INTRODUCTION:
Stuart Delony is a storyteller, seeker, sojourner, question-asker, and provocateur. He’s a former pastor and the creator and host of Snarky Faith Radio, a podcast for the spiritually disenfranchised.
Stuart has a Masters of Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary and
lives in Chapel Hill, NC with his wife and kids.
INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):
· The Insanity In Christianity
· How Pastors Are Like Drug Dealers
· The Simplicity Of Jesus Christ
· God Is Pro-Choice
· Jesus Loves Broke Bitches!!!
· Shitty Seminaries
· The Lord Speaks To Us Through Movies
· Lakewood Church Shade
· The Production That Is “Church Service”
· The Marriage Of Church & State
CONNECT WITH STUART:
Website: https://www.SnarkyFaith.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stuartdelony
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stuartdelony/
STUART’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
In God We Trump: https://vimeo.com/234002024
CONNECT WITH DE’VANNON:
Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.com
Website: https://www.DownUnderApparel.com
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopix
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannon
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/
Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com
DE’VANNON’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)
o https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370
o TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs
· OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)
o https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible
· Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)
· Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levin
o https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com
· Upwork: https://www.upwork.com
· FreeUp: https://freeup.net
VETERAN’S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
· Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org
· American Legion: https://www.legion.org
· What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg
INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?:
· PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.
https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00]
You’re listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De’Vannon and I’ll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what’s really going on in your life.
There is nothing off the table and we’ve got a lot to talk about. So let’s dive right into this episode.
De’Vannon: Stewart Delony is a fun and beautiful man. He is the host of the Snarky Faith Radio podcast. Stewart has himself a master of global leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. And he worked for over 20 years in ministry. Now, in this episode, we about to shred modern day Christianity and read them for all the filth they damn well deserve.
And as always, I will be throwing all the shade at [00:01:00] Lakewood Church because they deserve it more than most. I hope y’all enjoy.
Hello, all my beautiful souls out there and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I’m super excited as I always am. Everyone says that before every fucking show. So anyway, I hope this one is like super badass and we’re gonna talk a lot about Jesus and, and those damn Christian people who seem to have attached to themselves, to him for some bizarre, unbeknownst reason today.
Have Stewart Dani with me. He’s the host of the Snarky Faith Podcast, Lion Ash Radio Show. And it is pretty snarky, . I do have to say something myself, Stewart, how you are? How, how are you today?
Stuart: I’m great, Danna and I, I’m excited to be here hanging out with you and talking about all sorts of stuff today.
De’Vannon: All sorts [00:02:00] of things. And so I remember whether the I had discovered as you add or how, I don’t know, I’d just be on the internet digging up shit. And somehow I came across, maybe I did like a religious search on Apple or something. And then I came across your podcast, Snarky Faith. And then I looked at some of the show, show titles and everything like that.
And I was just, just as fascinated as I could be. So just to read, we’re gonna actually talk about your podcast towards the end of the show because we wanna talk about a couple of documentaries first. But I do wanna read the description you have for your podcast just as a little titty teaser for my beautiful audience.
And so, and that quote, Stewart Snarky Faith is a space where we ire ire. Haven’t had my wine today. Ire wrestle through life, culture and spiritu realities. It is a skewing of religion and culture today. The questions are even, [00:03:00] answers are never the point. It’s all about the conversation in the quote, and we’ll jump back on that later.
So one of your major themes that I came across for you is this, you’ve coined this term the insanity in Christianity, and I’m just wondering what that means
Stuart: to you. Well part of it has to do with, with a bit of my past too, if I was, I was raised in the south. I was raised in, in, in, around the Atlanta metro area, was raised around conservative Christianity for the most part, and then for some odd reason, decided to get into ministry for a number of years.
I was, I worked like 20 years in church ministry and. Began, the further I was working in there was just began to see just the weird, crazy dysfunction. Like, like the, the idea that there is the stuff that Jesus talks about and then there’s the stuff that like Christians [00:04:00] talk about in politics and those two things, those don’t really match up at all.
