Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 846 ｜ Hillsong, Steven Furtick & the Dangers of 'Designer' Pastors ｜ Guest： Ben Kirby (PreachersNSneakers)

00:00:00.000 Ben Kirby runs the popular Instagram account, Preachers in Sneakers, and he posts exactly

00:00:07.100 what it sounds like.

00:00:08.280 He posts pictures of preachers in very, very expensive sneakers and other clothing items.

00:00:16.340 But it's not a critique of fashion.

00:00:18.860 It's not even just necessarily a critique of how much these pastors are spending on

00:00:24.300 their clothes.

00:00:24.940 It is a commentary on how we elevate pastors to a place of celebrity and importance and

00:00:32.920 how some of these pastors preach a health and wealth gospel that, paired with the clothing

00:00:38.780 items that they are displaying on stage, can not only foster covetousness, but also present

00:00:46.520 a false hope, a false gospel to the people who are listening to them and watching them.

00:00:53.060 And so we're talking about all of this today in studio.

00:00:56.560 And then we are also going to talk a little bit about the Hillsong documentary that came

00:01:00.180 out in May that centered on the story of celebrity pastor Carl Lentz and his scandal.

00:01:06.920 Very interesting conversation that I know you guys are going to like.

00:01:10.100 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:01:12.200 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:01:13.360 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:01:14.520 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:01:15.520 Code Allie. 1.00

00:01:16.040 Ben, thanks so much for taking the time to join Relatable.

00:01:28.520 Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

00:01:29.680 Thank you for having me.

00:01:30.780 Okay.

00:01:31.380 Tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do.

00:01:36.100 Loaded question, but I guess most notably am the founder of the Instagram account Preachers

00:01:42.080 and Sneakers.

00:01:43.600 I'm also a dad.

00:01:45.200 I used to be a Marine.

00:01:46.440 I guess technically still am a Marine, depending on who you ask.

00:01:49.480 And currently I sell software at a technically a startup and just trying to figure out how

00:01:56.400 to be a dad and navigate the complicated waters of the internet, much like you do.

00:02:02.260 So I'm excited to be here and talk with you.

00:02:04.840 Tell us about Preachers and Sneakers.

00:02:06.260 I know you've done several interviews over the years, but I want, I don't know if my audience

00:02:11.580 has heard all of those interviews.

00:02:12.960 So some people might not even know what Preachers and Sneakers is.

00:02:16.060 Sure. 0.93

00:02:16.680 On the surface, it sounds ridiculous. 0.98

00:02:18.800 And in a lot of ways it is ridiculous. 0.94

00:02:20.420 But like four years ago, I just noticed that there was a whole subculture of pastors, preachers,

00:02:27.240 worship leaders that were wearing extremely expensive or rare or valuable sneakers, streetwear,

00:02:35.560 belts, jackets, that kind of thing.

00:02:37.120 And I had the idea to basically take their own photos, superimpose the price tag of their

00:02:44.460 clothing right next to it and make a funny caption.

00:02:47.640 And that's, that's essentially the premise of it.

00:02:49.820 And without doing much effort, just posting like that, the account went super viral.

00:02:55.280 It turned into much more than it really should have probably been.

00:02:58.880 And that was four years ago and it's had a lot of different stages and seasons, but the

00:03:05.380 premise of it is just commentary around kind of the Western way we do church, our obsession

00:03:13.160 with celebrities, fame, wealth, that kind of thing.

00:03:16.880 Okay.

00:03:16.940 Let's put up some of the pictures just so people get an idea of, let's put up the one of Mike

00:03:21.580 Todd.

00:03:22.260 So we've talked about Mike Todd several times for different reasons, not because of his

00:03:25.960 shoes, more because of his content, but so he's got a picture.

00:03:30.560 This is like a screenshot that you would put up on your page.

00:03:33.960 And then he's wearing these yellow Nikes for $1,500.

00:03:39.340 And then you've got Steven Furtick, another one that doesn't necessarily surprise me, $965

00:03:45.520 for his Nikes.

00:03:47.920 This is one of the first pictures I posted.

00:03:50.040 Oh, really?

00:03:50.480 Yeah, he was the, the church that caught my attention at the very beginning was Elevation

00:03:55.540 Church and their worship leader, Mac was wearing some Yeezys.

00:03:58.980 And then I found out who Steven Furtick was.

00:04:00.820 And these are a very rare pair of Jordan ones called Shattered Backboards.

00:04:05.120 They're very rare, very sought after, and they're probably worth double, if not triple what they

00:04:09.540 are.

00:04:09.800 Okay.

00:04:10.040 So your Nikes, they cost what, around $1,000, $2,000, similar to that?

00:04:16.100 Yeah, give or take.

00:04:16.700 Yeah, that's all I wear.

00:04:17.600 No, my wife got me these.

00:04:18.640 I think they're outlet.

00:04:19.860 So I feel pretty secure in wearing them.

00:04:21.860 Okay.

00:04:22.160 I want to put up the Judah Smith one.

00:04:24.440 Judah Smith is a pastor in Washington, right?

00:04:29.180 And $3,600 for this Gucci jacket.

00:04:33.320 Wow.

00:04:33.720 Gucci commands quite the price tag.

00:04:36.460 And Judah's got definitely a wardrobe.

00:04:38.000 He was kind enough to actually do an interview with me for my book.

00:04:41.840 And so I really appreciated his willingness to come and chop it up with me.

00:04:46.400 Okay.

00:04:46.560 That's something that I want to talk to you about that I think is an interesting development

00:04:49.560 of your account.

00:04:50.980 But first I want to know, how do you find these items?

00:04:54.240 Yeah.

00:04:54.700 When you're, a couple of years ago, I was much more into the like sneaker subculture.

00:05:01.520 And so once you're kind of like.

00:05:02.300 Okay.

00:05:02.320 There's a sneaker subculture.

00:05:03.540 Oh yeah.

00:05:04.080 It's, it's massive.

00:05:04.920 It's a $5 billion industry.

00:05:08.080 Um, a lot of different ways.

00:05:10.340 There's a sneaker Twitter, there's sneaker Reddit, there's sneaker con, there's complex

00:05:14.340 con.

00:05:14.740 There's a lot, a lot of.

00:05:15.880 Okay.

00:05:16.060 So it's just different kinds of sneakers that are cool.

00:05:18.500 People collect, I know people collect shoes.

00:05:20.320 Yeah.

00:05:20.580 So, okay.

00:05:21.360 Absolutely.

00:05:21.900 So yeah, I, I probably go into a few steps forward.

00:05:25.800 Um, there is this massive community around, they call them sneaker heads.

00:05:30.680 And the way I got into it was there's actually ability, the ability to kind of arbitrage where

00:05:37.520 you can, if you get lucky enough to buy one of these rare pairs of sneakers, you can sell

00:05:41.540 it on the resale market like stock X, which is what a lot of my photos come from and make

00:05:46.300 a profit.

00:05:46.740 And so before any of this happened, I was, uh, at SMU getting my MBA and I was trying

00:05:52.580 to make ends meet.

00:05:53.720 And so I was buying and selling sneakers every once in a while.

00:05:56.440 And so once you're in that culture, there's some things that are very recognizable.

00:06:00.120 So if you see like Mike Todd's photo, he's wearing those yellow air force ones.

00:06:04.100 The, the unique thing about those is that it's a collaboration with this brand called

00:06:08.060 off white, super limited, very exclusive, impossible to find on the retail market.

00:06:14.060 And so if you were lucky enough to get a pair of those, people will resell them for thousands

00:06:18.140 and thousands.

00:06:18.600 I mean, these kids will literally pay thousands of dollars to wear one of these pairs of Jordans.

00:06:22.680 Um, and so I just find them from, um, a marketplaces like stock X or goat, which is kind

00:06:28.960 of a secondary market where you see like the real time market values of what people are

00:06:32.900 willing to pay.

