The NXR Podcast - August 23, 2024


THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Scientology | EP 8 with @TheCultishShow


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 13 minutes

Words per minute

180.21288

Word count

13,291

Sentence count

662

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

16

sentences flagged

Hate speech

55

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Scientology is a religious movement founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950s. It is based on Hubbard s teachings and a set of doctrines outlined in his writing, particularly in Dianetics, the modern science of mental health, published in 1950. Through auditing, as well as other Scientology practices, followers seek to free themselves from spiritual limitations and achieve higher levels of awareness and ability. The Church of Scientology, founded in 1953, continues to serve as a central organization for the dissemination and practice of Scientology beliefs.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.680 Scientology is a religious movement founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950s.
00:00:07.560 It is based on Hubbard's teachings and a set of doctrines outlined in his writing, particularly in his book
00:00:13.660 Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, published in 1950.
00:00:18.780 Central to Scientology is the concept of auditing, a form of spiritual counseling
00:00:23.900 aimed at helping individuals overcome past traumas, known as engrams,
00:00:28.600 and achieve spiritual enlightenment. Auditing often involves the use of an electronic device
00:00:33.760 known as an e-meter, which is believed to measure a person's mental state and can help identify
00:00:40.240 areas of spiritual distress. Scientology teaches that humans are immortal beings called thetans
00:00:46.560 who have forgotten their true and spiritual potential. Through auditing, as well as other
00:00:52.100 Scientology practices, followers seek to free themselves from spiritual limitations and achieve
00:00:57.940 higher levels of awareness and ability. The Church of Scientology, founded in 1953,
00:01:04.340 continues to serve as a central organization for the dissemination and practice of Scientology
00:01:10.500 beliefs. Scientology, that's our episode for today. Go ahead and kick us off. I mean, Scientology,
00:01:23.640 did you guys ever watch uh in the clear going clear going clear yes yeah i thought it was that
00:01:29.680 was my first sort of introduction to uh the the that world and man what a crazy world right that
00:01:36.240 it is it really what what that kind of the history of exposés on scientology it kind of shows
00:01:43.240 you know people had limited information in the 1950s as far as how information could be
00:01:49.660 disseminated. You had the major news networks, things like that. And as time progressed, you had
00:01:56.240 in the 1970s, you had, you know, cult awareness groups really starting to spawn out where it's
00:02:01.660 kind of really grassroots movements of people communicating because you had at a time a lot
00:02:07.900 of young people in the wake of the sexual revolution and kind of the hippie movement of
00:02:13.740 just the rebelliousness of that time period of just getting sucked into all sorts of different
00:02:18.540 movements specifically in California and so that's where you had a lot of you know the cult
00:02:22.580 awareness network you had a lot of the people who are doing um like almost like kidnappings you call
00:02:29.080 like cult interventions or cult deprogrammings and so there was this huge sort of grassroots
00:02:34.880 movement and then the internet came along and that's where a lot of Scientology began to truly
00:02:40.660 be exposed and now people who are leaving Scientology now had a place to go uh to hear
00:02:46.640 their voice. And now you've seen it with documentaries like Going Clear. You've seen
00:02:52.060 there was a recent series that came out several years ago with Leah Remini from the King of
00:02:57.040 Queens, who was a former Scientologist called Scientology the Aftermath, where it was a really
00:03:01.480 opportunity to where, while it wasn't a Christian show, they did a really good job really documenting
00:03:08.200 the abuses of Scientology. It was co-hosted by Leah Remini and Mike Rinder, who's a former
00:03:14.000 spokesperson for Scientology. So really, in many ways, Scientology is a case study
00:03:20.580 for a historical cult, a very recent cult in contrast to Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses
00:03:27.140 that started very recent here in the 1950s. And it's very much a case study of what once
00:03:35.100 was done in secret will now be shattered from the rooftops, i.e. now Twitter, Facebook, X. And so
00:03:42.140 So what you really have now, which once was a very surging organization that really had a grassroots move and interest in its growth, was growing quite heavily.
00:03:51.820 It's now very much dwindling.
00:03:54.080 And the only really thing that's happening right now as far as Scientology growth is really them having to do stuff with their funds.
00:04:04.520 So it's really just a lot of them continuing to build buildings, facilities, things like that, that are empty.
00:04:12.140 So it's sort of becoming an empty shell of itself in a sense.
00:04:15.480 So, yeah, it's a very, there are many layers to the story of Scientology,
00:04:19.360 but they're definitely, when people think of a cult,
00:04:23.260 Scientology is one of the definitive ones coming to mind
00:04:25.680 because, of course, you have major celebrities like John Travolta and Tom Cruise,
00:04:30.540 who had, they have a notable history with Scientology.
00:04:34.560 So I'm really excited to unpack this.
00:04:36.220 Yeah, people, when they think about Scientology, they also think about South Park.
00:04:39.580 Yes.
00:04:39.760 You know what I mean?
00:04:40.300 South Park did wonderful episodes on Mormonism, but they also did some pretty funny ones on Scientology.
00:04:45.600 You may be like, oh, man, Andrew, you're a Christian.
00:04:47.560 You're referencing South Park.
00:04:48.680 Hey, at your discretion, if you want to watch the Scientology episode on South Park, go ahead.
00:04:52.700 They do actually have a really good explanation of Scientology.
00:04:56.640 But L. Ron Hubbard is the founder of Scientology. 0.96
00:05:00.020 And L. Ron Hubbard, when I think about him, I think of a pathological liar.
00:05:04.020 And who better to create, quote-unquote, a religion than somebody who writes many science fiction books prior to even—
00:05:11.140 Isn't that funny that he started his own religion, but he was formerly a fiction novelist?
00:05:17.540 Yeah, and I think he was very pragmatic, right?
00:05:19.420 So when he wrote Dianetics, what he was trying to do was combat Freudian psychology or psychology that was very prominent during that time.
00:05:29.580 He noticed that there was a need for people to talk to someone and tell them their problems.
00:05:33.860 So he goes and writes, Dianetics, you don't need to go to your psychologist.
00:05:39.120 Here it is.
00:05:39.860 We have the book, Dianetics, and Dianetics literally means it means through thought or
00:05:43.720 through the soul.
00:05:44.700 Let me give you an explanation of what Dianetics is about.
00:05:47.780 So mankind, according to Hubbard, is basically good and that the basic instinct for all people
00:05:53.000 is survival.
00:05:54.540 Man's environmental conditions and painful experiences result in failure.
00:05:58.320 So in Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard breaks up the mind into three parts, the analytical mind, the reactive mind and the somatic mind.
00:06:06.280 So the analytical mind, it works as like a perfect computer and never makes a mistake.
00:06:11.700 So when we're talking about this, you'll notice how within Dianetics or in Scientology, the body is more of like a vessel for something called a thetan.
00:06:21.540 OK, so within this mind is also the reactive mind, and that holds mental images of pictures from the past, which are called engrams, right?
00:06:31.920 They're the source of aberrations or any type of psychosomatic illness.
00:06:35.780 Any mental illness that there could be is coming from some type of memory from the past or trauma, right? 0.97
00:06:41.740 So there's also reincarnation for these thetans here. 0.89
00:06:44.980 The somatic mind as well is the mind that keeps the body regulated and functioning by the analytical and reactive minds placing solutions to the effect on the physical level. 0.67
00:06:55.060 So we have the somatic mind, which is really just governing our body's functions, right?
00:07:01.440 So the issue within Scientology is that we have these engrams that are creating psychological problems and we must get rid of engrams.
00:07:10.480 And you mentioned it in that that open there that through the process of auditing through somebody who, you know, of course, you're paying for sessions.
00:07:20.440 Your type of psychiatrist, remember, he's trying to combat modern psychology, will help you find these engrams and rid yourself of these engrams.
00:07:30.500 And that is not done for free, right?
00:07:34.280 That's done for a price. 0.70
00:07:35.600 So before coming what they would call an operating thetan, which is someone who is rid of all of their engrams, you must become clear of your engrams, right? 0.94
00:07:48.320 So in Christian terms, we can almost think of engrams as of like sin, but it's his own redefinition of sin, right? 0.96
00:07:55.940 And so let me just look at the glasses here.
00:07:57.980 so before you can go clear there's about 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 almost 13 different classes
00:08:08.840 that you must take 13 different things you must pay for in order to become clear of all of your
00:08:16.980 n grams interesting stuff right yeah and all those all those classes you have to pay for them
00:08:23.360 yeah they all cost yeah and guess what if you can't pay for it what do you do what do you think
00:08:27.120 i don't know well you join the sea org so we actually have a solution for you our solution
00:08:33.060 is this uh you can sign something called the billion year contract and you will devote all
00:08:38.000 of your life all of your finances everything to scientology and what do you do in the sea org well
00:08:44.500 you can become an auditor how do you become an auditor well we got classes for that right well
00:08:48.820 if you don't want to be an auditor and you just want to pay for sessions guess what you can sign
00:08:51.700 people up go talk to your friends get them to hold two tin cans and talk about your problems and when
00:08:56.580 that meter blurs or moves
00:08:58.640 one direction, we can see that's an engram, and let's
00:09:00.620 help them get rid of their engrams. Yeah.
00:09:02.480 I want to backtrack just for a second.
00:09:04.460 When you talk about L. Ron Hubbard, we only briefly
00:09:06.620 mentioned about him being a science fiction author.