And you know, and so that just started kind of ticking me off over the while of being able to say, Wait a second. I know you guys have Jesus bumper stickers or T-shirts, but nothing about what you’re doing. Seems like you understand the simple teachings of Jesus. So yes, my job a lot of times I feel like is to be able to point out the insanity, to be able to say that’s not what Karate’s talked about.
Mm-hmm. , it’s just a lot of American Christianity, .
De’Vannon: Right. And that is our task because, you know, our market is not, I feel like I could speak for you when I say this. You know, our market is not. The church. Mm-hmm. , it’s not church people. Our marketer are people who are considering their path and pondering at whose minds have a risk of being overthrown.
By the way, Christianity is branded, especially here in the States. And so when people like us rise [00:05:00] up and go, there’s another approach to God, you know, this, this fooly that that we’re seeing play out before our eyes isn’t him. And so I don’t want people to actually believe that this is all God is reduced to his evangelical and Republican philandering, you know, and cocaine ORs and whatever the hell else they do.
I don’t judge it for the cocaine orgies, Mr. Matt Gates and you know, Mr. Wannabe speaker of the house. Cause I’ve had a few of those myself. But I wasn’t judging people ,
Stuart: you know, you weren’t oppressing people for the things that you were doing. Which that ticks me off like more than anything. It does, It does it.
I, I’ve never understood that. So for people to kind of, and that’s a weird part about Christianity, I think that the, for lack of a better term, the inbred nature of a lot of the, the thought processes that go on within there, I, I think it keeps people in a space where they feel like they have to keep coming back.
Where they feel like it’s, you know, [00:06:00] either fear or shame or whatever keeps you coming back. Even though probably every bit of the logic in your brain is saying, This place is crazy. We gotta get out. But somehow you just leave that door open, put you don’t know what God’s doing, which is a recipe for abuse, , anytime you kind of enter that into it yeah.
De’Vannon: Yeah. Yeah, those are the dangling carrots, you know, the vague promises. You know, it’s like when I was a drug dealer, I wasn’t a shady ass drug dealer, but I hung around a bunch of shady ass drug dealers. Mm-hmm. . And that’s how you always get people, you know, like, Oh, this is gonna be the best thing, you know, all these promises, or, Give me your money and I’ll come back with even more than what I’ve, you know, more doped than what I have right now.
You know, Just let me borrow this. Let me hold onto it for a second. You know, it’s the same
Stuart: energy. Oh, I’ve been around some shady ass pastor, so I, I totally agree. That is . That is the exact same energy .
De’Vannon: Then I heard you say the S word when you were referring to Jesus’ [00:07:00] ministry, which is simple. Mm-hmm.
and, and so I just wanted to echo that cuz I always like to remind people that it was a remarkable thing and one of the gospels and it was talking about how Jesus taught with such simplicity. Mm-hmm. , you know, I find it remarkable because they, they couldn’t write everything down in the Bible or, or even the scribes of the day.
They couldn’t literally account for everything in the whole day. They only wrote down what stood out to them. So the fact that Jesus’ ministry being like, chill was noteworthy, just lets, lets me know that the the Republicans of his day, , the Pharisees and the sades were being really, really extra. Yeah.
You know, because there, there was a contrast there. Jesus wasn’t showboating and causing a whole scene except for when he threw over the temple, which I, you know, I’m with him on that. Mm-hmm. and you know, so Jesus was chilling. So when we look at, you know, Republicans, evangelicals you know, people who tout the name [00:08:00] Christianity and how hard they come for, for people, you know, they’re being, you know, the exact opposite of how Christ was very humble and meek, he spoke his word, but he didn’t, by no means go around trying to force it upon people.
Mm-hmm. . And so he never did that. And so I just wanted to talk about the simplicity of the Lord.
Stuart: Yes. And, and even in that regard, like if you don’t talk about, even about the simplicity of scripture, one of the ideas, core ideas of scripture is choice. In the Bible, you know, allowing people to have choice, which is really funny because Republicans don’t like to allow people to have choices to be able to go and do stuff.
