Transcript of The Megachurch Scam & Nonprofit Loophole: How Celebrity Pastors Exploit the Bible to Get Filthy Rich New

Thanks for coming back. Yeah, thanks for having me. Maybe you can help solve a mystery. So I've always known that different people have different views on Israel. I've never been upset about it. Post-Gaza, I'm rethinking about if all those views are legitimate, but I know that decent people have different views on Israel. Totally fine. And that includes Christians. And, but in the past year, it does seem that for some Christian leaders, I don't want to call anyone out by name, but Israel's the only thing that matters. So they'll approach fellow Christians with one question in mind, where does this person stand on the government of Israel? And so it occupies a much greater percentage of mental disk space than I ever imagined, certainly than it does for me. So what is that?

Well, it's the old covenant. I was raised just non-denominational Christian in large-scale churches, and we were pro-Israel. Yeah, it's just a consistent deal when you look at— I'm always going to go back to Scripture, so I'm always going to use the Bible to reference my perspective and what I, what I think is going on. Yes. The nation-state of Israel has just become an idol to the church in regards to how they perceive— not all of them, but how they— some of them perceive it.— and you have to ask why. And so we've done a little digging in regards to some fara filings and others. And, and when you look at the Old Covenant in the Bible, it's one of those spots or parts of the covenant that you can weaponize. Israel is one of them. Giving and generosity, tithing is one of them. And when Christ came, he, he came to fulfill that whole Old Covenant, that whole contract. A New Covenant It's literally a new covenant. So that old covenant is complete, done, fulfilled, put on the shelf. A new contract is in place, and that's Christ's contract, Christ's covenant. And if you're, if you're a Bible-believing Christian, but what that new covenant does is it takes the teeth out of the old covenant, the old contracts, you know, that Mosaic law.

But people like to lean on that contract in that law because you can weapon— I'm going to say weaponize it. You can build empires again and build power structures. Around basically double-dipping in covenants. So you can say, take some things that Jesus said and grab a couple of things from the Old Covenant and mash them together. And you have just a different— you have Judeo-Christianity, you know, not Christianity and not Judaism. You have Judeo-Christianity.

It's like a Reese's peanut butter cup.

Exactly. It's neither or. It's— it's so Israel, the nation state, has become one of those cards that you can pull and say, hey, if you don't back the nation state, then you clearly don't believe this book or that God is our God. And so I always push back. I consider myself kind of an auditor in this regard. So I wanted to audit the nation state of Israel and say, what is it exactly scripturally?

So that is, boy, it's jarring to hear you put it so plainly, but that is really what they're saying. If you don't support the Netanyahu government, you're not a Christian.

Yeah, I guess I've heard it. I've heard that.

And some, like the, the dimmer ones, like Huckabee, just say it out loud. But that is the assumption behind a lot of it.

Well, and if, and if my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ haven't read the book in its entirety, then they'll take what Huckabee or what their potential pastor says from the stage as, as scripturally sound. And so that's what I've had a great time doing.

I disagree. I mean, yeah, I've read the book, by the way, more than once. But I didn't need to read it to know that Jesus is probably not endorsing killing the innocent, killing kids.

Well, I would say there's even a naïveté. There's a strategic ignorance around that, right? Like in season 1 of The Religion Business, a development economist breaks down what strategic ignorance is. And we as humans want to stay strategically ignorant of things that push against our bias.

Boy, I've been there.

Yeah. And so have I. And so that's the thing is, as we grow and hopefully mature, we look at the surroundings and say, okay, what is truth and what is not truth?

Yes.

And a really simple truth is the nation state of Israel is not the ethnic tribe that's described in the Torah. And so if that's our baseline, then okay, now we can reshape our— we can look at what's truth and not truth and see, you know, where people are leveraging that card or weaponizing that card for their own gain.

But you would think, again, even if you're not familiar with the details of that book, you haven't read the Old or New Testaments, you would sort of intuit, you would sense that Jesus is not in favor of, say, like genocide.

Correct. I would hope. But there's always a counterargument, like in these FARA documents, you know, the, you know, these— it literally— the foreign agent is Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs, you know.

And so I keep stepping up. So what are those documents? So you're basically saying in order to understand this, you look not just at the theology but at the money. Correct.

At the money. Because so, okay, yes, I think most people would say genocide in Gaza is wrong.

Right.

But then they, then they will always find a counter, which is, well, there's bad things, there's, there's, there's evil inside Gaza that needs to be removed, right?

Yes.

And so that's where this FARA document's interesting is because you can see the nation state weaponizing the American church to sway their opinion to say, hey, you know what? No, the genocide is rationalized and we're not going to call it genocide because of X, Y, and Z. So that's what this document just shows. It shows that millions of dollars came from the nation state of Israel to sway massive megachurches in America, or at least the pastors, because when you can sway the pastor, the pastor can sway their congregation.

So how does it work?

How does it work in regards to the system? Yeah, the system.

What are the FARA? FARA means Foreign Agent Registration Act.

Correct.

What do those documents show?

So this one shows in particular, basically, we'll call it like a marketing effort. And ironically, this is fun. There's multiple pages of just hundreds of churches on the West coast, um, that have very large audiences. And what it is, is it's a marketing effort. It's a geofencing effort. So if you go to your church and you walk into that building, there is a digital geofence. And if you ping your phone, that geofence is triggered. And what that means is they're going to get your phone's IP address. They're going to start sending you messages and sending you advertising that's pro-Israel. and, you know, anti-Palestine, for lack of a— and it says all this in the documents. And so ironically, this is what I called my dad this morning because I was like, hey, what church did we go to when we were kids? And sure enough, the churches, the two churches I went to from the day I was born to 21 years old are on that list. And so that means had I walked into those churches, I could have potentially been geofenced and then they would have tracked my phone. And they could ping me pro-nation-state Israel material.

And so this effort is funded by Israel, by the nation-state of Israel.

And is it— when you say funded, like, does money flow to the church? Does the church know that its congregations are being geofenced?

No, not necessarily. So that's where it gets dark, is the church doesn't even know that they're being targeted. And so it's like a— it's a— over— it's like a subversive targeting.

There's a foreign government doing this to our churches here.

Correct. A great example would be like, hey, if I— if my kids are in college and the Chinese—

Iranian government was doing this to us, what—

or China, Russia, Iran, what happens if they were targeting our universities? We would be up in arms. So we have a foreign government targeting our churches, and then at the same time, they also are targeting the pastors, wanting them to come over to Israel, the nation state. They walk through, you know, the, you know, they give them tours of the historical sites, which is awesome, but they're leveraging the Old Testament in these historical sites to basically calcify the nation state and say, oh, what we're doing is biblical and what Palestine and these evil, these other evil people are doing needs to be wiped out. Like a great, like there's some, I highlighted it, some of it for you in this document, but it's wild.

Wow.

Um, once you get past the, the list of hundreds of churches, um, it's such a long document. But so, a Christian Ready Show, Show Faith by Works, a Christian education and Israeli information campaign. The goal is to combat low American evangelical Christian approval of the nation-state of Israel. Says it right there. So this, this entire goal to geofence your church is to combat your low approval rating. Of a nation state. Well, maybe we should question like, why is there a low approval rating? Are you committing genocide? Like, that might be a reason why.

And that does affect approval ratings 100%.

And so the messaging that we are going to use inside this geofenced, it's all pro-Israel and an anti-Palestinian state. And they list the messaging that they're going to, that they're going to hit.

Anti-Palestinian state.