00:06:33.760 And then the designer stuff, sometimes like you can recognize a Louis Vuitton logo from

00:06:38.960 just about anywhere.

00:06:39.720 And so it takes just a, I mean, I can make these posts in probably a minute.

00:06:43.860 And so people think I'm doing all this research and it's really just like, oh, I recognize

00:06:47.380 that's an off white pair of Jordans screenshot, this screenshot, this splice it together and

00:06:51.100 post it.

00:06:51.560 So you did have some prior knowledge that kind of made this a little easier for you.

00:06:55.380 Like I wouldn't know where to look.

00:06:56.860 And that's what the, that along with like growing up in Christianity, being a Christian,

00:07:00.960 having those two things kind of converge made it, um, the timing and the luck, um, on top

00:07:07.140 of it made it to where I was, I guess the guy that I don't, depending on who you ask God

00:07:12.220 selected for this to happen.

00:07:13.660 Yeah.

00:07:14.080 So you talked about how you would notice that a lot of these pastors were wearing these

00:07:18.240 really expensive items and that you think it says something.

00:07:22.040 And it's kind of a commentary on how we elevate pastors at particular churches to a place

00:07:27.480 of celebrity.

00:07:28.740 So what do you mean by that?

00:07:30.400 Like, what is your point when you're posting these?

00:07:33.620 Yeah.

00:07:34.040 It's at first, I don't know if I had a point.

00:07:36.380 Like I was, it was interesting.

00:07:37.940 It was interesting.

00:07:38.720 It caused, uh, some type of feeling where it's like, this feels weird or it feels gross.

00:07:44.660 Something feels weird.

00:07:45.540 Yeah.

00:07:45.900 Where, um, and I couldn't pinpoint it and I'm not, I'm not saying that it was necessarily

00:07:50.380 rational, but I wasn't unique.

00:07:52.140 Like a lot of people, when they see posts like this, it evokes something in them.

00:07:55.760 Yeah.

00:07:56.140 And so it's taken me many years to kind of get down to what that actually is.

00:08:01.020 And so to answer your question, I think the, this modern celebrity church culture idea,

00:08:09.620 um, cares a lot about entertainment, um, aesthetics being, um, attractive and catchy,

00:08:19.780 all things that just are not true components of what it means to be a Christian or what the

00:08:25.880 calling is of being an actual pastor.

00:08:27.960 And so the sneakers are a very surface level thing and come to find out there's much deeper

00:08:32.540 things there.

00:08:33.480 Most like notably like, Hey, what is, what do modern churches actually care about?

00:08:37.440 Like, do you actually care about shepherding the souls of the people that go to your church

00:08:40.980 or are you just trying to build a brand for yourself?

00:08:43.780 Are you trying to sell books, sell tickets to conferences with, um, and so that's what

00:08:50.440 the account kind of evoked in a lot of people and what I tried to drive the conversation

00:08:55.460 towards.

00:08:57.960 Do you think that someone like Mike Todd, obviously you don't know all the motivations

00:09:12.860 of their heart, so I'm not asking you to speak to that, but since you described people who

00:09:18.260 know exactly what kind of shoes those are, how expensive they are, how coveted they are,

00:09:23.640 do you think that they wear these items to make a point because it's not just an expensive

00:09:28.860 shoe.

00:09:29.340 There may be expensive shoes that people see and they don't know that they're expensive

00:09:32.580 because they're not eye catching, but things with the brand name of Gucci things that,

00:09:38.320 you know, are kind of rare collectors items when it comes to shoes.

00:09:42.100 Do you think that they wear those because they're showing, look, there is kind of a separation

00:09:46.420 between us because I have access to this stuff that you may not.

00:09:51.220 Yeah.

00:09:51.600 It's yeah.

00:09:53.100 I'm very quick to say that I am not an authority on what, um, like on everyone's situation.

00:09:59.680 It's like you said, it's impossible for me to know the motives of people's hearts, but

00:10:03.700 at a macro level, there is this component of churches wanting their pastors to look successful,

00:10:10.400 to be attractive, to be something to strive for.

00:10:15.880 And so I'm, I'm confident many of them want to display this idea that, uh, this whole transaction

00:10:21.980 between God and his most loyal followers that like, Hey, if you tithe, you have faith, if you

00:10:28.360 sow a seed or whatever, you're going to be blessed with financial prosperity, platform

00:10:33.020 prosperity, that kind of thing.

00:10:34.560 Each person has their own nuanced situation, but if you look at it from a macro level, there

00:10:39.420 is some type of theme where these very popular churches do care about displaying a successful

00:10:47.240 type image.

00:10:49.540 And, um, and we're actually getting that from their words, not just, it's not just from

00:10:53.820 their shoes.

00:10:54.380 It's from the sermons that Stephen Furtick and Mike Todd and others like that preach that

00:10:59.180 it is prosperity or prosperity light kind of gospel that they actually say those things.

00:11:05.000 So it's not like we're just saying, Hey, you have one expensive pair of shoes.

00:11:08.320 You must be a prosperity preacher, not believe in the true gospel.

00:11:12.200 It's paired with what they say.

00:11:14.760 It's paired with the cheering sections.

00:11:16.480 It's paired with the celebrity status.

00:11:19.240 I mean, I think all of us would be shocked if someone like Paul Washer or, you know, I don't

00:11:25.020 know, John Piper came out in shoes like this, that would be, that wouldn't necessarily make

00:11:29.640 them a prosperity preacher, but everyone would say, that's weird.

00:11:34.020 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:34.880 And there's a component of like modesty and humility that we expect of pastors and preachers

00:11:40.500 that subscribe to like the biblical definition of what a pastor and preacher is called to.

00:11:45.220 And to your point, it is this new wave of prosperity teaching where it's like, Hey, God's

00:11:50.660 going to give you your breakthrough.

00:11:51.720 God's going to give you your blessing.

00:11:54.420 You just need to be prepared for it.

00:11:55.880 You need to trust God and name the thing that you want.

00:11:58.880 And there's just so much out.

00:12:00.700 Like if your theology is based on that, the moment that you get cancer or lose a baby or

00:12:04.880 something, your entire theology erodes.

00:12:08.280 And that's what a lot of these ministries are based on.

00:12:10.360 And it just feels like a dangerous game to play, especially with people's eternities.

00:12:16.160 Yeah.

00:12:16.980 And it's not that there's anything wrong.

00:12:18.900 Like one of these examples at Bethel, um, I guess it was Jen Johnson.

00:12:23.700 She's wearing her Gucci belt, which is $450.

00:12:27.280 It's not like there's anything immoral about the Gucci belt.

00:12:29.860 Right.

00:12:30.080 There may not even be anything immoral in spending $450.

00:12:33.680 Right.

00:12:33.800 If you are stewarding your money well, that's something that you want.

00:12:37.240 You buy it.

00:12:37.800 It's responsible.

00:12:38.840 There's nothing immodest about it.

00:12:40.780 It's okay.

00:12:41.340 But I do also think about, okay, people know what that belt is.

00:12:45.600 They know what the brand is.

00:12:46.660 They know what it represents.

00:12:47.860 They know how much it is.

00:12:49.440 I, I do wonder if it makes it difficult for people who struggle with covetousness, people

00:12:55.920 who struggle with their financial position, whether they're rich or poor people who struggle

00:13:00.160 with comparison, like in the same way that we would say, we don't want to put a stumbling

00:13:04.760 block in front of men by dressing immodestly.

00:13:07.960 Um, I do wonder if these kinds of things tempt people to covetousness and do create a stumbling

00:13:14.960 block.

00:13:15.500 I would think that if the point of being a pastor is shepherding, pointing people to Christ,

00:13:22.020 pointing people to God's glory, then we would want to do everything that we possibly can to

00:13:27.160 don ourselves with humility and to make it so that you don't look at me.

