cHriStianiTy is a jOkE and cHurChes are tHe cIrCus 🤡 😈

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so this was a big decision for me to
do this.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
And you know, I'm curious, you know, before we dive
too far into it.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I mean, do you feel like that's happening?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Do you feel like you're driving people away from Christianity
by exposing this stuff?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
No? No, quite the opposite.

Speaker 4 (00:19):
I get to present, which I hope to do today,
the authentic Christ. And if you're a Christian, Christ is
the head of the church, your savior. I get to
present the authentic Christ, I'll say, unencumbered and pulled away
from the machine that we have built on top of
Christ's message. They're two completely different things. So I'm here

(00:41):
today to separate the two. One is the head of accountability,
which is Christ, and then one needs to be held accountable.
So that's what I'm here to discuss today.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Okay, okay, I mean, what.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Kind of response are you getting from documentary and all
this stuff you are exposing?

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Lots?

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I think is what kind of response is?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, it's it's it's bifurcated right down the middle.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Everybody who who has the marbles to watch the show,
every Christian that is i'll say, humble enough and interested
in taking a hard look at the system. Once they
watch it, they message us through DMS, or they'll see
me in an airport.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Or whatever, and they just come up and give me
a bear hug.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Because I think what we've hit is a is a
cultural vein that most people just can't explain or articulate,
but they know there's something wrong in the system. And
then the system is cloaked in the concept of crisis,
our savior, salvation and generosity and love, and so it's
the perfect mask for abusing people, and not only abusing people,

(01:56):
but abusing people at their most vulnerable state, which is
I am here to like explore my faith in my
salvation and my brokenness.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
And when you meet someone in that spot, there are
wolves that will feed.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
And in Christ speaks heavily on this in the Bible,
and so there's I'll preface this right now. We are
here to do two things. Encourage your faith and encourage
your generosity. And outside of that, everything's fair game.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
The words that come to my mind is trust but verify,
Trust but verify.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And you know, and I know what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I mean, what you are about to talk about is
going to destroy maybe a little strong, but I mean,
people put a lot of faith into these organizations, and
you know, I mean, look, we saw this in the
medical community with COVID, right. Everybody puts so much trust

(02:59):
into the medical end institutions that they that that that
when it came out that maybe this isn't exactly how
it was portrayed to be. You know it it blew
the doors off and created a tremendous amount of distrust.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
And and there was you know, there's a large number
of people that they just couldn't.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Everything they know has been destroyed, you know what I
mean that in a system that they have believed in
for years, especially the baby boomer generation, right, And so
I think I think that you know, the impact of
what this is is along those same lines where it's
you know, people grew up, I mean they grew up

(03:40):
from you know, infant to whatever age they are now
in particular churches and organizations, and to see like the
dirty side of what's going on in some of these organizations,
it's gonna it's gonna be a hard watch.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Well, we're born and raised in the systems, and then
we have our biased lens of reality.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Right.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
If I go to a megachurch in Los Angeles or
Dallas or New York or wherever.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
That is church to me.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
If I'm raised in the backwoods of Mississippi, that small,
struggling rural church is church to me. If I go
to the LDS church, this temple is church to me.
And so we start to show off with what is
church because those aren't the biblical form of church. Those
are just culture, right, It's what wherever I'm born and

(04:33):
raised or whatever you know, group I'm raised in, or
ethnic group or whatever or political group, that just shapes
and molds what I think is truth and reality. But
that's not necessarily truth in reality. And so you have
to take a slice of humble pie. And I had
to do this, and I firmly believe the way God

(04:55):
did it.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Because he knew I wouldn't do it, is he just.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Broke me over and over over again until he's like,
you want me to you want to get kicked again,
you know?

Speaker 3 (05:03):
And I said no, and then he goes, Okay, let's
rebuild it.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
And so then he rebuilt me with this new, unbiased lens.
And when you look at the biblical definition of church,
which is at Glesia, it's literally a gathering of people.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
That is the body of Christ. It's just the people,
and then Christ is the head of that gathering.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Everything outside of that, everything layered on top of that,
whether that be your theology I'm giving, whether that be
the building, the stages, that is all just tradition of
you and I.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
And so that is what we look at, is we
need to dissect that.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
And in the religion business, we go straight down to
the foundation of it, which is the Irish tax.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Code in the US.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
So before we get before we get started here, I'm curious,
you know, are you against all churches?

Speaker 3 (06:00):
What's the church?

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay? And I'm asking you talking about the modern day.
So the institution, the institution.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
And I'm going to be very clear, that is a corporation.
They file corporate documents with a state. That is a business.
So the church can use that business. But it's not
the church, right, It has got money coming in and
money going out. So that system that we've built, the building,
the stage, the parking lots, the lights, the fog machines,

(06:28):
the childcare, the coffee and donuts, that is not in
and of itself bad, but that is not the church.
And so I always ask people, do you go to
church and they say, yes, I go. No, you are
the church, and that is a place where the church
can meet up. But that is not the church. And
so you have to separate the two because one of

(06:48):
the two will both have to be held accountable. The
body of Christ needs to be held accountable to Christ,
but then the body needs to regulate the business. And
right now we've muddied the two. I call it an infection,
and so it's an infection that no one has any
clear definitions anymore.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
And where there's disease.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Or infection, abuse grows, you know, bad things happen.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
And so right now.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
We're just at a tipping point where too many bad
things are happening in the system that most people go
something's wrong and I.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Can't articulate it. So what do they do?

Speaker 4 (07:20):
They just up and leave and say, I'm not a
Christian anymore, I'm over religion. When I don't think you're
over Christ, I think you're over the system we built
on top of him.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, you know, I mean it's essentially what in a
doctor nation, right, Yeah, and so but I.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Do you know, regardless of all of the you know,
misuse of the money that's going on.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
There is in my opinion, there is still good and
I want to hear about all this stuff. I just
want to be careful, you know what I mean. And
like I said, it's all about him out there, right.
And so when I was thinking about this interview, you
knows I going to drive people away because me as
a baby Christian, you.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Know, I don't know much. I have talked, had a
lot of talks about.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
What the church actually is, which you just describe perfectly,
you know, and I do one hundred percent agree with that.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
With that being said, you know what my.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Fear is as I mean me as a baby Christian
and other baby Christians that that you know that I
have influenced store that I've spoken to, you know, in.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Our journeys of a lot of the people that come
on the show wind up coming to the Lord.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
And what does everybody do you know that's a baby
Christian including myself.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Now, I didn't like the experience. And so I do
we do a.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Bible study at my house at Adist Church to me
or we can ask any questions without fear, you know,
it doesn't matter, like you can ask the tough questions
that you'll get the stink guy in a church or
as you call it, an institution or corporation. And so
you know what basically what I'm getting at is that

(09:06):
maybe Christians have and where do we go to learn?
Go to the church, because that's what we're doctrinated into thinking,
you know what I mean. And so if we'd blast
you know, the institution, the corporation that calls themselves the church,
you know, are we turning off a a.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
A funnel of.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
People to become educated? And what this is really all about?
That that is my fear.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
And so I'm one, you know, That's just what I
want to ask.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
You is to are you do you think that you've
had an impact that have kept people from from educating
themselves on this?

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Because I mean that that that's something I would have
taken it and I'd be like, you know, then I
thought that I'm not going. I'm not I'm not doing that.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm not going to be a part of this. This
whole thing's a scam. Like if you could have it
could have tilted me the other way, I guess.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
We do see this massive wave of revival and Christianity.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Across the globe, and I mean I see it almost.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Every day, you know, more and more people are coming
and and I think that's a good thing. Yeah, So
I just want to be very careful not to not
to turn people.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Off from that. I go, that's definitely not our goal.
You said something. You said, you know, I'm a baby Christian.
If you're holding the Bible study at your house, I
don't think you're a baby Christian.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
I think you cut right through the bull and you
like hit that bulls on the board.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
You might be three feet from the board right now,
and eventually you want to get eight feet from it,
so to speak.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
But you're you're on the bulls eye. Can I give
you something?

