Sinner or Saint: Will Retherford on Navigating Religious Waters

[00:00:00] This winter, take your icon pass north. North to abundant access, to powder skiing legacy, to independent spirit. North where easy to get to, meets worlds away. Go north to Snow Basin. Now on the icon pass.

[00:00:26] The views and opinions expressed by a little bit cultier, those are the hosts. And don't reflect the official policy or position of the podcast.

[00:00:34] Any of the quote, fire content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors of the opinion and are not intended to malign a religion, a group, a club, an organization, business individual, anyone or anything, unless they're... You're a douchebag.

[00:00:48] Yeah, we're not doctor, psychologist, therapist, license counselors or shamans, even though you kind of think you are sometimes. I'm like an urban shaman. Okay? Good talk. Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here.

[00:01:08] And I'm Anthony Ames, aka Nippy, Sarah's husband and you're listening to A Little Bit Culty, aka ALBC, a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side.

[00:01:20] We've been there and back again. A little about us, true story, we met and fell in love in a cult and then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge. And the whole thing was captured in HBO docu-series The Vow now in its second season.

[00:01:33] I also wrote about our experience in my memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped next to him, the cult that bound my life.

[00:01:40] Look at us, couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night where we interview experts and advocates and things like cult awareness and mind control. Wait, wait. This does not count toward date night bait. We got to schedule that that's separate.

[00:01:53] So it was two days we got to hang out? We do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium. Still on that journey and we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers.

[00:02:05] We know all too well that culty things happen. It happens to people every day across every walk of life. So join us each week to tackle these culty dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level marketing.

[00:02:16] This stuff really is everywhere. The cultiverse just keeps on expanding and so are we. Welcome to season five of A Little Bit Cultie, serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms. Learn more at alittlebitculti.com

[00:02:32] Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of A Little Bit Cultie. Yeah, I just had a little violent clearing of the throat before we started here. You alright? Like granola. It's doing its thing.

[00:03:01] It's a real culprit. Well, we just got back from a little mini-trip over Troy Spring Break to Savannah, Georgia. It was pretty amazing. If you haven't been to Savannah, I highly suggest you go. Don't drive back to Atlanta and hit rush hour traffic in Atlanta.

[00:03:14] That was not fun. But the rest of the trip was really fun. It was perfect up until that point. Ever since we moved to Atlanta, people have been like, oh, you have to go to Savannah. I was like, okay, Savannah, I get it. Sounds great.

[00:03:24] And then we decided to go for Spring Break and I actually didn't look it up. I didn't have any image in my mind of why Savannah was so beautiful. I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad. It was a surprise.

[00:03:32] It's like you're not watching a trailer of a movie before you go see it. What did you think? Honestly, I knew it was historic. So I knew there was... So I really knew like there's a history there.

[00:03:43] But for people who haven't been like picture the architecture and the history in the old world feeling of being in Europe and England and France. What did you say? Oh, what did I think? You think it was like trailer hitches and beaches?

[00:03:54] What was really like surprising also in addition to the incredible food and the history and the architecture and the moss coming from the trees. Was it called? Spanish moss. Spanish moss, like it's so... Which is neither Spanish nor moss. Wow. But it was very romantic.

[00:04:10] I'd love to go back just for you too. Fair enough. Although I had a great time with the kids. It's not called romantic moss. It's called Spanish moss. Okay. But we almost every day ran into... It was nuts just when I thought it was over.

[00:04:23] We ran into random people who knew the podcast ourselves. But like listen, I think I'm somewhat indifferent to that. I always appreciate when someone comes up and says something. I like that.

[00:04:36] And they're always very humble and like grateful when they do it and never has it been intrusive. So it's always been positive. But we're talking like random, like there's a truck or is it called the food truck? The Starlin Yard food trucks.

[00:04:52] Which by the way, if you go to Savannah you have to go. And the person at the cash register recognized us. Yeah, she's a little familiar. It's Sarah Kay. Actually there was two Sarahs in Savannah who ended up being our sort of tour guides as we got there.

[00:05:03] That was amazing. She was the cashier. The other Jewish Sarah in Georgia. There's two Jewish Sarahs in Georgia now. And she gave us the download and the history. She was great. She actually told us about the trucks. We gave her a little bit called the hat.

[00:05:15] We ran into Melanie McLeod from Boston on the street who also gave us a bunch of tips. I love when I go to a new city, I love finding out what like the locals like and what people, what's the city known for?

[00:05:25] What are the specialties beyond the tourist traps? You know, like... And you're very good at that. Thank you. I know you also find it a little bit annoying. No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean tacitly in my head I'm judging you.

[00:05:37] But you also appreciate when I take you to the best coffee shop. I also appreciate, yes. Not like Starbucks because you don't do that. And by the way, the Mexican mocha. The Mexican mocha from Foxy Loxy. I had two of them with four shots in it.

[00:05:48] And I'm not a big coffee guy. Okay. And then on the car ride back, you're calling an acting studio to book me an audition. That was crazy. Because Sarah plays great secretary while I'm driving in traffic. It's an ass car out there. It really is.

[00:06:02] Anyway, point is she goes Anthony Ames and a little pause and the woman says... Is this Sarah? And I go... Yes, this is Sarah. I've been following her podcast. I got out and she told us a little bit about her call. Cannot wait to meet her.

[00:06:20] I'm not going to say her name because I don't know how public she is, but this has just been crazy, like the reach of this podcast and we're super appreciative. But this is like universe stuff, right? It is universe stuff. Remember what I saw?

[00:06:32] I'll share with my audience. I was like, I think I told you I had about six months to a year of doing this. I just don't like being... It's hard for me to be on the other end of... Try not.

[00:06:41] And be emotionally engaged all the time with some of our guests. And I told myself, I've ever felt that I got to like pivot and something, you know? And then just to go out the very week I'm thinking about this experience. It's just positive what we're doing.

[00:06:54] And I think it reminded me of why do this in the first place. If you have a lane in the platform to help people, you have to take it, I think. You don't have to, but I think it's a great thing to do.

[00:07:08] I got more and more reinvigorated as to why we were doing what we're doing. And I was like, are we going to do acting? I put the question in the universe then I get an auditioned, you get a voiceover. So it's like keep doing what you're doing.

[00:07:19] Keep doing it. Keep acting. Keep with the podcast. It was me just being aligned with the universe. Are you aligned with the universe? Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're aligned with the universe.

[00:07:28] And it's not a hard segue to talk about the fact that we even have a podcast thanks to our guest today. Kind of laid that up for you there. Yeah, you set it up for me. Our guest is a very special person in our lives.

[00:07:41] Why is he special, sir? Well, he's actually a member of the little bit culty team. He's the heartbeat, you might say. The think tank. Some of you may have heard this in other episodes. We did the vow. Our lives kind of blew up in this weird way.

[00:07:54] And then his wife, Keras, actually reached out to us and said, you should do a podcast. And I was like, no, I'm done talking about it. Oh god, I'm done. What was that voice? Do you have a reputation of me? No, no. Oh no, no, fuck this.

[00:08:06] I'm done. Fuck this. Told my story. Well, he talked me into it. Will was like... We were both skeptical. Yeah. But you were more open than I was. I was more like, tell me why.

[00:08:15] And I was kind of like, all right, Will, give me a reason to do it. And he was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. You have a platform. Your story's done this and this. And I was like... And he's now our production partner.

[00:08:24] It's kind of hard to argue about. Now he's our production partner and sound partner. He's a co-founder and lead producer over at Citizens of Sound, which he runs with his wife, Keras, in order to produce shows that make a difference.