But that’s very, very central to really a lot of the narrative of scriptures in the Bible is that God gives people the opportunity to do stuff. God doesn’t compulsively make people do things like Republicans want to do and are doing in certain places right now too, which is terrifying. Yeah, The, I believe they do it in the name of Jesus, which is also sickening
De’Vannon: too , when anybody can pick [00:09:00] up the name of Jesus and go trotting down the street with it.
I know where people have to get is that, you know, when the Bible talks about woo and sheep’s clothing, it has to be somebody, when the Bible talks about the hypocrites and stuff like that, it has to be somebody. Every generation has people who claim to be of God and are not, and people who say one thing and do the opposite, it happens everywhere.
So in our day and time, I believe that that is our Republican party and. The Evangelical party and people who, who don’t seem to have a problem with what Republicans are doing. Mm-hmm. . So this is our, these are our Pharisees right now.
Stuart: Oh, absolutely. Because Christ talks a lot about, I mean, there, there is so much that is like anti empire and anti-establishment in what Jesus is talking about, about the structures of power of the time.
And it’s funny to be able to see where we see like a lot of conservative Christians running, We want more power in government, we want more power, we want more of the empire. And that whole thing was antithetical to everything Jesus was talking [00:10:00] about. He was trying to talk about whole different system of power and a whole dis different system of living, but some of them didn’t get the memo apparently.
Mm.
De’Vannon: They can’t because, you know, as the Lord said, if he were to open their eyes and they would see, and he would open their hearts and they would hear, and they would feel they would be human and they would be converted, but he has not given them the kingdom. And, you know, whoever the, whoever the hypocrites of the day are, are never, ever gonna see fault in themselves because it’s always gonna be a problem with what someone else is doing.
Mm-hmm. because their minds have been overthrown in a, in a and that makes life harder for everyone else. But yeah, I choose to believe that the problems that they bring up on our lives are, they’re to strengthen us because it’s gotta be something if it’s not them and there’s gonna be the bitch next door or the bitch at the grocery store, , we gonna always have motherfucker somewhere
So, so we can’t escape. And so, but it is [00:11:00] about choice. And Deuteronomy, you know, in the Old Testament, the Lord is always trying to give Israel a choice. Choose, choose you this day who you’re going to serve, but I’m not going to force you. I hope you pick me, is what God is saying. But he never, ever, ever, ever was forceful.
And my favorite example of Jesus being anti-establishment, if you will. Entire rich people was when the, the lady came in with only the two mites and all the rich people were in there making it rain. And, you know, he didn’t compliment them, he didn’t say anything good about them. The person who made him stop in his tracks was the broke bitch.
Mm-hmm. , you know, the, the, the, the bitch bleeding from her pussy. You know, I met respectfully ladies and and I realized how that sounded when I said,
Stuart: You mean it in love. You mean it in love. That’s
De’Vannon: all love. And so, so, you know, you know, the broken people or the people who stood out to him, but in this is the town people wanna talk about the richest pastors, the richest people in [00:12:00] the world.
This is not how God is.
Stuart: No. No, and that’s, and again, like circling back to the simplicity, it really just goes back to like, how are you loving people? in your area, like in your own sphere? Like, do you love your neighbor? Do you love the, those that aren’t nice to you? I mean, they’re really simple things in many ways that will change how you walk.
That’ll change how you even like look within yourself when you’re actually learning to deal with other people. Seeing your own junk when you see other people’s junk. And then, you know, the hope is that it makes you way, way, way more compassionate moving forward as you engage with other people. But at the same time, yeah, sometimes it’s too simple for Christianity.
We need to make it into some sort of a thing where we’re drawing a line in the sand and the, these are going to hell, these are going to heaven. And when they always draw the line, the line’s always on their side. Mm-hmm.
De’Vannon: So, so how you went to seminary? Which seminary [00:13:00] was it again?
