Predators Lurking in Plain Sight!

Exposing the dark truth about sexual predators who think they can deceive and manipulate others by hiding in plain sight. From online groomers to predators posing as trusted figures, we're shedding light on the tactics they use to exploit and harm innocent victims. Join us as we delve into the shocking world of sexual predators and explore the warning signs you need to know to protect yourself and your loved ones. Don't let them hide in plain sight - let's bring them to justice.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey friends, I'm Jonathan Smith and this is Jumped In
with Jonathan, the podcast that makes you think, smile and
take action. Are you ready to jump in this show
with me? Let's go. Welcome to Jump In with Jonathan podcast.
I am your host, Jonathan Smith. Thank you so very
much for listening to the podcast today. I hope that

(00:22):
you learn something from the podcast. I want to say
thank you to all of those that share, like, subscribe,
and follow us on all platforms of social media. We
do not take that for granted because we could not
do this podcast without you guys. Here today today, I
have a very special host, a very special guest on
my podcast by the name of Eric Scorskinski, and if

(00:45):
I butchered his name, I'm sorry. He is the host
of Preacher Boys podcast. Thank you Eric for coming on
the podcast today.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah. I'm really excited to be here and to jump in.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yes, sir, thank you so very much. So, Eric, tell
us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, my name is Eric Skorzynski and I grew up
within the independent fundamental Baptist movement in southern California. And
so for people listening who I'm sure familiar with that world,
like our school in church was kind of a Frankenstein's
Monster of different ifb influences. Had a pastor who grew
up under the influence of Jack Hiles and kind of

(01:22):
the Hammond circles. I had a youth pastor that was
from Pensacola, and then a bunch of staff that were
from just assorted conservative Baptist colleges around the country, and
then a good swath from West Coast Baptist College. So
I got to see the preferences and influences of all
of those individual groups, and so I think in a

(01:43):
good way. In a good way that helped us not
be too much like any specific place, but in a
negative way, we also pulled some of the negative quirks
from all of those different environments. So it was a
really interesting upbringing. It's interesting now doing the show where
I talk about that movement a lot, how many of
my guests I relate to, even if they were in Indiana,

(02:06):
or if they were in Florida or wherever they were
around the country. But I grew up a staff kid.
For the first eighteen years of my life. My parents
were teachers at the Christian school. My dad was an
assistant pastor and then my mom was a literature teacher
taught Sunday school classes. They were heavily, heavily involved, so

(02:27):
I was quite literally born and raised in the independent
Fundamental Baptist movement. Around the time I was in tenth
grade going to eleventh grade, there was a man who
came to our church kind of suddenly. I googled his name.
Long story short, found out that he had left his
prior ministry due to sexual abuse of a teenager, and

(02:47):
he writd at our church. I found out, started raising
my voice about it, and very quickly found out that
people either didn't care or they were upset that I
was talking about it, which led to a pretty difficult
last two years. That led to me ultimately leaving that
church once I graduated, and then you know, trying to
figure life out outside of it the next couple of years,

(03:09):
which was a rocky road. But that's kind of like
the immediate template that kind of explains my upbringing, my
familiarity with that world, and why I ultimately had that
bubble kind of burst going from like where the church
on a hill, we're set apart, nothing bad happens here.
Everyone else does what's wrong we don't, and then realizing like, oh,
this can happen here, which was pretty pretty startling.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yes, So how did you start your podcast Preacher Boys?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, so after I graduated, you know, I went to
a church that was no longer if B, but was
technically if B. It was you know, we could go
to movie theaters or listen to music that had a
drum in it, you know, without being terrified of what
was going to happen. And you know, it was a
very uh, you know, they were trying to figure out

(03:59):
like what does it mean to not be legalistic? And
you know, it had its, you know, looking back, there's
warts everywhere, but I think it was a really good
step out of the world that I was in. It
allowed me to research on my own and research without
giving me guidelines of like here's who you can read
and can't read. You know, I was able to just
kind of freely start kind of diving in, and you know,

(04:23):
over the next couple of years, I just really developed
my own understanding of what I felt faith was and
what I felt my religious beliefs were, and eventually ended
up pursuing ministry and working with a missions organization for
about two years and ended up you know, splitting off

(04:44):
from that group and found myself kind of going like
what do I do now, And like a lot of
people who leave ministry, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna get
a secular job. I'm going to just kind of figure
things out. And I was driving home from that job
one day and I pulled up a story that was
near identical to the story that I had stumbled across

(05:05):
as a teenager and just thought to myself, Okay, I
already knew that wasn't a one off story, but this
is still happening over and over again, and it's happening
in the same way, and the churches are responding the
same way. In this particular case, there were pastors on
Twitter that were retweeting the story after the man had

(05:25):
pled guilty and trying to raise money for his legal fees.
And I just sat there, going, well, this just isn't okay.
And so I went out and recorded a live video
that was like seven minutes long. I said, if you're
going to a church where they support these people, and
I named the people that supported him or this organization,
you need to ask some serious questions to your pastor.