[00:08:35] But the real question is why is Will our guest today, Sarah? That is the real question. And he grew up in the evangelical church, specifically the word of faith, which he now calls a little bit culty. Dare I say, he became a worship leader

[00:08:48] during the years between high school and his mid-20s, eventually evolving into an Episcopalian, which was his favorite version of Christianity. And as a reminder, there's no shortage of different types of Christianity. He almost became an Episcopal priest, released worship albums within the Christian music industry,

[00:09:03] and even went on 15 missionary trips, preaching the gospel to people in order to save them. Zambia, India, Romania, Honduras, practically you name it. Will's probably been there teaching them about God or one version of God anyway. And eventually he moved from New York City,

[00:09:18] back to Tulsa, where he was from, and decided to leave his aspirations of priesthood behind. I thank God he did. Do I thank God that he did? I don't know. Well, I am. That's what we're here to talk about. Why did he do all that?

[00:09:28] And without further ado, our dear friend, Sir William. Sir William Rutherford. Will Rutherford, this has been two years in the making at least. Hi guys. Hi, welcome to the Coltty. He's made a podcast. He's made a podcast in the meantime. Welcome to the podcast.

[00:09:56] I'm so happy to be here. That you initiated. This is amazing. All right, Will, are you familiar with our format? You guys talk about cults and things like that. So what we like to do is we start with how you got in. No, actually, in all seriousness,

[00:10:09] it really is a special episode because you are guest today. I'll tell you, dear listeners, he is not only a member of the little bit Colty team, but he's our production partner. He's our sound producer. He's the co-founder and lead producer at Citizens of Sound,

[00:10:24] which he runs with his wife, Keras in order to produce shows that make a difference. So why is he our guest today? Well, he's our guest because just over two years ago, Will and Keras slid into my DMs, I believe it was mine and was like,

[00:10:37] you all should do a podcast. Like we love the vow and you should do a podcast. And I think the conversation was appreciate that, but like I'm pretty sure the vow put it all out there and we're done.

[00:10:49] But like it was COVID so we entertained a phone call with Keras, right? You should find those emails and post them. Maybe we will. How involved were you at that stage? So this was the pandemic and we were watching a lot of TV and we were like,

[00:11:05] a lot of people trying to figure out what the hell are we going to do? Are we going to survive? Is this going to go like the last of us style or are we going to, are we going to regulate and everything's going to be okay.

[00:11:16] So we were in the process of starting our podcast business and we were watching the vow and I remember two episodes and I was like, I mean, so far it just doesn't seem that bad. I mean, because it was very comfortable language and even kind of familiar

[00:11:31] language that I was used to kind of growing up in the church and stuff. And then by the time we got the end of that, we were like, what the fuck? And we definitely related in a lot of ways just from our upbringing.

[00:11:43] And so while we were starting our business, we were sliding into a lot of DMs being like, hi, how's the pandemic treating you? Are you surviving? Well, are you interested in podcasts? We would write people like on Instagram who were influencers who had a story. Interesting.

[00:11:59] And that's kind of how we got started. And so Karris was like, I feel like I want to write Sarah. I think we could, there could be a podcast about cults that they could do. So I remember we were specifically really liked you and Nippy on the show

[00:12:11] and you guys had really fun personalities. So that was Karris' stepping out and then that led to a date on Zoom. Nippy wasn't sure how he felt about me yet and then the rest is history. It was more about I was fucking done.

[00:12:24] I didn't want to talk about it. I felt like if we were going to move on with our lives from this, like podcasts wasn't the way to do it. Right. And then. Sorry about that. Well, I pitched the idea by Jess.

[00:12:37] Will and Karris pitched the idea and then we put it out on the Instagram. On the Instagram. On the Instagram, we said who wants to hear more? And so many people did. And that's when Jess reached out with the title a little bit culty. And then.

[00:12:48] Well, that's right. Yeah, Sarah, you put out a note. Like who would be interested in a podcast? And then I guess apparently you got a whole bunch of responses being like, whole bunch. Please, please, please. And everybody said yes, totally do it except one person said no.

[00:12:59] It was like one of those polls on Instagram stories. And the one person who said no is Sandra, our incredible like very part-time assistant does all sorts of other things. And I was like, why no? She's like, cause you're so busy.

[00:13:11] Like when are you possibly going to have time? And every now and then I messaged her, like Sandra, I'm drowning. Can you please like file my taxes? She's helped us a lot. She's like, I told you so. She's totally right. We're just pitched that season.

[00:13:23] And then I was like, hmm, I could kind of see it. And then it was my conversation with you. And I was like, okay, I know why I wouldn't do it. And you're like, why should I? And you were like, there's more to hear you're helping people.

[00:13:34] And I was like, hmm, and we don't have to do anything. So put a mic in our room during COVID. But one of the things you said to me right from the beginning is we're having these conversations anyway. Right. Right.

[00:13:47] And then we were talking to Yanya Lalich and Steven Hassan and Dan Shaw, like why not record them and share them? I'm so glad that you and Karris reached out. But I'm curious when you were watching the vow, we're kind of like working backwards here.

[00:13:58] Like had you already kind of deprogrammed from your cultie and we're going to call it evangelical, specifically word of faith, right? Which you grew up in. Yeah. And I kind of had left the word of faith movement a long time ago,

[00:14:11] but I was still recently fresh out of the church, but I had officially what maybe you'd call a finished my D programming or my deconstruction. And it happened, you know, coincidentally, same time as the pandemic, while the world is having a crisis,

[00:14:24] I was kind of having my personal existential crisis being like, I woke up one morning and I was like, it's all gone. It's all gone. Everything that was attached to me that was in my brain

[00:14:34] that I felt like I was a slave to where I couldn't get away from. Was just completely gone. So it was interesting. Yeah. Watching the vow was almost like watching a memory more than like relating in real time. It was more like, I remember feeling those feelings.

[00:14:48] I remember people like that. I remember buzzwords like that. I remember. And so yeah, I'm definitely in a more of a reflective place on all of it now, but I was still decently fresh out of the womb. Right. I guess you can say in a metaphoric type way.

[00:15:03] Well, for those who don't know, I mean, we've touched on evangelical Christianity, but let's just go back. Were you born into it? Were your parents evangelical? Yeah, I was born into it. And evangelical is more of an adjective than it is a denomination.

[00:15:17] So it's more like a type of Christian. So you can have evangelical type Catholics or Episcopals or Methodist or non-denominational type church people. I didn't know that. What does that mean then? Like proselytizing? Basically, it's the mission of sharing the good news, sharing the gospel.

[00:15:35] And it's the idea of evangelizing and sharing the Bible and God with everybody that you come in contact with. It's kind of evangelical of everything then. It's free advertising. Yeah, it's like a practice. Yeah, it's a large pool. And then what's interesting is within the Christian world,

[00:15:52] it's kind of like music that there are so many different types of subgenres. Literally you can have one instrument in this album and that makes it a specific subgenre. Like it makes it a little jazzy or if in electronic music you have electronica or trap.

[00:16:07] Religion is almost the same way where there's so many different types of Christian groups that have formed, that have broke off, that have split, that have gone this way and that have gone that way based off of maybe a very small difference or maybe a large difference.

[00:16:21] Even like the Episcopal church is known for being pro-woman and pro-queer but there was a break-off one called Echakna that is not pro-women and not pro-queer. So there's so many different versions of Christianity. How do you know? Like how do you, is it like a Wikipedia page?