Stuart: I went to a Fuller Theological Seminary.
It’s it’s mainly in Pasadena, but they have a few other campuses.
De’Vannon: Yeah. Cause I thought I remember like World Campus or something like that in there somewhere. But I went to seminary too. I left, I didn’t stay long, just only a few semesters because the the guy who taught law, he just one day he was like, Yeah, we, we really like to control people in the church and everything like that.
And oh my God, I was the only person in class who was like, I don’t think we should be controlling , you know? Yes. Yes. I don’t think we should be doing that. And, you know, and I did a double take, you know, and I asked him, you know, the fuck you. You know, I was speaking more similarly and the aloud.
Stuart: Of course, of course, of course.
But that’s the trans, that’s the translation of .
De’Vannon: Yeah. In, in, in the Greek. That’s the translation. Yeah. The fuck you say. [00:14:00] And he just like, he was like, Yeah, we wanna control people in the church. And he said it as casually as there’s clouds in the sky. And everyone else in the class was nodding along with him besides me, and I was like, Oh, hell no.
Mm-hmm. , I got to go .
Stuart: So, Oh, I, I’ve had moments like that too. This was, I mean, this wasn’t, I mean, I appre for me, I, I enjoyed the seminary I went to for the different viewpoints. It pushed on me. I enjoyed, See, I’m a person, I don’t know if I’m just like a intellectual status, but I don’t mind being wrong in my head,
So if there’s like new information out there, I don’t mind messing around with it. But watching other pastors like lose their mind. Like when certain professors would tell them scripture in this way or this way. Like, Oh, you know what, if the creation story is not literal and then you watch a bunch of other guys just heads blow up at that moment.
But, but you’re right. I’ve been in other places, not at my seminary, but when I’ve been to different conferences and stuff where I’ve heard back when I was a church planter, like heard people talking about gathering [00:15:00] people together. If you’re planting a church and those people don’t worry too much about them, they’re scaffolding on the building that you’re kind of really trying to set up here.
So they’re just useful tools and if they leave, that’s fine, but they’re, and hearing that, it’s the most dehumanizing thing that I’ve ever heard about people, especially from a perspective of we’re starting a church. People that you’re gonna start it with, ah, it don’t matter that much, but they’ll be useful idiots for a while.
And, and, and, and that’s just what gets me so much about Jesus is that Christ saw the humanity in people. Price didn’t see them as, as marks or numbers or, or any of this stuff. And it, it’s just gross. It’s gross in so many ways how Christianity has become in this way.
De’Vannon: I think some people start off corrupt like that, and I think some of them start off with the best of intentions, but money and power corrupt some slowly, gradually over time.
Much like the ring did Smiggle in the Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think that cinema and, and all these shows we watch are just [00:16:00] entertainment. I really think that the Lord is speaking through us through these things. The slow corruption of Ankin Skywalker, the Vader. You know, I don’t, I don’t, I think that this sort of stuff happens in people in real life, although they’re not running around shooting electricity outta their hands and forgot and disappearing when they put a ring on.
You know? But you know, what does disappear? You know who you used to be? You know, by the time Ankin is Vader and by time, by the time Smiggle is Gollum, that old person is, you know, their original more pure form is no more. And they can’t even tell you the point which they changed cuz it happened so subtly.
Mm. But in their mind, they still feel like they’re just as justified today as Vader and Gollum as they were when they were Ankin and Smiggle. Mm-hmm with everyone else who has a problem. .
Stuart: So, No, you’re right, you’re right. And I’ve been in places where like, yes, it feels like to stay on this track it means I’ll have to lose a part of my soul or have to swallow part of who I am to in order to remain here.
And that was, that was a learning curve for me cuz I’d worked for a, I [00:17:00] worked as a missionary for a while and I was on the leadership board of their organization and I was the guy that was always pushing back against what they were doing. And so for a season of life, I was like, Oh, I’m doing God’s work.