00:13:31.480 Now, if someone is, you know, uh, attractive or dressing in a nice way, there's only so much

00:13:37.640 you can do.

00:13:38.420 Right.

00:13:38.700 But I think making choices that purposely cause people to focus on a brand or the expense of it.

00:13:45.240 Um, I don't know.

00:13:46.620 I think a pastor is called to try to shepherd the hearts and the souls of their congregations

00:13:51.320 a little better than that.

00:13:52.340 Even if you're not responsible for everyone's thoughts.

00:13:54.540 It's yeah.

00:13:54.900 And it seems like it's born in wisdom to at least consider how your image, the message

00:14:00.620 that your image sends when you're on a stage with all eyes on you or like on the social

00:14:05.420 media stage with millions of eyes on you.

00:14:07.700 Again, like you don't want to be controlled by the opinions of others and you can't like

00:14:11.420 influence the insecurities of every person that follows you.

00:14:15.100 But I've talked to plenty of pastors that could probably buy a BMW, but they'll buy a GMC,

00:14:22.420 even though the price is probably the same, but brands communicate something, whether it's

00:14:27.120 fair or not.

00:14:27.880 And if nothing else, you're probably going to get less snarky questions about your suburban

00:14:33.440 than you are your BMW.

00:14:35.260 And this is no different where if you're a pastor for any amount of time, you understand

00:14:39.520 what it feels like to be criticized and critiqued.

00:14:43.040 And also like if you just pass all that off as just hate, then that, that feels unwise or

00:14:49.600 it seems unwise.

00:14:50.400 And I even watched before, before our conversation, I watched a clip of you being interviewed talking

00:14:55.600 about being criticized and being critiqued.

00:14:58.000 And, um, I resonated with a lot that you said, because you and I probably both receive

00:15:03.620 a ton of like heated criticism, oftentimes not fair or like not born in like actual truth.

00:15:10.400 And you said like, I need to, this is paraphrasing, but it helps to have people around me that can

00:15:15.700 speak into whether the criticism is valid or not.

00:15:18.700 Right.

00:15:19.000 And that can either help you filter out all the nonsense that people are going to say to

00:15:23.640 you on the internet or say like, Hey, actually you do care a lot about, not you, but you do

00:15:29.080 care a lot about people thinking you're funny or the thing that you said was impactful, that

00:15:33.680 kind of thing.

00:15:35.260 And it seems like many pastors that are kind of the husband and wife duo at the top without

00:15:41.160 an elder board or whatever, don't have that because they continue to kind of just, uh,

00:15:47.680 They're each other's accountability.

00:15:49.100 That's right.

00:15:49.860 And, um, which doesn't really work because I mean, you can hold your spouse accountable,

00:15:53.820 but you also love your spouse and you see your spouse differently and you're going to be like,

00:15:58.500 babe, no, I have all the haters.

00:16:00.260 Right.

00:16:01.080 No matter what.

00:16:02.340 Exactly.

00:16:02.740 But the, the, the role of a pastor and the amount of power and influence you have is so,

00:16:07.540 um, significant and it's just shocking to me that these guys don't, aren't like deathly

00:16:14.400 afraid of that, where like they wouldn't put extra controls to make sure like, Hey guys,

00:16:18.660 am I coming off as arrogant?

00:16:20.000 Hey, am I causing people with financial troubles to stumble?

00:16:23.380 Hey, is this in bad taste that I'm wearing a Gucci belt?

00:16:27.280 When I know for a fact that tithing is down and people are struggling in a recession, whatever.

00:16:33.440 Um, it's just shocking to me that, um, more don't do that.

00:16:35.940 And, um, that's the, that's one of the reasons I keep doing this is because it's, it's still

00:16:42.500 prevalent and it's still like a lot of churches get massive congregations from this model of

00:16:49.180 being attractive and catchy and obsessed with money and celebrity.

00:16:53.660 And it's just like, all right, dude, good luck.

00:16:55.920 Like the, hopefully you do it better than all the other people that have failed with these

00:17:01.140 same type of allures, like, um, money and fame, access, that kind of thing.

00:17:05.920 Yeah.

00:17:06.840 It's kind of like the meat sacrifice to idols principle that it is not a sin for, or as Paul

00:17:14.640 articulated, like it, it wasn't a sin for Christians to eat meat sacrificed to idols because we're

00:17:21.860 not bound by, you know, the legalistic measures of old Testament law, but, um, if eating the

00:17:30.640 meat sacrifice to idols causes your brother to stumble, then eating the meat sacrifice

00:17:35.560 to idols is not being done in love.

00:17:37.420 So it's not really, at least to me, and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong.

00:17:41.340 It's not really about what they have or always about what they wear.

00:17:47.380 It's not about that.

00:17:48.700 Everyone has to be in poverty.

00:17:51.060 No one can have money.

00:17:52.240 No one can have spent, no one can spend money.

00:17:54.940 You can never have nice things or care about fashion.

00:17:58.600 Um, it's about, are we communicating, especially from a pastor's position?

00:18:03.100 Are we communicating love to the utmost?

00:18:06.600 Are we communicating humility to the utmost?

00:18:09.520 Are we outdoing one another in showing honor?

00:18:12.240 Are we doing absolutely everything we can in how we dress, in how we speak to point to the

00:18:18.380 glory of God rather than to the glory of ourselves?

00:18:21.360 That's right.

00:18:21.700 That would be my issue.

00:18:22.900 Cause I could see people saying you're being so legalistic, like what's wrong with spending

00:18:27.360 money?

00:18:27.660 You're being so judgmental.

00:18:29.080 I'm sure that's a critique that you have gotten.

00:18:31.260 Yeah.

00:18:31.460 All the time.

00:18:32.180 And I am secure in the fact that I've never really like commented on that hard stance.

00:18:38.100 Like I've, I've exhausted myself to try to be gracious on both sides because it is kind

00:18:43.620 of the annoying online answer is it's so nuanced in, but when you get down to it and the thing

00:18:49.280 that I've crystallized it to is like the moment you're not pointing everything towards God

00:18:54.240 as a shepherder of souls, then it's a distraction and you should probably reevaluate it.

00:18:58.920 So like if your clothing, your speech, the way you run your church service or whatever,

00:19:02.480 the moment it distracts away from the creator of the universe, that's an issue and you should

00:19:08.140 do something about pointing it back to Jesus.

00:19:10.300 So whether that's like humbling yourself, dressing plainly or, um, changing the way your church,

00:19:16.920 um, deploys finances, um, all, um, seems worth spending time on.

00:19:23.020 And, um, that's what I hope people ask of their own churches.

00:19:26.400 Yeah.

00:19:27.260 Wow.

00:19:27.580 Okay.

00:19:28.000 We forgot, I forgot to put up the most egregious one, the craziest one, John Gray with his red

00:19:34.880 shoes.

00:19:35.380 And I kind of want to hear a little bit just about this.

00:19:37.980 I know we're kind of going back $5,611.

00:19:41.760 So do you think John Gray spent, this is a pastor, spent this much money on these shoes?

00:19:47.100 Do you think he was given the shoes?

00:19:49.040 I'm pretty confident he didn't.

00:19:51.020 These are Yeezys, right?

00:19:52.120 Yeah.

00:19:52.460 These are, for those that aren't in the sneaker world, those are called Yeezy red Octobers.

00:19:57.120 And before Yeezy or before Kanye had to deal with Adidas, he did a, a, a small amount of

00:20:02.460 run or a small run of shoes with Nike.

00:20:04.780 That's what those are.

00:20:05.820 The Nike Air Yeezys and the all red color way is called the red October.

00:20:09.960 These were super limited, impossible to find unworn.

00:20:13.660 And these are probably triple the price.

00:20:15.720 Now this was four years ago.