[00:16:37] Like how do people know when they're signing up what they're getting into? Like am I going to be okay here from gay or like not? Or like how do, is it just word of mouth? Like is it written down somewhere? Excuse me, ignorance.

[00:16:47] I mean a lot of churches in their about sections on their churches will say the most important thing to look for is like what type of denomination is this church? Because a lot of churches now will be like we are Synergy Church

[00:16:59] and we are just about the gospel and it's very watered down and you don't know what type of church it is so you have to go digging and you're like oh this actually is a Baptist church. Oh now I know that their doctrine

[00:17:11] is probably going to be a little bit fundamental even though they might be portraying themselves as fresh, young, free, hip, cool. Oh but if you look in the about section they come from Baptist roots or they're still a Baptist church.

[00:17:26] So I don't know all the tenets of Baptist again there's so many. Give us a history of the theology of the Baptist church. No, I really don't want to shit on Baptist because there are good Baptists and we might even have Baptist listeners

[00:17:37] but traditionally there are a lot more fundamental type beliefs in like Baptist doctrine. You know like no drinking and you know not queer affirming stuff like that so at least Southern Baptists are known for that. There's a lot of subgenres. And that was Eric Skorzynski from Preacher Boys

[00:17:53] was International Fundamentalist Baptist which was very extreme. So that's another subgenre of that group right? Got it. Are they all extreme? Are there any that don't have like some of the culty tenets that we've been discussing are they all kind of get that way

[00:18:08] or some just kind of come and go or like... We can back up a little bit more like I want to be clear that this isn't really an anti-religious talk because Right, no. Like religion can be a very very good thing.

[00:18:19] Unfortunately there are a lot of culty things within religion in specific churches and because there are places of power within the church it's very easy access for an abuser or a narcissist to find their footing or find a place in. So there are lots of beautiful, great

[00:18:36] life-giving churches that promote peace and that promote a life of love. Community. Yeah, community and non-judgmental but then on the flip side there's the complete opposite like a control environment. This is the only way to see the world to believe in life.

[00:18:50] And then where that evangelical gets his bad rap is really from like that urgency of Jesus could come back any day and we have to save his people so therefore we're going to go and spread the word and tell everybody that they're wrong and that we're right

[00:19:05] and they shouldn't do that when they should do this and they need to repent and follow Jesus and often being like following Jesus might be that specific group's interpretation of what Jesus is or what those beliefs are or what you should be doing or thinking about the world.

[00:19:20] So you have all these groups competing with saving everybody with completely different ideologies of what God actually means or what eternity actually means. I'll echo your point just for any listener who hasn't been listening from the beginning of episode one. Now we're almost at 90 that Nipi and I

[00:19:36] are not shitting on religion. If you're in a community, in a group that's healthy and you're happy and you're not being coerced or manipulated or there's no like, you know, charismatic leader all these things, all these points that we've taught along the way

[00:19:48] like, you know, stay in your group. We're just giving you tools to look at look at your church in this case and see if it's a healthy, safe place for you to be. Right? Yeah, absolutely. So you grew up in Word of Faith. What was that about? Yeah.

[00:20:01] Yeah. And that really belongs to the denomination called Pentecostalism. So what does that mean? This is a Protestant denomination or non-denomination and it really emphasizes the direct personal experience to God through like the Holy Spirit and kind of this idea of like

[00:20:19] you believe in God but then receiving his spirit means that you have the gifts of the spirit, that you are like a full Christian that you are highly blessed and that you can be financially blessed you can be healthy, live a full life of relationships and purity

[00:20:36] and this kind of idea in Pentecostalism is also about the Bible of the inerrancy of the Bible which means it's without air. So like the book is completely perfect and there is no contradictions in it there's no errors at all.

[00:20:49] It's completely perfect almost as if a God itself. So you can read like a piece of the text that is obviously 2000 years old when there was actually slavery was like legal, right? But people still look at those verses and be like

[00:21:01] yeah but you know that verse still says X, Y and Z. So a lot of people get hung up on obviously the idea of like it's dated it can still be meaningful have some good stuff in it but you can't be so literal with something

[00:21:13] that was like 2000 years old. So Pentecostalism holds onto the Bible as like absolute truth don't drift in the Bible. Pentecostalism talks about the idea of new birth so if you haven't been born again repented and asked Jesus into your heart

[00:21:28] then you are currently on a pathway to hell where you will live eternity in this like fiery burning place of torture because you never accepted Jesus. So those are like two really big fundamental beliefs within the Pentecostal church and where evangelicalism comes from

[00:21:46] is the idea of like the second coming of Jesus Christ could happen any day could happen tomorrow, could happen 10 years from now so we always have to be ready and be preaching the gospel and talking to everybody about Jesus making sure they're not going to hell

[00:21:59] or you're not really a Christian or you're not really a believer because you're not evangelizing. So this whole way of thinking and this whole way of life is kind of broken down into its doctrine and a lot of those churches won't drift on their doctrine

[00:22:14] but you'll have different types of leaders and different types of churches who manifest that doctrine and some of them are like safe people they're not really mean bad people trying to hurt anybody but their whole entire view of reality in the way that the world is

[00:22:29] is kind of based on that like mindset so naturally you just kind of get this us versus them judgment thing from actual good people who think they're doing right and think that they are doing their best and they're just loving people and loving God

[00:22:42] and at the same time you also have power of users and narcissists using that same theology in taking advantage of people and spiritually abusing people and those churches could be literally next door to each other doing the same thing but one is more harmful than the other

[00:22:59] if that makes sense. Yeah, when people save people what do they like do they get gold stars? Do they get trophies? Sarah just wants to know how to enterprise this Oh my God, do I get a stripe on my sash? How do I get my stuff?

[00:23:13] Yeah, I believe an angel comes down and gives you a sash and you can put it in your collection it's something like that. No. There are people that believe the more good you do the more souls you save there's like some sort of eternity crown

[00:23:27] that does actually get jewels I knew it Yeah, that does actually have jewels on it that you will experience on the other side of life you'll get that crown So that kind of ship that motivates me so I get it. It's like Thanos. Yeah, the infinity crown

[00:23:42] infinity stones. So it sounds like each sect or each church is dependent on the leader at the time is that fair? In a lot of ways because again, religion is based off of like symbolism and symbolizing God and using Jesus as a symbol of God

[00:23:58] which I think could be helpful and okay for people to do like I'm not going to tell people not to do that if you want to do that that's a beautiful personal belief but I think the problem with that is because

[00:24:09] a lot of people have the symbolized God that's really only found in like a book or in their imagination in some ways leaders of church almost and this is where like priests come in they stand as like the representation of God and there are a lot of priests

[00:24:26] who do that in a really good way where they're like I'm obviously not God but I'm just going to be a symbol for you and read from this book about peace and love and hope that you can like find some meaning in it

[00:24:37] and then there are other people who are like yeah, I kind of am God it kind of goes to their head where they kind of become that leader and then like people do like you've seen they latch on to those leaders as if like well you know

[00:24:50] Pastor Jerry or Pastor so-and-so whatever they say they look at them as almost the many God on earth if they don't have anyone to follow it's that person they're following right so if you ever have seen the righteous gemstones on HBO so speaking of war to faith movement

[00:25:06] righteous gemstones it is the closest thing depicted on screen of what that movement in culture is like in a lot of ways like I said not everybody is an asshole and corrupt but a lot of the performance and there's like a bishop type guy the main leader

[00:25:23] and there's a lot of scandal that's always being covered up because it's a business and if the business goes under then everyone loses their money so a lot of that is true and that amount of money the one I grew up in is like multi-million dollar like non-profit