(05:47):
And long story short, that kind of launched the podcast,
Like I started talking about it and was like, somebody
needs to talk about this in an ongoing way, and
nobody was, and so why not me, I guess I'll
start doing it. That was That was twenty nineteen when
I did the video, and then twenty twenty was kind
of when the show officially started. So it's been five
years almost, which is pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, cool deal. I've seen on YouTube you have over
twenty four or you have right at twenty four thousand
subscribers on YouTube. I know the other day you reached
a half million views. So in that process, how many
predators have you covered or do you have a number
or rough number?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
I don't have a running total, I mean hundreds. At
this point, I've done I think well over three hundred episodes.
I'm probably closer to four hundred episodes now, I mean
it's got to be in the hundreds. And I've talked
to probably hundreds of survivors, both on the show and

(06:46):
then behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Right, So in this process, how many of the hundreds
of predators have you covered? Our IFB interverse centile is
it ninety five, one hundred percent or seventy five percent?

Speaker 2 (07:00):
What would you say, I would say most. I was
laser focused on the i f B for the first
like four years, and so I would say the majority
were you know now that I'm I've kind of expanded
into like I've talked about the SBC because a lot
of there's a lot of crossover and things. But in

(07:20):
the beginning, it was all i f B, and then
now I would say it's still a strong percentage of
both the i f B proper, where like they would
affiliate with all the like the main conferences and colleges
and things, and then a lot that are just like
local literally independent and Baptist churches, you know which right,

(07:41):
they're not affiliated to a denomination. But yeah, a good
chunk or of the i f B stripe.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, one of the things that bothered me about the
i f B, and I was a member of the
i f B for many years. I still have lots
of friends that are still in the i f B,
and they criticized for stepping out, And I know you've
caught a lot of heat for stepping out. But one
of the things that surprises me about it, and I
don't mean to talk political, but this is an open shoe.

(08:09):
So we can. Is that the IFB is like Trump supporters.
There's no wrong. There's no wrong in Trump, there's no
wrong in the IFB. When you bring up an issue
of Trump, they shut it down, They gaslight, they do
all of these things, very narcissistic about it. And the

(08:29):
same way in the IFB when you say, hey, the
AFB has problems, they want to shut it down, they
want to conceal it, they want to hide it. Recently,
I was exposing some stuff in the IFB, and this
is what I was told. See, you need to keep
that quiet, you need to push that down, because you're
going to send the world hell. The world needs to

(08:50):
know we as Christians are to be a light. Light
is transparent. Light doesn't cover, light doesn't hide. Light exposes.
So in order to be a light, we have to
be willing to expose when we have people who screw
up the process. And I am very disgusted, and I've

(09:11):
listened to many of your shows. I'm very disgusted at
how people can say, let's just kick this can down
the road and cover it up. I was watching the
other day at episode I think it was of yours
or somebody's. That's Jack Treeber come out and said that
he was going bankrupt or close to going bankrupt because

(09:32):
of trying to cover all these legal expenses. What makes
these guys think it's okay to keep covering this up.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
I mean, I think it's protecting the ministry first and foremost.
And I think this goes back all the way to
I mean, this goes back all the way to the
Jack Kyle's days and before that. I mean, and I
got some flak from people when I let Prey came out,
because there was a lot of people that were like, well,

(10:04):
Jack Hiles is kind of positioned as the founder of
the IFB and he wasn't really and he can go
to J Frank Norris and yes, all that stuff is true,
and that's all stuff we talked about in our full interviews,
at least I did in the full interviews with the documentary.
But when I look at it, it's like Jack Hiles
was kind of the Walt Disney wasn't he was the
guy that invented theme parks. But he's the guy that

(10:26):
invented theme parks. You know, Jack Hiles wasn't the founder
of fundamentalism, but he took that brand and made it
the brand that we kind of see today. And so
I think you saw from the very beginning if you
look at those early press conferences that he would hold
where he would kind of take the media to task
for critiquing their ministries, and he would say, look at