I’m trying to push back and give a different perspective. And then after a while you begin to realize, no, I’m just really being a pain in the ass to them, and they really don’t want me around anymore because my perspective is too challenging to what they’re talking about. And at this point, I probably just need to gracefully exit because it’s just, you know, there’s that idea of Yeah, am I helping or am I just a pain of the ass?
And at some places, if you’re a pain of the ass, you’re just gonna leave.
De’Vannon: Right? And, you know, church is just like a lot of Yes. Men around them and, and stuff like that, which is something I’m, I believe I have in my notes here too. You know, well, I’ll just say now, you know, you know these churches, they surround themselves with people who agree like them and they think like them.
And so they don’t really wanna be challenged. But the danger of that is if you’re not, if you don’t have opposing [00:18:00] viewpoint, You keep hearing all of these yeses and you begin to think that you’re right when you objectify people like that and you think that you’re right. Well, whatever it is that you do, Cause ain’t nobody telling you no.
Mm-hmm. .
Stuart: So I’m, And, but there’s, there’s a danger in folks just in the audience, just a similarly, like for people in the congregations, effectively taking their brains out when they hang out in church and being like, Yeah, whatever he said, I agree with it. I have no idea how he got to these points. You know, his theology’s already been predigested and he’s giving it to me, so sure, I’ll take it.
Even though we don’t, like, there’s not that whole like, internal process of learning and growing and it, we just end up almost taking the regurgitated vomit like a mama spitting into a, a baby bird’s mouth. I, I feel like that happens at church way too much. And I just think that would taste terrible. So and so I, I, yeah, it, it pushes back on just the fact that we’ve taught people, like you’d mentioned to keep under control and we’ve taught them to not really question.[00:19:00]
And just listen and agree. And that’s also incredibly dangerous when PO folks are at a position where they just agree with what the pastor’s always
De’Vannon: saying. And I used to be that, that guy, honestly, I think the vomit from the mama bird would be more nutrition than no more nutrition. That’s true. That’s true.
Than what these pastors bullshit is spewing out. Mm-hmm. . But I used to be that person. I would hear something I didn’t agree with and I would say, Okay, he’s up there, so I’m gonna change my mind to what he said rather than to critique him. Yeah. So or as, as I learned and when I was getting my hypnotist certification, that’s called hypnotizing people and using it in a negative way.
Mm-hmm. . So but I’m reminded, I wanna throw a little bit of shade at Lakewood Church since I used to be a member.
Stuart: Okay, let’s do it. I game for that
De’Vannon: before they kicked me out for not being straight. And so and you know, so I know Joel gets on TV and acts like he’s all [00:20:00] nice and everything, but behind the scenes they have policies and effect that really, really hurt and damage people.
Yeah. So in terms of objectifying people, while when I was volunteering in the kids’ ministry there. I walked back into the office one day and I heard the leader of the kids’ department saying something like about the volunteers, the effect of like, you know, we’re smarter than them, we get to he was talking to the staff about the volunteers who were not in the room.
I was a high level volunteer and so I was, I was given a lot of access to stuff, but he was saying like, you know, basically we’re really clever. We’re gonna use these volunteers to work ourselves out of a job. You know, thumbs up kind of thing. He, he, he, and that didn’t set well with me, but it was, no, it was on those situations where I was like, I’m gonna show grace and mercy.
No place gonna be perfect. I’m just gonna go ahead and overlook that. You know? And I wish I hadn’t done that. It, it’s,
Stuart: it’s, it’s funny cuz I’ll, I’ll do the same thing where like, I replay this in my head, [00:21:00]but, you know, if you would’ve been like, Excuse me. What about this does anyone realize this is pretty fucked up right now?
I think no one would’ve said anything and that you, you would’ve been just escorted outta the building and that would be the end of it. Because again, yeah, you have a bunch of Yes. Men or sheep or people that just go along with it because it sounds good and it, and, and because of course it’s a church, so of course God’s part of it.
Right, right. And I feel like that’s the assumption a lot of times. And it just creates a lot, a lot of baggage.