00:09:09.200 He, L. Ron Hubbard
00:09:10.700 actually holds the record
00:09:12.140 for the most amount of published works.
00:09:14.620 In fact, the Guinness World Record, public record,
00:09:16.720 the most amount of published works by
00:09:18.500 one author is
00:09:19.620 1084 by L. Ron Hubbard,
00:09:22.460 who first work was published in
00:09:24.260 February 1934 and last in March of 2006 which that was published after his passing but he holds
00:09:30.900 the Guinness World Record so really he wrote the most amount of science fiction of any science
00:09:35.940 fiction anybody who's a writer of science fiction he's published the most amount ever and then when
00:09:42.180 it comes to Dianetics the one thing that I think would be important to understand is that he
00:09:47.300 he truly believed like what he was writing now he did have motivation I think financially he
00:09:54.140 had many different motivations but what he wrote down he truly believed and he submitted it to a
00:09:59.600 lot of different boards of psychological boards with confidence saying this is going to be really
00:10:04.440 accepted and it was basically became a laughing stock and his you know he definitely his ego was
00:10:10.260 definitely hurt by that but really what ended up happening is that Dianetics sort of it became kind
00:10:15.780 of like a viral post right you may know a thing or two about viral posts right so he uh it really
00:10:21.880 there became all these like groups that people just got a hold of this book and was really no
00:10:28.660 help of his own besides from publishing it it became a new york times bestseller you had people
00:10:33.400 who are doing their own on their own accord um their own uh dianetics classes it just it took
00:10:39.800 a life of its own so once old one hubbard got wake of this that's where it's like how do i central
00:10:46.800 how do I capture this momentum? And then there was the motivation, let me see if I can turn this
00:10:52.560 into a religion. So it wasn't the religion at first, then I'll publish Dianetics. It came about
00:10:57.680 of it really going viral by just people at that time when it was published, just getting a hold
00:11:04.500 of it on their own accord. And that's where you see that. And again, one of the motivations for
00:11:10.300 Alon Hubbard was money. And the one appeal of creating it into a religion was that he could
00:11:17.560 get tax exempt status. He would fall into the category of a religion. So that's, uh, that's a
00:11:24.020 definitely a very interesting component that really became a catalyst to him to kind of build
00:11:29.300 all these other, um, you know, moving integral parts when it came to the E meters, the bridge
00:11:35.200 to total freedom uh whether you are in ot3 uh you know all the way up to i believe the highest rank
00:11:41.620 is ot9 uh and that count and ot means operating thetan which is some of the descriptions uh that
00:11:50.100 was described in our opening sequence so and you want to do it go ahead yeah let me jump back to
00:11:54.660 you so in definitions of scientology a thetan is a timeless energy that reincarnates in interplanetary
00:12:01.180 life forms so the thetan would be what inhabits the analytical somatic and reactive mind right
00:12:09.800 to get rid of engrams to become an operating thetan one has the ability to manipulate matter
00:12:15.140 energy space in time so we can find that there's even occultic beliefs within uh scientology to
00:12:21.320 where once you have this supernatural uh ability you can manipulate the world around you because
00:12:29.140 the spirit supersedes matter, right? Scientology.org describes an operating thetan as someone like
00:12:35.140 this in quote, operating thetan is a state of spiritual awareness in which an individual is
00:12:40.460 able to control themselves and their environment. An OT is someone who knows that they know and can
00:12:45.880 create positive and pro survival effects on all their dynamics. They have been fully familiarized
00:12:51.560 with their capabilities as a thetan and can willingly and knowingly be at cause over life, 0.98
00:12:55.980 thought, matter, energy, space, and time. That's what an operating thetan is. But what you'll 0.75
00:13:01.560 notice is within this framework of these classes, we can find a similarity to NXIVM, right?
00:13:10.800 NXIVM, what was his name? Renier? John Renier? Something Renier. David Renier?
00:13:16.900 David Renier. Yeah, I think it was David Renier. What we can find is almost like an MLM structure
00:13:21.600 in terms of people being your product
00:13:26.860 and you must do this class or that class
00:13:29.140 and then you can actually have this control over your life.
00:13:31.960 You can make your life better in this way
00:13:33.480 or better in that way.
00:13:34.640 We know with NXIVM, 0.99
00:13:35.420 it became a really bad, horrible sex cult. 0.92
00:13:38.260 But within Scientology, it just took a different form. 0.86
00:13:42.500 But I think that David Rainier took lessons
00:13:44.740 from L. Ron Hubbard when creating NXIVM
00:13:46.960 in terms of being this self-help, self-achievement class.
00:13:50.740 But yeah, the goal is essentially to become an operating thetan, but that's not where it stops. Right. They had to keep making more and more and more. And even David Miscavige, who's the current leader of Scientology today, states that there's still some more classes that they're waiting for. Right. The bridge to total freedom is never completed. It's still being constructed. Point in being. Right. Well, I think it's actually Miscavige. Miscavige. There you go. Yeah. But it's, yeah, Miscavige. There's probably some people out there who would like call him that. 0.62
00:14:18.780 Oh, no, me for sure.
00:14:20.020 I remember I used to say instead of Aleister Crowley,
00:14:21.880 I kept going Aliester Crowley.
00:14:23.420 Oh, yeah.
00:14:23.800 Get corrected on that as well.
00:14:24.820 Well, I think we always have the YouTube comment section
00:14:26.680 to make sure we're always fully corrected.
00:14:28.780 That's where all the actuallys go.
00:14:30.820 Get rid of our engrams.
00:14:31.820 Yeah, anyways, there might be a YouTube comment section for that,
00:14:34.160 which I'll make sure not to read.
00:14:37.100 But feel free to fully express yourself there.
00:14:39.920 But, yeah, what you really end up seeing
00:14:42.180 is this very much a personal self-improvement type of cult.
00:14:48.220 structure. And what's very interesting, too, is that you kind of see at that time this sort of
00:14:54.500 attempt at re-enchantment, this idea of sort of blending in science, but also sort of giving a
00:15:04.060 supernatural, you know, spiritual element to it. So, that's where you think of, like, theology.
00:15:09.960 So, Scientology, you see, like, the blending of the material and the immaterial together.
00:15:14.580 and and so yeah and then you have um you know this continued progression um and you you will
00:15:22.380 what you'll end up seeing is that you know L. Ron Hubbard his gain what his motivation was uh
00:15:28.060 in many ways just financial and seeing the opportunity to be tax exempt he really spent
00:15:33.140 a majority of his life on the run uh just because of a lot of a lot of different shady dealings
00:15:39.740 a lot of it I think did have to deal with him believing he didn't have to pay the government
00:15:45.280 so when any of the reputation that L. Ron Hubbard has was always him on the boat you'll see when
00:15:51.980 you kind of look up L. Ron Hubbard you always see pictures of him sort of being the sea captain
00:15:55.320 one of the main reasons why is because he wanted to be in neutral territory where he could always
00:16:01.680 be evasive and evading the government so that's that's a big that's a big big part of it and what
00:16:07.760 you'll see consistently throughout the story of L. Ron Hubbard, and you think about, you know,
00:16:13.300 one thing leads to what goes around, comes around, is that there's always this continual,
00:16:20.080 like, physical abuse, that particularly there's something indicative within the nature and the
00:16:25.660 culture and the zeitgeist behind spirituality are those who physically, you know, abuse,
00:16:33.920 and also mentally and spiritually abuse their assailants.
00:16:38.020 And there's many ways in which that happened.
00:16:39.760 I think a great resource is not only the documentary
00:16:43.660 done by Lawrence Wright,
00:16:45.900 who's done a lot of really great works.
00:16:47.940 He's one of my favorite journalists.
00:16:50.000 It's both the documentary Going Clear,
00:16:52.080 but more particularly the book Going Clear.