(10:47):
all the good we do, Look at the buses we
run into the inner cities of Chicago, look at the
work that these men are doing, and it's all getting
torn down because of some baseless accusation. And that was
like his go to line. And so I I think
what you've seen over the last couple of decades is
people going the ministry is doing so much good, and
if we talk about these issues, it's going to destroy everything,

(11:13):
whether that's us helping the needy in the community, whether
that's ultimately as they would say, like you know, leading
people to the Lord and walking down the aisle, like
it is going to do damage. And so it's really
an inverse of a common you know, gospel parable, which
is like we're going to discard the one sheep to
protect the ninety nine instead of going out and whatever

(11:37):
happens happens, We're going to protect that one that's vulnerable.
And so that's really what I think has happened is
like the organizations have become so big and so powerful
and so important that like we don't have time for
the minutia of a victim, or of helping an individual
who's been harmed.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
And as sad because we have so many victims. But
the problem is is the pastors are playing victims. I
listened to your podcast. I don't know how long ago
it was, but you made a statement and you brought
out were numerous people blamed Bathsheba for David sin And

(12:19):
I actually a few months ago, was teaching through the
Life of David got to that part. Ninety five percent
of the writers John Phillips, Piper MacArthur, David Jeremiah, all
of those guys that go study them out for yourselves
placed the blame on the woman. There were many There

(12:42):
were many sermons. I read numerous sermons on sermon, their
sermon notebook, their sermon, there's another sermon thing, just trying
to gather information and on the life of David. So
I was on a better understanding, and ninety five percent
of those blamed the woman. And I said it was
wasn't Bashiba's fault. It took Yes, David, we can say,

(13:04):
David raped her, but she also consented to some extent,
So no, where do we read that where she said no? Yeah,
And that's something that I think if she would have
said no, I think that's something that would have been
brought to light.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Potentially. But I but I think also contextually he's the king,
you know, like so, I but I think that's you know,
I think that's an area though where it's it's I
think the narrative of that story being a story of
rape or sexual assault I think comes from that dynamic

(13:44):
of what position he had and responsibility he had versus
what position and power she had, you know. And and
you see little versions of that story play out in
churches too, where it's like I'm the pastor man of God,
you know, like how how do you say no in
that position? You know, it's a tricky tricky spot.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yes, And when we look at all of these things
going on, how can we So we see a lot
of people leaving the SBC due to women preachers, We
see a lot of people leaving the Catholic Church due
to predators. We see a lot of people leaving Methodist
churches due to all this. But the IFB we can

(14:28):
stay at IFB church knowing that all of this stuff
is going on around us. How, you know, how can
we say that we are a part of the independent
Fundamental Baptist movement knowing we're letting hundreds of predators sit
on our pews week after week, month after month, year
after year. They're staying in the poolpits. They're being promoted
instead of being punished.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a piece too. I want
to I want to hit that you are mentioning, is
that I think a lot of people look at what
I do and go you know, I've had a lot
of motives assigned to me over the years, you know,
and I started the show as a Christian, you know,
and we could talk about that, that journey, and legitimately

(15:13):
I can say that was an earnest thing, you know,
So started there, I had people where that wasn't enough,
or I wasn't the right type to talk about it,
or I wasn't a pastor so I can't talk about
it to now being religiously completely unaffiliated, where now that
disquality even talking about so like, no matter what you do,
there's something wrong. But one of the motives that's been

(15:35):
assigned to me is that I want to just destroy
the IFB, or that I'm blaming the whole thing for
you know, like for one group and there's like a
few predators, but you discard the whole movement. And I think,
you know, like you mentioned there's abuse right now in
the SBC Methodist churches. There's public school teachers arrested every

(15:55):
single week, and you know that's a common one is like, well,
do you want all schools to shut down because public
school teachers do this too. My issue is is not
that this happens if you get enough people in a room, statistically,
there's going to be some bad people in that room.
My issue is what is the general response from the
biggest leaders within those denominations. And you know, again there

(16:19):
are some really great, truly independent, you know, people who
don't associate with guys like Treeber or don't go to
these big conferences, or don't send their kids to these
Bible colleges. But the ones that do, at this point,
there's really no excuse. Like you're making a very very
clear line in the sand. And so that's that's what
I want to point out, is like I'm not sitting

(16:39):
here going, oh, there was a predator at my church.
The whole thing fell apart from me. It's there was
a predator in the church, and everybody extended more love
and grace to the predator than to his victim. Most
people didn't even care who the victim was. And so
I just want to make a note of that for
anybody's listening who is in that world still and says, oh,
you're just discarding at all. It's like, that's the issue

