if that's needed.
The hope of an education like that, in my view, is pro-life,
right? The fact that the Christian
right votes against things that would help people, they're
putting the people in power thatare voting against them.
And that's what I mean when there's so much hate, you know,
like hate for different people, hate for wanting to help people.

(52:43):
It's, it's astounding to me thatyou can call yourself a
Christian and have that much hate.
For example, my son was travelling with some friends and
those friends, their parents arevery religious and he had to
leave the room 'cause they were sitting around laughing about
people being deported. How can you be a Christian and
do that? My wife teaches some kids that

(53:04):
have come over from South America and all from all over
the world and you hear their stories, what they did to come
here. That is exactly what people that
I know that are against them coming here would do if they
were over there. They, they would, they would
consider themselves a great parent, a great hero to their

(53:25):
kids to travel across a freakingjungle looking at people killing
babies on the side of the road, just these horrible stories to
get their kids to America so where they could make a life for
themselves. And we should be fucking proud
of that, that we're that place and we should welcome them
because those people are the fucking strong ones.

(53:47):
Excuse my language, but it's really aggravating that there's
all this hate and vitrol for these people that are trying to
make a better life for themselves, that want to have
what we have and where these selfish little pricks say no,
shut the door behind me, you can't come in.
I have a child with high medicalneeds who's facing a pretty
severe surgery coming up soon, and if my boy couldn't get the

(54:09):
care he needed here, there's nota mile I wouldn't walk, there's
not a border I wouldn't cross toget that boy what he needed.
I think like that. Once Upon a time, according to a
book that a lot of people loved to read, there was a little
family that had a baby boy, and that baby boy was under threat

(54:29):
of being killed by a king. And so in the dead of night,
they snuck across a border into Egypt, into another country.
And somehow we tend to overlook that when we're looking at
people in the current day and we're deciding that them having
brown skin or speaking a different language is more

(54:50):
important than their humanity. And, you know, it kind of goes
back to the whole picture, I think.
And I have to believe at the core that people are good.
And I do believe that there are so many Christians and believers
who truly start off believing those words of Christ and
believing in those things of feeding the hungry and helping

(55:11):
the poor and, you know, all of those things that that are our
better angels, so to speak. But when the cult of personality
comes into play, and when an egoand a sense of narcissism comes
into play, then what we do as human creatures is we create the
other. And instead of that person being
our brother, they've now become the other.

(55:35):
And there's a lot of space for harm and negativity there.
And so if someone's saying, well, I've heard from God that
this is the way, my vote is this, do exactly what we were
taught to do. Take every word and hold it up
against the word of God. Measure it line by line, precept

(55:57):
upon precept. And go back and see this person
who's telling me they're a prophet.
Are they truly living the fruit of the Holy Spirit?
You know, are they truly showingthe compassion of Christ?
That would be my plea. Don't listen to what I have to
say. Go back into that faith walk and
do that, but break away from thethe voice of the mega jets and

(56:19):
the YouTube pastors and the Christian influencers and the
God Bros and strip it all down. Take the glitter off the gospel
and see what that looks like to you.
I did that and I know what that looks like for me.
That sounds like a good place tostop.
I don't know if we even really figured anything out about
narcissist in the pulpit. If at this big age of humanity

(56:42):
and the billions and millions ofyears that we've been evolving,
people are still chasing the ephemera of religion and the
understanding of the psyche, I think that it's OK if we don't
figure it all out every episode,but we'll keep trying.
So anyway, next episode I think we're going to talk about how

(57:03):
MAGA and the evangelicals have kind of become one force against
good. And how do you how do you have
family peace when your family isdivided?
Alright, we'll see you later. Later.