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, of course. This well, there's a gift all walls.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Printed in sixteen sixty sixty.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
That's a King James. And it doesn't come in one bye,
it comes in two because it's so big.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
But you said something, and so this Bible was forty
nine years Prince of forty nine years after the first
prince of the King James. WHOA, yeah, it's got the apocrypha.
Yet it is as massive wood carvings of Jerusalem and
of the Levites.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Prepping your tires atlogically.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
But this is what people need to be.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Scripts, nothing else, and so this is.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Where you One of the two places you find gone
is in the scriptures.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
You and if you're doing those two things, you're far
ahead of anybody. Of ninety nine percent Christian South, This
Bible was Prince of the sixty and sixty man.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Even though its wow, thank you.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
That's used in the Religion business Week.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
We printed or we scanned some of the wood carvings
to tell the story. So that Bible is older than America.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Wow, are you serious? Yeah? I think so.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
That's a gift from Chris and I, my business partner
and I it's.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Like the coolest thing anybody's ever given me. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's humanity's history. And so if you have a.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
Way to see the world and you explore your faith
and why we're here and why I have consciousness and
why I put value in your life and in my
daughter's life as opposed to just being animal. That book
tells the story in one of the most profound ways.
That's radically shaped the world. It's it's shaped everybody's life

(12:54):
on earth. And so.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Chris and I thought, what better gift than a piece
of history.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
This is amazing. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
You're welcome, and so I say, I give that to
you right now, because you said you don't want people
to turn off from Christianity.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
But those scriptures are all unique, and then you can
connect directly with.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
God, our creator, and Jesus says, pray, and I'll show
up where two of them are gathered in my name.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
I'll be there.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
And that is the true church. Everything else is just
culture and tradition.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Wow, thank you. Thank this is you're welcome. This is incredible.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
But when I saw the new set, I was.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
Like, it'd be really cool if you had a cool
Bible set in somewhere.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
We got a bunch of bobles.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Oh, there we go, Man, I might I might these
might I think these are coming home with me.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
There you go, so.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
I can dig in.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah, but that's what everything's well. Everything's based off Christ
and not book. That collection of scriptures has radically transforming
the world. And the problem is very few Christians go
back to that anymore. We and Bramer in the Religion
business says, we put faith in our faith in God,
but not in the God of our faith, because if

(14:07):
you put faith in your faith, you're putting faith in
the institution.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
This is what I'm used to, this is what I
was raised, and it's safe.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
It'll raise my children in the way I want them
to be raised. But that's not what God said. Like,
so we have to put our faith in the Creator
and in the God of our faith. And as soon
as you do that, things get very dangerous because it
means I am no longer in control of anything.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
And if I firmly believe in this creator who's whispering in.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
My ear and guiding me, I'm going to have to
do what he says, whether that be pouring everything you
have into a show fifteen years of your life, whether
that be making all a ton of money and be like, man,
you've blessed me, and then him saying, dude, you're gonna
risk it all right now, you know? Or hey, like
my brother was a sniper, you know, don't pull the trigger,

(14:58):
or pull the trigger. You're starting to listen. And that's
a dangerous position to be in because you are now
a danger to government. You're a danger to institutions because
you no longer are appeasing them, you're appeasing God, whether
that be Christianity or Islam or Buddhism, or Hinduism.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
The God of your faith.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
Is a dangerous god, and so the god of that
Bible is a dangerous god.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
It's a good put it. Thank you. Everybody starts off
with an introduction. You're ready. Nathan Apple, filmmaker.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
And world traveler who turned a traumatic brain injury at
sixteen into a twenty year odyssey of documenting stories that
make audiences question everything. Creator of the Religion Business, a
seven part documentaries revealing the trillion dollar machine behind Christian institutions,
on a mission to shine a light on the business

(15:55):
of religion. And most importantly, you yourself are a Christian?

Speaker 3 (16:01):
So how did this?

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Actually A couple of things, A couple things We've got
to get through here.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
So I got a Patreon account, we've turned it into
community and they've been here with me since a lot
of them have been here since the beginning. And so
one of the things that we do is we offer
them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
So this is from Eric Alger.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Do you feel a filmmaker's responsibility ends it exposing problems
or can it include building tools to create change? And
from your perspective, do megachurches and the Catholic Church struggle
with the same accountability issues or are they worlds apart.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
So let's talk about the problem.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
A filmmaker is here to do what they want, right,
that is, they're here to make a film.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Some just expose problems. But that's not what we.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
Were here to do with the religion business. And we'll
get into why I feel God led me down this
course that he did. He puts big milestones in my
life and tribulation in my life to guide me to this.
So the docu series presents a massive problem. The reason
why my business partner Chris came on board is because
we built a tech solution that's non governmental that donors

(17:14):
and congregants can use that drives a stake of accountability
right through.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
The whole system. And so we have a problem and
a solution.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
So this we're not just here to point out a problem,
because there's a lot of can't throw the baby out
with the bath water, so to speak. So it's yes,
there's a massive trillion dollar a year problem, but there's
also solutions to that problem, and we just want to
be I'll call it the first to the table to say, hey,
we can solve this problem. And it just takes creative

(17:43):
thinking and I'll say God inspired ideas. But yeah, so
we are not here.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Just to point out the problem. We're here to bring
a solution.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
You know what's interesting is that it just just came
to the The guy that runs my Bible studies name's
Todd his.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Og original gangster a Tennessee and and has been a
preacher I think, damn near's whole life. And he got
ran out of the whatever. He got ran out of
the circle because he was he was publicly saying in
his ministries at churches that pastors should not be pastors, ministers,

(18:24):
you know, all these figures should not be making any
money and uh, and so he couldn't preach at any church.
That's who that's who leads our our Bible study. And
then he just got into he just got into a.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Very small one. I think he's really happy about it.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
So he's back preaching him but he stands for pretty
much exactly what I think you're about to reveal here.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
I'd like to meet Tom Fisher.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
I love the connection you. I'd love to connect you. Yeah,
but so how did how did you get into this
whole thing? What? What was it into?

Speaker 2 (19:00):
The religioususiness and into the religion. What did you start
diving in? What was it the culture attention that initially
grabbed you.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
I was born and raised in large churches in California.
Loved it, like saying choir, you know, did the Iwanas
side of things was like the champion of the three
legged race with my with.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
My you know, elementary buddy. I loved it.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
I went to every summer camp, always got a new
girlfriend the summer camp, you know, it was It's just
the youth experience of modern Christianity. We moved to San Diego,
to a little town called Carlsbad and.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Went to a church.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
The youth pastor was awesome, super outspoken, gregarious, loud.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
He became the high school pastor.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
So with his kind of you know, moving up the ladder,
I was aging and so he was always my pastor.
When I was sixteen, I had a brain injury. We'd
get into that a little later, but that's what got
me into filmmaking. And then in my twenties I started
traveling the world. I worked for Oakley Sunglass Company and

(20:04):
Burton Snowboards, and I would just travel the world working
on surf movies. You know, snowboard ski movies, you name it.
A mentor of mine Ira Opera hired me and I've
worked with ten for almost twenty years now, this old
legend from North County, and we would just travel the
world together and everywhere i'd go, I'd just want to
visit churches.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
And then my dad was running.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
A nonprofit and he just likes adventure, you know, and
so most of his nonprofit work was done in the
rural mountain regions of Central and South America, and.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
So I would shoot for him. I'd go out and
film for him, and you know, we we'd be hanging
out with literal drug runners in the middle.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Of the hunding jungles where you got to take dugout
canoes to get there and sleep on.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
The ground and no electricity.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
Was I like live for that, and so I had
about a decade of that where I was in the
favelas in Brazil, so the poorest slums of Brazil, and
in the backwood, you know, literal pine woods in Honduras,
hanging out withers and you'd end up in these ten
roof churches with no walls and dirt floors, and then
these seminaries in Brazil that never took a doultar. There

(21:09):
was no focus on money ever. It was just how
do we connect with our creator? And man, I have
usually physical needs, either my daughter or son is dying,
or my husband just died, or you know, like destitute
individuals looking for purpose. And so I just fell in
love with these types of churches and seminaries. And so
for ten years, I believe God gave me breadcrumbs and

(21:31):
I just traveled the world and I'd sit with the
like There's one story in particular where I was in
Mexico sitting at a convent and the train that runs
from the border to US was called Artigre and MS
thirteen runs it, and anybody from Central America would climb
on top that want to get to the US border.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
And you know m.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
S thirteen is raping kids, raping women, you know, throwing
women with new babies off if they wouldn't let them
have sex, they just chucked the baby off, you know,
kill people.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
And there was there was fees.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
And so I've talked to one girl who brought her
cousin along and she gave her cousin his payment to get.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Her to the border.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
And so we're at this convent, and the convent Catholic
convent will take anybody in, whether that be traveler or
MS thirteen, anybody who's hurting. And so this is when
I was like twenty two. I was shooting interviews and
I had a translator and I was sitting there with
this MS thirteen member and he goes, Nathan, the one