00:20:17.600 Um, I think he did, there's so much here, but I think he did some kind of reality show

00:20:23.340 or a TV show and the crew gave him some of these Air Yeezys or something.

00:20:27.020 I think that's the story on it.

00:20:28.660 Um, he definitely knows what they are and he definitely knows how much they're worth.

00:20:33.360 Um, and I, that was the time that I think he was still like preaching at Joel Osteen's

00:20:37.420 church.

00:20:37.860 So yeah, I don't think they're super worried about that.

00:20:41.080 Yeah.

00:20:41.340 But yeah, he's got not only the red Octobers, but he's got some of the other pairs as well

00:20:45.080 that I posted about.

00:20:58.920 Okay.

00:20:59.760 How do you, how have you developed a relationship with some of the people that you're criticizing?

00:21:07.420 You, you mentioned you to Smith, you've been able to develop friendships and support on both

00:21:12.860 sides of this from the celebrity Christian world and then from the other side.

00:21:17.040 So how have you done that?

00:21:19.120 I pride myself on being able to relate to a lot of different types of people.

00:21:22.940 One of my favorite things to do is, is meet new people.

00:21:26.240 Typically people will show up to my account and assume intent by what I'm doing.

00:21:32.700 And we'll just assume that I'm trying to

00:21:35.180 dissolve Christianity or attack certain pastors.

00:21:40.280 And that's an interesting thing you learn about people on the internet is like the moment

00:21:45.740 you just raise a question about their idolized preacher or pastor, it's immediately interpreted

00:21:50.940 as an attack.

00:21:52.140 And so often these guys would reach out to me in DMs or on the phone or whatever, and we

00:21:56.620 would have like a real conversation and they would realize that, hey, I'm not a troll and 0.98

00:22:00.300 I'm a regular idiot dude that's just like noticed a thing. 0.95

00:22:03.660 He's funny and has kind of put his own spin on some cultural commentary. 0.96

00:22:09.540 And so, um, some were very open to having a conversation like Carl and I had several

00:22:15.620 conversations, Judah, um, and I eventually had a really good interview conversation.

00:22:22.040 Um, others were very, just sent me one-sided messages, long paragraphs of basically yelling,

00:22:28.680 uh, on DMs because I was maybe causing people to call them a wolf in sheep's clothing, that

00:22:35.320 kind of stuff.

00:22:35.960 And so it was varying degrees of, um, both sides of reactions to it.

00:22:40.840 So I, I've made a point and it's been exhausting to, to, um, some level to not just be a troll and

00:22:50.360 throw a grenade into the internet and watch everything burn.

00:22:53.680 I've, I've tried to be understanding and open to these very niche situations, like specifically,

00:23:00.180 um, all the guys that kind of attached themselves to Justin Bieber.

00:23:04.120 I got to know several of them and.

00:23:07.040 And that's like Carl Lentz.

00:23:08.340 Carl Lentz.

00:23:09.040 It was Judah.

00:23:10.240 Chad Veach.

00:23:11.760 Okay.

00:23:12.180 Um, what's, uh.

00:23:13.220 Rich Wilkerson Jr.

00:23:13.920 Rich Wilkerson, yeah.

00:23:15.060 Um.

00:23:15.580 They're all kind of in this same West Coast.

00:23:18.060 Yeah.

00:23:18.340 And so people that aren't in that world could never dream of just going to a department store

00:23:24.680 with Justin Bieber and Bieber being like, Hey, take whatever you want, dude.

00:23:27.340 I appreciate you guys, but that's the stuff that's happening.

00:23:30.160 Yeah.

00:23:30.560 And so it brings up all these other kind of issues around like, all right, so are you

00:23:33.220 getting famed by proximity and are you using that to further your own brand and your own

00:23:37.860 church, that kind of stuff?

00:23:39.400 Um, so that's a lot of the different scenarios that have come up that I've learned about, um,

00:23:45.120 through the account.

00:23:45.820 And so it's, it's very nuanced.

00:23:47.640 And the ones who engaged with you who weren't just like berating you, because I have gotten

00:23:52.220 the same thing if I've criticized Stephen Furtick or something like that for the content

00:23:56.880 of what he's saying, well, I've gotten very, very intense emails and messages and things

00:24:04.200 like that.

00:24:04.620 Yes, definitely.

00:24:06.380 Um, but the ones who have actually tried to understand where you're coming from, these

00:24:11.480 pastors who have reached out to you, do you feel like they're just trying to save face

00:24:15.640 and preempt you from posting about them again?

00:24:18.280 Or do you feel like they're really trying to understand why you're doing what you're

00:24:22.620 doing?

00:24:23.160 Sure.

00:24:23.700 Some definitely were trying to manipulate me from stopping posting.

00:24:28.520 Hey, I got these pair of shoes.

00:24:30.380 They're not even opened yet, dude.

00:24:32.160 That's right.

00:24:32.500 That's right.

00:24:33.320 That's right.

00:24:34.020 Yeah.

00:24:34.220 Um, I, I'm trying to be careful.

00:24:43.140 Yeah.

00:24:43.640 Um, some definitely tried to manipulate me to stop like being friendly, trying to, trying

00:24:49.040 to like meet me where I was at and understand.

00:24:51.200 And some of that worked at the time because I am not a, I was not a public figure.

00:24:57.080 I was not equipped to have like a viral account.

00:24:59.480 I didn't know what was going on.

00:25:00.320 And people were having all these heated conversations about what I was posting.

00:25:03.020 And so I was sensitive to that.

00:25:04.460 And when one of these pastors actually turns into a real person and reaches out to me,

00:25:08.840 like I was very overly sensitive to that and probably did stop posting about them if

00:25:14.140 they had a conversation with me and were trying to understand.

00:25:18.160 Um, I lost my train of thought.

00:25:21.460 Um, that's okay.

00:25:22.880 Yeah.

00:25:23.320 That's interesting that they would even take the time to reach out, especially when you

00:25:27.340 were like a smaller account.

00:25:28.760 And so they did actually care about some of the things that you were saying.

00:25:33.320 Now, did you have the opportunity to be like, this is why I'm doing this?

00:25:36.680 Did any of them say, wow, you're right?

00:25:39.760 Yeah.

00:25:40.180 So I'm like, so I, I had some conversations with Judah Smith and I, people can argue about

00:25:46.420 his theology or whatever, but I at least appreciated him willing to like straight up meet with me.

00:25:51.860 And he acknowledged some things like, Hey, some of this is valid.

00:25:54.700 Like, I appreciate the check and balance of that because we can get very high on ourselves,

00:26:01.000 that kind of thing, because of the attention and the power and the money that you get.

00:26:04.760 Um, so I really appreciated that.

00:26:09.440 Um, some still to this day would maybe make comments in the comment section, but not reach

00:26:13.740 out directly, uh, the, um, who's Bill Johnson's son, uh, at Bethel.

00:26:22.080 I don't know.

00:26:22.980 Uh, I don't know that all of the Bethel infrastructure.

00:26:25.060 Yeah.

00:26:25.280 I can't remember his name either, but he messaged me really angry after the, the Hillsong documentary,

00:26:29.840 basically saying he lost all respect for me.

00:26:32.340 I was like, Oh, okay.

00:26:33.540 I didn't know that I had it.

00:26:34.900 And so it's, it's just interesting, the varying levels of you're catching people on a bad

00:26:40.200 day or it touched a sensitivity point.

00:26:42.580 Um, but because of the heated response consistently for like four years straight, that's what keeps

00:26:48.120 me doing it, even though it's uncomfortable because it's like, okay, clearly this is touching

00:26:51.740 something here.

00:26:52.480 If it was just preachers wearing sneakers and people were laughing, no one would care, but

00:26:57.840 it's touching all these other sensitivities that keep getting uncovered and these guys

00:27:02.180 keeping it up in the news.