00:16:55.680 And again, it's been a while since I've read the book,
00:16:58.340 but I believe he gathered a lot of just independent lines
00:17:01.960 of testimony and witness of even those who are on his ship uh do you remember the name of his ship
00:17:07.620 oh man i'll have to look it up look it up look it up but it's like there's times in which he would
00:17:13.720 not be happy with a particular performance with someone on his ship and would you know just throw
00:17:19.380 them overboard like just for kicks um and would do all sorts of ways and they would hold up and
00:17:24.600 they would swim back or he would straight up kill them i wouldn't kill them it was done in such a
00:17:30.100 way to just terrify and very much create a Stockholm syndrome. And who did this? L. Ron
00:17:36.620 Hubbard. Wow. L. Ron Hubbard. And so you'll see that. And then what ends up happening is that as
00:17:42.900 Scientology progressed, one of the persons who is up and coming who leads Scientology to this day
00:17:49.960 is David Miscavige. Now, David Miscavige's testimony is that he, I believe, grew up in
00:17:56.940 Scientology, or his parents were attracted to it, and that he had a lot of issues with asthma. His
00:18:01.980 claim is that the process of auditing actually helped cure him of his asthma, so he became a
00:18:09.420 true believer. What is fascinating, though, you think about somebody, you know, someone of a young
00:18:15.580 stature in their 20s acquiring great powers, happened all throughout history. There is a
00:18:21.660 moment in which L. Ron Hubbard passed away, where David Miscavige was in the right place
00:18:28.200 at the right time, where he essentially did a big power grab. He did an immediate audit of those who
00:18:35.760 were unequivocally loyal to him. Anybody who was nobly questionable about his decision making,
00:18:41.720 he went and just drove them out. And he did that with an iron fist. In fact, the comparison I
00:18:47.580 could think of. If anyone's followed, you know, the Iraq war or Saddam Hussein and his rights to
00:18:53.720 power, there's this very notable moment where he gathers all his military officials in. And you
00:18:58.640 can see the footage where all of a sudden, you know, he's there and all of a sudden you see
00:19:02.580 people who are grabbed and they're let out of the room and, uh, they are done with, they are just,
00:19:08.600 they are disposed of. It wasn't quite to that extent, but what you did see is that those who
00:19:14.420 were in any way questioning on any level, and again, David Miscavige would be the judge, jury,
00:19:20.780 and executioner of this, at least as far as excommunicating them from the Church of Scientology
00:19:26.360 would be just, you're done with. So, there is a part where he did a full, like, just cleansing
00:19:33.580 of anybody who was opposed to him, and so then, and that was, so after L. Ron Hubbard passed,
00:19:39.340 that's where dave miscavige took over and that's where scientology sort of took a different it
00:19:45.780 became sort of a different animal and a different uh beast per se as far as its involvement not only
00:19:51.420 with um the u.s government but also in relation to celebrities there's a lot of different aspects
00:19:57.280 do you have any commentary you want to give on that real quick before we continue with the show
00:20:00.660 i wanted to let you know that this is actually just one episode of a 10 part series that we will
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00:20:13.100 over the coming months. However, if you want to get all 10 of these episodes right now early
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00:20:27.360 patreon.com forward slash right response ministries. Here are the titles for just a few of those
00:20:34.620 episodes. We've got transhumanism and artificial intelligence. We also have DMT and the astral
00:20:42.220 realm. We also have neo-paganism. And another of my favorite episodes is an entire episode devoted
00:20:50.700 to the greys. So again, head on over to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries and sign
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00:21:20.060 who join me for this series that's jeremiah roberts and andrew suncrant the three of us will be doing
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00:21:39.400 forward slash right response ministries and become a supporter today in terms of thinking about
00:21:45.240 scientology i think what's really helpful for the christian is you can go read kingdom of the cults
00:21:50.060 Dr. Walter Martin does an excellent explanation of what L. Ron Hubbard taught about Jesus,
00:21:57.060 nature of God, and salvation. So one thing I do want to talk about quickly is what did
00:22:04.500 L. Ron Hubbard teach about Jesus Christ, right? So there's kind of like an evolution in thought
00:22:10.280 at first. L. Ron Hubbard was saying that Jesus Christ was just like a master, like a teacher,
00:22:15.440 great one, that he was just a level above clear, wasn't even God in the flesh, right?
00:22:20.800 So later it came to that Jesus Christ wasn't even actually a person.
00:22:25.060 He was just an engram that was implanted in thetans millions of years ago.
00:22:28.980 So you don't get...
00:22:30.480 He was bad.
00:22:32.040 Yeah, essentially, right?
00:22:33.600 Like he stops your bridge...
00:22:34.740 Engrams are bad, right?
00:22:35.680 Yeah, he's just a memory.
00:22:36.980 He's not even real.
00:22:38.040 He is a memory planted in thetans for millions of years ago. 0.98
00:22:42.800 But that's not even information you get until I think you're operating Thetan level three. 0.92
00:22:46.960 I could be wrong there, but it costs a lot of money to get that information. 0.75
00:22:50.320 That's very important information for them.
00:22:53.740 But to say this, we've talked about this before with Scientology is when we talk about this, it almost is like, wow, this is crazy.
00:23:00.720 How can anyone believe it?
00:23:01.720 But the truth is, is it's like a frog in boiling water.
00:23:04.420 Right. So they get you in and they're just slowly turning up the temperature.
00:23:08.700 And by the time that it's so hot, you can't move from the water.
00:23:12.800 You know, they've got all of your life in their hands.
00:23:16.620 So when we think about Christ and we're confessing our sin to Christ, it says he remembers our sins as far as the East is from the West.
00:23:23.400 We have forgiveness for our sins.
00:23:25.160 We don't stand condemned.
00:23:26.100 But within Scientology, which was Jerry was starting to explain here, we find that all of your sins and engrams are recorded and put inside shelves to be used against you at any time of need that they want.
00:23:39.860 Right?
00:23:40.460 Because you're going to an auditor.
00:23:41.560 you're telling this auditor of course all of your secrets typically it starts with memories from your
00:23:46.660 your past actually things that happened with you and then they'll try to help you go clear of those
00:23:51.940 events uh so well not just past past lives well that's what i was going to get to so first it 0.53
00:23:57.840 starts with your past and then it gets into your past lives remember you're you're a thetan so 0.77
00:24:02.300 you've been reincarnated or rebirthed multiple multiple times so within scientology your sins 0.85
00:24:09.480 or your engrams aren't um forgiven as far as the east is from the west no they're stored in a box
00:24:14.720 to be able to be used against you if you ever need to leave i mean we did an interview with
00:24:18.680 mike rinder uh who left scientology and what was his book called again um oh man i can't remember
00:24:26.440 why am i blanking on his book anyways awesome interview with him and he can give you a he gives
00:24:31.700 you a brief description of what it was like living within scientology and then when you're trying to
00:24:35.760 leave, they've got everything against you, right? Not only that, they have a policy. It's called
00:24:40.780 the fair game doctrine. And the fair game doctrine means that if you're trying to leave and you're
00:24:45.560 going to tarnish the works of Scientology, it's fair game. We can follow you. We can go to your
00:24:50.580 house. We can terrorize you. They won't kill you, right? But they'll go pretty far as to try to make 0.99
00:24:57.360 your life a living hell so that you don't tarnish the works and names of L. Ron Hubbard.
00:25:03.920 His book's called A Billion Years.
00:25:05.460 A Billion Years.
00:25:06.500 My Lifetime Inside Scientology.
00:25:08.180 Right.
00:25:09.040 Amazing book.
00:25:09.720 And think about how crazy it must be, okay, to, for Mike Rinder, for example, his parents
00:25:16.260 became Scientologists.
00:25:18.320 Well, what do you do with your children, right?
00:25:20.020 What do you do with your children if you were to join the Sea Org?
00:25:22.980 Jerry, give a brief explanation of what happens to the children of parents who are in the
00:25:26.740 Sea Org.
00:25:27.440 There, so this is an example, you know, we have a slogan, you know, that's, that we've,
00:25:32.300 it's been kind of our popular uh t-shirt that we've had called bad theology hurts people
00:25:36.720 how the underlying presuppositions of scientology that children are no different than adults they
00:25:45.580 are adults trapped in humans bodies so when so basically children are just taught are viewed no
00:25:54.180 different than adults so there are many times because of the fact that the parents are committed
00:25:59.360 to being in the Sea Org and to give their unequivocal life at that time to Scientology,
00:26:06.160 there are many times, and this was really depicted on many different cases
00:26:09.740 with people who grew up in Scientology, in Scientology of the Aftermath,
00:26:14.080 and Lee Roney and Mike Render's show,
00:26:16.020 is that you would have just a lot of these sort of camps,
00:26:20.200 camps in which, you know, you really would just be like child labor,
00:26:23.360 where you were, the only education that you really got were Scientology classes.
00:26:28.320 you would be spent a lot of time like away from your parents because there's not really true
00:26:35.100 ownership of like they're your mother and father i mean they're the ones who birthed you into the
00:26:40.440 world but there's not there's no real difference no one is truly taught as a children so anyone who
00:26:46.160 grows up in scientology they're ultimately robbed of their childhood and usually those who escape
00:26:53.400 those who escaped Scientology the only time they've been able to connect with is kind of like
00:26:59.260 the sort of like being like a lost boy like in Peter Pan like the only equivalent I can give to
00:27:04.380 it would be Warren Jeffs who is the leader of the FLDS who's now in federal prison and he was no
00:27:11.080 no I think it was in the early 2000s when it got exposed of all the different you know underage
00:27:15.560 you know polygamous cults the polygamous wives and even underage wives that he had married
00:27:20.580 there was a point in which uh and there's a there's a parallel here and i forget their note
00:27:26.920 they're kind of known as the lost boys i forget the actual name and title of it but as these boys
00:27:32.560 were growing up jeff saw them as competition because eventually they're going to hit puberty
00:27:38.680 they're going to be start being attracted towards women and but i need to bring more women i need
00:27:42.420 i need to be sealed to more women so he would find these boys uh who are around 12 and 13 years old
00:27:48.860 would find some way to excommunicate them
00:27:51.440 and isolate them from their whole upbringing,
00:27:55.400 their whole tribe of what they grew up in.
00:27:57.700 So you actually have these areas in Utah
00:27:59.920 where these boys would just show up,
00:28:01.860 a bunch of 12- and 13-year-old boys who were just orphans.
00:28:04.960 Typically Salt Lake City.
00:28:05.880 Yeah, typically Salt Lake City.
00:28:07.180 So you would really see the same thing happen.
00:28:09.260 And their parents would still be a part of Scientology?
00:28:12.780 Oh, he's talking about Warren Jeffs here.
00:28:14.220 Warren Jeffs. Give me a comparison.
00:28:15.940 So Warren says, so you'd have the same thing
00:28:18.120 where just because they're, the only education
00:28:20.400 that they really get are Scientology classes.