(22:27):
thing I want to tell you is your ten steps
away from murder.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
And I was like, what do you mean, And he goes,
you will.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
Kill someone with ten bad decisions, and he goes, I
was raised on the streets, and Hungry thirteen took me
in and he walked me through his life and he goes,
you are ten steps away from murdering someone ten bad decisions,
and that like radically transformed how I look at, whether
that be sinners or you know, anybody I meet on

(22:57):
this journey and I'd rather sit with them because I
know them. And so I came back. They're being honest
with me, right, Oh yeah, you're gonna kill me. Like
if you're threatening to kill me, you're probably gonna kill me.
But a pastor in the US might smile at me
as they're completely abusing the system.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
If that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
And so I always say, because I shot with on
Warp Tour too, So I would shoot music videos on
Warp Tour, and I'm like, I'd rather hang out with
the punk rock guys who are doing drugs and just
doing whatever they want because that's what they sing about.
But then I go into country music or into Christian music,
and they sing about the greatest things, and then they're
just complete pos is behind the scene. And so I'm like,

(23:33):
I was just searching for truth and I found I
found God in.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
These seminaries and churches in the slums.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
And then I'd come back to the US and I'd
stand in this thirty million dollars a year church and
I'm like, you're.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Not doing anything for your community.

Speaker 4 (23:47):
But you did build that new arena, you know, you
did buy that new sound system. And then at that
same time, so everything's come into a head and I'm
getting frustrated too.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Other things are happening in my life.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
That youth pastor I told you about was arrested for
essaying his adopted children.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
He's still say that again.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
The youth pastor that raised me that I was mentoring
me sexually abused his adopted children for years and so
that news comes.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Out and he was being trained to take over.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
This megachurch at this point, and so he's in jail
to this day, and I'm sitting here going, how is
this pervert able to sit around children.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
His whole life?

Speaker 4 (24:29):
And we can parents can look at this and be like,
he's a pastor, they're safe with him. And he's sexually
abusing his adopted children from Africa, And so that happens.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
My world travels are happening.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
And then my brother in law, the only pastor who
would ever listen to my questions about like how does
the system work, Like why does everybody say you get
double longer?

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Why does everybody say you have the hardest job?

Speaker 1 (24:54):
And these are.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Juvenile questions, you know, I'm like twenty.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
He's the only guy who's about ten years old of me,
the only passed that would field any of my questions.
And he's a full time pastor getting paid, and he
has a disease called Huntington so it's a super rare
genetic disease and he's pretty pretty far along now. But
he was the one guy in the system who would

(25:18):
like listen, And so he'd come over and we'd sit
and we'd drink whiskey on my little deck and we
would just talk.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
Theology for hours. And a couple of years pass and
he calls me. He's like, hey, I finally understand what
you mean. And I'm like, well, what do you mean?

Speaker 4 (25:34):
He goes, I quit my job today, and he's like,
I got a job at Trader Joe's, and he goes,
I preached my last sermon because I went back through
Paul's letters and I get it, like he preached unencumbered
of needing anything from the people he preached to, because
he wanted to present Christ as Christ alone, with no
institution or no demand behind it. So the one guy

(25:58):
who inspired really inspired this whole journey, and this is
the fucked up part of it, Like he lost both
his parents young, Like this guy had everything to be
angry about, and instead the one thing he wanted to
present to the world was Christ.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
And I'm like, that's the man of God. And he's dying.

Speaker 4 (26:16):
Today, almost on his deathbed, and it's like, how did that.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Guy get painted with so much baggage and crap?

Speaker 4 (26:23):
And then a person like me, who literally is just
a train wreck wanting to kind of go out with
a bang, God's for some reason keeping his hand over me.
And so all these three storylines and experiences collided at once,
and so twenty five I bought the religion business. So
sixteen years ago I bought the domain and I'm like,
maybe I'll write a book one day.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. But
that was the catalyst.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
And that's where I tasted righteous anger for the first time,
not only for the institution but for God.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
You know.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
I was like, why would you take so much from
this guy who just gives to everybody than that?

Speaker 3 (27:00):
Like that was the catalyst for the religious business. Wow?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, man' so a whole world that flipped upside down
on them.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Then the uh.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Pastor that mentored you got picked up for.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
That wasn't that was more just like I knew it,
you know, you know, you know, I'm saying, like, this
is the good guys always, you know, the guys that
look the best. You know, the Bible talks about the
Pharisees walking around in long roades and wanting the respectful
breedings in the marketplaces. You know, they come dressed as sheep,
but inside the ravenous wolves. You know, it's like, of

(27:38):
course the one person that everybody thought was you know
this this man of God is is this ravenous wolf
and he's making good money. He's you know, he is
the picturesque ideal of the modern American pastor. And then
the one who's being shunned and eventually just leaves in
the system sounds like taught a little bit, like gets
a literal death sentence, you know, and yet he smiles

(28:01):
in the face of death. And I don't know, It's
a fascinating world, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, I mean, let me ask you this.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Are you against Are you against pastors, ministers, any religious figures?

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Are you against them making money?

Speaker 4 (28:20):
And I'm gonna set the show aside for now. I
don't think anybody can take money, especially over a career,
from this system and not get eaten by it.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
And those aren't my words.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Those are men and women that have spent their entire
life in ministry or at a church and having discussions
for years with them, and they're like, no one gets
away from it.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
What do you mean by that? He comes away.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
From one from getting eaten by the machine.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
So this is like, this is very similar to politics.
Its and then you're corrupted and.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Yes, and here's why. Or I'll give you, I'll give
you my thought. I'm a young pastor.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Or Shawn's a young young man ready to spread the gospel.
He's been indoctrinated. I'll use your word in live the system.
He's been to seminary. He wants to quote unquote save souls.
And so he's what's the first.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Thing he's going to do. He's going to look for
a job.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
He's going to get that job, and as soon as
he starts preaching, he's going to tell about Christ and
how Christ does save you, how Christ is the person
you should mirror. You know, I want to die in me,
so Christ lives through me. Like those are all good things.
But then guess what, hey, Sean, your business, this institution,
the corporation, might cost a let's go small, one hundred

(29:40):
grand a month to keep this thing operational. Okay, well,
where are.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
We going to get that money?

Speaker 4 (29:45):
Well, you're going to look through scriptures and go okay, Well,
right now, in culture, we've landed on the levitical tide,
and so we go, man, this tithe is where we're
going to get our money. And we want ten percent
or we need ten percent and then you're going to
keep preaching. And Okay, Sean, I need preach one message
on tithing every eight weeks.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
What is I just learned this tithing today. You have
no idea that this was the thing. So what is tithing?

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Let's get in.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
I want to give this model if you don't mind, owkay,
So so eight one out of eight weeks, you're going
to do a sermon on giving.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
We'll call it generous giving and tithing.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Whether that be the pastors either preach on tithing or
generous giving.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Those are the two ways you can ask people for money.
And so one out of eight weeks your message is
on tithing. We'll shoot Sean. Our church is growing now.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Our budget's two and again we have about three hundred
and fifty people that show up every Sunday. We've got a little,
you know, day school. So we've got to start asking
for more money. Okay, we're going to preach two out
of eight weeks.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
We'll shoot.