(17:01):
to me is like the response it's not the responsibilit
of a pastor to you know, if there's a predator
like that doesn't fall on them. The response to it
is when their responsibility comes into play.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right, And I went to mipel Pid a few Sundays ago,
and I made it very clear that a if somebody
came to me and made an accusation against you, then
it was going straight to the police department, and I
was wiping my hands of it, and you was being
suspended from all roles of the church. And I also
made it clear that if you are a predator on
the pew, then you need to go because you're not

(17:34):
welcome here, and we need more preachers to do that.
But unfortunately, if they did that they would lose a
lot of their congregation. The way that they're being moved
around one thing and that bothers me is how Jack
Hale's and how it still happened in the day of
how people are moving them around. It happened locally in

(17:55):
one of the towns that I'm affiliated with, as a
guy drove a church van was accused of it. They
shipped him off to a another state for two or
three years, and then brought him back and suspended him
from driving the church van. We can't keep doing that process.
You're hurting more people because how many people in that

(18:18):
church knew exactly what he had done a lot. That's
how it was brought to my attention, so that that
discussed me as well. So I think you made note
of something. You said something here. You started this when
you was a Christian. Do you still proclaim to be
a Christian? Yes or no? If yes, then how have

(18:41):
you stayed in? If no, why did you get out?
How long have you been out? What was the reason
and forgetting out?

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah? Yeah, the answer is no. And I covered this
a little bit. I wrestled with doing the show, like
how much to share of my personal perspective because I
and one of the reasons I've been open about it
being a known now is because I was so open
when it was a yes, and I felt like I
didn't want to just quietly stop talking about it and
and then people find out later and be like, you're

(19:11):
you're hiding this. You know that your secret. So I
was like, there's no agenda, let me just put out
here's where I am. And it's a weird thing we
do a podcast is eventually people want to know what
do you think? So so my my journey out was
when I started the show, I was, you know, I was,
I had left ministry, I was working a secular job,

(19:32):
was still you know, religious, and you know, started it
really with a mindset of like, I don't know what
this should look like. I just know that the way
the American Church is operating right now is not right,
Like there's something really broken here. And then over the

(19:53):
next couple of years doing the podcast one, I think
it was like two things. I think it was one,
just continuing continually studying on my own. It kind of
just it stopped clicking in a place for me the
way that it used to. But then I think also too,
I was dealing with, you know, Christians of all stripes

(20:16):
who were so upset that I was poking this issue,
and I think there was a that that amount of
pushback and the amount of like the amount of just
like seediness that I was seeing within it was like, Okay,
this is just disturbing. And I've said this before. I

(20:37):
didn't just go like, oh, there's some bad things, and
so I left because I think there's plenty of apologetics
I could explain that I would get rid of that objection.
I think for me, one of the big claims of
Christianity is that makes people a new creature. And diving
into the stories I was and interacting with the people
that I was and just looking at the organizations out there,

(21:00):
I didn't see anything, any any positive transformation that was
uniquely attributed to that religious group. Like there are tons
of positive transformations that happen in IFB churches every single Sunday.
There are people that go into churches. They give up alcoholism,

(21:22):
they stop you know, beating on their kids, they become
more present parents, they become better spouses. Like that happens
every single Sunday. People's lives are transformed, but they're also
transformed in AA meetings, in self help groups and like
and for me, I just started going, what is the

(21:43):
thing that sets these groups apart from everybody else? Like,
what is the thing that is like only the Holy
Spirit could make this change in somebody, And I just
didn't have a sufficient answer that I could give where
I could go like, yeah, that's exclusively attributed to the
Christian faith, you know, and there's there's a lot more

(22:04):
and whatever I say, people are gonna go like that's
not enough of a reason. Like this is years of
me thinking about this, talking about this, studying about this,
But that's just some of the big things on the
surface that kind of led to that. But ultimately it
was just I used to wake up every day with
a default, you know, click, like yeah, that's what it is,
Like that's how I see the world. And then I

(22:26):
just started waking up and that wasn't Like I found
myself contorting myself to fit things into this box that
was my faith, and it just that wasn't something I
could keep doing. I couldn't keep taking everything that I
couldn't make sense of and go like let me smash
that into this and go like, yeah, that's that's it
still fits. It just stopped fitting for me at a