Yep. The first is, of course, Hamas is a Palestinian terrorist organization. There was never a state of Palestine at any time in history. So these are the bullet points that you're going to see on your phones from this campaign. And then you can just keep going. There's, there's a pastoral and education resources. So they're going to give pastors educational resources that's pro-nation-state Israel and anti-Palestine. They're going to go to college and Christian college universities and do the same thing. And you can just go through it. So this was millions of dollars was spent on this campaign. And this is my favorite one, ready? They proudly, in their digital support effort— this is the largest geofencing and Christian targeting campaign in U.S. history. That's what they call it in their own, in their own documentation. We're targeting Christians, and this is the largest targeting of Christians ever. And then they go to Christian events. And this is a funny one for me, um, if you know Greg Lowry, but, uh, his church is Harvest in Riverside, and he puts on these big festivals, uh, and he's in, he's in a big scandal right now because he had a, um, he ran orphanage— his church ran orphanages in, in— where was it?

Oh, man.

It's in the show in Eastern Europe. And one of the pastors there allegedly raped and sodomized hundreds, potentially hundreds of orphans there. And Greg Lowry knew about it. They sent a team over and he did nothing about it because it was such a big revenue generator. And he's, he's one of the— he's one of their— he's actually— he's ironically, hopefully their main spokesperson. They've got a photo of him in their deck too, saying we want Greg Lowery to be the face of this.

Seriously?

Yeah. So millions— the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spends millions of dollars geofencing our churches for pro-Israeli, pro-nation-state Israeli propaganda. And if your pastor's behind it, then hey, your pastor is going to say this.

It's just hard to believe. You know, there's this line in Mark 13, I think, where Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, he's like, we're saying to others, religious leaders are in trouble because they wander around in their long flowing robes and they get respect from everyone in the marketplace, but they're actually cheating widows out of their property. And you read that and you're like, would a religious leader really cheat a widow out of her property? Like, that's just crazy. Only in 1st century Palestine could that ever happen. And you hear, like, it's just amazing. It's just hard.

It's hard.

It's hard to believe a religious person would do that.

Well, there's, there's religious organizations that are registered as churches that literally buy out permanent life insurance policies from elderly people that need money for pennies on the dollar.

Actually?

Actually. Yeah. Part of their business model as a church is to basically go up to a widow or elderly couple that's struggling and say, you know what, we're just going to buy your permanent life insurance policy that you've been paying down for 40 years for pennies on the dollar because you need money. There's one that's built— I was told a $700 million war chest came off of that. They have $700 million sitting in the bank off of buying out elderly people's permanent life insurance policies. So they are— and my translation reads devouring widows' houses, and they're devouring houses in the name of Jesus.

So what's in your toothpaste? If you're using the brand you grew up with, you probably don't want to know. The ingredients likely include fluoride, something called SLS, glycerin, foaming agents. It's a chemical cocktail. Vanman's toothpaste is different. Their miracle tooth powder is changing everything, and people are ditching traditional toothpaste full of chemicals by the thousands. Vanman's tooth powder uses ingredients with the same mineral structure as your teeth that remineralizes them and strengthens your enamel naturally. No fluoride at all and totally edible. You could put it on toast. Not that you'd want to, but you could. People who use it report wetter teeth, less plaque. They wake up without that gross film on their gums. And here's the amazing part: vivid dreams are back. You dream clearly when you stop coating your mouth in fluoride every night. Did you know that? Pretty amazing. Tells you a lot. So make the switch. Visit vanman.shop/tucker, use the code Tucker for 15% off your first order. Vanman.shop/tucker, use the code TUCKER, 15% off. Van Man, real ingredients, zero exceptions.

Mehr Feuer, mehr Intrigen. Die Drachen kehren zurück.

Die absolute Macht ist dir zum Greifen nah. Dein Reich wird unbezwingbar sein, Rhaenyra.

Stream die neue Staffel House of the Dragon ab 22. Juni mit WOW. Freu dich außerdem auf Staffel 1 und 2 der Erfolgsserie und weitere Highlights. Es wird keinen Zweifel geben, wen die Götter zum Herrschen auserwählt haben. Drachenheiß zum besten Preis. Jetzt ab 2,98 € im Monat. Geh auf wowtv.de. Streaming war noch nie so wow.

Who registered for this?

This was an LLC named Show Faith by Works, registered in my hometown, San Diego, California. But the name of the foreign principal is Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, right on the Right on the COVID page 1.

How many pastors know that there's an effort like this behind their views on Israel?

I'm going to say strategic ignorance. I think they just see it as gossip online. They don't want to get involved. This is a hot-button topic for my family because I have family that are retired pastors, or my uncle's a missionary in Kyiv. Very close to this, and most of them just don't want to believe it.

You know, so they don't believe that money is actually coming from a foreign government to influence the opinions of their—

Correct. Well, and if, and if I even put this in front of them, they'd point to the book and say what? And they'd say, Nathan, like Israel, bless Israel and you'll be blessed.

Does it say that?

No, no, no, no. And we went through that. We had a conversation.

I just love that.

Yeah. Yeah. We had a great conversation about this earlier. It's, it's, uh, It's this idea. And since our last conversation, when we were talking about it is finished, when Christ says it's finished on the cross, I just went down a full rabbit hole in regards to digesting that Old Covenant versus New Covenant concept. And there is no way scripturally you can double dip in both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant in the Bible. If you are a Christ-following Christian, that Old Covenant, that old contract is fulfilled and done. Yes, we don't look backwards. There's a great analogy that I was— or maybe—

Why the curtain in the temple is rent.

Yes.

Let me know if this is a good analogy or if I'm way off base, but like, I'm a laborer, right? And I need a job. And you're like, hey, Nathan, here's the contract. If you mow my lawns, cut my trees, and clean my pool, like, we're good. I'll pay you at the end of the day. So that day I show up, I mow your lawn, I cut your trees to like exactly how you want it. I clean the pool and you're like, here's your payment, Nathan. And I go on and I'm like, I fulfilled my contract with Tucker. And I'm going to go to the next house, right? But instead, I wake up the next morning, I go, you know what? I'm going to go back to Tucker's house and I'm just going to start doing stuff. Cut the trees, mow the lawn again, even though it's already done and he's not going to pay me because I fulfilled the contract with you. I'm supposed to look forward and move on to the new contract. But this is what churches are doing. They're like, I don't know, we're going to come back to this old one and play in it because we like some of the, some of the things in here.

We like to cherry-pick parts of the Old Covenant because it justifies our current model. The tithe justifies how we can fund the business, right? Israel justifies how we can drum up attention for this idea of old tribal, old tribal Israel. But it's— we're just grasping at straws, if that makes sense, because Christ's message in his New Covenant is a— it's, it's an unconditional but very unknown. You, you march into the unknown in his covenant. You have to have full faith in him and the Holy Spirit. Legalistic covenants, just, they're easy to understand, right? You give me 10% or 23.3% based off of Old Testament tithe laws and you're good, right? You're done, Tucker. Go on your way. But Christ says, no, no, no, you have the capacity and the knowledge to give. What does your heart tell you?

Yes.

So it means you have to stand up and lead, right? In Hebrews, it talks about you are your own priest. Now. Like, there's no mediator between the, the Holy of Holies and the outer courts. Like, you— Christ is that mediator, and you walk straight through into the Holy of Holies. But that means you have to stand up and understand it and take responsibility and be that priest. But so if you're that priest, what does it mean? You don't need the institution anymore, the model. You don't need to sit in that pew, right? Like, you have— you have Christ, you have his word. His logos, like, is in you, on your heart and mind. So you got to lead, Tucker. You got to lead like Christ. That's a dangerous, dangerous man or woman to be walking around in, in any community or any government, because, hey, this, this architecture, this legal architecture of America doesn't hold me in. This, this does. This book does. And so we've, we've kneecapped Christianity and we've put it on a shelf and we've consumerized, consumerized. We've, you know, we've turned it into a consumer product. And now we just have a bunch of kneecapped Christians walking around giving their 10%, if that, to a church, to an institution that is not biblically sound.