[00:25:38] mega church mega church yeah so where does all the money go I mean it's production I mean so basically like the church I grew up probably like 3,000 people and so there's staff there's obviously the pastor they do good things like they do food outreaches

[00:25:52] they do things for the city where they're putting money in there but also there's a lot of money that no one has any idea about what's going on and it's like it's kind of a mystery what were you going to say about Danny? oh yeah

[00:26:03] he was inspired by his mother being taken advantage of by a word of faith church and that's what inspired him to make the show which is out there found very interesting well did you just decide homework? so go watch Righteous Gemstones it's a little bit crass

[00:26:18] but it's really funny and really niche it's really funny it is definitely niche but it came to us at a time where I think we were again trying to take a break from the cult content and then we watched that and it was perfect actually

[00:26:31] because it was definitely a little bit culty but also hilarious and probably the only show I'd consider acting on or White Lotus yeah you could be like Judy's cousin or something it could be really funny I would totally be Judy's cause I would do anything

[00:26:44] I'd be an extra on that show it's got a great cast too let it be known it's got a great cast John Goodman John Goodman Gaggins he's worked with Tarantino a few times he's from Georgia right oh that's right they're both from Georgia but those churches exist now

[00:27:01] and thrive right Sarah I bet we could go drive in a two to three mile radius right now and find a couple you could especially your guys are in Atlanta, Georgia for sure yeah there's actually one right near us down the street I thought

[00:27:16] yeah I thought it was a furniture store and then I was like I was with Sarah the other day she was driving me around and I'm like at that furniture store it was like some PGA golf thing that they turned into a mega church

[00:27:30] it was crazy to hire traffic cops to navigate all the extra Sunday's nuts do you think we could infiltrate you guys could at least do like a docuseries and go in there undercover and record some stuff we can do it in our spare time we just walk

[00:27:43] a couple of miles do you think that we need costumes what do you wear what do you wear to a word of faith church service similar to what's in a righteous gender you have to dress up you wear a big smile and say y'all Sarah

[00:27:56] I bet you can do it hi y'all well yeah again there is like a whole Sunday's best so like there's a big drive on like you know go at least one tear up on Sunday morning to show respect but there is like a big cultural move

[00:28:08] of come as you are if you want to come in joggers it just really depends on the culture of the church and how like strict they are right so one thing I want to say about what was like different what was different about the word of faith movement

[00:28:20] again it's a word of faith movement in the Pentecostal denomination so not all Pentecostals are really a part of this movement specifically but this specific movement is word of faith because everything is based off of your belief and how much you believe and if you believe enough

[00:28:37] kind of this name it claim it mentality if you believe enough then you can be rich if you believe enough then you can get out of the wheelchair if you believe enough then X Y and Z you can get that job promotion there's like all these ideas

[00:28:49] of belief being the main thing you need to have and if you don't get any of those things then perhaps you don't believe enough or there's something holding you back in your belief in Jesus or have you tithed recently have you been giving money to the church

[00:29:01] that could be why you're not seeing any results so this kind of teaching would start to like spread that way and I saw it really harm a lot of people I really did so I see two things it's like toxic manifesting and makes it really right for abuse

[00:29:16] because if you don't have the thing that you want then it's just because you are not believing and when it works, guess who caused it to work well Jesus or pastor right oh the pastor you've been editing this show since the beginning

[00:29:29] so long enough to know that pretty much every group has somebody who's like okay so I talked to God and here's the deal yeah I know it's such an obvious red flag for someone who's not religious but if you are religious and you're buying into this person

[00:29:43] is the voice of God or representing God then why wouldn't you believe exactly and there's that whole concept of sheep and this is not to like shit on people but the concept of sheep is often people stop thinking critically at some level

[00:29:59] and they accept like a surface value and then they just start to follow they just listen to what a leader in power says or they just listen to their friends or what is the crowd doing so there's always a large percentage of people in the sense of like

[00:30:12] sheep mentality where they have stopped thinking critically about what they actually believe and what they're saying and how this is affecting their everyday life and what these tenants mean and so you do have like these big mega churches that and sometimes they aren't pushing really hard

[00:30:27] on those tenants they try to stay surface level for a period of time they make people feel comfortable and feel like everything is good and dandy and like the deeper you get into it kind of like cults I'm not calling it a cult

[00:30:38] I'm calling it a little bit culty you start to see the problematic issues the deeper you get into that kind of doctrine and that mindset before you share some of those problems what was your role like tell us about your childhood

[00:30:49] and like I know you got into production and like music and things like that was that in word of faith yeah so I grew up in the word of faith church and then I went to at the same time I went to a evangelical charismatic high school

[00:31:04] it wasn't Pentecostal but they could coexist in the same church universe like they were friends the pastors would shake each other's hand if they saw each other at the restaurant but they're on opposite sides of town and they have both large followings

[00:31:16] so I kind of was a part of like these two gigantic muscles of Tulsa these church muscles and the difference in my high school was more evangelical in the sense that they did mission trips every year and it was all about preaching the good news

[00:31:31] and we're not going to go super deep into the idea of the spear or the name and claim and stuff but the most important thing is sharing the gospel and getting people saved so I grew up at church in this thing

[00:31:41] and then I grew up in a high school like this and I was a musician so what I did was I got involved in my youth bands at my church and at my high school because it was a Christian high school so there's chapel so I'm becoming

[00:31:52] I'm being developed as a worship leader which is basically the person who leads the songs if you go to church there's a song leader someone singing on a mic on a guitar like you know leading the clapping a lot of that so I was becoming a worship leader

[00:32:06] throughout my whole entire high school upbringing did you know that or was that like that was something you were aspiring to be something I was aspiring to be because I wasn't athletic and because I grew up in that culture I didn't really think of any other professions

[00:32:18] outside of doing the work for Jesus so I was like well I'm a musician so I guess this is my natural path and on top of that you have like prophets these guys that would come in they're like basically friends of the pastor

[00:32:32] who have like a traveling ministry they'll drop in they'll say some profound stuff they'll pray for people and then they'll like find random people and then they'll start maybe they have a real feeling and they can sense it through energy or it's bullshit

[00:32:46] I don't know one of the two probably both and but they would look at people and they would start saying you need to leave that abuser or you need to you're supposed to be a preacher one day or you're they start would start prophesying over people

[00:32:57] and then so you take these words as like oh this man just heard from God and I just had an emotional experience with God speaking through the sky and so growing up I had so many prophets look at me and be like

[00:33:10] you're gonna be a song leader of the nations thousands are gonna hear your music so I also grew up with this idea of like man I have a purpose to like live out I have a path created for me given by God what a bonus

[00:33:24] as we talked about there's always good that's such a good I think that's a good thing for a kid to have well it depends who's deciding it I mean in this case it worked out well for well yeah I mean I actually look back

[00:33:35] on my childhood and I don't really I don't really think of myself as a survivor I actually had a pretty good upbringing what I saw that I lacked was I mean I grew up with a natural us versus them mentality this is the only way

[00:33:48] in which to understand the universe and understand God and everybody else is wrong so I grew up in a bubble but like I didn't have any specific abusers at the time I had a lot of friends I like you know would always sneak and make out

[00:34:00] with the pastor's daughter and youth group like I was I was like having and a boy will you know I was like trying I was running around having fun in my little circle but it was more like coming out of that and in college and beginning deconstruction

[00:34:12] and actually starting to critically think about my whole life at that point I was looking back and being like some of that thinking is kind of fucked up and I can't believe that I thought that way for a long time and there's other Christians that believe different things