00:28:22.480 There's not, they don't have practical real life world skills
00:28:25.880 and they come to a point where they just say,
00:28:28.360 I have to leave, I have to get out.
00:28:29.640 So many of them, they're held against their will
00:28:31.620 and sometimes it's really like a Stockholm syndrome,
00:28:34.560 like mental buying, like you're told if you,
00:28:36.900 and this is similar with any cult,
00:28:38.680 that usually if you leave the group,
00:28:40.220 there's no salvation outside of it,
00:28:41.720 terrible things will happen to you and to your parents.
00:28:45.160 And so there's all these sort of like a mental binding and breaking, a systematic breaking down.
00:28:52.220 So usually it's like there's a mental prison.
00:28:56.040 And this is something we articulate in our interview with Mike Rinder.
00:28:59.320 There is a literal that theology and worldview behind Scientology and those who become believers, like you think that you're climbing this bridge to total freedom.
00:29:09.720 But when in reality, you're building this mind prison.
00:29:13.220 Um, so to try and describe it, like Mike Rinder, in our interview with him, he did, he was talking with, um, somebody who was in the FBI and was talking about, well, couldn't you just go and like bring them out or like have, have a conversation, just talk with them?
00:29:28.080 It's like, it's not just that simple. Like they're so ingrained that this is their life. And if they
00:29:35.260 leave, then everything that is possibly terrible that could happen to them and the people that
00:29:41.600 they care for, like there is this mental prison that is created through the inklings of Scientology.
00:29:49.180 And that's, and then the children, they're taught that, that they're basically taught that. And,
00:29:53.420 And yeah, the way that children are treated is terrible.
00:29:58.040 And you can see that depicted in the show, Scientology, the Aftermath.
00:30:01.820 And again, this is having, and again, this comes from an underlying worldview
00:30:06.720 that children are adults, are just adults trapped in these little bodies.
00:30:11.880 And therefore, we should treat them no different than adults.
00:30:14.960 And how they treat adults is awful as well, too.
00:30:17.180 Well, in reality, too, having children was kind of frowned upon within Scientology
00:30:22.300 because it takes away the aspect of work, work, work, work, work in the Sea Org.
00:30:26.280 So they work people 80 hours, 90 hours a week, small amounts of sleep,
00:30:31.280 pay them very little bits of amount of money, right?
00:30:33.380 Because everything that they're working towards is trying to get more classes
00:30:36.320 so they can level up on their journey to the bridge to total freedom.
00:30:39.860 I mean, there's stories of even forced abortions
00:30:42.000 for individuals who got pregnant within Scientology.
00:30:45.080 It was frowned upon, but we find that within many different cults,
00:30:48.720 Like the leaders always want to control the sexual appetites of their followers, right?
00:30:53.380 Like even with Jim Jones, it's noted that he would separate families. 0.55
00:30:56.880 He would have sexual relations with different people that were once family units.
00:31:02.040 You know, he wanted that control over the minds.
00:31:04.040 The same thing happens within Scientology.
00:31:07.260 But within Scientology as well, there is a ruling cosmology.
00:31:11.540 And I want to talk about their story, essentially, of the Phaeton, of the earth, of who we are, what they believe.
00:31:20.340 And this is something, again, when I talk about this, it's going to sound extremely funny to you.
00:31:25.940 But remember, the people who hold to this have paid, man, I forgot what the amount was last time I looked up.
00:31:31.920 I think it's somewhere around $500,000 to $750,000 already to receive this information.
00:31:37.220 So once this stuff became public, it was a big deal for Scientology.
00:31:41.800 But let me give you some of their cosmology.
00:31:45.500 So there's an existence of a cosmic ruler named Lord Xenu, who was believed to have lived approximately 75 million years ago.
00:31:56.320 And this was the narrative.
00:31:57.300 There was massive overpopulation.
00:31:59.420 So Xenu was the ruler of a galactic confederacy, an ancient intergalactic civilization that was facing severe overpopulation.
00:32:07.840 So in order to make their less overpopulation, what did Xenu do?
00:32:13.500 Well, he took these people, these Thetans, and he brought them to another area, right? 0.56
00:32:20.860 He brought billions of beings to Earth, which was known as T-Giak or T-Gi. 0.87
00:32:26.780 That was what Xenu called the Earth.
00:32:29.420 And these beings were frozen and transported in spacecraft to various volcanoes on Earth. 0.79
00:32:35.840 And then Xenu dropped hydrogen bombs into the volcanoes and triggered a massive explosion, killing the Thetans, their bodies.
00:32:42.220 But the spirits of these Thetans, known as body Thetans, were released from their physical forms. 0.78
00:32:47.680 Then these beings were brought to implant stations.
00:32:50.880 So Xenu then subjected these disembodied Thetans to a complex implantation process. 0.95
00:32:55.520 and this involved implanting false narratives engrams into the thetans minds which were indeed
00:33:01.460 intended to control and manipulate them so there's implant stations which also implanted false
00:33:07.680 religious narratives and beliefs there we go for the idea of jesus christ throughout history the
00:33:12.160 idea of buddhism hinduism none of those are enough those are all false implantation narratives
00:33:17.520 although you know he creates his own religion from these religions but that is the effects
00:33:24.700 right? It creates traumatic experiences and false beliefs as engrams in individuals. So we're
00:33:30.700 trying to overcome what Lord Zinu once did through Dianetics in the process of Scientology in order 0.92
00:33:36.640 to go clear, become operating Thetans, and then preach this gospel to the rest of the world. 0.66
00:33:41.660 So the hope of the Scientologist is to spread Dianetics to everybody, right? The only way you
00:33:47.180 can get rid of drug addiction, trauma, to control yourself, to control any demi-urge that you may 0.94
00:33:53.880 have uh is through the process of dianetics and auditing and becoming an operating thetan that's
00:34:00.540 their post-millennial hope in a sense yeah it's uh it's it's pretty wild but really that is what
00:34:07.960 they teach so yeah here's some of my questions i've been listening the whole time it's been
00:34:12.600 super helpful fascinating what i guess my i have two main questions one how how did scientology
00:34:20.660 take off because at one point like you were talking about a little bit jeremiah like um
00:34:25.620 that they read this people just organically read this essay would be the equivalent of something
00:34:30.600 on social media today going viral like he submitted it to certain you know journals and
00:34:35.560 peer review and everybody mocked you know mocked him but then you know but then the what is it
00:34:40.840 called the dialectics uh dianetics dianetics like it just kind of took off and so so my question is
00:34:47.080 like, is there anything beyond that? Like, what made Scientology successful? Because there was
00:34:53.500 a time where it was growing quickly. And then my second question is, and how come that doesn't
00:35:00.380 work anymore? I wonder, like, just practically, not just the power of Christ, you know, revealing
00:35:05.620 and exposing falsehoods and lies. Praise God for that. But I feel like there's probably also
00:35:11.080 some practical dynamics. I'm thinking about, like, could something like Scientology exist
00:35:16.640 in because it seems like it requires secrecy like uh like like it it can only be something
00:35:24.060 like that type of cult cults still exist and some of them are growing but that particular type of
00:35:30.960 cult seems like it thrives on you know like you have to take these classes and there's certain
00:35:37.380 information that you don't get to access like but we live in the information age where everything
00:35:42.880 is publicly available you can't really you can't really keep something under tabs anymore i wonder
00:35:49.580 if i guess what i'm saying is i wonder if the internet and social media more particularly
00:35:54.420 kills scientology yes uh yeah i'll give a couple of reasons why i think and again it's multi-layered
00:36:00.020 but i think one of the areas in which it really grew in popularity was when that they established
00:36:05.100 the celebrity center uh in la and because of the nature of la and hollywood and people who are
00:36:12.000 aspiring actors and is a lot of, you know, confidence in trying to get, you know, your
00:36:17.360 audition, your audition after audition after audition for your first big break. You think of
00:36:21.260 any notable celebrity, you know, you look at some of their earlier videos, it's them showing up in
00:36:25.960 some Coca-Cola commercial from the 1980s. Those are always like fun videos to see. Well, someone
00:36:31.460 like John Travolta would have been attracted to Scientology because he, there's a lot that,
00:36:37.000 there's some general classes that deal with, you know, confidence, controlling your emotions,
00:36:42.000 you know, knowing that certain things are with your reactive mind and giving.
00:36:45.780 And he, John Travolta, attributed a lot of the first roles that he got,
00:36:49.700 including, I believe, his role in Grease,
00:36:52.680 which was, you know, a move that really kind of put him to the forefront.
00:36:55.460 And also Saturday Night Fever.
00:36:57.140 Like those, those are two of the really big breaks that Travolta got.
00:37:01.200 And then he gave and created Scientology to that.
00:37:05.540 And then, of course, you've had Tom Cruise, who was very notable.
00:37:08.800 So you kind of had different people.
00:37:10.300 but Leah Remini at that time, I mean, she got her big break
00:37:13.300 when she did the sitcom The King of Queens
00:37:15.940 along with Kevin James, and at that time,
00:37:19.260 she's a true believer in Scientology and gave that credit.
00:37:21.360 Wait, hold up. The actress who was the wife of Kevin James
00:37:24.160 in King of Queens, she was Scientologist?
00:37:25.620 Yes, she was Scientologist.
00:37:26.660 Oh, I didn't know that.
00:37:26.860 Yeah, so the show Scientology, The Aftermath
00:37:29.380 is co-hosted by Leah Remini and Mike Quintero.