(22:47):
certain point.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
So when you when you talk about this, would you
say that you're an atheist now agnostic? How would you
classify yourself if you don't mind me asking.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Anything, No, I'm a completely you know, I'm an open book.
I I would say, I mean, I would say agnostic
in terms of like, I wouldn't claim to know. I mean,
I mean most atheists would say the same, like they don't.
They wouldn't claim to know something that they can't know.
I would say right now, like I yeah, I would say,
I would say just uh, I don't know. I would say,

(23:19):
like I I lean toward. I would say more of
a just naturalistic kind of view of things. But I
don't know. I know it's not I know it's not
what I was raised in. But that's a that's one
of many options, you know, to check a box off of.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
So the way that I processed this and maybe I'm wrong,
Correct me if I'm wrong, tell me if you've thought
about it this way is when we have someone come
out and this has happened too, I go back to
judas Is Scariot m H. He would be the he
is the definition a Matthew chapter number seven, where Jesus said,

(24:03):
and many will come into me in that day and say,
did we not prophesy? Did we not heal? Did we
not do all of these things? And he says, to
part from me, I never knew you. So when I
hear of this happening, that's where I classify them on
is as a judas who is a actor of a
follower but is not a true follower. I would say

(24:25):
that ninety and I would say one hundred percent of
predators are not Christian at all. They are they are
definitely lost. I may go as far to say that
their reprobate, but that may be too far, because it
takes a really sick person to screw up a kid's
life point blank. And I'm very firm about that. I

(24:48):
don't think there should be a I don't think there
should be a prison sentence for a predator. I don't
think that there should be a sex offender list. I
think that if you're proven guilty that you're a predator,
you should immediately be eliminated off the earth. There's no
grace for a predator in my in my opinion, and
you may feel the same way. I don't know, and

(25:11):
that may be a little blunt, and some people may say, well,
that ain't nice of a pastor to say, But it
ain't nice of a predator to screw up a kid's life,
to screw up a woman's life because they lusted after
that person and committed ungodly acts with that person against
their will or even in their will. So that's how
I categorize these types of people when we're when we're

(25:34):
talking about it. It is hard as a pastor to
see this take place in the churches and have to
stand against it, because sometimes you feel like you're being
told that you're standing against your own people, but you're not.
You're standing against a group of pedophiles. A pedophile is

(25:58):
not our people. A person is not born to be
a pedophile. A person chooses to be a pedophile. You know,
I heard who was it Jack Hale's that made a
statement that everyone if a woman wears a mini skirt,
she and a man lust actor her, he deserves to
commit the act with her, and she should be in
the same prison and sell as that man. Absolutely not
that man chose to rap that woman. And that's how

(26:22):
I feel about it. It personally hurts to see that.
And I know, and I'm not saying this against you
at all, but to see people like you that have
such a knowledge of things going on in the church
to walk away and have a more naturalist view because
you could do a lot of good, and you do
a lot of good for churches, and you know, but

(26:46):
I understand because I'm with you. I do a lot
of research. I listen to a lot of sermons and
I want to talk to you, to you about something
that end of this show. But I do a lot
of different research, a lot of servants and things, and
it's disgusting at the stuff that I see week after week.
That's not what they're called Bible preaching, loud preaching, and

(27:09):
there's nothing to it. So it would be easy for me,
as a person outside of religion saying if that's what
religions about, I don't want nothing of it. But I
grew up under Sammy Allen, Tony Hudson, all of those guys,
and I will be honest now and I will say this,
they hurt the IFB movement just as much as Jack Kyle's,

(27:31):
Jack Scott and all of those because we brought up
a generation of preachers who always preach standards and never
preach the Savior, and that's hurt a lot of people.
We have a lot of people that wear dresses to
church that is damned in their heart, you know, and
men that wear pants all the time that are pretenders

(27:51):
of the faith, and it's disgusting on that part of
it too. So when we so, I understand how easy
it would be, even in my own life, it'd be
easy for me to walk away and say, you know,
if this is what religion is about, this is what
so called Christianity is, I'm out, you know, I'm checking

(28:12):
out of it. I don't want nothing to do with it.
So I don't fault you at all and have and
I'll make it clear, I have no hard feelings to
anybody that's walked away from Christianity that has seen this
side of it. The only thing that and I know
you've made it clear, would be to say that I
hope that everyone realizes that this ain't al wait, this