And then we can support nation-state of Israel and say, hey, I'm a Bible-believing Christian, when at the end of the day, like, no, I believe in, in what we've built. I believe in the institution we've built, but I don't necessarily believe this book.

Well, that's a wrong turn if you arrive at that conclusion.

So how—

I mean, I always want to assume that people are employing what you called strategic ignorance. They don't know because they don't want to know, and therefore they're not honestly quite as guilty as someone who knows and does it anyway. But given that, how big is the economy around this question? I notice all these pastors going to Israel on these trips. I've known a lot of them who do that. Is that all paid for by donors or the government?

Yeah, there's an estimated— I mean, I want to make sure I pronounce the name right. It is— where is it? SJ something. It's about $320 million a year is dumped into this bucket to get pastors overseas. Oh, there we go. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews generates about $315 million a year in individual donor giving. And what that does is it— so let's, let's dissect that name for a second, right? International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Okay, $315-ish million goes into that pool every year. You'd think it's to educate people on the historical sites, right? I'm a Christian. I'd love to see—

Yeah.

You know, all, all these beautiful historical sites. I've been to Rome and hunched down in the prison where Paul was held. Like, that— you get to experience this stuff and you're like, wow, this is real. Like it, you know, it happened. I can see Paul's journey and I can see the hill Christ died on. And it's real powerful. But that $315 million is going to border security. It's going to ambulances inside Israel. It's going to—

Border security.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's what— Israeli border security.

Yeah. So it says it on their website. This is where this money goes. So when you think about this, this isn't, this isn't an international fellowship of Jews and Christians. Because if it was an international fellowship of Jews and Christians, you'd care about the Christians in Gaza.

Of course.

You'd care about the Christians in Lebanon. You'd care, you know, you'd care about these Christians in these other parts of this region just being obliterated.

Who are being killed by the government.

Yeah. But so what this is, is it's actually a fund that's just calcifying the nation state of Israel and utilizing the historical sites as the rationale for this fund.

But the money is going to the ongoing operations of the government of Israel?

Part of it, yeah. And then what you're doing is you're bringing pastors over and saying, look at all these beautiful historical sites. Does that make sense? So you're taking the faith and you're using the faith as the, as the cookie, so to speak, or the carrot to explain the nation state of Israel in their actions. And you're using Christian donor money. That's $315 million from Christians, individual Christians that are giving generously to this fund with strategically ignorance, with their ignorance. Yes. You know, with their— what does the Bible talk about? Scales on the eyes, right? So you can't see through your scales. But what you're actually funding is parts of this war mechanism. It's just like the LDS Church and their investments in, you know, defense companies. Southern Baptist Convention, same thing. Guidestone is heavily invested in weaponry of war.

Are you serious?

Yeah. So we've, we've created machines. We've created this, this Christian machine, this apparatus that funds what we think ignorantly is good-intentioned International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. But no, what it's doing is it's calcifying a nation state that, that is bombing Christians in other parts of that region, killing them, and they're justifying it. And this money is going to those efforts. Part of, part of that money is going to those efforts.

It is absolutely crazy. Christians ought to be safe in the Holy Land of all places, but they are not. Keep in mind, these are the descendants of the first converts, the first people who followed Jesus, people whose families have worshiped in the land Jesus walked for centuries, for thousands of years. And these same people are now facing enormous pressure to leave, fleeing their homes amid war and anti-Christian terrorism. Untold numbers of innocents are lost and without hope, fellow Christians. But how do you support them?

Them.

There are groups out there who claim to support them whose real agenda is to move them out of their actual homeland. We think that's wrong. We think that's evil, in fact. And so we've looked far and wide to find a group that is actually supporting Christians in the Middle East, and we found one. It's called the Vulnerable People Project, VPP. It's one of the very few groups consistently helping vulnerable Christians throughout the Holy Land. They deliver food and water to Christian communities trapped in— War zones. Gaza, for example. They help rescue civilians. They provide emergency aid to families who have nowhere else to turn. Today, they are helping Christian churches and families safely remain in the communities where their ancestors worshiped Jesus. There should be a lot of groups doing this, and trust us, we have looked for over a year now, and there aren't. But the Vulnerable People Project is doing exactly that, and their work makes an amazing difference in people's lives. Thank you. A gift of just $33 helps provide a day of protection and support for the vulnerable Christians in the West Bank. Who's looking out for them? Nobody. Well, they are.

A monthly gift of $83 helps sustain that protection throughout the month. So visit SaveWestBankChristians.com and stand with Christians in the land where Christianity began. That's SaveWestBankChristians.com. We are proud. Proud. To partner with them.

Thank you. Sehr gut, sehr gut, sehr gut.

Sehr gut?

WISO Steuer ist sehr gut. Das sagen ganz viele.

Cool, wer sagt das?

Stiftung Warentest, Computerbild, Focus Money, Chip, Finanztipp.

Such dir was aus. Mega, aber das ist doch bestimmt kompliziert.

Nö, einfach Foto von der Lohnsteuerbescheinigung machen und fertig.

Klingt sehr gut.

Ist sehr gut. Hol dir dein Geld zurück mit WISO Steuer.

Hamni. People who are involved in this know?

Involved in this fund?

Yeah.

I don't think, I don't think any of them would, would rationally sit here and say, oh, I know about that. You know, no, no, we want to get our pastor over to Israel to experience the historical sites, Nathan. Okay, cool. That's, that's not bad. Right. But what you don't realize is you're funding security on the border. You're funding, which, which I think is great, ambulances when a bomb comes over into Israel. But you should also be funding ambulances when a bomb goes into Gaza. If that's your mission.

Yeah. And you certainly shouldn't be funding bombs into Gaza.

Correct.

Which is what, in effect, you're doing because you're freeing up—

Correct.

Those resources.

Wow.

That is really— so now there is, in part thanks to your efforts, an awareness of a lot of this in a way that there wasn't a couple of years ago. Like, there are a lot of people, including the FARA report said it, there are a lot of evangelicals who are skeptical suddenly about whether it's a good idea to support Israel. What are pastors like this? Are they getting pushback? Like, what's their experience?

They're kind of— a lot of these— so this, this, this fire doc, a lot of these churches are megachurches. They went after the— they, they geofenced the big boys, right? Because big— like, if you geofence a small rural church in Pennsylvania that has 75 members, what's, what's the point of that?

No, right?

I want to geofence a church that has 7,500 members, 10,000 members, right? And so these guys are already big influencers in regards to their church and then in regards to the social media sphere. So they just like calcify together. You know, you have groups of them now just going on podcasts, sitting, doing the same thing we are.

Is that true?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Defending these positions?

Yeah, yeah. His name's Jack Hibbs. He was on a podcast the other day and he said, you know, Israel was created in a day. And there's prophetic words in the Bible that say that. Well, no, they signed the documents in a day, but the nation state of Israel was decades in coming. And so does that make sense? They just take— they'll take a scripture out of context and apply it to the nation state, and then everybody will take that same soundbite. Similar to what I said with you last, that Christianity is more of a socialist construct than a capitalist construct. Everybody goes, oh, Nathan's a socialist. Tucker had a socialist on. He's a communist.

Yeah.

Same thing. You take 3 or 4 words and you can create whatever conversation you want around.

So you're not a socialist?

I am not a socialist, no.

Yeah, but it's all part of the propaganda machine.

I mean, they don't—

for sure, right? But someone like Jack Hibbs, or not to call him out by name, he deserves it. But sorry, excuse me, trying to stay Christian. Does he get any pushback? Or do you— or another way to ask would be, do pastors like that have growing churches or shrinking churches? Like, is this— is Christian Zionism in retreat or is it expanding?