De’Vannon: I’m gonna throw a little bit more shade at them though, though. This is, this is cause this is another form of censorship that they do. Mm-hmm. . So I saw this woman catch the Holy Ghost one time when I was in the main sanctuary at Lakewood.
And look, I get some people fake dancing in the spirit. Some people don’t believe in it at all. Okay. And some, sometimes it’s real. I’ve had that experience like maybe less than five times, four or five times in my whole life. I’ve never been this sort of person that, you know, Sister Sally [00:22:00] every day on Sunday at exactly 1115 here she go down the aisle.
No. If it’s going. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna have to be like legitimate. So sometimes it’s real, sometimes it’s not. This woman was, this was real, and now she’s in the largest church in America in the middle of, I’m pretty sure it was probably like the 11:00 AM service, the largest service. But this other fucking matter cuz all the services are huge.
Mm-hmm. , I’m like, this girl caught the holy goes down in the front, you know, I guess maybe like 20, 20, 25 rows back, maybe 15 or 20 rows back from the front, which is like nothing in a place that big. Sure. But she got up in the spirit was moving her and the ushers kicked her out, . And I thought like, this was another one of those moments that I was like, Okay, I don’t like this, but I guess I should overlook it.
I’m all like, how you gonna censor the spirit in the middle of the church? I don’t. [00:23:00] I don’t,
Stuart: Well, that, that’s one of the things that, that, that grabbed me early on in when I was working in ministry is that it’s, it’s a production, you know, that Sunday morning is a production and it’s about like eliminating any mess.
It’s about eliminating like anything that would get in the way of the production, which, which is really kind of sick and twisted if you really think deeply about that. Because if, if God is trying to reach out to humans and we’re all messed up , we’ve all got shit and, and we’re all messy. But I think that like ministry, if you’re actually doing ministry with God, I mean, it’s going to be messy because we’re messy and that’s okay.
Cuz God knows what we’re messy and and I, I just find it weird when we tend to like whitewash our services into making them
productions or pageantry.
De’Vannon: I couldn’t said it better myself. And I always like to remind [00:24:00] people that when these people, your worship leaders, your pastors, and I use the word pastor loosely because I don’t believe many of these people are even called I haven’t heard any of their stories, of their true conversion when God met them and the books they write or never really about themselves.
But remember I, you know, they’re at work , you know, and just like most people when they go to work, they’re being fake as hell and putting on whatever face they need to, to, to get the job done. I just wanted to throw that out there
Stuart: and Well, and if you wanna throw out that, just, just a little addendum to what you’re saying is that there are many pastors that write books that are ghost written as well.
To where I’ve, I, I know I’ve known of hu few instances cuz I do have a friend that’s a ghost writer where they’ll just kind of give a bunch of ideas to a person, you know, like couple stories, couple things. And they’re like, boo, go make it happen. So again, you’re right, it’s like this whole like Christian marketing complex that we kind of find ourselves under that’s really just about
De’Vannon: money.
And there are [00:25:00] also regurgitated sermons too, because one of Joel’s books I read, I know, I was like, I heard this in a sermon before. You know, it’s just regurgitated sermon. It’s a, it’s a system. It’s a, it’s an equation that they have to constantly books like that. And, and I know that they’re not writing them.
I know. I know. Mm-hmm. . And so I put a note here about the war on drugs because of something that you said about like like government control. I felt like I was watching shit, I’ve consumed so many documentaries in the last, like I watched the, the new one on Netflix, How to Change Your Mind, where the guy’s going over How he used like the me school and the cide bin and the MDMA and everything like that.
And I watched the history of mental illnesses on pbs. And and it was interesting to find out how like, You know, the psychedelics were used and being like, studied in clinical settings, you know, Then the government wanted to control people cuz people started using the psychedelics and they didn’t wanna fucking go to war, [00:26:00] you know?