(28:33):
is not one hundred percent of people in Christianity or
real people out here who standing for the truth with love.
I think that's one of the things too, I think
you would agree with me, is I think we're missing
love inside of our churches.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, i'd say so. Yeah, it takes a quick scroll
through my inbox, I would agree with your assessment.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
So tell us a little bit more about where your
show's going and where you want to end up with
the show. Where did you looking at the goals of
the show.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, I mean, Michael is just to start conversation about
these topics, and I think that's you know it, there's
no I was talking to Darryl Dowe recently. His episode
drops this Sunday, and he started stuff Fundi's Like and
we had a conversation about kind of his his time

(29:28):
doing that site for ten years, being one of the
first people to really take that conversation to the internet
the way that he did. And you know, I said,
when I started this show in twenty twenty, there wasn't
much to look at as like an example. I said,
Stuff Fundi's Like was kind of but not really similar
to what I'm doing, you know. I mentioned to him,

(29:50):
I said, when you did it, there was even less.
And I said, it would be really helpful if there
was someone who wrote a guide of like how to
do a podcast about clergy abuse, you know, or like
how to do a blog about fundamentalism. But all that aside,
it's it's difficult to know sometimes where to take things.
There's a lot of like there's a lot of questions

(30:11):
to ask all the time about like what is the
purpose of this? And you know, I think one of
the things that I said early on and I mentioned
to Darryl is like, I didn't want the show to
be just another stuff fun. He's like, I think Stuffhani's
like had a really great purpose and I think it
had some things that really helped me when I was
a teenager. That was like the resource to find things.

(30:31):
But I didn't want to just be another meme page
that goes like, you know, fundamentalism is silly. Because of this,
I could have content for days about things that are
silly in that world. You know, I'd say when this
show started, it was very much just like, here's some
interviews with people, and here's their experiences and there it's
out there. And I think as the show has progressed,

(30:52):
it's you know, more and more people have said, well,
what's your thought or we've been listening to snippets of
you in these conversations, what's your take on this? And
so I'm trying now to always balance responsibility of like,
this show is very much about the stories of survivors
who've experienced abuse, whether they are and I've had the

(31:13):
gamut of them, whether they are still believers, not believers,
or you know, whatever their take is, or how to
affect them. I just want them to share their perspective
because they haven't had a chance to do that. On
the other side of it, though, there are things like
it's easy to just go, oh, there was this rape
case in this church, but then you do need to

(31:35):
peel back the layers and go, what are some of
the preaching in this church? What are some of the
things that people are learning that makes this kind of
behavior normalized? How is the predator treated in the church?
And so I say there's been a real gradual shift
into more and more analysis of the whys this happens.
And then there has been some opinion pieces that I've
dipped my toe into, but I'm trying to just segment

(31:58):
it out. So I would say my goal is just
that the show doesn't lose its its core focus, which
is the topics that I talk about, but also continues
to evolve and just take the conversation where it needs
to go. But that's very much dependent on where the
culture's at, what's happening, Like, what is it that we

(32:20):
need to be discussing, whether that's legislation, whether that's you know, theology,
whether that's a leader in the movement, And so Michael
is just to keep broadening the conversation and talk about how,
you know, fundamentals environments are conducive for abuse. You know,
when you've got a high control religious group and there's

(32:40):
no outside connection for help, it sets people up for
very very bad situations.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, one of the things I disagree with the fundamentalist
movement in there's a lot, but they make it out
of out of their pastor I mean their past. You know,
everybody needs a man I got in their life. Okay,
I somewhat agree with that, but if you have an issue,
you take it to the pastor first. No, that ain't
always the case, right. There are things that have happened

(33:11):
in my life that if I took it to a pastor,
it'd be broadcast all over the internet, you know, So
I totally disagree with that. So my next question for
you is who or what ministry surprised you the most
of having predators in it.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
M I was actually answered this question the other day
to a friend of mine. I was on the show
and they said, oh, because they mentioned when I had
first ever stumbled across an abuse case, and they said
when they had, they said they thought to themselves like, okay,
well this is the one weird time that this happened.
And the way that my brain interpreted when I found

(33:49):
it was okay, now anything could happen, like if this
could happen, like the door's open for anything, and so
I don't know if that's cynical. I don't know what
that is or how my brain views that stuff. I'm
not often surprised by anything. It's a gut punch every time,
like it's still shocking and it's still like I can't

(34:10):
believe this is happening. But I'm trying to think if
there's one specifically where I was like, oh, I can't
imagine it happening there, Like I would say at this point,
like nothing really surprises me. I'm more surprised. The most
surprising that's happened to me recently is I had a
pastor whose church I covered, who called me and said

(34:33):
thank you for how you covered the story. You covered
it honestly, and I think you were fair in what
you said. And you know, obviously I won't share who
that was, but that was something where when I saw
his name pop up on my phone, I was like,
oh great, and then had the conversation and was pleasantly
surprised that that was the take. So and again, that's

(34:55):
a rarity, and all the episodes I've done, that's not
something that happens very often. So I'm more surprised when
the right thing happens than when the wrong thing happens.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
At this point, Okay, how do you get And I
guess this is something if you want to answer you can.
Is there a lot of hate calls that come to
you from the IFV?