Speaker 4 (30:46):
Nathan's church down the street just got a better sound
stage than us, and he's going to start pulling congregants.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
So in the show, we call this religious economic theory.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
So Nathan's church is going to pull your congregants away
because they are literal consumers, and so you're.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Gonna need the same stout, same stout sound stage I have.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
Okay, well that's gonna cost us an extra one hundred
fifty grand, so we're gonna request.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Money above and beyond.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
So now on the third Sunday of that eight week block,
we're gonna give a sermon, but then the last five
minutes we're gonna present why we need.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
This new sound stage.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
And so your whole presentation with the gospel slowly tilts
to protect the institution and the revenues it needs to survive.
And no matter what, this is my conclusion. Every pastor
that plays in that game dies to the game. And
that's why pastors rightly say pastoring is the hardest job

(31:38):
in the world.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
We all leave demoralized, and you do. But it's not
your fault necessarily.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
But you've been eaten by a machine that we've built
on top of christ.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Summers here, and if you're anything like me, you didn't
spend the winter just sitting around.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
You stayed sharp and kept moving. It's taught.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I mean, you know they're you know, I'm not. I
don't think it's I don't think it's necessary. I don't
think it's a bad thing either, you know what I mean.
When these churches grow and they want to expand it
online presence, well then they got to get a they
got to get people to know audio video, They got
to people who you know, to set that up. They

(32:22):
have to have people that operate that equipment. They have
to you know, And I think it's a good thing.
You go into some some of these places and they
have coffee and doughnuts and bagels and ship like that.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
You know it. I don't think it's a bad thing.
I mean, you think it is a.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Good thing that people congregate together and you know, in
the name and you know, and then I think people
want to be.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Comfortable when they worship.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
You know, they want beer conditioning, they want bathrooms, they.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Want you know that. That's I have.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Toddlers very challenging to take Tobler's church and actually pay attention,
you know. And so the place that we were going
to had had little you know, daycare thing. Put them
in there. Then we see active shooters, all of them.
And the Catholic church just got shot up yesterday. You know,
all those little kids.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Horrible Bill.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Now you need security because we have a big, aig
a massive people there together. And that's what active shooters
look at. They want to take the most amount of
people out as possible in the shortest amount of time
to get the biggest headline, you know.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
So now you have security element that you have to
hire otherwise, you know. And more and more people are
demanding that.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
And people want their kids to go to a Christian
school or a or a Catholic school, or you know
what I mean. And so then you got to hire
teachers and all that stuff. And so I'm curious, I mean,
do you think these things are bad?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
All of them?

Speaker 3 (33:52):
I think they run antithetical to the message of Christ.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
Christ said to pick up your cross and follow me
and make disciples of men. He did not say to
build buildings. And I'm not saying that's necessarily bad. But
everything you just described is just men building things.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
And so let's go down a.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Rabbit hole here for a second about ministry. When you
look at biblical ministry today, if I want to get
in the ministry, I'm gonna go get a job at
a church.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
My ministry is my daughter.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
My ministry is to raise her under Christ centered principles
and I will never abdigate that to anyone else because
I don't know what they're teaching her. I don't know
if it's even biblically sound. And so when you look
at the institution, it's not necessarily bad. But Christ never

(34:54):
told us to build any of it. You and I,
I firmly believe, believe crisis in this run. I believe
you and I are connecting as brothers in Christ. That
is the church we are meant to uplift our ministry,
which is our children, your wife, your husband, that core community,

(35:18):
that tight bond, and if that bractled out through the US,
the US would transform night. But instead we say you
need to come to this building to hear someone else
teach you about the Bible.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Dude, you got a four hundred year old Bible sitting there.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
It's it's we've missed the mark we put where we've
abdgated responsibility to others to teach us, and so we
just keep coming back to the system. I always say, man,
my favorite thing as a kid was to watch the
Christmas pageant and my church. You weren't a lie because
my dad was the literal freaking flying angel.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
You know. And I'm like, man, there's my dad and h.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
But what if we built like I don't want to
be sitting in that same type of auditorium watching the
same Christmas pageant when I'm eighty and be like God
is good. I want to be doing dangerous things for Christ.
And that is what He's called us to do. And
when you dilute Christ's message down, he actually didn't talk

(36:23):
about much outside of loving one another, healing one another,
preaching the Gospel, and making disciples. Everything else is just
traditions of men in Christ. This has happened in the past.
The temple was exactly what we see today. You go
to this building to worship. Now, granted there was a

(36:44):
legalistic structure, whereas we say our churches aren't legalistic anymore,
but it was a legal structure and they were making
money in the temples where exchanging money. And Christ went
in and he said, you've turned my father's house into
a robber's den. That building was strictly for worship, and
instead we made money on it.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
We turned it into a capitalistic endevor.

Speaker 4 (37:08):
And I can't read the Gospels and lay that story
over modern day church and see any correlation.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
In regards to like what needs to change. I'm sorry,
we've mirrored it.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
It's the exact We've repeated history over and over, and you,
as a military man and probably a historian, history repeats
itself over and over because we don't learn.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
So we're literally mirroring what's happened in the past.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
And so it's when you read the Gospels, and is
what I'll tell everybody when everybody goes, Okay, should what
should I do? Dad?

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Well, you should read the Bible over. I think it's
only thirteen percent of Christians have ever even read the book.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
You know, I haven't read.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
It at all.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Well, it sounds like you're trying.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
You're gonna get through it though, right, And that's the
thing is once you read it. So there's a great
study done. There's a megachurch in Chicago, one of the
first in the US, thirty thousand seats, bam, massive, huge show.
Every pastor goes, I want to be that. And so
this is in ninety eight. They're expanding rapidly. Thousands of
people are pouring in every sun and tens of thousands

(38:16):
are pouring in every Sunday, and leadership, I'm gonna tip
my hat to them. They go, hey, we're not really
deepening our congregants faith.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
People are coming, they stay for six months, they leave.
It's a conveyor belt.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
And the reason why we keep our numbers is because
a new person just puts their seat.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
They're button that seat, and it's just this conveyor belt.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
How do we retain our congregants and deepen their faith?
So they hired Stanford and Development Economics. Development economists in
Stanford to come in and do a long term study.
And we have to have economists that worked on the show.
These guys are brilliant, these guys in Gallants. So they
do this long term study. Their study comes back with

(38:54):
two ways that you can deepen your faith of your congregants.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
One reading your Bible at home.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
Alone too, sitting in prayer alone.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
So what are the buildings, What are the sound stages,
What are the childcare? What are the coffee and donuts?
What are the escalators? What is that twenty acre parking
lot just to get people in?

Speaker 3 (39:23):
It's things we've built on top of Christ.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
Stanford came back and so these are the two things
we've asked everybody. And so when Christ says it's written
on your heart, Sean, it is, I firmly believe His
Gospel has written on every human's heart, and that book
is the guide, and then prayer is how you connect.
And other than that, everything is just freaking smoke and mirrors,

(39:51):
you know.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah, I mean, I'm.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Just I mean, I think about you know, I mean,
everybody has to make a living, and you know, somebody
that's that's new to this, and I mean, you know,
I don't understand. There's probably ten percent of the Bible
I understand. At ninety percent I don't understand, you know,

(40:14):
And so I need to, you know, I need to
look for somebody that can educate me.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
With that being said, I look for multiple you know,
I want all aspects. I don't want just for sure,
you know. I don't want just Todd or you or
a priest, you know, to teach me about it.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
I look at it from I want to hear all
the aspects, all the different angles. I want to understand it,
you know. And so that is what draws me to
you know, what drew me to go to a church.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
You're wrestling with your faith, right yeah, by the Wible
says wrestle with your faith.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
So you know what I mean, but you know, I
personally think that those that they should be compensated, you know,
because they have to make a living, and if they
want to dedicate their life to educating people on the
way Christ was how he lived, We're supposed to live
all of that, you know, good stuff, and if they
want to dive in, then I think it's it's I

(41:12):
think that it is my responsibility, you know, to make
sure that person has a living, can take care of
their family, and you know, all of these things. It's
my personal you know, feeling and and I don't know,
maybe I'm guilty of this. It's nuanced with this show
for example, you know this show right now, this interview

(41:34):
between me and you, I'm feeding my curiosity.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
I want to know. I know there is a lot
of corruption.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
I just learned, you know, a couple of days ago
that you know, the norm seems to be ten percent
of the funds go to charity or back to the
people or to the poor or whatever.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
In ninety percent of it, you know, goes in their pockets.
I think that is a fucking travesty. You know, you
know that that's happening.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
But you know, so where I'm going is I mean,
maybe maybe I'm a part of this I've I've brought on.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
I have a lot of mentors that I've brought on
the show.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
I still explore Catholicism a little bit, and I've had,
you know, several priests so on, Father Dan, Father Dad Barry.
They've been instrumental and guiding me. And my good friend
Lee Strobel wrote the case for Christ. I mean him,
John Burke wrote Imagine Heaven. I mean, I love these guys,

(42:34):
you know, and and I think I when I talked
to him, I think that I know they have a
huge heart. And but you know, they wrote, they wrote
the book. I mean, there's these last latest book up there,
that's the first copy that I'm signing, you know. But
I mean he's making money off of the books. I'm
making money feeding my own curious I'm going to make

(42:55):
money from this show, you know what I mean, through
advertising and.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
You know, monetization and all of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
And so you know, I don't I'm curious what your
thoughts are, you know, when I bring on Father Dan,
Father gad Berry, doctor Dan Schneider, Lee Strobel, John Burke,
Tim Tebow, you know, I mean, I've learned a lot
of stuff from these guys you know in this room,

(43:24):
and I monetize those episodes, and that's how I make
a living, and that's how I provide for my team
that produces this entire thing. And so I mean, am
I am? I am? I fucked up?