00:37:31.920 My eyes are getting weary.
00:37:32.780 Back is getting tight.
00:37:34.120 Yeah.
00:37:34.500 Go ahead, sorry.
00:37:35.140 That show was funny. I enjoyed it.
00:37:37.580 But yeah, so that would be an example of just,
00:37:39.340 I mean, cults always, they're seeking out a particular group of people,
00:37:44.540 and I think they were trying to show prejudice towards those who were aspiring up-and-comers
00:37:50.620 to show the glamour of that. And so, a lot of the growth happened really like pre-internet,
00:37:56.540 and I think just with, because cults do operate in secrecy.
00:38:00.940 Right.
00:38:01.420 So, there's always not a lot of transparency. I mean, if you look at, for example, Mormonism,
00:38:05.420 When Mormon missionaries come over to your door, they're giving you, they're cloaking everything in very basic, generic Christian terminology.
00:38:12.960 They're not going to go on day one and start talking about what happens inside the temple,
00:38:16.480 that you're going to put on this white chef's hat and along with this green apron and start, you know,
00:38:22.340 talking about, you know, the Garden of Eden and Ascent to Godhead and everything that takes place inside of the Mormon temple.
00:38:28.080 They're not going to do that on day one.
00:38:30.200 That's not until later.
00:38:31.220 Uh, in the, in the same way, you know, Scientology just starts off, hey, take a personality test,
00:38:36.540 come in here for a free personality test.
00:38:38.040 And they do that to this day.
00:38:39.360 Then, then it's like, oh, well, buy this course and buy that course and start scaling the bridge.
00:38:44.000 And so people, there's a lot of those who are attracted, I think, to Scientology were those
00:38:49.220 who were trying to, were very heavily in the personal development space.
00:38:53.660 Uh, and so I think a lot of, a lot of what people who want to become an actor, a notable star,
00:38:58.000 you know and I get that sometimes being in front of a camera and going into those roles you know
00:39:03.400 you deal with your own internal monologue you know like you see a YouTube when you're first
00:39:07.720 brand new I remember seeing like a YouTube comment of somebody saying something about me about my
00:39:13.600 what I look like or how I sound or how I'm talking or I'm using too many ums and ahs and just seeing
00:39:19.380 that criticism and just being racked like oh I can't I'll never amount to anything because
00:39:24.380 Somebody on YouTube said something.
00:39:26.040 And so there's levels in which you would want to embrace
00:39:29.700 how to deal with the emotion of somebody criticizing you.
00:39:33.980 And that's exemplified, too, in Hollywood.
00:39:36.600 You know, you're going before an audition against, like, three people,
00:39:40.560 and, you know, you're going to do this one quick addition,
00:39:42.980 and you'll get it, you'll do tons of them,
00:39:44.620 and, you know, dealing with the ups and downs
00:39:46.660 of trying to get your big break, you know?
00:39:48.400 So I think that area created a lot of that.
00:39:51.120 And honestly, what ended up...
00:39:52.820 This is so foreign to me,
00:39:53.580 Like what you're talking about, that experience of receiving criticism on YouTube.
00:39:59.340 I've never, never, never, never experienced that.
00:40:03.060 I know nothing, barely anything about that.
00:40:05.440 I don't even know what you're talking about.
00:40:06.920 Right, maybe once or twice.
00:40:08.260 And honestly, I think just the, again, as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast,
00:40:12.980 they would just be a pinnacle example of information being readily available on the internet.
00:40:18.300 One of the most notable, fascinating stories, he passed away, but it's David Miscavige's father,
00:40:24.020 Ron Miscavige. He was in a position to where he was highly questioning Scientology.
00:40:29.040 They are starting to view him as an SP, which stands for Suppressive Person.
00:40:33.640 And he was being questioned, he was, in some sense, I believe he was actually being 0.72
00:40:39.240 held against his will, or he was in a place, he was still inside that mine prison.
00:40:46.240 and he had the audacity he had an ipad which he snuck into his room and somehow he got outside
00:40:55.100 of the ip address of servers where it can be detected and found a way to access the internet
00:41:01.040 about the truth about scientology and then he saw something he could never look back seeing all the
00:41:08.120 different cover-ups and scandals and and things of that nature that would not be complete that
00:41:12.920 would be completely cut off from, severed off from anybody loyal to Scientology. They would say,
00:41:18.280 do not look at that. That is the only things that suppresses people information happen. Most,
00:41:23.320 most of the time, cults are conditioned, are mentally conditioned to what's called a siege
00:41:28.280 mentality. Well, they'll interpret any sort of level criticism of their group as unwarranted
00:41:34.080 persecution. That's usually how a cult member is, that mind prison is built to have that siege
00:41:40.700 mentality, but Ron Miscavige would be an ideal case of having the internet allow him to, you
00:41:47.780 know, to all of a sudden really question the church and ultimately allowed him to escape.
00:41:53.040 And that's happened with multiple different people within Scientology. And I think that that's one
00:41:58.500 of the reasons why it has dwindled. And so now with it being readily available, now you have those
00:42:03.840 who sort of have a network where people can connect with. That's why you had the show that
00:42:10.020 which the A&E show, Scientology, the Aftermath, which won multiple Emmy awards, where you would
00:42:15.260 have people who would connect with them. Now there's a place where people can come to the
00:42:18.840 internet, on social media, on different Reddit groups where people can talk. And it's not just
00:42:23.520 Scientology. We did an episode on this cult, this Korean cult called Shincheonji. And it's the same
00:42:29.780 thing. They sneak people into, hey, let's go do this Bible study. And they ask the question, 0.61
00:42:34.080 oh, we'll get to that later. We'll get to that later. We'll get down to the road. And they keep
00:42:37.960 on feeding them breadcrumbs and start getting them conditioned into accepting and believing
00:42:43.040 what they say and to ultimately give adherence and reverence to whoever is the messianic figure
00:42:50.100 that they're trying to adhere them to. So really, there is a mind prison that surely was slowly
00:42:55.160 built about. And I think the difficult challenge is when it comes to Scientology, as it has,
00:43:01.720 it is, I do believe it's dwindling down. I don't know what the history will be like
00:43:05.940 or what Scientology, if he even has any future outside of David Miscavige, I think at this point
00:43:11.020 he's in his early 60s. He's probably sometime in his, yeah, late 50s, early 60s, I would guess.
00:43:17.860 So there's, I don't know how much, you're looking at maybe a couple more decades at the absolute max
00:43:23.260 because he ruled with an iron fist, so I don't know what that vacuum is going to be filled.
00:43:27.500 But I think the challenge, I'll let you jump in, Andrew, as we kind of wrap up here and give a
00:43:31.540 basic overview is the challenge with the import why this meant why we've done what we've done
00:43:37.980 why we even launched cultish is because when you look at a show like leo remny and scientology
00:43:43.800 the aftermath you look at all this abuse that has taken place and you see the people who have just
00:43:49.360 been chewed up and spit out of this machine being promised a bag of goods and being thrown to the
00:43:54.760 wasted like an empty pack of cigarettes. They're not really given something truly tangible to
00:44:03.180 leave. Okay, well, now I can think freely for myself. Well, how do you know you won't be
00:44:07.760 deceived again? One of my favorite quotes is by G.K. Chesterton, who said that an open mind
00:44:12.280 is no different than an open mouth. Eventually, you have to bite down on something. And our hope
00:44:18.200 within cultish is that the majority of those who experience spiritual abuse, who experience
00:44:23.140 an abusive cult like Scientology, the majority of them become atheists and agnostic. And you
00:44:30.440 ended up really seeing that in the show. And that was the heartbreaking, I'm thankful.
00:44:34.740 And I give thanks to God that Lee and Mike were able to expose the abuse, but there's no place
00:44:40.780 to put them. There's no true hope. And that's where, you know, thankfully, Andrew, you got to
00:44:45.480 give Mike the gospel and he was on Cultish, which was awesome. But yeah, I think that the challenge
00:44:50.620 is, is that, is giving people who, it's not just people who are in the cults and evangelizing them
00:44:56.720 and giving them the hope of the gospel, it's that those who have been spit out of the machine
00:45:00.660 of not just Scientology, but really any destructive cult in giving them true hope in Christ.
00:45:06.960 Yeah. Amen, man. So when thinking about the deterioration of Scientology, we also got to
00:45:11.420 think about the death of L. Ron Hubbard, right? He was their revelator. He was the one creating all
00:45:15.640 of these new classes. I mean, they're still waiting for the resurrection of L. Ron Hubbard.
00:45:19.460 There's a whole floor in a Scientology building dedicated to his house that he will inhabit when he comes back from the dead.
00:45:26.480 He's still dead, right?
00:45:28.320 He won't come back from the dead.
00:45:30.280 So there's this idea of ongoing revelation from L. Ron Hubbard.
00:45:34.940 So when he was still alive, he was saying, oh, well, there's going to be another class that comes out, another class that comes out.
00:45:40.400 So all of the revelation wasn't out yet, which gave them something to look forward to.
00:45:44.500 Well, now it's out.
00:45:45.320 And not only is it out for them, but the cat's out of the bag
00:45:48.320 and everyone can read it because of the internet.
00:45:50.320 Right.
00:45:51.320 But in terms of not going into Scientology,
00:45:55.320 we have the internet to protect ourselves from there,
00:45:56.320 but what about the people who are already in it?