I can't speak empirically on that, but I would say it's retreating from, from, from just my, my sphere of influence. Yes. You know, a lot of these churches now are, are their congregations shrinking and they have these huge buildings. So what they're doing is they're putting up curtains about halfway through the pews and they shove everybody to the front so people can't sit in the back anymore. So they're starting to stack their churches, if that makes sense. So they look full, but they're really at 20%, 30% capacity.

Really?

And then what they do, a lot of them do, is on their social programs, like we have, we have a solid online presence. We will never delete a comment. We will never block someone unless they're actually threatening someone. But what these guys do a lot of times is they'll curate their comments. So they'll block us or block our followers and just delete any comment that has a negative, you know, negative pushback on what they're saying. And so when you go on, on some of these pastors' Instagrams, it's just nothing but hearts and loves and you're 100% accurate, Pastor. Lovely, lovely, lovely. But it's because they've just curated the content. And so Christianity, institutional Christianity in these big organizations is just a curated business set on top of the gospel. And so when I look at their— especially Jack Hibbs and these other guys who are very pro-Zionist in regards to their agenda, most of their comments are just curated. And so that always makes me smile because—

But does Jack Hibbs have a congregation? Is there like a church where he's preaching every Sunday?

Yeah, he's a preacher. Yeah.

And is it a growing church? Do you know?

I honestly, I haven't done much research on Jack Hibbs. I just smile whenever I see his social content. There's, there's a lot of pastors out here, Tucker. There's 400,000 churches in the US. And so unfortunately, I can't— we can't look at them all. But what we're trying to do is we're looking at patterns, right? We're— recently someone sent me a book, and in the book they defined my character type and yours as an auditor, basically. Like, you guys are here to audit the systems we've built, whether that be our government, whether that be our religious institutions.

Right.

And we're here to say, hey, what part of these systems isn't aligning with, with the ethos underneath it. So in Christianity, what part of the machine that we've built, the tradition, isn't aligning with Scripture? And the nation-state is one of those, you know, tithe is one of those, running organizations with no external accountability where millions funnels in is one of those. None of that is, is inherently biblical or Christlike, right?

Tithing is not scriptural.

Tithing, tithing is not scriptural for a modern-day Christian.

Huh.

Yeah.

So where does the notion come from?

It's actually only flared back in the last couple hundred years. So tithing was not a thing. You can go through the history of Christianity from Christ, from Christ on, and Christians weren't tithing. And tithe literally means a tenth, translates to a tenth.

Yes.

And so most, not all, but a lot of churches today and pastors today present that, hey, you need to tithe, give us 10%. Of your revenue because the Bible says to tithe. Well, the Old Testament, the Mosaic laws say to tithe. But what's funny is there's not one tithe in the Old Testament. There's three. So if a tenth—

me—

or if tithe means a tenth, technically you're supposed to be paying, paying 3/10. Now, the difference is the third tithe was only once every 3 years. So there's 3 tithes. So if you're a pastor out there preaching tithe, you need to be preaching 23.3% from your congregation, not 10%, if you want to lean on the biblical tithe. But so when you look at the tithe laws, Israel of the Bible is a theocracy. So those tithes were actually a form of taxation. It's what kept up government and religion. It was combined. Yes. Today we're not a theocracy, we're a democratic republic. So what the church has done, the recent church, the modern church in the last couple hundred years, is they needed to figure out a revenue stream. So I'll get— I'll say, with good intentions, these pastors look to the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, and said, hey, like the Levites were asking for 10% or demanding 10% based off, based off the Mosaic Law. So we should ask for 10%. And it baked in this legalistic demand from your congregation. And then, hey, if you don't tithe, Tucker, to me, you're a bad boy.

The Bible says to tithe. But when you look at the New Testament, remember, Paul was a Pharisee's Pharisee.

Yes.

He was the man who knew the law better than anybody. So Paul wrote a bulk of the modern New Testament. So if Paul expected you to tithe, you better believe he would have said in his epistles, hey, Tucker, you're going to tithe to your body and then we're going to distribute it. He didn't say that. Christ never said that. Instead, it was free will generosity. So, Tucker, you're going to give from the desire and passion of your heart. And you're not going to know what your left hand is doing or your right hand is doing, because we don't want you to basically build systems on top of this generosity. And the crazy part about the New Testament generosity is when, when these early churches would pool resources, it would always go to poorer gatherings, to poorer communities. They weren't insulating themselves and building corporations. They were just distributing it wherever there was a need. And so what the tithe has done is in the last 200 years is it's given us a fixed revenue stream to an institution, to a tradition we've built on top of Christ. And now that we've been teaching— we've been— I've been taught— I was taught tithing from childhood.

Now that we've been taught this tithing model, they can't— it'd be really bad for them to go, hey, actually, the tithe really isn't, isn't biblically accurate. We need you just to be generous. And here, this is a fun one. Or it's not fun. It's very sad. Someone sent me this and it's a slip that a child brought home. And so this was going to a— he was— I think the child was between 10 or 14 years old. And this is what they were taught in their youth group. My commitment. I am expanding my generosity to multiply by committing to the following over the next year. So, Tucker, you're a 12-year-old boy. Ready? You're gonna tithe, Tucker, 10% from your allowance. It was on the sheet. Ready? You're going to give a percentage of your birthday money or Christmas money to the church. You're going to earn money, yard work, etc., and specifically you're going to do that for multiplication. And then here's the other— ready? You're going to sell some of your electronics. You're going to take clothes to a resale shop and you're going to give a portion of your savings to the church.

This went to a little kid. And at the bottom, you're going to add it all up and tell this church what your total commitment is.

In writing.

In writing. That went to a child.

That is wild.

Where is any of that scriptural?

What can you do to monitor important parts of your life that you can't always keep your eyes on? Things like the far corners of a job site or ranch, or let's say you've got a boat dock somewhere and you can't check on it every day. Cellular security cameras from Defend are the answer. These cameras are very easy to install. No Wi-Fi required, no complex setup process. You don't need to be a master electrician to do it, no running wires all over the place. You just mount the camera, turn it on, and it automatically connects to the strongest available cellular signal and starts sending photos and videos directly to your phone. You can be across the country. You never have to wonder what is happening where you live. You've got total security all the time. It's a gate entrance, a construction site, it's your barn, cabin, anything else you need to keep your eye on when you're gone. This will do it for you. And unlike a lot of security systems, this is affordable. Peace of mind for an honest price. DefendCellCam.com is the address. Go there, see for yourself. DefendCellCam.com. If you've got a signal, you've got 24-hour security.

Café in seiner besten Form. Mit Qubo wird jeder Café auf Knopfdruck zum Genussmoment. Denn mit der neuen Qubo One Kapselmaschine von Qubo genießt du feinsten Spitzenkaffee aus besonderen Anbaugebieten. Vollmundige Aromen dank innovativer Pressbrew-Technologie und über 17 Sorten Kaffee für jeden Geschmack. Erlebe Premiumkaffee schon ab 29 €. Entdecke jetzt die Qubo Kapselmaschinen in deiner Qubo Filiale und auf qubo.de.

So, what do the churches do with the money?

Well, they'll say they give some of it away, but statistically based off the financial data, about 70% just goes to buildings and salaries. And less than 6 cents of every dollar ever leaves the institutional walls now. And so what we've built is just traditions. Like, it takes me back to the story of Christ in the temple. He, you know, when he's, when he's whipping and he said, you've turned my father's house into a robber's den. We've built institutions on top of the teachings of Christ. And that institution now is so hungry financially that it just pulls all resources in to the point where, where. You're telling kids to sell their electronics and give us the money. Hey, actually, no, take your clothes to a thrift store and then bring us that money. Hey, you know, give a portion of your savings to us as well. Like, you're— you're— you're— you're—

Middleman.

You're indoctrinating a child into this thinking. And none of that is in the New Testament.

Well, Jesus doesn't say sell everything you have and give it to the church. He says give it to the poor.

Poor.