00:27:03.520 And so that, um, continues to make my account grow.

00:27:06.920 That's interesting.

00:27:07.920 That's interesting that you, how you describe that, that it's kind of like it's scratching

00:27:13.080 something that kind of needs to be open or you don't realize that you're pressing on

00:27:17.540 a bruise or whatever, um, just by posting about the material items that people are owning.

00:27:24.980 With like the factual market values.

00:27:26.840 Yeah.

00:27:27.080 And that's it.

00:27:27.640 And you don't really even add that much commentary to them.

00:27:30.680 And so if it was really no big deal to these people, then why would you even have a reaction?

00:27:36.480 Like I, if someone posted my outfit right now and posted, you know, how much it was,

00:27:41.040 it wouldn't bother me, you know, it wouldn't like, okay, that's how much exorbitantly higher

00:27:46.580 these, the values are of these outfits than so much, so many other options you could wear

00:27:52.120 again, like in and of itself, probably not immoral to wear a designer piece of clothing,

00:27:57.120 but mixed with having a huge platform, mixed with having influence over thousands of people

00:28:03.160 from a stage and, um, the kind of the budgetary considerations that come with mega churches,

00:28:12.140 it makes it a little more complex.

00:28:14.520 Yeah.

00:28:14.760 And you know, it's funny because I think people wear these things because they're expensive,

00:28:18.940 as we already said, because they stand out.

00:28:20.900 Like you can have a million different black belts that may or may not be expensive. 0.99

00:28:24.940 There's only one kind of belt with the G on the front.

00:28:27.260 You can wear all kinds of different shoes and shirts.

00:28:29.840 And so there is, I think a sense of I'm communicating something to you.

00:28:34.480 Now I'm going to hurt some women's feelings out there. 1.00

00:28:37.300 When I talk about the golden goose shoes, which are, you know, $600, which I personally think

00:28:43.680 now related gals, I don't want you to get upset with me.

00:28:46.040 I personally think they're ugly, just in general, yes, or $2,000.

00:28:53.280 Okay.

00:28:53.500 Worn is one thing straight up.

00:28:55.560 Ugly is another thing. 0.79

00:28:56.860 I think that they're ugly, but I do think just like a lot of things, I'm not, I'm not

00:29:01.200 condemning the hearts and souls of people who wear golden goose shoes, but I don't think

00:29:05.380 that they're worn because they're cute.

00:29:07.000 There are a lot of cuter shoes out there.

00:29:08.780 I think that they communicate something.

00:29:10.520 And so it's interesting to me that I think that a lot of these pastors, they obviously want

00:29:14.500 to communicate something.

00:29:15.480 They're on stage, they're wearing this.

00:29:17.040 So they want you to know that it's important and expensive, but I guess they don't want

00:29:21.080 you to know how important and expensive they are.

00:29:23.780 It's when you post how important and expensive that it is that all of a sudden it's embarrassing,

00:29:29.460 which is strange.

00:29:30.540 I don't know why it crosses that line.

00:29:32.180 It wakes people up a bit because most that aren't into sneakers or fashion just never need

00:29:37.880 to think about what a pair of shoes is worth.

00:29:39.880 And I think that's part of why the account originally went viral because many churchgoers

00:29:45.820 just thought their pastor was trying to look hip and they were cool with that.

00:29:48.680 Yeah.

00:29:48.820 But then when you say, hey, did you know these shoes are worth $1,200?

00:29:51.520 Like they could sell these shoes right now and make $1,200.

00:29:54.220 That stirs something within many rational people because if faced with-

00:29:59.200 A lot of struggling people in church.

00:30:00.320 Yeah.

00:30:00.520 Faced with the option of, hey, you could either have $1,200 or you could wear this pair of shoes.

00:30:04.440 Which would you choose?

00:30:05.160 I think most rational people would be like, dude, give me $1,200.

00:30:08.300 Yeah.

00:30:08.320 I got to fix my car.

00:30:09.200 That's right.

00:30:09.840 Yeah.

00:30:10.440 Now in fairness, or I don't know if it's fairness, but at least I get some do claim the aesthetic

00:30:17.700 as a reason why they're able to attract a demographic that maybe wouldn't be attracted to church

00:30:25.840 in the past from the stuffy pews.

00:30:28.600 Again, not my feeling.

00:30:30.060 It's like a pretty thin God if you think God can't influence people based off of the aesthetic.

00:30:34.540 I would say that's the problem.

00:30:36.280 I would say that is the problem.

00:30:38.140 That's not even like, to me, one side of the argument or like good pushback.

00:30:42.740 I would say, no, that's the problem.

00:30:44.760 Is that your Yeezys or what is attracting you to church instead of Jesus?

00:30:48.780 And then now your faith or your theology is based on some amount of alignment with this

00:30:55.620 church brand or this organization.

00:30:57.520 And like we saw with Hillsong and many other churches, the moment that church fails you,

00:31:02.060 now your theology is completely eroded and now you're left as someone that's church hurt

00:31:06.900 and now you're pissed at all types of Christians and faith leaders, that kind of thing.

00:31:12.140 And so, yeah, it seems like a dangerous game to do the attractional model based off of aesthetic

00:31:17.300 or entertainment.

00:31:17.940 So let's talk about, you mentioned the Hillsong documentary.

00:31:33.620 There's two Hillsong documentaries, one from last year, one from this year.

00:31:38.640 You are included, right?

00:31:41.100 In at least one of the documentaries.

00:31:43.760 And why was that?

00:31:45.560 Why were you included?

00:31:46.300 Uh, I saw, I don't know if I ever told anybody this, but I saw that they had, the New York

00:31:53.280 Post was involved with it or something and they had, they had made an announcement about

00:31:56.320 it and I messaged them saying like, Hey, I saw the announcement.

00:31:59.840 If you need help or commentary or whatever, I'd be happy to help.

00:32:04.180 And within minutes, I think they responded and said, yeah, let me connect you to the producer.

00:32:07.940 And so I got, uh, this was the Discovery Plus documentary.

00:32:11.980 And so I got to know the producer, um, Dan Johnstone, and they were kind enough to include me in it.

00:32:17.660 And I, I, I watched your clip with, um, the gal at, um, Daily Wire.

00:32:24.620 Daily Wire.

00:32:24.840 Megan Basham.

00:32:25.680 Yeah.

00:32:25.940 And she said some nice things about my part of it.

00:32:28.180 And I was proud of what they kept in from my interview because a lot of it was people that were hurt by Hillsong or hurt by just the concept of, of church in and of itself.

00:32:37.720 But they allowed me to be, provide a less, I don't know, biased commentary about, Hey, here's why people do like Hillsong.

00:32:46.080 Here's why they grew so much.

00:32:47.500 Here's why they're influencers over church culture now.

00:32:50.780 Um, so there are varying opinions about the documentary in its entirety, but I was grateful that they let me kind of do my thing.

00:33:00.360 Yeah.

00:33:00.700 Instead of like framing it in a different way.

00:33:02.740 Yeah.

00:33:03.040 I'm interested to hear what you think about the most recent documentary and what it says about church, how the secular world approaches church.

00:33:10.520 Um, and then Carl Lentz specifically and kind of how he is portrayed.

00:33:14.460 I'll just, all we have for the clip is the trailer for the one that came out in May.

00:33:19.280 So let me play that to give people an idea of what we're talking about.

00:33:23.640 Carl Lentz is the celebrity pastor.

00:33:25.800 Carl is so charming.

00:33:27.420 People idolize him.

00:33:28.460 There is a sense that pastors can be hot.

00:33:31.720 He was so special.

00:33:32.800 It was cool.

00:33:34.460 Carl was this mega superstar.

00:33:38.160 And then he just disappeared.

00:33:41.240 You do not want to be in this chair.

00:33:44.820 I cannot stress it enough.

00:33:50.000 I had some major lies.