Speaker 3 (43:36):
No, se that's things.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
Money is not a bad thing in and of itself.
So let me go back, because you asked me a
personal question. I do not think pastors should be picked.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
And when you look at.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
The purest form of the Gospels from Paul, and when
you look at the dedicate, which is an early Apostolic
writing from about fifty to seven dads where they pin
the print like they are very concerned, these early Apostolic
fathers with how people are literally they say trafficking Christ.
And so I think, in the purest form, I love

(44:12):
the Gospel. I will this morning on our uber ride
at the gym, my business partner and I like, we
just had a great conversation with the uber driver out
of nowhere. He was listening to our conversation and he
ended up giving us a book he had him.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
In his trunk.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
And like that is church where these intimate connections happen,
where you raise, you raise your level of faith together.
That is my personal opinion. In the religion business, we
do not say this should happen. We don't say a
pastors shouldn't make money. We look at the system, we
look at the architecture. I sit with theologians from all

(44:47):
over the world, Oxford, Harvard, you know, you.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Name it, and all of them make money off the faith.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
And so I'm not necessarily saying you shouldn't make money
off of that.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
That's not what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
But there's money is such a corrupting factor in a
lot of things.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
And so that's why in the beginning you have.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
To separate what is the biblical church and what have
we built.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
What we've built is.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Not necessarily a bad day, but it has to be regulated.
And in the show in the religion business, we show
massive loopholes in the system that are created because of
the legal architecture. And now the system is so corrupted
that Phil Hackney, who oversaw the nonprofit sector at the
IRS for five years.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Said, the whole thing is about the buckle, you know.
And David E. Taylor got busted by the FBI yesterday.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
You know, it's it's the guy in Dallas.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
He's in Houston, Yeah, Houston. Yeah, what's up, leg you finish?

Speaker 4 (45:44):
Oh yeah, I'm just saying the whole system is corrupting,
and it's because of the religious economic theory. We're paiding
churches against each other, vying for consumers with no external accountability,
and it just creates the wild West and anything goes in.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
The name of Jesus.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
And Dan Bramer, who's one of the smartest men I've
ever sat with, philosopher, theologian, he goes, no one believes
something that's stupid, Nathan, And so Kenneth Coprad, who his
boys wig you know, waved their guns and their fake
badgers at me, like.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
He believes what he's doing, and he.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
Believes he is spreading the gospel. Joel Thosteing believes it.
Ed Young who had me arrested and roughed up, believes it.
My brother in law who's dying, believes it. And so
I don't blame any of these guys and the system. Yes,
it's we live in a capitalist society where things cost money.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
But we have to be able to separate the church
from the.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
Building, the true church and the equalisia and say this
needs to be regulated and right now it's unregulated in
the name of separation of church state.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
What happened at Houston because this was yesterday yesterday.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah. So there's an apostle named David E.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
Taylor, loud, outgoing guy.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
You know. He says that if you talk negatively against.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Him God, it's going to kill you.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
You know.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
He's that type of preacher, and he prays off the
most vulnerable. He's raised fifty million bucks in about the
last decade. And because there's no accountability, he can do
what he wants. His home in Tampa, Florida, his parsonage,
so this is a home paid for by donors. Eight
point three million dollars twenty eight thousand square feet was

(47:30):
rated by the FBI. He has about twenty eight million
in real estate. So he's taking money from the most
vulnerable who Christ is there to protect technically, and he's
inuring himself and just building his portfolio.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
He owns a Bentley Rulls Royce all the name of Jesus.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
He's got people working for free at call centers till
four am and if they don't hit their donation quota,
then they have to raise they have to get on
the knees and beg.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Him for forgiveness.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Are you serious all the name of Jesus, beg him.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Because he's anointed Sean.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
And so the system, like I said, when you when
you take the business and the true church and blend.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
It, it's it's a disease.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Because Christ's message is antithetical to legal systems. He was like,
he was a counterculturalist. You know, he didn't like And
here's what I love. Because we were seeing this we
call the death rattle in the show. We're seeing this
happening in Washington.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Right now. Church and state are colliding.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
So if Christ really wanted to transform the world through politics,
he would have marched straight to Caesar and be like,
I demand a meeting with Caesar. He could care less
about Caesar, he said, I don't care about your politics
and your games.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
You guys deal with that.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
I have to deal with the heart and and.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
So we have to.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
So we have the equasia here. This is to deal
with the heart. And then we have the business. The
business is not inherently bad, but you have to call
it a business. And right now no one calls it
a business because it's been infected.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
And we call this the church I'm going to church.
You don't go to church. You sean are the larger church.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
And then whatever that is as it morphs and changes
throughout the decades and history. Shirt that's a place where
we can meet and enjoy the donuts and coffee and
listen to cool music.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
And that's not inherently bad.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
But that is a business, and oftentimes a multi million
dollar business that's run with zero accountability.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
So you got to call a spade a spade.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
You know, do you have a percentage of.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Is this all churches or is there So let's just
stick out to you, is there a happy medium?

Speaker 3 (49:54):
All of them played by the same rule book. And
when you have a rule book with no accountability and all.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
The power silos at the top, just like most every
pastor will be eaten by the system, every.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Institution, every business will be eaten by that system. And
that's why reform has to happen within the business itself.
And so we're.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Begging people to actually deepen their faith and deepen their
giving while bringing reform to.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
The machine that we've built. And this is inherently bad,
but it's corrupted and dark.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
The darkest business entity you can start in the US
We've talked with that ex mafiosos who spent decades in prison,
and they say, Dathan, I wouldn't join the mafia other day,
I'd start church because it's the most dark place you get.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
It's the darkest place you can play.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Wow. Yeah, why did this guy's twenty eight thousand score
phote home in Tampa get rated?

Speaker 4 (50:55):
Buddy Fi, I love people, so this is where you
can Finally, This is the little sliver of hope is
if enough people complain to the IRS or the FBI,
they will open an investigation.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
And our good friends RPIs that.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
Worked on the religion business at the Trinity Foundation out
of Dallas, they'd in twenty eighteen put together a massive
packet and sent it to the IRS and said, hey,
you guys have to look at this scamra like he's
just ripping people off. And this is the problems that
took six years, six and a half years for the
IRS and then the FBI to finally go this is

(51:28):
a total pos Like he needs to go. But there's
people who have disappeared going to his church missing person
reports and we see this across the US too. These
apostles will find vulnerable people will tell them to move
across the country and come work for them, and eventually

(51:48):
they disappear into trafficking rings.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
I mean, do you have proof that that is the.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
We've got missing person's reports, never find them again. Their
cars will be in parking lots.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
I get that. I get that. What I'm asking is,
do you have proof that it was the church that
did it? I mean we were talking about vulnerable people.
Vulnerable people.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Those are people that are, you know, in poverty, many
of them addictated drugs. You know what that leads to.
That leads to do me the sexual favors and I'll
give you drugs. Then it turns into I'm your pimp.
I'll be a few drugs. I mean, could that could
be totally outside the church. I mean there's a lot.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Of things you know that that happened.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
To the most vulnerable because of the situations that they're in.
That doesn't necessarily mean that you know that the pastor
sold them into trafficking unless you have proof.

Speaker 4 (52:44):
I don't have proof of that. Well, I'd have to
talk to our pis. But you know those are those
are first hand accounts. But I'll tell you right now,
there's a church in Arizona that literally has a tunnel that.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Goes from the church under the border to Mexico.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
What what church is that I'm I'm not gonna say,
but there is there is.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
That's how corrupt some of these institutions are.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
Why don't you want to say.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Because that's for another story where we're developing.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
That story right now.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
But there is.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
You can use the name of God to do horrific things,
and that doesn't mean the God, that God Christ is corrupt.
It means man is leveraging his name to do awful things.
And we can look through history on that one, you know,
and then let me rephrase that too. Man could also
use the name of Christ to do amazing things. But

(53:36):
right now that the architecture of the system is so
dark that it just creates a So there's a book
called The Wisdom of Psychopaths and it talks about psychopathic.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
Tendencies and it's a character type.