Speaker 2 (35:15):
I mean, I keep my number pretty hidden, so but
my messages and comments, I definitely get a good a
good batch. I would say in the beginning, I got
more like when I first started the show, it was
a lot like I was inundated with a lot of
negative messages. I think now, I think some people just
got bored with that, or some people just you know,

(35:38):
they've already gotten out what they need to say, so
I get them less frequently. But I have certain people
that just flood my comments all the time. But I
just let them, you know, because then I is the
best argument against someone is to let them speak for themselves.
And so I've gotten sermons preached against me and comments
and emails and I've got some gnarly stuff there.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Right, how do you process that? You just take it
with a grain of salt? Or do is it affects
you spirit? Really? Is it? No?

Speaker 2 (36:09):
It's never really affected me that much. The feedback that
affects me is if someone who is a survivor or
someone who has been harmed feels like I didn't report
correctly on something, or if I worded something wrong, which
that's pretty much the only the one time this has
ever really happened is like, you know, I've asked like, hey,

(36:31):
what do you think about how I worded that? You know,
because I'll see a comment come in and they'll be like, yeah,
I wouldn't have said it that way. It's like, Okay,
that bothers me a little bit. But you know when
someone says, oh, you're a reprobate and you're headed for
hell and you're like maggots, you know, and all this
stuff like it doesn't really do anything for me. It
the content side of me goes, well, great, I'll snip

(36:52):
that and post that, because that's what a great endorsement
of what I do is, You're going to preach about
this or talk about this. So it doesn't affect me
that much. It affects me more when I see people
actively harming other people, because I you know, and again
I'm jaded. I've been in this five years, so there's
nothing I haven't really heard. It bothers me when I

(37:14):
see people who I know aren't in the public eye
that much, or who suddenly find themselves under a spotlight.
They don't they don't want to be under that, that
affects me a lot more, you know. Or if it's
people I know or from the pastors, like that'll that'll stick. Yeah.
For the most part, though, it doesn't really bother me.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Like what people say, all right, so you take it
with a grain of salt more or less.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I like, why would I let
their opinion affect me if I wouldn't let them, you know,
be a mentor or give me advice. You know. It's
like it's like, okay, so the right people are upset
you know, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
I understand. So I guess one of the things that
I will ask. And then this there's probably something that
people will wonder. Is your podcast like edited but you
edit out certain parts or is it full blong and
you just edit out in the silence, or is there
no editing at all? How how do you do that?

Speaker 2 (38:08):
For the most part, no editing, Like I don't. I
will occasionally edit, like if they say oh and they
accidentally say another victim's name or something that's not public,
or if there's something that like legally would would cause
them an issue. Like I know I had someone who
was in a legal case and they mentioned something like
it but it was still in process, where just like,

(38:28):
don't mention the case at all, like just leave it
where it is. So like little things like that. But
for the most part, I leave everything unfiltered. You know,
if a guest wants to swear, I let them swear
if they don't want to, If they want to share
how their faith has helped them, I let them share that.
If someone wants to share why they left, I let
them share that. Like the whole point is letting them
share their story. And so if I start centering or

(38:50):
picking what fits my brand, like I feel like it
kind of defeats the purpose, and then you know, I'll
add sometimes I'll add clips or something for context, but
for the most part, I like to keep it just
here's the conversation. That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
So okay, what is I get We're getting close to
wrapping up. What is your favorite part of doing the podcast?