00:45:58.320 That's the question. So since they have that mind prison,
00:46:01.320 and they're not able to get to the internet,
00:46:03.320 we still see them in there, but it is slowly dwindling out.
00:46:06.320 But one of the main reasons would be,
00:46:08.320 number one, there's no more revelation.
00:46:10.320 Number two, we can see all the revelation that has been given,
00:46:14.320 been given and it is demonstrably false, right? False Christ, false gospel, false salvation
00:46:19.840 doesn't lead to freedom. When the sun sets you free, you are free. Indeed, it leads you to
00:46:23.900 a mind prison where you're literally just supporting a business.
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00:47:41.520 The last thing that I want to end with is I'm just thinking to play the contrarian for a moment
00:47:48.520 and just preemptively maybe answer some of their questions or provide an explanation for some of
00:47:56.780 their criticisms. You know that somebody has been listening, and if they actually made it this far,
00:48:02.220 you know which maybe they didn't but maybe there's a couple and they're probably thinking
00:48:07.540 you know if some unbelievers are listening and they made it this far they're thinking
00:48:11.200 um you guys are sitting here talking about this cult but you're a cult you know like you guys are
00:48:19.960 part of apologia church and i heard that apology you know apologia and jeff durbin and this and
00:48:26.160 that are like their views on abortion, you know, and equal protections for the unborn. And, you
00:48:34.160 know, Joel, like you're a part of a church I've heard about, you know, you hold to biblical
00:48:37.920 patriarchy, your views on, you know, men and women, like you guys are, are cult leaders. You're a part
00:48:44.760 of a cult. And I would just want to end, and I'm, you know, I'm curious to hear, you know, if you
00:48:49.300 guys have a quick answer. If not, we could save it for another episode. But my answer is fairly
00:48:53.600 simple. There's more that could be said, but here's three distinctions. Number one, I have one
00:49:00.060 wife. How many wives do you have? One. How many wives do you have? One. Right. So we don't each 0.96
00:49:05.620 have 10 wives. One wife. And that is a distinction. Cult leaders typically, it's like, well, what's 0.98
00:49:14.020 the common denominator? They're wanting to get laid by multiple women. That's just, to put it
00:49:19.160 frankly, that's what it is. So we all have one wife. That's one distinction. Here's a second
00:49:23.000 distinction. People leave my church all the time, all the time. They move away geographically,
00:49:30.540 or they just decide that they disagree on a secondary doctrine or something like that.
00:49:34.260 They're not reformed, and they're, you know, or they disagree on, you know, whatever, whatever it
00:49:40.300 may be. You know, they're continuationists. I'm more of a cessationist. That has to do, those are
00:49:44.580 two different doctrines dealing with gifts of the Spirit all the time. You know, we planted the
00:49:49.760 church here in Texas, Covenant Bible Church, that I pastor in Central Texas about three years ago.
00:49:55.440 We're right at the three-year mark, and we went from, you know, 20 people in my living room,
00:50:00.820 including kids, to well over 200 people. And yet, so we've gained at least 200 people,
00:50:08.240 but we've also, it's not the same people we've cycled through, a few people. We've had at least,
00:50:14.060 probably at least 50, 60, 70 adults leave
00:50:19.060 just in the last three years.
00:50:21.060 And a lot of them I still talk to, still friends with, you know,
00:50:26.060 and still share a lot of things in common.
00:50:29.060 My wife is friends with some of the women who came and went,
00:50:33.060 and still friends.
00:50:34.060 We didn't cut them off.
00:50:36.060 We didn't shun them.
00:50:38.060 And they were allowed to leave.
00:50:40.060 And people were actually even surprised
00:50:42.060 surprise, because I do have strong convictions. And when I preach, I don't preach, I don't pace
00:50:46.660 back and forth with, you know, skinny jeans and a deep v-neck, you know, and with a, you know,
00:50:53.860 plexiglass pulpit, you know, and an Instagram coffee mug and say, well, you know, I just think
00:50:58.740 and I feel. No, when I preach, I declare, let the one who speaks speak as though he is speaking the
00:51:03.620 very oracles of God. So, I preach with confidence, not in the flesh, but confidence in the risen Lord
00:51:08.200 and that God wrote a book. So, I say these things confidently, not because I'm great,
00:51:13.380 but because God is great, and He wrote it down. We do know the answers. So, when I preach, it's
00:51:18.460 not just the opinions and preferences of men. It's, thus saith the Lord. So, my style of preaching
00:51:24.700 is confident, and there's theological reasons for that. I think that's right. But outside of the
00:51:30.160 pulpit, when someone comes and says, hey, I think we're going to move on. We're going to go to this
00:51:35.020 other church, as long as it's somewhere in the realm of orthodoxy, it's Presbyterian, had people 0.84
00:51:39.720 leave the church because they developed Presbyterian convictions of paedo-baptism, baptizing their
00:51:43.660 babies. Well, I think we're going to go to this Presbyterian church, or I think we're going to go 0.98
00:51:47.420 to this Anglican church, or I think we're going to... That has happened dozens, dozens of times
00:51:54.000 just in the last three years. And sometimes people in the church who stay in the church,
00:52:00.180 who are faithful members, and these get frustrated with me because I let people go too easily.
00:52:04.400 I can't believe you.
00:52:05.760 And I'm like, they're allowed to leave.
00:52:07.640 Like church membership means something.
00:52:08.980 I don't want to make it mean nothing.
00:52:10.180 It's not trivial or trite.
00:52:11.800 It means something.
00:52:13.260 But the church membership covenant, it is a covenant,
00:52:17.280 but it is not on par or the same degree of covenant as a marriage covenant.
00:52:22.040 Right.
00:52:22.780 You're allowed to leave. 0.80
00:52:23.660 So one, we all have one wife.
00:52:26.580 Two, people leave.
00:52:28.680 That's a huge difference.
00:52:30.400 Yeah.
00:52:30.540 Right?
00:52:30.720 They leave, and with relative ease, frequently and easily, people leave our churches.
00:52:38.800 That would be another big difference.
00:52:40.420 And then the third thing that I would just throw in there is I'm not a millionaire.
00:52:46.180 Are you a millionaire?
00:52:47.220 Nope.
00:52:47.700 Are you a millionaire?
00:52:49.020 How many jets do you guys have?
00:52:50.700 Zero.
00:52:51.380 None.
00:52:52.000 Yeah, so for the troll, who probably didn't make it this far, but if there's a troll 0.99
00:52:56.080 or two that made it this far, and they're like, well, you guys, well, you're hypocrites. 0.98
00:53:00.080 You're talking about this cult Scientology, 0.99
00:53:01.700 but you're a part of the patriarchy cult,
00:53:03.420 or you're a part of the post-mill cult.
00:53:05.900 Grow up, get a life,
00:53:08.480 and you don't know what the heck you're talking about, respectfully.
00:53:12.560 These, just for the record, these jeans,
00:53:14.760 if someone does an audit of my clothing audit,
00:53:16.820 this is a $10 shirt from Ross.
00:53:19.440 This is a $15 pair of jeans I bought from Costco.
00:53:22.140 It's actually the first pair of jeans I bought in the year.
00:53:23.140 Hey, Costco actually has great clothes.
00:53:25.020 They're durable.
00:53:25.680 They do.
00:53:26.300 I saw a meme that talks about it.
00:53:28.560 is uh like when you finally realize you're old enough to buy a costco clothes without shame and
00:53:32.580 it's like it is time yeah so i i'm very proud to be sporting the new uh 15 costco jeans so uh good
00:53:39.660 job there dude they're um flannels yeah like two of my favorite flannels which you know yeah i'm a
00:53:45.520 30 you know mid 30s you know white male with a beard so naturally half of my wardrobe is flannels
00:53:51.660 um yeah but my two best ones are from costco they like they just they're like the flannel that will
00:53:57.540 never die. They're thick and they last. Yeah, well, I will say this in regards to, you know,
00:54:03.060 those, I mean, cult a lot of times now just tends to be a pejorative. It's like anything that I
00:54:07.420 don't like. Exactly. That's why I wanted to bring it up here at the end. Even a secondary issue of,
00:54:11.940 you know, a staunch disagreement. So, people have said, oh, are you going to talk about the
00:54:15.520 charismatic cult? Right. You know, and it's like, no, okay, there are elements of hyper-charismania
00:54:19.800 that can be cultish. We can talk about the prosperity gospel as a heresy. Right. But not
00:54:24.160 every charismatic falls under the banner of the prosperity gospel.
00:54:27.880 Right, right.
00:54:28.460 And so a lot of times they'll use cult as just sort of this emotional impact pejorative.
00:54:32.820 And that has to do that we're dealing, it's the nature of language in general in a postmodern
00:54:37.680 culture where words aren't based in the inherent meaning of what they, in the etymology of
00:54:42.600 what they actually are.
00:54:44.020 Words are basically conformed to how it makes you feel.
00:54:47.420 And so when that's the root etymology is the here and there of your emotions.
00:54:51.960 and so many ways like I said the word cult is the pejorative just something I don't like right
00:54:57.860 because I had people even as I was I was announcing this we're going to do this series you know I had
00:55:02.460 people on YouTube you know saying uh as we did some preview videos and saying like are you going
00:55:06.600 to cover you know you're covering 10 different cults are you going to cover one of the most
00:55:10.100 deadly and dangerous and quickly growing cults the cult of Calvinism you know and uh and it's
00:55:15.640 funny like so stuff like that you know so like saying exactly what you said it's a pejorative
00:55:19.040 So saying, well, you're a part of a cult.