Speaker 4 (53:49):
You know, it's a clinical diagnosis and you can either
end up in jail for mass murder or you can
be the CEO of some billion dollar hedgephon like that.
There's just a mental type that they classify psychopaths. One
of the top five jobs for psychopathests today is clarergy
to become a pastor?

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Are you serious?

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Because it's unlimited authority, or potentially unlimited authority, it's powered,
it's dominion over people. And that's the that's the character
type of the psychopath is attracted to jobs like that.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
It's a great book.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
It's written by a doctor who studied psychopaths for his
whole career.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
All right, let's dive in. Let's dive in. Yeah, where
do we start. Let's go with let's let's let's go
with some examples. Okay, how about these? How about this
couple in Nashville the TV SW I don't know much
about it because I don't watch I really don't watch anything.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
But you don't what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Trump just pardoned these people that went to went to
prison for I believe it was tax evasion.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
Yeah, I don't, I don't. I can't talk to I
don't know much about that story. Like again, these stories
are rampant across the U, and so like, let's take it,
for example, a gentleman named Ed Young in Dallas.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
This is the guy that had me arrested. Everybody's always like,
how do you pick your target.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Sainting like, who do you go after?

Speaker 4 (55:15):
And I'm like, I don't like I am I have
I asked, goot you open the door, I'm gonna.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Walk through it.

Speaker 4 (55:22):
So I was in Dallas visiting my dad and I
wanted to go to church. I've gone to church every
Sunday all over the US. I just visit churches. And
I walk into this sa what is a satellite campus,
So it means this pastor has multiple buildings all over Dallas.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
His main campus is in Grapevine.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
But I go to one in just outside Crisco, and
I show up, nice little building, probably seats five hundred,
and pull into the parking lot. There's cameras all over
the parking lot. You know, all this, All his banners
are all over. There is is branding. I walk in,
I do my standard thing, grab a doughnut, a couple
of coffee, sitting with pews sing some songs. This one

(55:59):
they don't even have pastor preaching. They just lower the screen.
And I watched the pastor preach from his other main campus,
and so I'm like, that's kind of impersonal, but whatever,
and I get up, walk out, go to my car,
and I start the rental car and it just doesn't turn.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Over and get con game.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
I'm like, what the heck?

Speaker 4 (56:19):
And so it's kind of chugging and it almost sounds
like blowing bubbles and water, and I'm like, I think
someone cut the catalytic converter.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
Out of the rental car.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
So I look underneath the boom. The catalytic convert is gone.
So I snap a picture and.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
I'm like, dang.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
So I just go back inside and I'm like, hey,
someone cut the catalytic converter out of my car.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
And you're parking lot.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
There's cameras all over the place. Could I just get
the feed so if my insurance wants to see what happened,
I can just send it to them and they give
me a card with their website and they go to
our website. There's an informational sheet that you can fill
out and we'll contact.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
You through that.

Speaker 4 (56:48):
I'm like, cool, So I send him a message and
my catalytic converter got cut out. You know this date,
this location is there? Any way you can just get
me the feed for my insurance crickets. I'm like, okay,
A month passes, two month past, and I'm like this
is weird. Send them another message crickets, and I'm like,
this is ridiculous. A year passes and we're now we're
in the I wasn't even filming the show at this point,

(57:09):
and now we're in like the thick of it, and
I'm like, I'm gonna send them another message, send them
an another message to crickets. Eventually, the message board just
completely disappears off the website, so there's no way to
contact this church anymore. And so about a year ago,
I'm traveling with my camera operator and I'm like, let's
just see if we can get a phone number and
call them to see if we want to give them money,

(57:31):
if they'll answer us. And so sure enough, I find
an accounting number. So I call the number and I say, hey,
my name is Nathan Apple. And I don't lie to anybody.
I said, I've been to your church a couple of times.
I live out of state. How can I give you money?
Within twenty four hours? Boom, I get a call back.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
Anything.

Speaker 4 (57:47):
Let me tell you how to give stock, how to
give land, how to give jewelry, how to give cash,
Like they are ready to take your money, but they're.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
Not ready to help.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
And so this is when I'm like, okay to start
doing research on this guy. And so I call OURPIS
and I'm like, hey, what do you have on at
Young and Fellowship? And they said the only way you
can find any real legal material is through lawsuits. And
so there's a big differentiator in the nonprofit sector that

(58:18):
everybody has to realize.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
A secular nonprofit files what's called a nine ninety with
the IRS.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
This form is an informational sheet that you are legally
held to account to.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
So if you lie on this form, you're gonna get busted.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
So if Sean, you have a nonprofit and I donate
to you, and I feel like something shady's going on,
and the IRS comes out and audits you and realizes
that you lied on your nine ninety, they can hold
your account. So it's strictly an accountability form that says, hey,
here's how Sean's nonprofit is using the money.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Churches do not have to file.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
That form, so there's no legal document that any church
is held to account to. So what that means is
financials are whatever leadership wants it to be. And so
right there, there's a massive break down in accountability. So
I call the church or no, I'm sorry. I call
my pis and my pis are like, okay. The only

(59:08):
document we have is from two thousand and five, I believe,
and it's because someone suit the church got sued and so.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
They did discovery.

Speaker 4 (59:17):
So they have what's called the housing allowance list, and
so this is really unique to churches in the US.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Pastors can take a tax.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
Free housing stipend if they want, and so the language
in the IRS Code is something along the lines of
your tax free housing allowance has.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
To be within means.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
So it's a it's a great definition, which means if
you've got good lawyers, well, Sean, you're a celebrity, you
should live like Oprah. You should be able to live
in a forty million dollar home or a twenty eight
thousand foot home in Tampa or whatever. And so you
can offset your tax burden in a major way if
you take more payment.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Be a housing allowance and not be a salary, if
that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Housing allowance documents showed that this pastor was taking two
hundred and forty thousand dollars a year in a housing
allowance on top of his salary. And so there was
my brother, I say, Okay, this is twenty years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
I wonder what his.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
Housing allowance is today, and you can't find that out,
And so my pis do some digging.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
They say, he's got about fifteen.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Million in real estate, personal real estate now buried in
LLC structures, but he's got this. He's got a beachfront
house in Florida. He's got a six point five million
dollar home in Dallas. So his mortgage is about two
hundred grand a month, not two forty thousand a year.
So you know, I just estimate, and I say, okay,

(01:00:41):
he's got to be getting a couple.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Million a year in a housing allowance.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
So I call his lawyer, who's the general counsel of
the church, and ironically he's the CFO of the church.
So not only is their lawyer the CFO, but then
he gets ordained.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
So ed Young ordains is a lawyer.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
Why would Ed Young need to ordain a lawyer, Because
anybody who gets to take a housing allowance has to
be an ordained minister of that church. So now I'm thinking, well,
maybe his lawyer takes a housing allowance too, And so
I call a lawyer and I'm like, hey, here's the data.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
I have, and it's all on the show, and I'm like,
I'm in town.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
I'd love to hear from you, because we just want
to know how the housing allowances.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
You know, Oh, this's the kicker.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
I've been donating to his church the whole time, and
so as a donor and as someone who attends your
church while I'm in Dallas, I want to know where
my money's going and if you're taking exuberant housing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
Allowances that no one knows. And so, sure enough, the
lawyer never calls me back. So I decide to go
to church on Sunday and I let him know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
I'm like, we're coming on Sunday. And so I show
up and I don't show up with guns, you know,
with cameras all over the place. So I just have
a pair of glasses that record, and so I walk
into the church.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
They have me paid.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Before I even made it through the front door, there
was two security guards out front. Todd, the head of security,
literally passes me as I'm walking through the door. In
the show, you see him touches the earpiece. I walk
into their store and I buy Ed's book. I want
to buy a sweatshirt that he's made.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
This is his design, and I want to get a
coffee at his coffee shop.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Before I'm even making it to the register, a gentleman
comes up and says, you can't buy the stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
We need outside.