00:33:51.980 He said, I have been unfaithful.

00:33:57.400 Carl was fired by the song leader, Brian Houston.

00:34:00.140 But there was something larger happening at this church.

00:34:03.460 People were putting things together.

00:34:04.840 Brian's unraveling was bound to happen.

00:34:06.600 They were protecting something.

00:34:09.020 What are they protecting?

00:34:10.080 So, I thought it was interesting, this whole, I mean, the documentary was interesting.

00:34:16.080 I thought it was interesting how Carl Lentz's arc was portrayed.

00:34:19.700 For those who don't know, obviously, as you just saw, Mega Pastor, Hillsong NYC, very famous, huge social media following.

00:34:27.800 I'm sure I cringed when that girl said pastors can be hot.

00:34:32.300 But I think that probably was some of his reputation.

00:34:36.260 At least he was able to kind of build this brand and aesthetic that people were attracted to during 2020.

00:34:42.400 After George Floyd, he was like a big voice for BLM, which was really interesting.

00:34:47.600 And then it was shortly after that that it came out that he was having an ongoing affair with a woman that he had met.

00:34:54.180 He's still married.

00:34:55.180 As far as I know, like his family is still together.

00:34:57.480 But I thought it was interesting how in this documentary about some of the problems with Hillsong, he is almost seen as like the redemption of it.

00:35:07.900 Or he is almost seen as like a savior in some way.

00:35:10.820 He almost kind of looks like Jesus with the long hair and stuff.

00:35:15.060 Yeah.

00:35:15.280 They did a really good job of the production of that.

00:35:19.160 Yes, totally.

00:35:21.280 And it's an interesting one because, yeah, I think people are starting to think that Carl was maybe more of a scapegoat for the larger Hillsong empire where maybe he got the majority of the wrath that maybe should have been directed at Brian Houston.

00:35:42.500 I'm not saying that it should have or shouldn't.

00:35:46.460 I'm just saying that's what I think people are starting to interpret that as.

00:35:50.440 And I think Carl works at Mike Todd's church now, Transformation Church.

00:35:53.680 I think he goes there.

00:35:54.980 I saw them like kind of go back and forth or something about like that he's not on staff there.

00:35:59.620 Yeah, or like a consultant or something.

00:36:01.560 I don't know.

00:36:01.780 It's hard for me to imagine they're living in Oklahoma.

00:36:03.500 Yeah, it's a tough move from NYC to Florida and Malibu to Tulsa.

00:36:08.300 But maybe that's what they're looking for.

00:36:10.500 Yeah.

00:36:10.740 And admittedly, having two kids now, I spend a lot less time on the internet and trying to like dig into every single one of these situations now.

00:36:21.300 I got pretty like burnt out on the whole bickering back and forth about it.

00:36:25.600 But yeah, I think Carl's point in that documentary was that Brian Houston might have been the problem and Carl had to experience maybe all or they tried to make him experience the majority of the wrath when maybe Brian Houston should have been held more accountable.

00:36:42.120 Although Brian Houston's like resigned and I don't know.

00:36:45.120 That family cannot seem to stay out of headlines.

00:36:47.560 That church can't seem to stay out of headlines.

00:36:49.160 Yeah, Hillsong was accused of laundering money, of covering up a bunch of different things.

00:36:54.120 And obviously, I can't speak to the veracity of every allegation.

00:36:57.940 And there are a lot of different churches that deal with allegations.

00:37:00.360 Right.

00:37:00.540 But it's kind of like the bigger you are, the harder you fall.

00:37:02.760 That's right.

00:37:03.020 Hillsong is a huge international entity.

00:37:05.500 They've made some like produce some bangers when it comes to music.

00:37:09.900 That's right.

00:37:10.200 And so I think we can acknowledge that.

00:37:11.980 But I do think it's very difficult, not just for these particular people, but for all of us.

00:37:16.280 When you get close to power, when you get a lot of influence, when you get Justin Bieber being like, or the Kardashians being like, you're my pal, you're my friend, you're my confidant.

00:37:27.160 I think you can so easily convince yourself that whatever you're doing, no matter maybe how compromising it is, is for the greater good of sharing the gospel with more people or sharing the gospel with a particular celebrity.

00:37:41.040 You convince yourself, well, God has placed me in this high position, in this high place, in this closeness to this celebrity, either as a reward or as a special privilege.

00:37:52.160 And so I have to be so careful about how I present myself, the things I say.

00:37:57.380 And I think it's just really easy for all of us when we get close to power and money and access and privilege to start compromising in the name of the greater good.

00:38:08.160 And it does seem like that's what happens with a lot of these celebrity pastors, which any of us could fall prey to.

00:38:13.840 Right. And you and I have probably experienced it to some degree.

00:38:18.040 Like, it feels good to have a large platform.

00:38:20.860 It feels good for people to give you pats on the back or say that you're insightful or funny or you changed their life or your book changed their life, that kind of thing.

00:38:28.740 Yeah.

00:38:29.120 And it's just shocking to me that these guys and gals think they can do it differently or think that, like, without controls, they'll just be able to handle it fine.

00:38:42.020 Man, their church will grow infinitely.

00:38:44.180 Their following and brand will grow infinitely without any recourse.

00:38:47.620 It's like, dude, good luck.

00:38:49.300 Like, good luck, man.

00:38:50.460 Like, maybe it will all go well for you.

00:38:52.780 But it is just so well documented that money, power, fame can really pollute you without you even knowing it and without having anybody to speak into your life about it.

00:39:03.920 And so it just seems really dangerous.

00:39:05.160 Or at least it's a dangerous game to play as somebody who's charged with furthering the kingdom, shepherding people's souls, the most important calling you could ever have.

00:39:16.440 Yeah, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, not money itself, not shoes themselves, but the idolatry that our hearts just so quickly go to that all of us are guilty of.

00:39:28.460 We are just so quick and so hasty to worship idols that I think that it behooves us to protect ourselves from that and how we spend our money.

00:39:40.380 But also, again, as a shepherd of a flock, to protect other people from that kind of idolatry and covetousness.

00:39:48.080 And that's, I think, kind of the troubling part of this.

00:39:51.580 And it's not just these celebrity pastors.

00:39:53.440 It's also people like Kenneth Copeland.

00:39:55.200 I mean, he's probably like the guy that people think of.

00:40:01.800 And I saw a clip of him the other day, you know, basically conflating our own abilities with God's power and God's favor.

00:40:11.440 And I don't know.

00:40:12.540 It really is a serious thing.

00:40:14.340 It's serious beyond just sneakers.

00:40:16.420 We're talking about people's hearts and souls.

00:40:18.660 And again, we're talking about the content of what these people are preaching, not just what they're wearing on their body.

00:40:23.320 But it's those two things together that I think jeopardize, you know, the sincerity of faith for a lot of people who think that they're trusting in God, but really they're just seeking after stuff.

00:40:33.440 That's right.

00:40:33.720 Or an experience or a feeling at a almost unimaginable scale.

00:40:38.220 Yeah.

00:40:38.820 Where, you know, these old school prosperity preachers would have to go do their tent rallies or whatever.

00:40:43.520 That's a certain scale, but some have millions and millions of followers, get tens of thousands of people at their conferences preaching some of those things.

00:40:53.640 And that's dangerous.

00:40:54.740 And it's tough to watch.

00:40:57.980 And also it feels like it's not going away and that people are people, people that attend their churches are going to continue giving and kind of furthering this.

00:41:09.180 Like the market demands, the market demand drives the supply.

00:41:14.960 And so if there weren't people that wanted this very specific feel good experience message that God is going to ultimately give you what you want, if you just have faith, sacrifice, give, sow a seed, that kind of thing, they wouldn't have an audience.

00:41:31.480 But instead they're going massive audiences.