Correct. So what we've done is we've just built businesses, unaccountable, non-transparent businesses on the top of Christ and on the top of the scriptures. And when you look at what the church was in America, the church was actually the, um, the institution that pushed back against government encroachment. It pushed back against human greed, and it, and it, and it did rightfully so. It was the community. It was like the the community think tank, for lack of a better term. And this is— we'll go to this socialist comment, right? So I said last time Christianity is more socialist than capitalistic. America is our economy. Our economy is built on capitalism, a great social concept because it lifts people in nations out of poverty. But there is that marginalized that's left behind. Christianity is in that marginalized. That's why we pool our resources and give to the poor. And so Christianity is not about ownership. Christianity is not about growth and profits at all costs. Christianity is the opposite. And so Christianity is, is the hard line against power and against authority. But what's happened is we've taken those structures, those capitalistic structures, and brought it into the church and brought it into an institution that is antithetical to that.

And so now the institutional church has been co-opted by the very mechanisms it's supposed to push against, all in the name of Christ. So, hey, bring more money. Hey, and it's been, it's been co-opted by the politic now too. And so the church, the beautiful body of Christ, is now a, um, an MLM, a multi-level marketing scheme, for lack of a better term. It's a franchise, you know, and you can see it play out, you know, a lot of, a lot of, as denominations die, evangelical, non-denominational churches are flourishing. And so what's happening is now they're building satellite campuses. So it's like, we're going to build as many campuses as possible. We're going to get you guys to churn and burn. So you're going to come in, you have an hour and a half, grab a coffee, grab a donut. We're going to sing some emotional songs. We're going to give you some— a couple scripture verses and then get out. We got to do it again. And so we've franchised faith and we haven't franchised it in a good way either. I feel we franchised it in like a fast food way. Right? It's like the cheapest, fastest, quickest way to turn and burn this thing.

And so what we've done is we've commoditized Christianity when it wasn't supposed to be commoditized. And now we've tribalized— we've— it's tribalism too. Now we're either right or left. So now it's— you can see the politic grabbing onto it and weaponizing it as well.

Are most churches pretty open about their politics now?

Oh, very.

Yeah. Really?

Yeah, very. Well, the Johnson Amendment was supposed to, like, keep that at bay, but Trump basically wiped the Johnson Amendment out.

What was the Johnson Amendment?

The Johnson Amendment was you couldn't— I don't have the exact language, but you couldn't advocate for specific candidates from the pulpit.

Yes.

And so— and you'd get in trouble. You could potentially lose your tax-exempt status if you did that. Well, Trump basically wiped that out. So what's happened is you literally have pastors from the pulpit, and I've been to these churches saying exactly who you should vote for. Because there's no fear anymore about losing your tax-exempt status. So the church— not all churches, but many churches, whether right or left— are just champions for tribal party political parties at this point. And like, you'll be hard-pressed to go— actually, I would love anybody to DM us if you go to a church that doesn't preach tithe and doesn't preach politics from the pulpit. You're going to be hard-pressed to find a successful church really doing that today. Yeah.

I've never seen that. Really?

No. Oh, do you go to many big churches? Many, like, mega churches? No. Well, that's a problem. Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah, I go to a lot of them. That's what I visit.

And they're open about this or that candidate?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. They can't just say, give to Caesar what Caesar's. They have to, like—

well, that's a funny one. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render to God the things that are God's. Because that's an inflection point for the church, too. Right? Your congregation pays taxes. But why do you— why does the church have this interesting carve-out where they don't pay tax?

I don't know.

Well, it's— it goes back to 1913. And yeah, the— I said, I— we talked last, I talked about kind of the weaponization, or the box that churches climbed into, religious organizations climbed into, which is the 14-point checklist. I think tax exemption was the carrot for them to climb in. It's, hey, Tucker, we're going to give your church tax-exempt status. You don't have to pay taxes, but you're going to have to play by these rules. And so you climbed into the box, and now this box can be weaponized right or left. Now foreign agents can come in and just sell concepts to the box, if that makes sense. And hey, if I do anything wrong, if I don't live inside these 14 points, I might get kicked out of this box. Which— Which— what is getting kicked out? Lose your tax-exempt status. Great. Who cares?

Lose it. Are there churches that don't claim tax-exempt status?

There's a couple. Yeah, very. It's— there's a— I would— there's a new model that, you know, like I called us kind of auditors on systems. We don't get it. We don't get anything perfect, but we're just trying to get things right. More Christ-like.

Yeah.

And so I don't only want to be an auditor. I want to be a reformer. I want us to help usher in change that's more Christlike. And so as we look at the system, there are legal structures that hedge against man's evil hearts, for lack of a better term. Yes, we corrupt things.

There's no better term.

Yeah. Thank you. And so I think it'd be really brilliant if we were honest enough with ourselves as Christians and as, as leaders to be like, hey, let's build a system. And our founding fathers did this brilliantly. They're like, let's build a system that keeps it safe from ourselves.

Exactly.

And so I think there's going to be a new wave of pastors and a new wave of Christian leaders that say, how do we build a system? Because we do need a system that is protected from ourselves. And I think it starts with open source accounting so everybody can see where the money goes. And then there's legal architecture that you can play into that's not tax exemption, that doesn't have to do with tax exemption, that builds a better ecosystem for a transparent church. And that's what we're really— we're working on. We have some really cool stuff happening over the next few months because of that.

God gave me a Ferrari.

He gave his son. And you want to argue about 10%.

Millions of Christians donate to their church every week. It's generous and it goes to a nonprofit. Can I get another amen? Well, it turns out the nonprofit designation is one of the most powerful legal and financial protections in all American law. $53 billion.

$1.5 billion is stolen every year. Mind your own business.

In fact, some of the most powerful financial institutions in America are not banks, they are churches.

In the for-profit world, if you went out and raised money for something like this and didn't build it, that would be called fraud. But in the religious world, we call it faith.

Filmmaker Nathan Abphel set out to find out what is happening here.

You have been warned for criminal trespass. You are being detained.

Attacks faith. This is a series that attacks people who are using faith to get rich.

At what point do we call this not only a business, but a straight-up scam?

We have a new multi-part series called The Religion Business, and it covers it all. It's now available at tuckercarlson.com.

Ein perfekter Frühlingstag. Sonne. Park. Picnic.

Und so viele Pollen.

Shop-Apotheke sagt tschüss Allergie und hallo Frühling. Hier findest du alles, um unbeschwert durch die Allergiezeit zu kommen. Als Neukunde sparst du sogar 10% ab 35 € Bestellwert mit dem Code NEU10. Du hast ein E-Rezept? Einfach Shop-Apotheke-App runterladen und direkt einlösen. Gutscheinbedingungen auf shop-apotheke.com/gutscheine.

I would assume all churches would have transparent accounting.

No, very, um, as denominations, denominational structure, you, you had to be transparent with the denomination, which is good. But as denominations die and non-denominationalism is rising, non-denominational churches are accountable to no other church. Most usually some people will say, oh no, this church, this pastor sits on my board.

Affiliated with.

Yeah, but it's like there's no handing over of P&L statements or budgets. So what's happened is a lot of churches, like there's a church in Florida, their budget is $91 million a year. Their congregation gets a single sheet of paper with 3 little, like, 3 pie charts on it and says, here's where your $91 million went.

Where does it actually go, do you think?

Like, there's just buckets, you know, there's just massive buckets.

20—

I don't have the pie charts in front of me, but 27% goes to salary. Okay, well, what does the head pastor make? You don't need to know, Tucker.

They don't tell you what the pastor makes?

No, you don't know what the pastor makes. This is the crazy part, is you don't know their retirement packages.. And I've heard about his retired— this individual's retirement package. This church in particular, we did a series of videos on because they took a PPP loan, a $1.7 million PPP loan in 2020. A few months later, they bought a $12.7 million hunting ranch. And then a few months after that, the PPP loan got forgiven and it was dumped on the American taxpayer.