Speaker 2 (39:11):
I think my favorite My favorite thing about the podcast
in general is that, like I think sometimes when people
leave fundamentalism or any high control group, I think it
they still are controlled by it in the sense that
they wake up thinking about it. They try to live
in ways that like, you know, I'm going to have
a beer at a restaurant because I know they wouldn't

(39:33):
want me to have a beer. I'm going to listen
to this music because I know they wouldn't want me
to listen to it. And you know, I think that's
a normal phase. It's the same way kids go through
rebellious phases. Like I'm going to do this, but I've
tried to build a life that very much is just
based on what I would like to do and what
I value, and not just doing stuff to kind of

(39:53):
stick the finger at the past, and so I do
enjoy that the podcast allows me to a set designated
time and process to work through things that have affected
me and have affected people close to me, and then
shut the laptop, close it up, and then have my
life that's outside of it. And I'm very happy that,

(40:14):
Like people know the public version of me but don't know,
like they don't know my family life, and they don't
know that and they don't need to. Like, I have
my private world that I built that I'm very happy with,
and then I've got the show, and so I like
being able to have that exist on its own.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Okay, what is your least favorite part of doing the show?

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Just the weight of it, you know, I mentioned that
previously on podcasts too, Like I it's just a stacking weight,
Like every story, even though you're not surprised, it just
feels like it adds to that load of like weight,
and it's almost you know, I've talked to a couple
of friends where it's like it's kind of like secondhand smoke,
Like you're not the one smoking, it's not happening to you,
but if you're around it all the time and you're

(40:57):
breathing it in or you have to listen to these sermons,
you have to talk to a victim who's going through
horrific stuff. Like it's very heavy. So I'd say just
the mental toll of that, like's that's the thing that
affects my mental health the most is just the weight
of the stories and the parts of the stories that
never go to air, where like it's told to me
off Mike, or it's something I just know that we

(41:20):
don't share because it's maybe too graphic or something that
they don't want shared. Like those things are really heavy
because I feel like not only does nobody not only
have I heard it, but it's also saying like it's
not out there, like I just know, I just know
this thing. And I'm seeing people react to the story
as if like, oh, it wasn't as big a deal
as it and like if you knew the full story,

(41:41):
Like there's some really heavy stuff happening here. So that's
probably the worst part.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
So is there anything that you wanted to cover that
I'm mist or anything you any point you want to
drive home and to wrap up here, I.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Probably should have thought of one. I should have my
three point. It's a good takeaway for people. I mean,
I think, honestly, my biggest thing I would drive for
people because I would assume most of your listeners are
still in church or still like navigating some of that
world at least sort of familiar with like similar backgrounds.

(42:18):
I would just say, like, my personal beliefs I think
are irrelevant to the majority of my show. And I
would say, and I would say the same for my guests.
I would say, like, don't discount a person's experience based
on their faith journey. I certainly have episodes and I'm
very clear out of the gate, like, hey, this episode's
kind of my opinions on this thing, so take it

(42:40):
with a grain of salt, like here's what it is.
But like it's amazing to the people that will discard
a survivor's story because that person is no longer religious,
or they will discredit my entire show because I'm no
longer religious, like on a very sincere level, like I
know that there are people who will always go to
innefinite Baptist churches or go to Southern Baptists or whatever

(43:02):
church they go to. And as much as like I
might have my personal opinion about whether that's a great
use of time, like I still deep down want the
people who do choose to go to go to the
safest possible version of that, and so like, I'm more
than happy to sit down with the pastor and say,
here's how you can make your church safer. And I

(43:23):
think like for the people who say, like I'm just
attacking the church, like if I was, I wouldn't waste
my time having those conversations, Like I wouldn't waste my
time giving resource advices to you know, resource advice to
pastors and things like that. So I just would encourage
people like, look past like maybe the theological differences or
political differences or whatever that looks like, or my length
of my hair or whatever that is, and look at like,

(43:45):
is there validity to what I'm saying? And is this
something that we can all, like, regardless of our affiliations
and party lines and whatever that looks like, can all
kind of band together and say, like, how do we
address this? You know? And maybe we don't agree on everything,
but there's probably some way we can help each other
in dealing with something that we all know is a
really bad thing. So that's kind of what I would say.

(44:08):
And I'd say that I am more flowery way if
i'd prepared something. That's what it is for now.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
All right, Well, thank you so very much Eric for
coming on the podcast today. And I appreciate your input
and everything that you've said, and I appreciate the work
that you do each and every week on your podcast.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yes, sir guys, if you are here listening and you
want to listen to the Preacher Boys podcast, there will
be a link in the description below so that you
can take a listen to the podcast. Thank you so
very much for listening to this segment of Jumping with Jonathan.
I am your host, Jonathan Smith. We look forward to
seeing you next week. Thank you. Have a great day, perfect.

(44:48):
Thank you for listening to today's episode on Jumping with Jonathan,
and keep in mind that life is better when you
jump in. Have a blessed guy.