00:41:33.260 And unfortunately it's like a pretty risky message and it's shocking that they don't acknowledge that more.

00:41:40.440 Yeah.

00:41:40.780 You know, it's interesting that a commonality that I see in most of their, like at least their social media clips, I can't say that I spend a lot of time listening to their full sermons, but I think it's fair to say what they post themselves on social media can be analyzed.

00:41:57.740 That's right.

00:41:58.220 And they all seem to start from the same premise that I see in the secular world.

00:42:02.180 And this really goes beyond the things that they wear, but the premise is that our biggest problem as humans, their congregation's biggest problem is that they don't think highly enough of themselves, that you don't love yourself enough, that you don't think good enough thoughts about yourself, that you think that God is mad at you, which may be true for some people.

00:42:23.400 I do not think that that is our overwhelming problem as a nation, as a society, really as just human beings.

00:42:30.000 I think our overwhelming problem is probably that we love ourselves too much, but you see them always starting from that assumption that the message that you need to hear is only that God wants you to be happy.

00:42:41.500 It's only that God thinks you're great.

00:42:43.180 It's only that God is your biggest cheerleader.

00:42:45.500 And so it's easy to see how from that assumption the rest of your theology would flow into this kind of prosperity gospel and more and more stuff and accolades and things like that.

00:42:57.320 If you think that the big problem that needs to be solved in your heart is that you don't think enough good thoughts about yourself and that you think God is too mad, then of course you're going to do everything that you can to just make you happy and you're going to mistake that for real sanctification.

00:43:12.960 That's right.

00:43:13.440 That's right.

00:43:13.920 And the focus on self, and if you did spend any time listening to their sermons, it would be pretty similar to the clips they post on Instagram where often it is focused on you, you, you, you, you, you, like all the messages.

00:43:30.320 You are due a breakthrough.

00:43:31.900 You are going to be blessed.

00:43:34.000 You just have to be ready for your blessing.

00:43:35.540 And if you talk to anyone that's got life-threatening cancer or has experienced any type of hardship in their life, that fades away so quickly, that idea that like, all right, no, God's going to do this for me.

00:43:52.500 He's like, he doesn't have to do anything for you.

00:43:54.740 Yeah.

00:43:54.940 And it is a very, to your point, dangerous assumption that life is about you, you, you, and God is ultimately about you, you, you.

00:44:02.740 Yeah.

00:44:03.040 So, yeah, it's tough to watch.

00:44:05.320 I hope people are awakened to that and do some diligence on their own around, all right, what does the Bible actually say and what does following Jesus actually mean?

00:44:14.760 Yeah.

00:44:14.920 I think they'll be shocked and they probably have to wrestle with some things that they hadn't wrestled with, but ultimately they'll be better for it.

00:44:20.780 Yeah.

00:44:24.940 I think the prosperity gospel is so burdensome in the same way that like so-called progressive Christianity is that it really puts like a heavy yoke on your neck and a really heavy burden on your back.

00:44:44.940 Because if I look at my life and my life is hard and I didn't get a raise and I, you know, am not married or I'm not having kids and I tie that to God's favor and I tie that to God's approval of me, God's love for me or the measure of my own faith, I'm going to be constantly discouraged.

00:45:04.200 Yep.

00:45:04.380 Whereas if you tie God's favor and his approval and his acceptance to Christ and his sacrifice, which never, ever changes, it doesn't waver, it doesn't go up or down, it's not undulating like the things in our life or how we feel about ourselves, then that's freeing.

00:45:20.540 That's right.

00:45:20.820 Then no matter what circumstance you're in, there's always a reason to rejoice.

00:45:24.940 But if God's approval is tied to the things you have, well, then there's always a reason to be disappointed.

00:45:31.200 There's always a reason to be scared that maybe you're not doing enough because you don't have as much as Stephen Furtick.

00:45:36.400 That's right.

00:45:36.960 Because if you really were doing the right things, you would have the same sneakers that he had. 0.58

00:45:41.500 And I know maybe that sounds ridiculous for some people.

00:45:44.340 I don't think it really is.

00:45:46.120 I don't think it's far from, unfortunately, how a lot of people have been taught to think about their faith.

00:45:50.360 And the logic just doesn't hold up.

00:45:52.280 Like if that was true, some of these churches would just be filled with wealthy, healthy people with massive platforms and beautiful jawlines.

00:46:00.860 And it's just never been the case.

00:46:02.540 It never will be the case.

00:46:03.580 And so, yeah, it erodes pretty quickly.

00:46:06.680 Yeah.

00:46:07.060 I don't know if you, are you friends with Kosti Hinn?

00:46:09.620 Uh-huh.

00:46:10.000 Yeah, he was on my podcast.

00:46:11.060 Okay.

00:46:11.260 And I think I'm, maybe I was on his.

00:46:13.280 It's been a while, but yes, I'm a big fan of his.

00:46:15.360 That celebrity podcast life is hard, so you just can't even, can't even keep up.

00:46:20.000 I'm just kidding.

00:46:20.660 No, I was not flexing on anybody, but Kosti is a friend.

00:46:23.420 I haven't talked to him in a while, but I respect him.

00:46:26.320 Yeah, he's great.

00:46:27.540 And an interesting background, too.

00:46:29.040 Like if anybody's an authority on that whole world, it's definitely him.

00:46:32.600 Yes, yes, definitely.

00:46:34.100 Because Benny Hinn, as a lot of people know, the famous health and wealth televangelist, Kosti.

00:46:41.060 I had a couple episodes with him people can go listen to, but that was his life growing

00:46:46.460 up in the nice cars.

00:46:47.900 He was catching people, falling back, getting healed, that kind of thing.

00:46:51.780 Yeah.

00:46:52.180 And Justin Peters, you know who Justin Peters is?

00:46:54.620 I know the name.

00:46:55.560 Yeah.

00:46:56.280 I mean, he's a preacher.

00:46:58.060 He's a Bible teacher, and he suffers from a physical disability.

00:47:02.420 He can't walk.

00:47:03.740 He's in a wheelchair.

00:47:04.760 I forget exactly what it is, but he speaks a lot against the prosperity gospel, and he

00:47:10.040 went to one of these, I don't know, rally revival services one time.

00:47:14.520 Healing services.

00:47:15.000 Yes.

00:47:15.260 And I can't remember if it was Benny Hinn or another one of these guys.

00:47:19.320 And so, you know, people get in line to go up there and to get healed and to like speak

00:47:25.580 in tongues and all of these things.

00:47:27.080 It's a big show of it.

00:47:28.220 While Justin Peters gets in line.

00:47:30.180 I mean, he knows that this stuff is not real.

00:47:33.420 Well, he gets in line.

00:47:34.600 He's like, okay, you know, I'm ready to be healed.

00:47:36.580 Either I'm getting healed or I'm going to confirm.

00:47:38.300 And the handlers move him out of the line, and they say, no, you can't go up there.

00:47:42.840 Because if someone presents a real malady to those kinds of people, they know that they

00:47:48.740 can't be healed.

00:47:49.320 And I think there's spiritual significance to that, too.

00:47:51.260 It's not just physical.

00:47:52.580 Yeah.

00:47:52.740 If you bring your real problems, your real burdens to someone who preaches the prosperity

00:47:56.820 gospel, they've got no hope for you.

00:47:58.560 Yeah, that's unconscionable.

00:48:01.620 Yeah.

00:48:01.860 That's so sad in so many ways.

00:48:06.480 So sad.

00:48:07.200 And people waste money on it.

00:48:08.820 That's right.

00:48:09.060 People watching the television spend a ton of money.

00:48:12.080 They continue to.

00:48:13.320 Yeah.

00:48:13.420 I mean, maybe that'll go away eventually.

00:48:17.240 But these guys continue to fill seats and print money from those same healing practices.

00:48:22.980 And it's pretty sad.