No, they forgave those loans.

And my question, my only— my question was, hey, is this Christlike to claim financial hardship, take a $1.7 million PPP loan as you're buying an almost $13 million property for the church that's not essential, and then you dump $1.7 million worth of debt onto the American taxpayer? That doesn't sound very Christlike. And I got eaten alive for that comment.

What was Jesus's real estate portfolio?

Huge. The world.

The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. I think he said, yeah, he had zero real estate portfolio. What kind of— you got a negative reaction to that? Horrible. How?

Yeah, because it goes back to Israel. This is a good correlation, actually. They said, Nathan, look at how many baptisms they're doing. Look at how many salvations they're doing. And they go, how dare you? And then one individual even put the, the percentage of the total PPP loan forgiveness debt in a comment. And he goes, Nathan, this is all it is to the American public. He tried to rationalize it. He's like, it's 0.000022% or whatever of the total PPP loan debt. So why do you care? And that is, that is the, the biggest issue I have with all of this is—

I mean, that reasoning justifies like, I don't know, shoplifting from a grocery store. They got tons of food.

Exactly.

What percentage, if I steal this candy bar, what percentage of the total candy bar inventory is that? It's just zero point, point, point, point.

That sounds pretty Christlike, right?

Yeah.

Oh man, it's, it's so the— but here's the thing as an auditor. And I'm going to use this term, it's exhausting because there's just so much corruption in the system. And so I'm really excited for the next 6 months because it's okay, how do we become the leaders in the change, you know, and how do we show different models and say, hey, here's how we can do it different— differently. Here's how we can build systems to protect it against ourselves.

So if you don't mind, will you describe the ideal model for an American church?

I don't—

like, we're Or what would be a massive improvement?

Transparent accounting is base level step one. Like, your congregation, your donors should know where every dollar goes, and they should be able to ask. Your pastor's salary should be public knowledge. Just like if I invest in a for-profit publicly traded company, I know those executive salaries. Of course I know where the money goes. So why should that— I invest in that company. If I donate and fund this organization, I should know where the money goes as well.

But they don't disclose that.

They don't disclose that. No, many churches do not. So there's, there's great— I have a lot of friends in denominations, Methodist, Methodist, Baptist, you know, and their salaries are known for the most part. And so I love it because it checks them at the door. There is that check, if that makes sense.

Yes.

And my Methodist friends in Florida, you guys know who you are, like, they're hilarious because they're bi-vocational and they're like, Nathan, half our pews are filled with drug addicts and homeless. You know, but we're on the front lines and their program is so awesome. And they basically turn their church into a co-op where all these community nonprofits can thrive and encourage each other. And they've just given parts of the building to the nonprofits and it's become this community hub. And I'm like, oh, Jesus is right here. I feel, you know, I feel him. You got homeless people coming in and getting meals. You have handicapped children in the little school there. It's beautiful. You know, and then you have people in the community packaging up food and I'm like, oh, I feel it. I feel the work, you know? And, and then I walk into a church where I don't know the pastor's salary, where he just acquired a $12.75 million hunting ranch. And, and I'm like, okay, I'll grab a donut and a cup of coffee and see the performance. And usually the performance is on the projector screen. I don't even see him in person.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And no one knows what his salary or retirement package is.

Well, I'm sure a few people on the elder board do, but yeah, it's—

What would happen if a church just declined nonprofit status?

I think that's the most brilliant option out there, because what it does is it holds you liable to the Fed and the state. You're rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and then you're not liable to get in that box. I think it'd be a— like, I think it'd be a really fun experiment. All of this is an experiment, right? America is an experiment, a governing experiment.

Yes.

Our institutions that we've built on top of Christ, those are just experiments. Those are traditions of men. And when we can see it for that, and that's not doctrine, then we can audit the, the experiments and say, where are we failing? And I think a really cool experiment would be to start a church as a for-profit vehicle. And here's a great example. If, if the religion business takes off and we're doing season 3 and 4 and we keep going as we reform the system, we'll need a space eventually to build our sets out because our sets are sitting in storage right now. And we're talking about internally, okay, how does our for-profit business help the community? Well, all of a sudden we have warehouse space. Let's hold a church. Let's hold a gathering. I hold 2 a week right now. One's in my house and I'm like, well, we could make it a little bigger. And we don't even need to ask people for money because God's blessed us with this space. You know, we could, we could start a church organically like that to where a for-profit vehicle funds the ability to hold church, to hold the gathering, if that makes sense.

So why don't people do it?

I think it's just nonprofit status is a really easy thing to grab. You know, in 1913, when the nonprofit sector was carved out, there was 12,000 organizations. Today there's 1.9 million. Nonprofits. So you say, okay, Tucker, well, you know, population expansion. Well, the population only expanded through 4.3% in the last 110 years. So you do the math, that would put, put us around 65,000 organizations. So you ask, you have to ask, why is there a gap from 65,000 organizations to 1.9 million? The sector just exploded. And it's because there's less accountability in the legal architecture. And then religious exemptions are just completely dark. And what I mean by that is they file no 990 with the IRS. They file very few documents with the state. And so the church, the institution which is supposed to be the beacon of light, plays in the darkest legal architecture there is in the US. And it's just become status quo. Now it's like, hey, let's start a church. And now what's cool is— not what's cool, I shouldn't say that. It's very pathetic— is certain denominations have lobbied the government over the last 50 years to add add vocabulary in front of the word church.

So now if I have a church that's not a nonprofit that, that has religious exemption, so I don't file a 990, I can start acquiring for-profit companies and pulling them under my church banner as a church. So I can have an investment fund registered as a church. I can have a TV network registered as a church. I can have a radio station registered as a church. I can take almost any vehicle, any, any legal for-profit business and bring it under my church. And it gets to reclassify as a church. You have organizations like Compassion International, Ravi Zacharias Ministries. These, these organizations used to file 990s because they were regular nonprofits and they reclassified as a church. So it means they no longer had to file 990s.

You can do that with any business.

If you have a church, you can, you can, you can bring it under your fold as what's called an auxiliary, a convention, or association. There's different classifications.. And you can basically build a conglomerate as a church. So a thrift store, that same, that same, same church in Florida has a thrift store. A thrift store is registered as a church. It files no 990s. You're selling clothes. Well, let me rephrase that. You're taking clothes for free, washing them, and then selling them as opposed to just giving them away to people who need clothes. But you're making a profit off of that. But why would a thrift store be registered as a church? So you can start building these businesses, these conglomerates, and all under the banner of one church.

And none of them pay taxes. None of them.

No, they do not pay taxes. And what's crazy is that same church, they have a new business, relatively new. It's basically a consulting firm to build your church. So, Tucker, you, you can hire my consulting firm and I'm going to teach you how to build your church. I'm going to give, you know, lay it out for you, talk about the screens and everything. That's registered as a church as well. So a consulting firm to teach you how to build a building is registered as a church. So that means it files no 990s. No one knows what people are making at the executive level. It's just like religion is the organized— organized nonprofit religious exemptions are the perfect vehicle to just abuse the system. And I'm not saying everybody's doing that, but I'm saying the legal architecture is the perfect vehicle for abuse.

The Mormon, the LDS Church, Mormon Church is one of the biggest landowners in the United States.

Yeah, they were the second largest private landowner. They might be the first now.

Wow.

Yep.

So what, like how big is the enterprise and what's its purpose?

The LDS Church?

Yeah.