[00:34:25] and they're actually Christians and there's other people in the world that are good it was just like a little bit at a time I was like oh it was almost like it happened to me versus I was seeking out an escape I just slowly started to wake up

[00:34:38] over a long period of time being in it for so long anything in particular that started that or just being I would challenge you I'd love to hear that so for one I had really good parents my mom I give it to her because

[00:34:50] she was saved in prison and she was like a drug dealer and she found Jesus while she was in jail what? I don't know this story she found Jesus while she was in jail so when she left jail she got her son back

[00:35:04] and basically committed her whole life to the religion and she was always a really good mom and so I've never really tried to push on her that hard for her beliefs I'm like you know what you had a really hard first 20 years of life

[00:35:16] and I'm just going to let you have it we're just not going to talk religion at the dinner table kind of like don't talk politics at the dinner table I just don't like to talk religion that's fair I would go to my moms

[00:35:25] and my dads every other weekend they were divorced and my dad was a lot more loose he loved cigarettes he drank he had friends over and so I kind of lived a dual life growing up I was like I'm really really Christian on this weekend with my mom

[00:35:37] and on this weekend I'm like sneaking some alcohol and watching rated R movies and like staying up late and so in some ways I felt like I was like balanced within the bubble that then conditioned me to whenever I finally started to think critically

[00:35:52] and get challenged by authors and podcasters and artists and especially in college being around other people who are studying theology or studying philosophy and starting to get challenged in your thinking I was almost conditioned to be just open to a different way of thinking about things

[00:36:08] and so it was almost like I slowly started to dust one little piece off at a time as I started to expand my thinking in college through authors, artists critical thinkers even other theologians in a different type of Christianity I was like I've never heard of the gospel

[00:36:24] where Jesus explained it that way before that's interesting like so even like my own faith and about different versions of faith was a helpful step to start breaking off some of the word of faith doctrine that I was living by This is the golden age of cult recovery

[00:36:40] The more we speak up and share our stories the more we realize we are not alone Your voice and your story can empower others This is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator of the hashtag I Got Out movement Learn more at IGotOut.org

[00:37:05] sponsored by BetterHelp What are your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga Maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep I mean that's my personal and everyone's dream isn't it? Well I definitely have some non-negotiables like I'm in Vancouver right now

[00:37:21] and I'm spending literally as much time as I can outside in nature hashtag cold pools hashtag crushing it Nature is a non-negotiable not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel not great not myself, not grounded

[00:37:33] Therapy Day is a bit like my nature walks I try to not miss it and I know I'm just going to feel so much better all around if I make it a priority I get so much out of it It helps me put my worries and anxieties

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[00:37:54] Thanks for helping me see that and if you're thinking of starting Therapy give BetterHelp a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time

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[00:38:21] slash Colty today to get 10% off your first month that's BetterHelp H-E-L-P dot com slash Colty The Frankies were a picture perfect influencer family but everything wasn't as it seemed I just had a 12 year old boy still up here asking for help he's emaciated

[00:38:40] he's got tape around his legs Ruby Frankie is his mom's name Infamous is covering Ruby Frankie the world of Mormonism and a secret therapy group that ruined lives listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts Are you still in touch with people from that time

[00:39:00] that are still in and is there kind of a division there You know, I've always been a social and relational person and we moved back from New York about five years ago and we had been gone from Tulsa for over six

[00:39:15] and went straight from college to Charlotte, North Carolina Tulsa, I'll get to the more of that story later When I came back I reached out to some of my old friends from the word of faith movement and my childhood because we had a lot of memories

[00:39:28] and they were still in Tulsa and had a couple like little small meetups not really going into anything specific and this really didn't show much of an interest to keep up with me I think with the realization that our world views

[00:39:42] so different and polarizing that there really wasn't much in common anymore In some ways it was a natural breakup but another like really good thing about where I come from is that I'm still best friends with some of the people I went to high school with

[00:39:59] and we are all in the same place with faith being like, we have no clue and we're not a part of that anymore We have a bonding experience and we joke like we escaped the cold together It's not that dramatic in a sense we escaped the cold together

[00:40:12] but we at least escaped toxic thinking in a way of viewing the world and the universe that we kind of share in today that has kind of bonded us In high school we were going to Mexico and Honduras and Dominican on our spring breaks

[00:40:25] and we would literally go to villages like people were in perversed areas and we would do skits and we would sing songs and we'd have all the people come up and we would pray over them and then we would ask them to ask Jesus in their heart

[00:40:37] and then we would get on a bus and then we would go and drive to the beach for the rest of the day and I was like, this is weird Why are we doing this? Why are these white kids going to like impoverished areas in Mexico

[00:40:50] and praying and prayers and doing skits and then leaving and going to the beach like something feels really off about this So it was more of those moments happening where you're like, I did that? I did that for so many years What were some of the other inconsistencies

[00:41:04] or things that were weird looking back or red flags now that you've spent 80 something episodes with Nipi and I Well definitely the abusive leaders that I encountered along the way when we break down chorus of control or narcissist there's many that come to my mind

[00:41:20] Again, my story is a little long and big and so it's hard to go into each sect in a whole lot of detail So definitely identifying specific leaders that I came across in that vein And then we did an episode with believe your name was Erin from the

[00:41:35] Wild Wild Country documentary She wasn't in the documentary but she came from the community And if you remember that documentary there's people just like flailing the arms and falling out and going wild There were a lot of services like that in the name of the Holy Spirit

[00:41:48] I remember being a kid and seeing my mom laughing and shaking on the ground and people running in the sanctuary running in circles Some people were slithering like snakes Pastors laying hands on pews and people falling out And I remember like being fascinated by it

[00:42:07] I think I would be fascinated by it today if I saw it But also it was just wild and strange And I remember feeling like I was experiencing something when I was in those moments But looking back, it's just so weird I remember bringing friends who weren't religious

[00:42:23] to those kind of services thinking they would catch the ghost to catch the magic and them being pushed away and riding off religion even more after going to a service like that So my upbringing was a lot of weird supernatural experiences

[00:42:39] thinking I saw people get out of wheelchairs maybe they did But then finding out there were some scandalous pastors that were planting people in the audience to kind of boost people's faith So finding out that there was fraud going on amongst all these things

[00:42:55] And then college got a little bit more interesting not as much weirder but as my critical thinking started to come into play I started to be looking for weirdness more and more Well, I mean in college I was in a melting pot of people

[00:43:13] And it's interesting because you have a lot of hardcore Christians you have a lot of like anti-Christians We had a lot of queer people who were hidden and underground because you couldn't be at our school or you get kicked out So it was a real melting pot

[00:43:26] So experiencing different types of Christianity experiencing different types of thought But under kind of this doctrine of the school of you must live by these ways or you're a sinner or you're getting kicked out We would have some crazy people pass through One time I skipped chapel

[00:43:42] and I hid in my room with a friend and we were like just like played video game just something And then we got a notification from all of our friends who went to chapel saying there is a crazy preacher in here right now

[00:43:53] and the leaders are not allowing us to leave chapel they're blocking the doors They're saying we must stay So there was a lot of force in the school's doctrine You had to be really quiet about your unbelief or your questions about religion A lot of people did

[00:44:12] I mean us friends talked amongst ourselves but you didn't often tell that to the chaplains or tell that to your administration Again they can't really keep a hard pulse on everyone's deconstruction But if you were out drinking or if you were caught with the same sex

[00:44:31] you could get suspended or expelled or go through some sort of therapy repenting and getting right with God before you could go back to the school So in college is where I saw a lot of doctrine attempting to be forced upon