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
So I walk outside, and again there's no cameras with me.
I just I'm wearing a wire and I have my
glasses because I.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Assume something like this would happen.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
And they go, you need to leave, and I said why,
And I said, I came to church. I wanted to
buy your goods, your business. I want to buy your
goods I give to you, and they go, that doesn't matter,
And I said, what doesn't matter the fact that I
give to you like you should care about my giving
and want to make sure you're stewarding it properly.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
And so I said, I'll leave.

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
Who can I talk to in accounting because I just
have some questions about housing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Allowances and salvias. They would give me no information.

Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
But they said we will have you criminally trustpassed if
you don't think And so I said, okay, So if
I leave, you're not going.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
To criminally trustpass me and they said no.

Speaker 4 (01:03:07):
So I go on my way, but I had signs
in the car because I figured, hey, they're going to
kick me out, they're not going to want to talk.
So we leave, We kind of regroup, We wait for
the second service to end, and I'm like, Okay, I'm
going to go stand in the parking lot because they
won't give me any information. And my sign all it
says is what is ed Young's housing allowance today?

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
And then ed Young, what.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Is your salary?

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
That's it, these two little signs. So I walk onto
the parking lot. Before I even make it two thirds
of the way to the parking lot, and all I'm
doing is standing out front. I'm surrounded by probably fifteen
armed guards and these guys are I'm not military, but
these guys are working. Everybody's wearing different outfits. You know,
you can tell their badges or their security for some

(01:03:48):
of it's bought from Amazon. Some are armed, some are not.
They all have colored lapels, so I figured the lapel
means you're either armed or you're not. And they immediately
bring a show Garipa and they're like, we're going to
arrest Nathan for criminal trespassing. And I'm like, all I
want is who can I talk with in accounting? And
the cop doesn't. The sheriff doesn't arrest me. One of

(01:04:10):
his private security grabs me, takes my phone my property,
hands it to another private security.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Like tore ten ins in my arm, so I have
to have surgery on my elbow.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
Rips me around and they immediately say get him off
the property.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
And I'm like, why you just this looks bad.

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
And literally there's twenty armed security guards surrounding this, this
one hundred and sixty five pounds of me with two signs,
and so I get arrested. I'm sitting there on the curb. Well,
I'm not arresting. I'm detained at this point, but not
by but not by the actual PD. And it's in
the show. I give this awesome. I just talking to
him and I'm like, look at it. You guys believe

(01:04:49):
you're doing the work of Christ. And I'm like, I
can't hate you for that. Like you think you're doing good,
just like I think.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
I'm doing good.

Speaker 4 (01:04:55):
So we're on the opposite side of the same coin.
But I'm like, look at this. No one knows how allowance.
He has a massive property in Florida that no one
knows about the congregation doesn't know about it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
They've paid for that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
He has bulletproof range rovers that he just he jets
away from church and we saw this. He jumped Kurbs
to get away because he knew that I was near
the property, and I'm like, here's a dude driving away
in bulletproof range rovers.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
Literally we create.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
He created this world in his own head, and all
I wanted to know was your housing allowance that donors
are paying.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
And so that's what I mean, is the machine eats you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:30):
I firmly believe when Ed was young, he got into
this thinking he wanted to save souls, he wanted to
present Christ to people. And now he's got twenty armed
securities around me. In his security office, we got word
from some of his security officers that there's a photo
of me, a twelve by twelve inch picture of me
in their security office.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
And my code name was hot Pod and so I'm like,
I can't.

Speaker 4 (01:05:52):
I wish I could have gotten their their walky, you know, channel,
because it's like hot Dog is officially on the premises
and I'm like, all I'm here is because edwouldn't talk
to me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
The general counsel who's also the CFO, won't talk to me.

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
And so I'm just here for one simple question, what
is your housing loans that all these donors pay for?
And to this day, unless they assume me for making
the show, no one will know his housing loans. And
so that's the problem with the machine at this point
is you get gobbled up. And he runs a something
called C three Global, which is a church planting network,

(01:06:26):
and his lawyer.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Is also working with that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
And so you start these what's called auxiliaries, conventions or associations.
You start these side businesses as churches. And that's also
in the same darkness that a church is in. So
as what's happened is as business leaders, and there's this.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
Big like entrepreneurial spirit.

Speaker 4 (01:06:47):
Now in the Christian church it's I'm an entrepreneur and
a pastor. Well, no, you're just a really smart businessman
who's a Christian. But you're leveraging your faith and you're
starting a church or an auxiliary to the church to
play in the darkest space possible. And the great example
of that is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter
day Saints, the other Mormons. So in ninety eight they

(01:07:10):
had a couple of billion sitting and so they're like, hey,
we want to start an investment arm. So they start
an investment ar called Enzyme Peak Advisors.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
It's a couple of billion. They shove it in the market.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
And because there's these additional terms in the IRS code,
and again this is lobbying the government. So this is
why they run very like parallel lanes the government and religion.
The LDS Church petitioned via IRS to add the term
auxiliary in front of church in the sixties. And it
was men's clubs back in the day, so men would

(01:07:44):
meet up, smoke cigars, you know, hanging out talk and
they're like, this is technically church.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
And so the IRS added this.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
Term auxiliary to their definition. Well, there's no definition, black
and white definition.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Of what an auxiliary is.

Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
So if there's no definition, anything can be an auxiliary.
So the LDS Church registers their investment fund as an auxiliary,
which means that auxiliary is technically a church. It gets
the same benefits that the church gets. Flash forward twenty
seven years. There worth three hundred billion and it's all

(01:08:20):
for profit ventures registered as churches.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Wow, three three hundred.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
Billion in market assets.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
The LDS Church will hit a trillion in market assets
in the next decade, all under the guise of.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
A religious institution.

Speaker 4 (01:08:33):
And the crazy part is not one dollar of that
now it's a hedge fund because they're hedging that. Not
a single dollar of that fund has ever gone to
humanitarian purposes or.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Even the church.

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
So if you're a shrewd businessman, you start a church
and you can do whatever you want. And so you
wonder why, oh, man, Christianity is getting a bad rap
right now.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
You know it's.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
Because, oh there's these pastors you know, actually abusing kids. No,
it's because the whole system is broken, the legal system.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
So that's what needs to be reformed.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Yeah, I mean we see this all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
I mean pastors with runways behind their house for private jets.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
I mean, yeah, I know, it's insane.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
Well, the private jet can be registered as a house
of worship in Texas, so you don't pay tax on
the jets.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Huh. It can be registered as what is.

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
A house of worship because you pray on it. So
a private jet, twenty million dollar jet can be tax
is tax free because it's a house of worship.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Is that an auxiliary as well?

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
Well, it's just an asset of the church. But it's
it's a house of worship, it's part of it. It's
your building.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Basically, the irs season is your building.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
So with these loopholes, you could basically.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Purchase just about any any vehicle, any plane, any piece
of state.

Speaker 4 (01:09:56):
Yeah, any building, and a lot of times like so,
the LDS Church is now the second largest private landowner
in the US two point three million acres. Wow, a
tax free, all under the guise of relivon.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
And freedom of freedom of religion, and none of us
goes to.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
They have farms.

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
And this is where the LDS Church is very interesting
and we can get like, I really want to dissect the.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
LDS Church with you.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
They have farms, and so they say, hey, we're building
our storehouse. So this is this is Old Testament Torah.
So we're going to have goods in supplies in the storehouse,
sufficient in God's storehouse.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
They're quoting Malachi.

Speaker 4 (01:10:40):
And if you've tied to us, if you've given your
full tide, you're going to get to enjoy the benefits
of our storehouse if there's a natural disaster or if
Jesus comes. So they're building their conglomerate demanding you give
ten percent of your gross revenue to them, and then
you'll be able to benefit from us if something happens.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
And here's the kicker. If you don't give your full tithe,
you don't get to benefit. How do they know, Oh,
they keep they look at your bank bank statements.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
They turn in their banks.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Every year.

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
At the l S Church, you have to go in
and I can't remember what it's called, but it's a
meeting with your bishop and you have to discuss your finances.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
And he says, have you been a full tithe payer?

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
And if you haven't, it's literally your doct And if
you're not a full te tithe payer, you don't get
your temple recommend And if you don't have your temple
recommend you don't get to get to heaven with your family.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
So we've built these.

Speaker 4 (01:11:35):
Institutions and I'm going to give the benefit of the
doubt here with good intentions, and they've become the middleman
of God's resources. And here's here's a question. Christ told
to give to two things. Do you know those two
things are in the Bible? Render to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's So pay your taxes and then give

(01:11:58):
to God the things that are God's Churches don't pay taxes.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
And then they've so this is Christ talking to you.

Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
Shan rendered to Caesar that thing insider Caesar's and give
to God the things they're God's. Well, the Church has
moved right in the middle of you giving your resources
to God and said we'll disperse these for you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Christ never told you to give it to an institution.
You never go. This is the big one too.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
He never told you to give it to the House
of God. He never told you to give it to
the temple, because you are the temple.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
He told us to pay taxes. Yeah, disappointed at that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Yeah, Well, because he said, I don't care about Caesar.
Caesar's going to come and go. Taxes are going to
go up and down. Don't care about worldly things. He's
literally saying, just pay whatever he asks.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
You pay, don't stress it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:49):
But so this is an interesting conversation about so why
was tax exemption created in the first place. So in
nineteen thirteen, the government is looking at all these businesses
out in the US and they say, man, there's about
twelve thousand organization, twelve thousand businesses building what we call
social capital. So they're in their local communities because there's

(01:13:11):
no TV. There's no internet, you know, and there's no
planes yet. So your world is what's really around you,
within your forty mile range, really, and so there's these
twelve thousand organizations building social capital.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
And the idea of this is, hey, even.

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
If Nathan doesn't have kids, I want the park down
the street to be nice and save for other people's kids.
So raising social capital local social capital means I'm helping
my local community and driving what development economists called human
called human flourishing. So what businesses in our community are
raising the level of human flourishing.

Speaker 3 (01:13:44):
And that's what they defined is the nonprofits.

Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
So they said, there's these unique businesses that are strictly
there to benefit the community or not after capital profits, they're.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
Really here for the benefit of the community.

Speaker 4 (01:13:56):
So we're going to do this special carve out and
this is nineteen thirteen, and we're going to all the
nonprofit sector. Twelve thousand organizations and this includes churches. Got
that exemption in nineteen thirteen. Today there's one point nine
million nonprofits. So it's an explosion in the sector and
it's tied to technology. So every time a tech boom happens,

(01:14:17):
the nonprofit sector explodes. Because people see it as a
way to offload money because the regulations are okay. But
so there's about twelve thousand organizations. This includes religious exemptions.
Flashboard a couple decades and the IRS has to in
effect now define a church because churches are now saying, hey,

(01:14:39):
we're nonprofit, we're building local social capital, which they work.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
They in some are right.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
So it's we're helping the homeless, we're you know, housing
the unhoused, we're helping foster care, single mothers.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
We're really the backbone of our.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
Community, which churches, which these institutions, because the rim of
the church is just the people, but the building itself
was really for the community. They do community meals to
get whether they were there for the community. So the
IRS in effect had to define a church so they
could grant tax exemption.

Speaker 3 (01:15:10):
So this always blows people away.

Speaker 4 (01:15:12):
The IRS used one organization as the model to shove
every religion into, and that one organization was the Salvation Army.
So they looked at the Salvation Army. They said, the
Salvation Army is doing good things. Let's go in and
they created fourteen points and said this is what the
Salvation Army does.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
So this is what church is.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
So of those points, every church Islam, Buddhism, Unduism, Christianity, Judaism,
you name, it is tucked into that same fourteen points,
and it is you need a house of worship, so
you need a physical location. You need basically a board
of elders someone to steer it. You need a creed
or a form of worship. You need childcare so you

(01:15:58):
can raise the next generation. So when you look at
churches today, it's they're based solely.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Off these fourteen points.

Speaker 4 (01:16:07):
So when you say it's not bad, it's not bad,
but that's not church. It's literally just replicas of the
Salvation army. And then you apply a level of entrepreneurialism
on top of that, and man, the sky's the limit,
if that makes sense. And so now today there's four
hundred thousand churches in the US. So if you lump Starbucks, McDonald's,

(01:16:29):
Taco Bell, Burger King, basically every fast food franchise into
one pile, there's still more churches than all those locations combined.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
People have just seen this. This fourteen point checklist is
there's two things. One, it's a way to.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Abuse the system. And in two it's which I really
want to talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:16:52):
It's taken the potency out of religion because it's put
you in a box.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
I had somewhere from the CIA called me a few
months ago and they were like, hey, Nathan, what do
you know about the fourteen boorn check ghost? And all
I know is what the head of the IRS, the
nonprofit sector told me.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
And so I'm like, here's the history of it. And
they go, okay, good, But it wasn't IRS that created that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Who wasn't the CIA?

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
And I said, why would they do that? And they go, well,
and this individual is a Christian. They go, Christianity is dangerous, yes,
and I said yes, And they go Islam is dangerous yes,
and I said yes. And so they go, why not
put everything into a box that you can control. So
the carrot that the government uses to get religion into

(01:17:48):
that box is tax exemption. So you sell your soul
for thirty percent to play by these fourteen rules and you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:55):
Don't even have to you don't even have to abide
by all the rules, just a handful of them. So
here's what's funny. You know what else is a church?
The Hell's Angels?

Speaker 4 (01:18:04):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
Yeah, they're registered as a church.

Speaker 4 (01:18:09):
So this box knowingly or unknowingly took the potency of
religion away because Christianity is extremely dangerous.

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
Look what it did to Rome. Within two hundred years,
Rome's done.

Speaker 4 (01:18:23):
Constantine became Christian. Constantine's like, hey, I'd rather hang out
with these guys.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
I have to control the fourteen points.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
It takes that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
It's basically, you have to play by these rules if
you want tax extemption. And so that's why every church
today in America looks the same, identical whether that be Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism,
and Duism, they all have the same building group, the
same creed, everything is the same because they play by
the same rules.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
So you've put every faith into this box.

Speaker 4 (01:18:53):
And now the box can just be tucked on the
shelf and whatever politician is in power, they can just
take the box.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Off and do whatever they want with it.

Speaker 4 (01:19:01):
And Christianity, true Christianity, like we talked about earlier, is
dangerous because you are not lorded over by Trump or
Biden or the US like Christ is my lord, and
what he says I should do, I do. And that
is dangerous to institutions. And I use the analogy of
the early church as an organism, and so organisms are

(01:19:24):
organic and they move through systems.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
Humans like to build boxes. That's what we're good at,
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:19:31):
We build buildings, we build systems, We build things because
it's safe in things, the fourteen point checklist is safe.
I can go to this church for the rest of
my life seeing the same songs, get the same donut.
Maybe I'll change it up, different flavor every other Sunday
or something, you know, same cup of coffee. I'll watch
my kids be raised by these instructors that I don't
know because it abdicates my role as a father to

(01:19:52):
train my daughter up in Christ centered values.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
But I'm safe there.

Speaker 4 (01:19:58):
And hey, man, you know what, I'm gonna give you
what percentage of my money because you're right, Sean, this
does cost money.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
And you know what, Hey, I'm going.

Speaker 4 (01:20:05):
To sponsor that distended belly from you gone to that
poor little kid over there, and I'm gonna give him
twenty bucks a month. I don't know if the money
ever gets to him. And that's how we're exploring the show.
That money usually doesn't get.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
To the kid.

Speaker 4 (01:20:16):
It doesn't, no, but I'm gonna give my twenty bucks
and pin it on that wall and be like, ah,
you know Ramsey's I got Ramses for the month.

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
And then that money gets torn down, put into a bucket.

Speaker 4 (01:20:26):
Set aside. Oh here's another way of the kids and
all because we live in this very safe box. And
the Christianity in that book is so dangerous and that
organism can move, that ecclesia, that body, if it's nimble,
it moves through systems. And that's why christ said give

(01:20:47):
the Caesar, I don't care, because my gospel is going
to move through this institution and wash through it. And
that's why Christianity literally just dominated the world in those
early couple hundred years because the message was so pure, inorganic,
nothing could stop it. And you see that in the
eyetoler too, right, Religion can be weaponized, and religion is dangerous,

(01:21:08):
whether that be free, good or ill. And so yeah, Christianity,
we've lost our bite and we have lost our.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
We have lost the.

Speaker 4 (01:21:19):
Thing being, the thing which is Jesus, and instead we
say we'll sing about them.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
You know, man, let's take a quick break. When we
come back, I'd like to get.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
Into more specific examples of how the money is being
used who specifically, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
And then I want to talk about the positives, because
there's a lot of potential positives.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
I want to talk about the positives so cool. Alzabari

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