The LDS Church is, their net assets are about $350 billion, billion with a B. They have over $300 billion in the market. Just invested, uh, through a, through a hedge fund called Enzyme Peak Advisors. They'll hit $1 trillion if they continue the growth rate. They'll hit $1 trillion in net assets in the next 15 years. And the crazy part about the LDS Church is they make so much profit in the market. They made $25 billion last year in interest alone in the market. The entire global LDS Church costs around $7 billion. Wow. To run. So that means they could fund the church in perpetuity just off a percentage of the interest they make in the market. But they still demand that their congregants give them 10% a year. And they'll push Mormon— my Mormon friends are going to push back and say, Nathan, like, hey, you know, we don't have— it's not a demand. Yes, it is, because you don't get to get into your celestial kingdom unless you pay your tithe, your 10%, your tithe. And so they could cut off, they could say, hey guys, stop giving to us right now. Give to the community, give to people in need.

Take that 10% and give to people in need. But they don't. They say give it to us still. And they could fund the church in perpetuity just off a percentage. So what are they doing?

What's the point of all this?

They're— I'll argue for them. They're going to say, Nathan, you know, Joseph in Egypt, he stockpiled for 7 years. For the 7-year famine. That's what we're doing. Well, you've stockpiled indefinitely. Like, you could fund the church indefinitely just off the interest. So I don't know what they're doing. That would be their only rationale. But I see it as it's like The Lord of the Rings, right? There's the shiny ring. Like, their hedge fund is their ring and they just can't give it up. And so it's just, it's just growing.

Do pastors actually get rich doing the job? Are there some who do?

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Kenneth Copeland, I've seen estimates. No one knows the exact number because the salaries aren't known, but some estimates Kenneth Copeland is worth $700 million. Around $700 million. Yeah.

Is that— I mean, since Jesus does say it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle, but possible. Yeah. That seems like very obviously the wrong path for a Christian church.

100%. Well, there's a, there's a beautiful part of the New Testament where Paul defines leadership qualifications.

Yes.

And lover of money is, is one of them. You cannot be a lover of money. You need to live modestly. Right. And it's like it's painted in there. And there are amazing pastors and shepherds out there that live by that standard. But there's this growing number. And, and again, it goes back to that socialist comment. When we see Christianity as a capitalistic venture and we build businesses on top of Christ with capitalism in mind, that's what happens.

It does. I mean, this is— as someone who loves America and is very pro-America, it pains me to say this, but I do think that Christianity as a religious faith, as the, you know, the key to eternal life is something bigger than any nation state, even your own. And so you probably want to keep your religion from becoming infected by cultural assumptions that are just by definition bound to a time and place. Like, this is about eternity, right?

Yeah.

And to what extent do you think— so that's my preface just to it. This is not an anti-American statement at all. I love America, but I don't want Christianity to reflect America. I want Christianity to change America.

Amen. And again, Christianity was the hard line against corruption. Like, like the church was supposed to be the antithesis of corruption. And instead the system— and this is— I really want people to ask, why has it corrupted? Is the institutional model has corrupted to mirror our corruption in government? They run simultaneously now. The government says We're going to collect taxes, you know, and you're going to give it to us. And with these, with these massive bills, you're never going to know where the spending goes. You just got to give us more money. The churches are doing the same thing. They're saying, hey, you're going to give us your money. We're going to build the system. You got to trust us. And now we're going to start petitioning your kids to go sell their electronics to give us, you know, to give it to us in the name of Jesus. You know, it's just, it's such a sad spot. Yeah. To be right now, to look at, to look at the body of Christ that I love. And it's just— I always use the analogy: we've built a tradition, we've built an institution, an expensive machine, a consumerist machine that entertains us and keeps us fed.

But that institution has chained, chained us to the pews financially. Because if we leave, if you actually, if you actually preached this whole book in its entirety, a lot of people would get up and leave. Because they'd be called to go out. They'd say, hey, God's calling me to do this other thing. Yeah, but, but with that goes my money and my time and my attention. And so the model we've built is actually antithetical to the calling in the, in the Gospels.

So the theology that these churches preach serves the church, not the kingdom of God.

I've—

yes.

And I've said one statement that people have hung me for. I've said anybody who plays in this system for a full career gets eaten by the system. And you've nailed that. When you play for the institution, when you are on stage and you have this $70 million a year operating cost, your message, your theology, everything you preach from giving kids sheets on how to give you more money shifts to build and calcify the machine we've built on top of Christ.

Now that makes total sense.

And I've talked to amazing pastors who've just been eaten by the machine. And then the good ones. Here's the sad part. As the big ones grow, they drain resources from the small churches that are actually still embedded in the community doing the good work. And a lot of those small ones shut down. Statistically, right now, church closure is outpacing church expansion, and the churches that are closing are the small ones. And those small churches are the backbone of their local communities. And so when I say, uh, all pastors who play by the system die by the system, even though— even the good ones get eaten by the system. because the big church gobbles up their congregation and gobbles up the resources that funded this beautiful small community church.

Is anyone pointing any of this out? Do you feel like a voice in the wilderness?

I did for a couple of years, but I think our message is starting to resonate. And there's other watchmen on the wall, so to speak.

That's in Ezekiel, I think Ezekiel 3, So there's clearly a religious revival going on in the United States, a Christian revival. Where are people going?

That's, that's a really good question. I think people are searching. They don't know. There's some go to the megachurch, some hopefully go to Scripture and just sit quietly and read Scripture and pray. Yes. My, my encouragement would be to go find a small church in your area.

Yeah.

Like that church needs your help. Those smaller pastors that are often bi-vocational because even their, even their congregation can't fund a full-time salary. Go support them with your time, with your, with your talent, with your, with your resource. Like those small ones. And ironically, with the small ones need your help. It's like they need you to help with the kids.

So bi-vocational means that the pastor is a carpenter.

100%.

Yeah.

And that's with the beautiful pastors that I've sat with because I've sat with probably 1,000+ pastors around the US at this point over the last 5 years is the bi-vocational ones are usually the ones preaching the most biblical theology.

I've noticed that. Yes, I've noticed that.

Because their salary, their livelihood, the food that sits in front of their kids is not dependent on this book.

Well, that was Paul's model. You know, the first great evangelist was making tents. Yeah.

Well, and there's a— and you know, it's the Bible speaks about, hey, if you make your living from the gospel, you have your reward. You've been paid, you've been paid your reward, and I want my reward to be upstairs, you know.

How do you— the big denominations, you think, are less corrupt?

No, the big— I wouldn't say that. The big denominations just have hierarchical oversight on the financials. And so, um, it used to— it does bring some accountability to the system, but it's not, it's not quality accountability, but there is some structure, like Methodists, for example. You know what your Methodist pastor makes. It's a baseline. And so you're not joining the Methodist Church to get rich. Let's just say no. But like Baptists have slipped a bit, you know. I know, I know Baptist pastors that are very well off, you know.

And how?

Um. Just because they've kind of taken the non-denominational model. A great example is there's a, there's a massive church. And here's another example to the capitalist mindset. Remember when we talk about franchises, like Christianity is almost becoming franchises. So when you bring really smart businessmen and women into leadership at these churches, they bring their capitalist business mindset into the machine and it's corrupting the machine. And what I mean by that is— I'm going to give two examples. There's a— Uh, there's a very large church in Houston. Oh, your family goes to Second Baptist, right? So that's a billion-dollar enterprise that's been funded by Houstonians for almost 100 years. So local Houston Christians generously gave to build this tradition, this awesome tradition. It's a school, it's a church, it's a lot of things. But now it's all that power has been consolidated into 6 people's hands, and they can decide what to do with that billion in assets. They can move it out of state. They can sell off parts of it. And so what I mean by that is when we franchise out Christianity, the resources don't stay in the town that funded it. And a great example is there's this small church in Sarasota that I visited, and it was acquired by a church in Dallas.

And so these individuals in Sarasota funded this building for years, and now the church in Dallas can just sell it off whenever it wants, and all that resource heads to Dallas. And so the people in Sarasota, the Christians in Sarasota, gave generously. And that's what I mean, is all money and resource ends up siloing at the top.