[00:44:46] so many different people that had so many different beliefs and it just didn't really work And so having that kind of comradity to process, to deconstruct and unlearn together was really really helpful and from college is when I got married to Charis Christians get married immediately

[00:45:04] so you don't accidentally have sex before marriage so we were child brides Wait, you guys were versions with each other? Yes, I'll have to make sure she's okay with me saying that on the air So you became a worship leader and when you were in college

[00:45:19] and then you became an Episcopalian Yeah, so that's jumping ahead a few more years after college Oh, okay, okay, so you tell us the story So college I was still becoming a worship leader like I was singing at some of the biggest churches in Tulsa

[00:45:33] I was leading worship for chapel at Oral Roberts University and so I was kind of branded as a worship leader at the time and I was recording albums putting music out there and so I was kind of becoming what people call in the worship world

[00:45:49] I was never really a celebrity but I was starting to get known as an artist in that space and my music was starting to spread You're the Justin Bieber You were a big deal I really wasn't that big of a deal

[00:46:03] I was a lot more bigger deal worship leaders than I was That's what Justin Bieber said I just want to know what was your favorite song? Can you tell us? Probably, I still love this song today It's actually really good It's called Beautiful Things by Michael Gunger

[00:46:19] Can we play it? I don't think that's legal The song's like You make beautiful things You make beautiful things out of the dust and it was a pretty cool indie hip band It was what I was interested in

[00:46:34] and a lot of ways started pulling me into different types of thinking because a lot of the worship music was so cookie cutter and so annoying and bland but then you had some artists who would come out every now and then

[00:46:45] those kind of people really caught my ear from music and I was like, I want to make music like this and be under people that think this way and that just started to expose me more to different types of thinking like does hell exist?

[00:46:59] Can gay people be a Christian? It was absolutely I would have always thought hell existed and that you couldn't be gay but then getting that permission from other Christians and other thinkers that like, you could still be a Christian and not believe in hell

[00:47:12] You can still be a Christian and be queer Like starting to think about that was the beginning of opening my mind to a different way of experiencing the universe So I kind of just pushed through college and got married to my lovely wife, Keras

[00:47:25] and we immediately get hired at a church in North Carolina to a pretty toxic narcissistic pastor at an evangelical church So I go and start my whole life working for this institution that was starting to kind of walk away from

[00:47:41] but it was all that I had prepared myself as a professional at that point and it was the only way I actually knew how to make money was being a worship leader so I moved me and my pregnant wife out to North Carolina

[00:47:53] and we worked for a pretty toxic pastor who was you know, he wasn't the worst in the world really not great and it was not a good time What was your first sign that this was not a good situation?

[00:48:04] Well, I found out like a couple months after moving there that this was a new church because he was just run out of his old church for activities unspoken whatever the hell that meant and then he was just so conceded and wanted to be

[00:48:25] the best thing in town he even sent me and some of my team members to another church on a Saturday night our time off to write down notes at this other big church called Elevation and wanted to know how they had it and we needed to go back

[00:48:43] and bring the it to that church and he was just very into himself but I always tried to make relationships with the good people that had been around even though he was not a great leader So we continue the story because it's just like

[00:49:00] a really weird church spiritual journey of different types of churches so that one had its roots in Presbyterianism which there's a lot of Presbyterian type churches out east, southeast where you kind of get the roots of Calvinism which is a completely different type of Christianity

[00:49:16] but the difference between that thinking is that suffering is a lot more involved in the suffering of Jesus and minimalism is a lot more involved and there's not as much emphasis on like the Holy Spirit concepts kind of the magical stuff

[00:49:32] they kind of take some of the magical powers out of it but then they get a little bit more intense with their doctrine and beliefs Militant Have you guys ever heard of Acts 29 or the podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill?

[00:49:44] I've heard of it, Rise and Fall of Mars Hill In fact we wanted to do a podcast about that I think that would be a good one because we're going to be talking about the branch of Christianity today and we also didn't prepare you for that

[00:49:56] but that's another like toxic, really toxic culty church group that was kind of revolving around this guy named Mark Driscoll there's no proof that these people are narcissists but if they check the boxes it's guessed to assume they probably are

[00:50:10] and a lot of people coming out of spiritual abuse with him so I ended up getting a job at another church that was an Acts 29 church that followed Mark Driscoll's and this is where I kind of started to actually experience like personal spiritual abuse there was this

[00:50:24] certain leader I worked for was a very controlling person, he didn't want me to have friends outside of the church he had talked about building a commune he told him, Charis that it's fine that you're working but just remember that your first job is being

[00:50:40] a wife and a mom and there was a lot of red flags the way that he was treating people and controlling people and trying to control their lives as a staff member I'd watch him take one person out for coffee at a time

[00:50:52] and kind of break them down in the way that they lived and kind of convincing them to give up certain things or to follow him or the teachings or become a volunteer of the church so I saw him just kind of break down people

[00:51:04] and then anyone that like pushed back he ended up like running out of the church and then one day the table was flipped on me where like I was pursuing music and he sat me down to do like a year review and he was like, we're concerns about

[00:51:20] the relationships you're having outside of the church we're unable to monitor what you're doing we know that you're doing music we ask that you submit that music under our leadership so that way we can review it and approve it before you're releasing it

[00:51:32] and he started dropping all these things that he wanted me to change the beyond staff for the next year and I remember sitting there being like, oh my god and in that moment I looked at him and he was like, well I am

[00:51:44] sorry to tell you this but this is going to be our last month working here and we are going to be moving on. So you just knew then? Yeah, I was never really bought into that denomination or that style of thinking

[00:51:58] but it was just the job I got and I was kind of exploring it because it's a different way of thinking about faith and religion but I immediately saw abuse and red flags within the leadership and the tax 29 system so I was almost prepared

[00:52:14] to take a walk out the door when I had that meeting with him I do and Keras already talked about it? Yeah, she was struggling too she's always been someone who's been like I like faith for just surrounding the mystery but I don't really buy into

[00:52:28] leaders or buy into doctrine like she's been very healthy with it the whole time and supporting me so she was definitely ready to go and so whenever I quit I was leading me to another spiritual journey to New York City where I get another church

[00:52:42] job at an evangelical church but these are actually really good people and I really love them they were like pretty chill and so when I was there an old mentor of mine told me to go get my masters at this Episcopal Seminary

[00:52:56] based off of kind of what my interests were and I was really getting into the history of the church and wanting to understand more so I ended up going to an Episcopal Seminary and getting my masters and living on campus at General Theological Seminary

[00:53:10] in Chelsea, New York City where half the students were queer I was partying with my professors and I was just living the time of my life in the Episcopal Church very different experience Yeah Hey there listener Hope you're enjoying this episode and that you're remembering to hydrate

[00:53:27] stretch and unclench your jaws sometimes listening to conversations about heavy topics can really make you tighten up you know and remember that the cultie loves you also come hang out with us on Patreon after you finish this episode it's fun over there fun is good

[00:53:43] and now here's a brief message from our sponsors Hashtag crushing it and if you're thinking of starting therapy give BetterHelp a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist

[00:54:49] and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge look even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it but when you feel like you have no time for yourself non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever helpHELP.com slash cultie

[00:55:38] in our local communities at Macy's when did you leave there and come back to Tulsa and where do you say you started your deconstruction so I would say like the whole time I'm just slowly brushing things off and putting in new things

[00:55:51] and pushing things out putting in new things so I felt like since college I was always in the process of deconstructing and unlearning kind of from the word of faith Pentecostal mentality but then I'm in my journey I'm starting to pick up some other types of thinking