00:48:25.080 It's really not that different from why we had the Protestant Reformation, honestly.

00:48:30.260 The indulgences.

00:48:31.380 Give us your indulgences, and then your loved ones will spring out of purgatory. 0.93

00:48:36.080 Wow.

00:48:36.580 Human beings, they really don't change that much.

00:48:38.280 That's right.

00:48:38.460 Okay.

00:48:38.640 Tell me about your book.

00:48:39.620 Preachers and Sneakers Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith.

00:48:44.700 I like that.

00:48:45.460 For-Profit Faith and wannabe celebrities.

00:48:48.640 So tell me about it.

00:48:49.580 So I wrote this when I was finishing my MBA.

00:48:52.800 It came out the same week we had our son in 2021.

00:48:56.820 So it's been a couple years.

00:48:57.620 But the premise of it is based around questions, kind of like you and I have talked about, where it's way deeper than the preachers literally wearing sneakers.

00:49:05.300 It's about, is it appropriate to monetize church and buy real estate and sell merch and book conferences through the vessel of the nonprofit church model?

00:49:21.500 It's about the appropriateness of having celebrity Christians and Christians that are celebrities.

00:49:28.220 It also dives into how do you and I view how we post and the heart behind what we post on social media, whether or not we're driving people to envy through posting our vacation pics or our new car pic, that kind of thing.

00:49:44.240 So it's based around questions.

00:49:46.140 Some people get frustrated because I don't give a ton of answers because I'm not the ultimate authority on what you should post and why you should post it.

00:49:56.580 But I hope it gets people to ask hard questions of themselves, their churches, and ultimately take their faith seriously.

00:50:04.540 So this is interesting, like in an age of Donald Trump, I say as someone who voted for Trump.

00:50:12.380 But I can also see there's like a lot of wealth status celebrity worship among evangelicals when it comes to Trump and wanting, you know, access to power and things like that.

00:50:24.340 So, again, it's not just these like skinny jean, like big shirt wearing, you know, very strange combination to me.

00:50:32.280 I've never fully gotten it.

00:50:33.480 But it's not just those kind of celebrities because those kind of celebrities aren't necessarily.

00:50:37.940 I don't see them vying for political power necessarily.

00:50:40.720 I don't know if they're going to the White House.

00:50:42.560 Maybe it's because they would vote for Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump.

00:50:45.400 Some do.

00:50:46.040 Yeah, you see a lot of different kinds of Christians kind of struggle with it.

00:50:51.080 So, again, it's not just about the sneakers.

00:50:53.220 It's a condition of many Christians' hearts.

00:50:55.620 Yeah.

00:50:56.020 That is a very valid point.

00:50:57.400 And I wrote about the political side of it briefly because I'm not an expert on politics.

00:51:02.480 But you and I, same age or similar age, experienced the kind of the worship of Donald Trump and the kind of looking from the outside in seeing like, okay, people are kind of freaking out about Trump being a savior of some kind.

00:51:19.940 And so, to your point, it's similar in that we're all looking for someone to – or many of us are looking for someone to idolize and to seek answers from because humans are looking for answers a lot of the time.

00:51:34.540 And, yeah, that's not very different, especially kind of the conflation of the political – I'm losing – the election cycles and how those kind of conflated with church services and now basically saying this is who we're voting for at this church.

00:51:53.860 And kind of the issues that arise from that about like, hey, should they keep their nonprofit status?

00:51:58.960 Should they be speaking about that at all from pulpits?

00:52:02.560 That kind of thing.

00:52:03.340 Right.

00:52:03.760 Conversation for another time.

00:52:05.060 But, yeah, we're all looking for – we all have our idols in some way.

00:52:08.820 We should repent of that.

00:52:11.000 But, yeah, the human heart is very quick to look to the best looking, the best talking, the best sounding person.

00:52:18.160 Yeah.

00:52:18.780 And it's interesting that about Jesus, we read like in the prophecy about Jesus that there was nothing that really stood out about his appearance.

00:52:26.920 And I think that there's something to be learned from that.

00:52:29.800 Also, how did you get Joel McHale to write the introduction?

00:52:34.360 Yeah.

00:52:35.660 When the account originally went viral, it attracted a lot of mainstream celebrities.

00:52:41.060 So, like Joel McHale messaged me out of the blue saying that he basically loved the account.

00:52:44.720 We struck up a relationship.

00:52:46.220 He had my wife and I over to his house.

00:52:48.860 We recorded a podcast together.

00:52:50.060 Really?

00:52:50.580 And so we stayed friends because he is a Christian.

00:52:52.940 Oh, really?

00:52:53.540 I didn't know that.

00:52:54.380 I mean, I don't know much about him.

00:52:55.440 Yeah.

00:52:56.740 Him and his family are Christians, but he's also a smart A about – like he's very much a comedian.

00:53:03.800 He's very much sarcastic.

00:53:05.780 But we struck up a relationship.

00:53:07.660 We kind of – we wanted to have a mainstream celebrity to kind of poke at the theme of, hey, Christians really love celebrities. 0.91

00:53:14.000 And here's me being a hypocrite, having a really famous celebrity, write the foreword.

00:53:18.500 He was very kind to do it and wrote a very funny foreword.

00:53:22.820 Yeah.

00:53:23.160 And so I was just grateful that he did it.

00:53:24.460 And that was a cool part of the experience where I got to also interact with celebrities.

00:53:28.980 Are you friends of the Babylon Bee at all?

00:53:30.520 Well, we've never spoken.

00:53:33.840 What?

00:53:34.420 Direct – I don't know if they've reached out.

00:53:39.040 Well, that's –

00:53:39.740 I can't remember.

00:53:40.560 Crazy.

00:53:41.060 I don't think – I think they've probably spoken about it or they've made some content around it, but we've never spoken.

00:53:45.520 That should change.

00:53:46.520 That would be a great partnership, at least for a podcast or something like that.

00:53:49.960 I'd be happy to.

00:53:50.480 Okay, so people can get your book wherever books are sold, and this all goes to your sneaker fund, right?

00:53:56.160 That's right.

00:53:56.640 That's right.

00:53:57.140 So this is helping you buy expensive clothes so you can quit preachers and sneakers and just –

00:54:02.920 That's right.

00:54:03.440 Hopefully.

00:54:03.860 No, it's to buy diapers and hopefully a meat subscription, which I just learned about from your podcast.

00:54:10.420 What?

00:54:10.960 You don't subscribe to Good Ranchers?

00:54:12.920 Not yet.

00:54:13.520 Okay.

00:54:13.860 I'm going to use your promo code.

00:54:14.660 Promo code Allie, $30 off.

00:54:16.720 I've been eating keto the last year.

00:54:18.380 And so the meat subscription is very top of my list.

00:54:21.360 But no, as you know –

00:54:21.680 Yeah, I'm looking for a bread subscription, but no one has – or like a sponsor for a bread subscription, and no one has been yet.

00:54:29.440 So one day.

00:54:29.960 As you know, the way books work is I've got to sell like tens of thousands of copies that I'm never probably going to sell to make any kind of money.

00:54:37.760 To make any money at all.

00:54:38.960 Come on, Relatable.

00:54:40.180 Come through.

00:54:41.000 You can buy the book. 0.93

00:54:42.000 It's probably not going to benefit me at all if you think I'm a hypocrite.

00:54:44.580 So buy it to read it, and if you like it, share it with somebody.

00:54:47.680 Or if you can't afford it, just message me, and I'll send you one.

00:54:51.100 Awesome.

00:54:51.500 Well, thank you so much, Ben.

00:54:52.500 I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

00:54:54.680 Thanks for having me.

00:54:55.160 I'm super grateful to be here.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 27, 2023

Ep 846 ｜ Hillsong, Steven Furtick & the Dangers of 'Designer' Pastors ｜ Guest： Ben Kirby (PreachersNSneakers)

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