00:55:22.940 No, there are actual criteria to define.
00:55:26.420 Cults are, there are definitive criteria to define cult versus a major world religion.
00:55:36.080 Like, for instance, Islam is not a cult.
00:55:38.940 It's wrong. 0.62
00:55:39.720 But there is a difference between a cult and a major world religion, even if the major world religion happens to be a false religion.
00:55:48.360 So yeah, just saying it's a cult, it's the same as, you know, that's just what people do now with language.
00:55:52.820 So like saying that you're a racist or saying that you're anti-Semitic, you know, or whatever.
00:55:56.580 Like I saw a meme the other day on Twitter.
00:55:58.380 I thought it was hilarious.
00:55:59.220 It was Bane from Batman.
00:56:03.220 And it was like the line, but the words are changed slightly. 0.99
00:56:06.680 The guy is looking at Bane and says, you are racist, bigoted, anti-Semite. 0.95
00:56:12.760 And it shows Bane and he like holds him by the corner and says, you think this gives you power over me? 0.98
00:56:18.360 do you feel like you're on charge here do you think this gives you power over there
00:56:24.780 he's like who cares like the donald trump you know like like responses like who cares yeah like
00:56:31.500 that's the response like honestly if somebody calls you a racist today 99 of the time you can
00:56:36.540 biblically and appropriately in a god a christ-honoring way respond with uh by saying who
00:56:41.680 cares because you're not actually a racist right not it's not to say who like in the in the objective
00:56:47.500 sense that you shouldn't care about racism. It's just to say, no, you're lying. I'm not actually
00:56:52.340 a racist, not by any objective definable measure. That word has no meaning anymore, not because I
00:56:58.620 ruined it, but because you emptied it of its meaning. You're literally just using it as a
00:57:03.480 pejorative to dismiss the truth of Scripture that I'm preaching. And so when you call me a racist,
00:57:08.600 no, it does not. I don't lose a moment of sleep. I do not feel bad. It does not give you power over
00:57:17.120 me. I'm going to, according to your definition of racism, I am going to racist even harder
00:57:22.700 from here on out. So all that being said, no, Christianity, to stop making it just personally
00:57:29.540 about us, let's broaden it now. Christianity is not a cult. Right. Yeah. And so I'll give like
00:57:35.640 two examples. And Andrew, I can give you maybe give your thoughts on it too. So one would be
00:57:39.680 just a small microcosm, look at like Apologia and just, you know, I've known, like I've had a
00:57:44.080 relationship with Jeff Durbin that goes back 20 plus years, even pre-Apologia. And it's funny
00:57:50.780 just because I've just known him for who he is. So, I have just this disconnect from the perception
00:57:56.560 that someone has who's seen him on YouTube. But within our congregation, I think whenever there's
00:58:02.140 been somebody who comes in who's starstruck, who has that, and again, it's not just our church or
00:58:10.000 apologia or response ministries, I think just the nature of social media in general is that we tend
00:58:16.420 to create a perception of somebody through the avatar of themselves that we perceive through
00:58:23.380 the realm of social media. So someone comes in and they see Jeff is just like, wow, this amazing
00:58:30.060 superhuman celebrity pastor and all this stuff, these preconceptions that are made, you know,
00:58:35.560 through social media, there's probably preconceptions that people would have about us
00:58:39.340 regarding that. But anybody who's ever come in because of that, we've always been there. We've
00:58:45.060 always had a lot of reservations being kind of like, okay, let's have you just simmer down a
00:58:50.460 little bit, right? And I think one of the things I've noticed is that those, and this is probably
00:58:56.320 indicative of churches elsewhere, those who have sort of looked up to Jeff or other pastors in our
00:59:05.840 church as sort of this sort of notable celebrity-like figure end up having the hardest time
00:59:11.860 and struggling because once they're viewed without partiality, um, both with men and women,
00:59:18.000 whether someone is in sin, uh, and showing, uh, and judging a situation without partiality and
00:59:23.160 they're dealt with and they're confronted on something, they don't know how to handle that
00:59:27.420 because all of a sudden that celebrity who has made me feel good and nostalgia and on cloud.
00:59:32.920 Now I feel like I'm part of this grandos thing bigger than myself, and you have a—and then you're also putting a misconception of even what the church is.
00:59:44.120 This is a body of people in covenant community with very different backgrounds, and sometimes for you, you're going to grind into each other and bump shoulders and hurt each other and sin against one another.
00:59:56.300 And all of a sudden, when that paradigm shift, the glass is shattered of normalcy, where say you're just confronted on a particular sin, or there's somebody who unbeknownst sins against you, like two different scenarios, all of a sudden their paradigms are shattered and they don't know what to do with that.
01:00:17.220 And then they leave, and then later they could become embittered, and those are the ones who
01:00:24.380 give the biggest cry of spiritual abuse and being abused because of the fact that they
01:00:30.780 had these preconceived expectations that they brought upon themselves because they saw the
01:00:35.760 passage as something that they are not.
01:00:37.880 So those—and again, a cult mentality is that you look at the leader as this grand messianic
01:00:44.620 figure.
01:00:45.000 you think about, you know, the people in North Korea who would look at Kim Jong-un or Kim Jong-il
01:00:49.840 just crying and saying he's the devoted messianic leader. Those who do that end up being the most 0.70
01:00:57.620 incompatible with a biblically-based church. So, there's that. The other thing I'll say as far as
01:01:03.180 just dealing with Christianity in general, as far as the gospel, and again, we get the stunningly
01:01:08.340 original the last five years, the one-star review is, oh, you're just a podcast on cults hosted by
01:01:13.480 cults thinking that they're suddenly original. It's like, oh, wow, you put so much intellectual
01:01:18.060 thought into that. That's okay. I thought it's time for me to throw in the towel. We had a good
01:01:23.260 run. We're done. That's basically your ace of spades on us. No, well, here's the distinction
01:01:28.320 between biblical Christianity and every other false religion, and particularly cult, is that
01:01:35.400 they're always based in a private esoteric revelation, private experience. You see this 0.77
01:01:41.040 with L. Ron Hubbard. You're going to see it with Charles Taze Russell, which we're going to talk
01:01:44.940 about, and also Joseph Smith that we'll continue to talk about. You will see all of these, and
01:01:50.480 specifically in this example, L. Ron Hubbard was this private, internal, esoteric experience by how
01:01:57.960 I came to knowledge about everything that's depicted in Dianetics, and about Xenu, and the
01:02:03.160 fact that we are operating Thetans. This all was internally verified where you are looking, the
01:02:07.840 paraphrase Vodibachum, you're looking at an external revelation, an external standard,
01:02:12.500 a reliable collection of historical documents that was written by eyewitnesses during the
01:02:17.440 lifetime of other eyewitnesses. It was a public accounting and a public record. That's the
01:02:23.260 account that Paul makes when Jesus rose from the dead. He said, hey, we've got 500 people who saw
01:02:28.140 him. We have 500 people who saw him. You know, some have passed away, some have fallen asleep,
01:02:32.400 but hey, there's, there's, there's, there's, you know, this is, you know, I think it'll bring
01:02:37.760 to the modern day, like, hey, we've got some friends over in Austin. Let's go talk to them.
01:02:42.640 They'll talk to you about where they saw him last Friday. We've got somebody over here who saw him
01:02:48.100 over here. And so, that's really what you had, a very openly, publicly verified historical
01:02:54.100 account of a public record that's independently verified by those who are followers of Christ,
01:03:00.000 but even independent historians like Josephus, whereas you have other areas where it's private
01:03:07.040 esoteric revelation. That's one of the reasons why the first battle that Christians came in 0.98
01:03:11.500 contact with was the Gnostics. They were public enemy number one, because all of their 1.00
01:03:17.460 spirituality came from secret gnosis, secret power. And again, there's nothing new under the
01:03:25.000 sun. Scientology sort of had that modernity. We figured out something else that no one else has
01:03:30.080 done before. No, this is just, they were, first century had probably a lot of different L. Ron
01:03:35.780 Hubbard's that were doing this, that, and the other. And that's what Christians were doing in 0.99
01:03:39.540 the first century. And, you know, once, if Scientology dwindled away and crumbled tomorrow, 0.89
01:03:44.420 you would see it fragment and you would see it syncretized and re-syncretized. There will be
01:03:49.860 cult leaders who might take, in the same way how L. Ron Hubbard took elements from a lot of
01:03:54.140 different components, there are those who would incorporate elements of the works of Scientology.