[00:56:05] like within that the Calvinist sphere the axe 29 like more militant doctrine so while I'm kind of picking that up I'm then moving that aside and pushing that over and I'm walking over to this so basically I'm kind of exploring spirituality throughout my entire 20s and looking for

[00:56:24] what feels right what seems right what is truth or is any of it true and everyone's just doing their best and I'm just going ahead and exploring all of them and seeing which one is right for me so it was almost like I was deconstructing the whole time

[00:56:37] while I was learning and unlearning throughout the entire process what I liked about the Episcopal Seminary was it was a lot more like Buddhist in some ways where there was so much more meditation silence rituals there was an open door policy of really come as you are

[00:56:55] there was women priests queer priests and so kind of when I was there I was like this actually feels like Jesus this whole time I've been living my whole life trying to be like Jesus and this is the first time that this actually kind of feels like Jesus

[00:57:11] yeah Jesus actually talked about loving your neighbor at yourself and he hung out with prostitutes and sinners that they say in the text but anybody in the evangelical circles would be completely uncomfortable turning those people away from the door and now I'm over here

[00:57:27] on a completely different side of the world going like oh these people are actually loving everybody and accepting people in their doors as they are and there is doctrine Episcopal church doesn't come without its own problems but there's a lot more of a loose interpretation of doctrine

[00:57:43] and they're more defined by their practices and like more like monastic lifestyles and they are what they actually believe the principles are leveraged rather than embodied and it sounds like you found a place where they were more embodied than being leveraged

[00:57:59] that makes sense too one thing that always means the wrong way and we may have mentioned this in the past episode where such a blatant contradiction in I guess some branches of Christianity not all but like Jesus loves you unless you're gay

[00:58:13] and then in which case you're not welcome and like that makes no sense to me well it exposes the inconsistency of what they're pretending to stand for yeah so that's why I guess I felt like there was a pretense there was a false

[00:58:27] an inauthenticities and just it's interesting also just from our own personal journey because we're looking at different schools here and many of them are religious and everyone's like well you'll be okay here because it's a Episcopalian I'm like I don't even know what that means

[00:58:39] but I'll go check it out but now I know yeah well I mean in the Episcopal church they read more from the scriptures than any other church I've ever been a part of and so you'll hear a lot of people shitting on the Episcopal church because

[00:58:51] they are so much more accepting of different types of people and different types of thought and different lifestyles but like they are reading scripture throughout the entire services and it is really really beautiful and so it was my favorite church experience throughout my whole journey

[00:59:07] but growing up from like as a baby and being a part of like the Bible Belt and becoming a worship leader in these mega churches and like going on literally one of like 15 mission trips like overseas doing this stuff to like a very long

[00:59:21] experience and working for the church and having a really really bad experience working for the church and then landing at the Episcopal church and getting my masters there and being like this is great this is beautiful Why'd you leave? Well so I finished my degree

[00:59:37] at the Episcopal Seminary I get a job offer at an Episcopal church back in Tulsa we leave New York City very sad we start our life over in Tulsa and by the time I got there I really loved the church and loved the leadership but

[00:59:53] I had almost deconstructed my way out of faith completely by the time I got there and I was so burnt out that I just felt like I couldn't give anymore I began the application to become a priest and I started checking off the boxes for the qualifications

[01:00:09] and every time I tried to fill it out I just could not fill it out I couldn't do it I did not want to live my life or the church or religion anymore I got to the point where I just was done I had been a worship leader

[01:00:25] for 15 years and I really just didn't have any faith anymore even the Episcopal church was beautiful and it was wonderful I got so anti doctrine in a lot of ways that I just didn't really see the purpose of I guess being labeled as a Christian I guess anymore

[01:00:43] my wife is still a Christian she just loves liturgy and she loves to go to an Episcopal church when she can and take communion as the ritual it's like more of a practice of meditation and I can do that

[01:00:55] and I can really get a lot out of it still today but I don't have this label of being a Christian anymore and also I was just so exhausted I just needed to leave that world so I was mentioning in 2020 2020 was kind of like my wake up

[01:01:09] I am no longer it wasn't like I was trying not to be a Christian I am no longer a Christian anymore it's all just the thoughts the feelings the residue feels gone and so it's almost like a clean slate where I can reset

[01:01:23] and I can now look at everything from a fresh perspective and go in with caution and decide to go in if and when I want to and also I know what to look for between like abusive leaders and toxic doctrine you better well we've already talked about how

[01:01:41] we helped you put some pieces together and you reached out to us and now you've sat through 80 plus episodes with us how has what you've learned here affected your life and has there been any stories where you've like been able to avoid other culty shit because

[01:01:55] because of what you've learned in a little bit culty? I have so appreciated producing this show with you guys and Jess and honestly it's kept my spidey senses up really where I feel like in a lot of ways I have no excuse to fall

[01:02:09] for a narcissist because I'm learning about them every single week and I have my own experiences and I should be able to see one when I see one in the wild like you know what I'm saying? or people that are toxic and abusive

[01:02:21] so I appreciate working on the show and hearing stories and being able to identify I had an experience like that or I remember somebody like that I almost got involved with the podcast production like a controversial famous person and halfway through there was a lot of red flags

[01:02:37] but in some ways I was chasing it being like this would be really good for my portfolio and my career I saw red flags but I was still chasing it because I was like as long as I am aware of the red flags

[01:02:47] maybe I can still chase it but as long as I know that there's red flags I was almost justifying it and it like we got to the end where even my agent was like well this is going to become a scam you need to walk away

[01:03:01] and I was like you're right, you're really right I'm walking away so yes I have my own personal encounters and then even within work I'm able to identify when something is a red flag a lot more well obviously it's been a big career change

[01:03:17] but how do you think your skill set as a worship leader affects what you're doing now as a podcast producer again in 2020 I was going through I would say my crisis of who am I now that I'm not that at all I spent 20-something years being that

[01:03:35] my therapist really helped me walk through that process she really came in clutch and a lot of doing that was going back to the youngest version of myself who are you before all this happened to you what were some of your desires some of your needs

[01:03:51] and I remember going all the way back and being like I always wanted to be in the entertainment industry I always wanted to be even like TV and film I always wanted to be in that creating myself in 2020 I had already basically been out of the church

[01:04:05] for a few years but I was still like in the process of when you exit something you're in transition and you're figuring out your own ethics your own morals and you're also money and what you're going to do but like it was 2020 where I felt

[01:04:17] really free of it and restart refresh which is really helpful so in that time is when we started our podcast business and it really took off in 2020 I think naturally because I was a musician and I had like recording experience I knew how to edit and produce

[01:04:35] music and produce vocals and so it naturally led into what I could offer people and in 2020 everybody wanted to start a podcast everybody was looking for new outlets to start their life or to get their voice out or connect with people and so I'm really really grateful for

[01:04:53] the pandemic and what it provided for me even though I say that was a lot of the productivity knowing that it was probably one of the worst years for a lot of people and so I don't take that lightly but I also am at a place now

[01:05:05] where I can even look back on my religious upbringing and feel grateful and thankful for what it did and who it made me to be today and it does come with like some baggage and some residue and some cynicism

[01:05:17] at times but in a lot of ways I feel like I have a healthy perspective I can look back on religion and be like religion can still be really good but it can be bad with the wrong type of leader and the wrong type of thinking

[01:05:29] and creating that us versus them they're right we're wrong anytime that gets in a way it starts to get tainted and distorted but if you can use religion to connect to the mystery of the universe or to love on the inside of you