Now, why would a church in Dallas want a church in Sarasota?

I've got my opinion. I think it's to justify the beachfront home in Florida.

Wow.

Yeah. But, but so what I'm seeing is, and what we're seeing is money siloing at a national level. And then what does that mean? It means you can all of a sudden, these national groups and these big conglomerates become what? Like, become political apparatus, basically.

It's just surprising, but I guess not really surprising to learn that what's happening to every other part of our society is happening to churches, where your vet is now owned by some private equity concern out of New York, and your stores in your town are gone because of Amazon and Walmart. And, like, it just the big things get bigger, the small things disappear.

We call it the Walmart effect in the religion business. When a megachurch moves into a town, it has to find consumers somewhere.

Yes.

So it looks so that it attracts, you know, there's— everybody's not Christian. There's only so many Christians in your town. So what happens is the megachurch draws Christians and consumers from the small churches, entertains them and bedazzles them and gives them a good sprinkled donut. And then the small churches close. And what happens is usually the Walmart moves on, the megachurch corrupts. It's usually a sex scandal or a financial scandal that shuts down. And then there's no small churches anymore, which were the backbone of the community. And so the Walmart effect is in full effect. And again, I don't want to just be an auditor. There's, there's beautiful reform on the horizon because I'm seeing home churches spring up all over the— all over the US. Me too. I'm seeing people actually go back to the small churches in their community because they're looking for authenticity. The, the non-denominational kid, me, who ran around on stage and did every, you know, goofy thing my church would put on, and I had a great time, is I'm— I love exploring Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and I call it the kaleidoscope of Christianity because I want to see where every denomination thrives and then where I think theological pinch points are, because then I can build my own own perspective on this, on this book.

And now my faith is my own, if that makes sense. And so I love going to small churches now. Um, it's kind of like my jam.

Well, they're great. Yeah, they're great. I've been to— yeah, regularly been to a church with 3 other people.

And I'll tell you this, I get arrested at big churches. I get kicked out of big churches even when I'm just going to visit without cameras, if I just want to go see, sit. But I have never had a bad experience ever at a small church.

Totally agree.

I usually have people come up and they're like, oh, you're the Religion Business guy. And they like hug me or want to, you know, want to sit with us. And it's awesome. And they're like, oh, you're great. Cool. Awesome.

That's—

Yeah.

So last question, which is like a big question. Well, it's a small topic, but I think it's a metaphor. And it's about the treatment of Palestinian Christians, which is how I got into all this drama in the first place, because I just noticed that Christians in the United States, some of whom loved Israel, and that didn't bother me at all, but were going out of their way to ignore what was happening to their brothers in Christ in the Middle East. And I was offended by that. And so began all of this. But is that changing? Are you seeing greater concern from Christian churches about what's happening to Christians in the Middle East, the Holy Land?

I wouldn't say it's changing it to the institutional level. It's changing at the individual level.

Is it?

I think it is. Yeah. I have so many healthy conversations with my Christian brothers and sisters about this topic in particular. And people are just— Christians are waking up. They don't really know where to go. Right. You know, it's when the scales fall off for the first time, you're looking around and you're like, whoa, this is far more beautiful and far more complex than I realized.

Yes, exactly.

But it's We as Christians can just look to the Scripture and look to the Bible and say, this is our roadmap and that's it. And God will walk us out. And so I do think at the institutional level, I haven't seen change, but at the individual level, I've seen massive, massive theological change over the last couple of years. Really?

And who's leading that? Are people just independently coming to—

I'm going to say watchmen on the wall. Like, there's, there's a lot of people out there that are digging, and then they'll put their, they'll put their research online, they'll put it on social media, they'll reach out to us. I'm just one of many. We're just one of many that are starting to pick up the Bible and say, let's read this cover to cover.

And it used to be that the critics of Christian churches in the United States, of their corruption, of their scandals, were all anti-Christian. So it's a way to undermine it. You know, the Boston Globe with its Spotlight series, you really got the sense like they just hate the Catholic Church for other reasons, which I think is true. But now you're seeing criticism of this kind of behavior, of church behavior, from people who are mad because they're really sincere Christians.

And I even have massive— like, there's a pastor who's been on your show, great guy. He's a good friend of mine, and we're developing a relationship. And he works at a very large church, one of the biggest in the US. And he— none of what I say scares him. He's like, I agree with everything.

Really?

Yeah.

And I'm like, awesome. So even, even at the pastoral level, there's starting to be a shift where they're like, we should be the beacon of truth and the beacon of light and transparency. Yes. And so I think there's going to become a tipping— there's going to be a tipping point in the next 6 to 12 months where the whole machine, the apparatus starts steering away.

Also, to me, a tip-off is defensiveness. We're all defensive when called out on what we're doing wrong. I certainly am, but we're not supposed to be. Yeah. And we're number one called to humility. That's like the ticket price for admission, I think, is, you know, we're screwed up and need help. That's why we're here.

Yeah.

So to hear that people are willing to acknowledge what they're doing wrong without being defensive seems like the best sign ever.

I'm really excited. And I think, could you and I both agree that we sit here as as men who are evil, like, at our core. And Christ gave us the example to chase after. And I think if we can get more people around the table with that as the baseline, then we can look at the institutions— my own institutions, the, the corporation that we built on top of the religion business— we're looking at, because we're like, is this the best vehicle, like, to do what we need to do? We don't think it is, right? We want to be— we want to be the beacon of transparency.

So So I would go to an AA meeting. No, you got to go to an AA meeting. You don't need to be an alcoholic to, to enjoy the beauty of an AA meeting. I don't want to drink, but I still like— I love AA meetings because the, the price of being able to speak is admitting in public how screwed up you are, and it just changes the vibe completely. Like, there's no hierarchy at all. The one thing that unites every person in the room is their common flaw.

Yeah.

And it's— that's the basis of, like, truth and love.

So what happens if the church took that model and said, okay, let's all gather around this table, we're all P.O.S.s, let's just admit that. Okay, how do we fix this? Right? How do we fix what we've built? I think it would be the most collaborative, um, fulfilling experience for—

Totally agree.

Small pastors, big pastors alike.

I totally agree.

So let's get that together.

You should go to an AA meeting. And, and I don't go often enough, but occasionally I go and there's, like, there's always the guy who's, like, still shaking, you know, he's just got off it. And then there's the guy who's, you know, been off for 40 years and he's, like, got his life together, maybe rich. And they're exactly the same.

Yeah.

As people, as we all are. Every person is united.

And well, that's why Christ crushed hierarchies. Exactly. He's like, all, all of you guys are the same. There's no hierarchy except the Father. We got one good teacher, you know, and it's but we've built hierarchies again on top of Christ. I, I say, um, you know, prior to the Reformation, there was one church, this monarchical Roman Catholic Church. And the Reformation—Calvin, Zwingli, you know, Luther—they came in and they, they, the leaders of the, the leaders of the Reformation really shook the church. And all we did, though—they didn't— they shook everything except one thing: they didn't shake the institutional structure. And so what happened was the Reformation came through, they broke the stained glass, they burned cathedrals down. You know, they're like, we're going to do it differently, which Awesome. Good intentioned. But as they came over to America, we just built the same structure again. We built a non-transparent, unaccountable, financially hungry machine with usually one person at the head. So I always tell people, we have 400,000 mini-Vaticans in America now. There's 400,000— estimated 400,000 churches. We've just built 400,000 mini-Vaticans, right? And so we just built hierarchy again. And it's like, no, we gotta, we gotta crush all of them.

I agree with that.

I agree with that absolutely vehemently. Thank you for this film and for all the work that you've done on it.

Thank you for having me, Tucker.

On this topic, despite the abuse you've taken.

Yeah, thank you.