01:04:00.260 In fact, one of the areas that was depicted in season three of Scientology, the Aftermath was
01:04:04.660 a blending between Scientology. It was the Luce Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. They actually
01:04:10.520 are utilizing the Scientology curriculum now as part of how they're implementing. So, they're
01:04:17.140 syncretizing. That'll be a real-life case study of those who are doing it. So, yeah, I think that
01:04:22.560 would be, generally speaking, internally, like those who view pastors as this celebrity in an
01:04:28.720 improper way. And people could do it with you, too. You know, like I have misconceptions. I
01:04:33.020 thought your chair was a lot bigger but uh wait what i thought that chair is bigger oh it's that
01:04:38.560 one that's that one over there okay i was trying to make sense that that's the morpheus chair
01:04:41.980 yeah um yeah those are welcome to the real um but yeah those those are my those are my two
01:04:46.760 assessments but anyways uh andrew what's the final thoughts yeah yeah let me take a stab at this this
01:04:50.820 is a fun one so when i'm thinking about the the trope really that well you are a christian you
01:04:57.940 are in a cult, your cult leader is Jesus. He had esoteric revelations. Typically when we're hearing
01:05:03.920 this type of argument against us, it's coming from an atheistic materialist, right? So the first
01:05:09.840 question I have for them is, what does that matter anyways? Right? So, and then my other question
01:05:15.240 would be, according to your standards, let me put the shoe back on your foot. So let's take Steve
01:05:20.060 Hassan's bite model, for example, which is behavior control, information control, thought control,
01:05:25.300 emotion control. Let me apply that standard to post-modern atheistic agnostic experience in the
01:05:30.580 world today. Behavior control. So how are you supposed to act? Where do you learn to grow up?
01:05:35.340 What's your epistemology? So how do you have a justification for the knowledge that you have?
01:05:38.960 What are you learning? So let's think about that. So in regards to a cult, what I believe
01:05:43.820 is that there is truth. There is objective truth. And the atheist doesn't like that. Because if
01:05:47.800 there's objective truth, then there's objective judgment for sin, which is transgression against
01:05:51.360 the law of God. And there's wrath that is coming for wrong actions against that God. But when I'm
01:05:56.460 thinking in terms of atheism, behavior control. So when you're going to your government schools,
01:06:00.660 what are you learning, right? Oh, you are part of a random chance explosion that came from
01:06:06.440 nothing without actually good evidence for it. But you were once a fish, right? That
01:06:11.900 protoplasm fish to philosopher today. So within that framework, you have your own different
01:06:18.560 set of presuppositions about what humanity is and who you are, right? So once you get out of that
01:06:25.420 framework, see me, I'm a biblical creationist. I say, no, the world was created in six days because
01:06:29.500 that's what God says. Well, I'm not allowed to think that according to you. So you already have
01:06:34.720 some type of information, thought, and behavior control because you have a different set of
01:06:38.080 presuppositions than I do. I'd say that the atheistic cult is the cult of Darwin
01:06:43.020 in a cult of scientism. So I would argue using the same standard that you are also in a cult,
01:06:49.180 but then let's stack up against each other the wrongs that these cults have done, right? So
01:06:53.800 within biblical Christianity, I have the standard of God's word that says thou shall not murder,
01:06:59.100 okay? It is wrong to kill people. Within the cult of atheistic Darwinianism, there is nothing wrong
01:07:05.480 with killing in general, right? You can't have a justification for it. It's just one person doing
01:07:11.040 something wrong against another. There's no moral accountability for it. There's no such thing as
01:07:14.720 morals in the first place because they're transcendental. They're not material. But
01:07:19.280 in regards to our death count, let's think about the fruit of the atheistic worldview. We've got
01:07:23.860 Mao, we've got Stalin, and guess what? We have the same people who call Christianity a cult who
01:07:29.000 are redefining what life is in the womb and killing babies before they're ever even born.
01:07:33.920 And what's the death count? I think the last time I looked at the world abortion meter,
01:07:38.140 It's somewhere upwards in between, I think it's like 1.6 to 1.7 billion humans have been 0.99
01:07:43.880 slaughtered in the womb because there's people who seek to redefine what life is and they kill
01:07:48.160 them before they even exist. That's called genocide. But Andrew, the crusades, all of them
01:07:52.220 combined killed almost 50,000 people, right? Like, I mean, you know, like I think it was like maybe
01:08:00.200 30 something thousand Muslims were killed and all the crusades combined over the course of
01:08:05.240 multiple centuries. So Christianity is really, really icky. We're talking about tens of thousands 1.00
01:08:10.840 of people. And over here with the atheistic Darwinian view, it's only a little shade above
01:08:17.020 a billion. Right. It's insane that this conversation even happens on a regular basis.
01:08:25.240 It continues. And the irony is it just shows how much more education we need, how little we know
01:08:33.160 about history, how little, how ignorant, because atheists tend to pride themselves in being 0.99
01:08:37.940 educated, but they're so uneducated. They just, like, historically, they just, they don't, 1.00
01:08:44.180 Christianity on its worst day, like Christendom, I mean, like, whatever you, whoever you, your bad,
01:08:50.760 you know, arch villain of, you know, Christendom was, take Constantine, take whoever it is, 1.00
01:08:55.220 like, Christianity throughout history, with all the documentation, all the records, 0.57
01:09:00.620 on its very worst day cannot even come close
01:09:05.620 to the best day of a secular humanist nation, ruler.
01:09:13.660 I mean, goodness gracious, if it was a contest 0.58
01:09:16.700 of who can kill the most people,
01:09:19.200 we are losing by almost an infinite chasm.
01:09:24.460 You just don't understand history.
01:09:26.000 I think that's a big part of it is like, 1.00
01:09:27.720 okay, atheists, that's great. 0.99
01:09:29.520 you're studying biology and, you know, poorly, you know, but studying physics, studying, you know, 0.99
01:09:34.180 quantum physics, whatever it might be, but you certainly don't understand the history of the
01:09:38.840 human race. Yeah. And going back to like Judaism real quick, if we were to think about someone to
01:09:43.740 argue, well, Christianity is a cult of Judaism. Well, we have to go back even to Genesis 3. 0.77
01:09:47.540 There's the promise of the Messiah to come. They're always looking forward to the one individual who
01:09:51.060 would be that true prophet, Deuteronomy 18. And the argument from Jesus is that he is that
01:09:56.020 fulfillment of that true prophet, right? He says to the Pharisees, if you believe the words of
01:10:00.660 Moses, you'd believe in me because Moses wrote about me. John the Baptist echoed, he who comes 0.87
01:10:04.800 after me is better than me because he came before me. He existed before me. Who is Jesus Christ?
01:10:09.740 The word made flesh. So in regards to what we believe about the Messiah, he's the fulfillment
01:10:14.240 of Judaism. He is Jesus Christ and there's an empty tomb and he defeated death. Christianity
01:10:18.760 is objectively true. And when you actually argue against him, you argue against the very
01:10:24.880 grounds of logic and justification and uniformity of nature. Like, it's just, that's just the reality
01:10:30.020 of it. You can't actually have an argument, so. Right. And it really is a consistent thread. When
01:10:34.380 you look at the Old Testament and you go straight through the New Testament, it's just this one
01:10:38.780 consistent thread. Because I think a lot of people in terms of, you know, Christianity and Judaism,
01:10:44.320 they think Christianity is a, it's a cultish offshoot of Judaism. But the reality is, no,
01:10:51.300 this is just the consistent fulfillment. Um, the offshoot is Talmudic Judaism. Um, Talmudic 0.92
01:10:57.360 Judaism is not, it's not like, uh, people think, you know, Christianity is old Testament plus new
01:11:01.640 Testament. And then Judaism is, uh, old Testament only, uh, no, no, no, no, no. Um, Talmudic Judaism
01:11:09.020 has its new Testament. It has its, you know, it's extra book. Um, it's not just old Testament only 0.70
01:11:15.080 it's the old Testament plus the Talmud, which, um, interprets the old Testament, but really
01:11:20.780 The way to think about modern Judaism today is the same way you should, very similar to how you would think about Mormonism.
01:11:29.140 So, well, but Mormons have the Bible. 0.76
01:11:30.640 They just have an extra book. 0.98
01:11:32.060 Yeah, but that extra book un-writes all the Bible.
01:11:35.340 Yep.
01:11:35.760 That's what the Talmud does with the Old Testament.
01:11:37.980 So it's not, well, you know, Judaism, it can't be that bad because it's half of the Christian faith or two-thirds.
01:11:43.440 You know, they got the Old Testament, we got the Old Testament plus the New.
01:11:45.780 No, we have the Old Testament, and we read it very much in light of the New. The New helps
01:11:51.720 provide those lenses that helps us to see all the rich treasures and prophecies and promises
01:11:57.900 of the Old Testament. And they have their New Testament that works as a lens to read the Old
01:12:03.100 Testament too, except their lens, our lens is the New Testament, which is the gospel and apostolic
01:12:09.160 account of Christ. Jesus is our lens for reading the Old Testament, and they have a lens also.
01:12:14.800 the Talmud, but it is a demonic lens. Our lens is Christ, and their lens is demonic, and it 0.50
01:12:22.820 causes them, so it's not that they have half of the truth. The half that they have, the Torah, 0.71
01:12:28.340 the Old Testament, has all been twisted by the Talmud. And so, not only is Christianity not a 0.91
01:12:36.120 offshoot cult of Judaism, modern Judaism, Talmudic Judaism, is actually an offshoot cult.
01:12:44.800 of, um, the, the actual Old Testament. Amen. All right. Well, thank you guys for that. That 0.72
01:12:51.520 was a long one, but thanks for tuning in. And, um, yeah, we will hit you with the next few
01:12:56.700 episodes. This is a part of a 10 part series. It might become an 11 part series. I don't know.
01:13:00.620 We'll see. Um, but yeah, tune in. And if you want to catch all of them ad free and not have to wait
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01:13:11.280 right response ministries patreon.com forward slash right response ministries god bless real
01:13:17.180 quick before you go we hope that you enjoyed the episode and we hope that you're eager for more
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