[01:05:43] and you can experience that with a community I think religion can be very healthy for people if done in a careful way I think so too I've seen it I've seen it do both maybe one day I'll dip my toe back in the thing that really struck me

[01:05:59] as a little nugget that I hadn't seen before is the proselytizing in terms of saving and saving people and it's always irked me when there's people on the side leaving like I was just walking this weekend on the bell line and there were some people that said

[01:06:13] Jesus is Lord or they're sweatshirts they're handing things out and I was like no thank you I just left a cult and I don't know if that helped probably not, probably not but I'm so allergic to it but because

[01:06:25] and I didn't really see this in this way before we didn't say the word saving we thought we were enrolling aka recruiting which is saving like I was proselytizing we were, I never would have used that word we were evangelical personal development people

[01:06:41] that's what I related to that it felt evangelical like nixiem did very evangelical and I never would have seen that made that connection before so that's wild you guys could probably walk into the evangelical non-nominational church in Georgia and within the announcements the language of the greeter

[01:06:59] and the pastor they'll probably say so many buzz and trigger words that you probably heard in nixiem probably, I bet it's sales, yeah there's this quote by Richard Rohr he is one of the authors that really helped me with my deconstructionism and as part of my deconstruction

[01:07:17] a natural evolution for Christians they go from believing in heaven and hell to believing in no hell to believing in every single person on earth is going to go be with God one day so like that's what part of a natural progression of

[01:07:33] you get rid of the bad idea that God would send people to hell so you get rid of hell and then you start to believe that if God exists and there is a heaven that exists then everybody is going to be with God like that's

[01:07:45] step in the right direction to start thinking healthy about a God and so in that process there is this guy Richard Rohr who was amongst a lot of Christians very controversial people think he's a heretic and a lot of people are saying he saved my life

[01:07:57] but anyways, he says this really well Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego control, power, money pleasure and security then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else we often give a bogus version of the gospel

[01:08:13] some fast food religion without any deep transformation of the self and the result has been the spiritual disaster of Christian countries that tend to be as consumer oriented proud war like racist class conscious and addictive as everyone else and often more so and so I always thought like

[01:08:31] a really dangerous narcissist is a narcissist who's justified doing what he's doing and abusing people because of his faith or because of God and I think that can be really really dangerous they hide behind that you might appreciate this one Will once a person accepts the

[01:08:47] premises upon which most religious identities are built the withdrawal of his moral concern for those who do not share his premises follows quite naturally you either with me or you're not Jesus loves everybody except I like what Alice Gretchen said on the podcast she said that

[01:09:05] she's agnostic but spiritually curious and agnostic being like I have no way to prove that there is or isn't a God so you kind of stay neutral but then staying spiritually curious I think is a really good way of living just kind of being open to the idea

[01:09:21] that there is a God and being okay with some people symbolizing that God through a practice and I don't want people from here to think that like religions bad and that they shouldn't they should question their religion but I do think it's important to think critically

[01:09:35] about whatever religious practice you're or whatever church you belong to because I think there could be some doctrine that's really dividing it could be creating this natural us vs them mentality that you might be subconscious of but you experience on the regular like

[01:09:49] with friends or people out in public but you don't know why you're reacting or thinking a certain way often there's like doctrine that is happening to us without knowing and then also blindly trusting a leader and not ever questioning and challenging that leader off what they're

[01:10:03] doing and if you look at the actual teachings of Jesus it's like almost too simple like if you actually read it it's like you then can look at leaders or what your church or what your group is doing and you're like that's not what even the teachings

[01:10:17] of Jesus are talking about you can quickly identify when it's not. Is there any particular book that's been helpful in your deconstruction that you can recommend to people? Two books one's a religious book called The Universal Christ by Richard Rohrer which really expanded my

[01:10:33] idea of what God could be and think differently about that and then also the book Sapiens we've talked about this Nipi it was really helpful to read a book like a historical book in a really well told narrative explaining like where we come

[01:10:49] from and how religion was created by man and how religion was used to actually originally in good ways but they talked about in the book how leaders of a village couldn't convince a community to move all of their stuff in their tents

[01:11:03] if they knew there was a flood coming so the only way that they could move them and survive is if they said this tree god spoke to us and said we must move uphill. They found that villagers would often respond to oh tree god

[01:11:15] said okay we're gonna move versus like man's word and so the book Sapiens really like sealed the deal and was like religion knows man made and then I couldn't unsee religion not being man made anymore for a period of time it ruined it for me

[01:11:29] I was told that I was able to go back in a healthy way through therapy being like okay now I can see where religion can be helpful and done well well and also that wasn't the only tenant of religion right religion had other spiritual aspects that obviously

[01:11:45] fulfilled for a lot of people historically it's just we've never really had hierarchies that aren't vulnerable to abuses of power and it's not proprietary to any domain religion cults school boards what have you there's always going to be a system

[01:12:01] in place that has tenants in it and it's up to the people to go uphold them or leverage them and religion is certainly one that's throughout time been leveraged and it's also embodied what it's talked about so and your journey demonstrates that right yeah well

[01:12:17] well thank you and Keras for initiating this podcast adventure it's been such a pleasure and a joy doing it with you and look what our cultic journeys led us we've unified we've unified our voices I know we've been so busy producing this show

[01:12:31] that we haven't really ever gotten to sit down to get to know each other that much so it was great tell you a little bit about my religious spiritual journey that had some culty aspects throughout the whole time and it's been great to chat with

[01:12:43] you guys about it thank you also I think too it's important like if there's a spiritual aspect to this I would see it as we were all people at one point in our lives that wanted to do something positive and trusted which is a positive thing

[01:12:57] and is what people should do and we did that and trusted some people that led us astray but yet we've all kind of come into this space together with that same intent and we're aligned with the right people following ourselves rather than something else absolutely and we

[01:13:13] learned to trust again you know I didn't really bang on my trust that much oh it totally did for me I kind of lean on that like I give people the benefit of the doubt I do too unless they prove otherwise but I'm also just

[01:13:25] I'm not that quick to let new people into my life anymore I kind of have like my people and I'm like I don't really need that many new friends anymore no it was a lot of time it's bandwidth yeah it's bandwidth thanks for producing a little bit

[01:13:39] call to give our love to Karris we love you look at us married podcasters well I hope you enjoyed that conversation I'm pretty sure they did I also want to put it out there that if you're listening to this and you're thinking should I make a podcast

[01:14:10] should I do it on my own should I use one of those apps you can make a podcast by yourself or should I hire somebody if you're thinking about it really consider the team at Citizens of Sound they did us a real solid yeah putting us

[01:14:22] on the right track with a little bit culty we just did what they said you know and I spoke with someone tonight actually was pumping your tires will and I think that what we're going to do for the bonus content for this is to post the video

[01:14:34] not sure where it will be we'll post it either on Patreon or the Instagram feed of the day that we met Will Rutherford in real life at South by Southwest which is about a year ago actually there's a handful of people and I don't know if God sent

[01:14:48] them or Angel sent them or whatever but Will's one of the people that showed up in our lives when we were trying to turn this thing into a positive and he's a huge catalyst for it so it's an honor to be working with them and then meeting

[01:15:00] with them and then creating with them so it's one of the things that I'm into in the universe I appreciate it right Ace you want to say bye love you Will can you say love you Will? Love you Say thanks Will yeah anyway thanks for listening everybody

[01:15:14] make sure to follow Citizens of Sound and follow us and go to Patreon all the things okay I gotta go put this kid to bed