And then, then they, then they was like, Oh, we gotta stop this shit. So let’s make these drugs schedule one narcotics, you know, in, and then let’s put fear in everyone about the evils of what may happen, even though people weren’t really doing anything evil. Mm-hmm. . And then I feel like the church locked arms with politicians back in those days.
And then they started calling drugs the devil, you know, the spirit of Satan and everything like that. And I don’t know, I just wanted worded what you thought about, you know, how deep the history of church people and politicians go and the, what they did to stifle America’s impression of drugs.
Stuart: That’s a good question.
I, I, I feel like that, I mean, it kind of circles back to what you’d mentioned earlier, that it all falls into some sort of a system of control. You know, if we’re able to paint a line and be able to say, Oh, those in this tribe are good, but those that are outside of our tribe are bad. And, and they’ve done that on, on, on so many different social issues throughout the [00:27:00] years.
And I mean, it’s been alcohol, it’s been, it’s been like I, I worked, I, I was even attending a church, this is when I was a missionary, but I was attending a church in the a in an area, and I was like, Oh, you guys, I would love to just start doing a bar ministry. This is like 15 years ago, just going and hanging out with people and just talking to ’em, not trying to convert ’em, just talking to people in bars, just to be able to kind of break down walls.
And they were like, you know, you can only do that as long as you’re drinking a Coca-Cola or something else in that building. And I’m like, Wait, wait, I don’t work here, but you guys know me and you do not want me to go and try to share stuff with people and just get to know people in bars because alcohol, I mean, again, I feel like that these are all scapegoats that, that we tend to demonize in so many different areas.
I think that we’ve seen it, especially like recently, probably since at least 2020 ramping up of how the conservative right. Is finding like, I feel like we’re back in the Satanic panic like 2.0 like back from the eighties when like there was [00:28:00] this whole like, ah, Satans everywhere and there’s all these crazy things that I, I feel like we’ve just reinvented that cuz I grew up around some of that stupidity of the Satanic panic and, and I feel like this is just a new version of it or it’s Yeah.
A cue version of it now or some other craziness that they’re adding to it.
De’Vannon: Well, the devil isn’t particularly creative man. He just tends to copy shit and repeat cycles. He’s not really all that inventive. But if you, if you think about it, and that’s why I believe in the book of Revelation when it says that when Satan’s true form is like revealed and then the nation looked at him and was.
Okay. Is this the nigga that was fucking with us this whole time? this little thing over here, really
He’s not that impressive, you know, in terms of analyzing his mechanics, you know? Mm-hmm. , you know, is he powerful and shit? Yeah. But you know, like this, this is why, perfect [00:29:00] example, like a broke ass hustler who ain’t got a penny to his damn name, can talk a smooth game and get a whole lot of money from people.
I’ve seen it happen a thousand times when I was a drug dealer. They use what little, they have good looks, big dick or the reputation or whatever, but zero actual fucking thing of worth in terms of money. Yeah. And can get damn near anything they want, but really any shit. Mm-hmm. ,
Stuart: and even mentioning that, and I don’t, I don’t, this is, this is, this is your interview.
I don’t wanna go down any revolution, rabbit holes or anything like that too. But I also feel like that’s one of the books of the Bible that is messed up. More people with bad interpretations and reading it. I literally, I, I was going before my, this is years back, but before my ordination hearing and they’re grilling me on all these things.
And some guy asked me and I didn’t know him and I was an idiot, but he was like, Tell me about how do you feel about the end enzyme on the book of Revelation? And I was like, I feel that’s probably done more damage to Christianity than anything in a while, because we focus [00:30:00] on the end and we don’t pay attention to what’s now in this.
And depending on how you read it, some people read it exact, literally. Some people see it figuratively. Some people pick and choose between the two, which is a terrible way to read scripture, to hop between those two standpoint. But yes, I remember some guy got so mad at me, explain yourself, Why is this?
Because I was like, Does it really matter? Does it matter what’s gonna happen fully in the future if we’re supposed to be digging in now towards loving people and kind of walking out the simplicity of Christ? Because sometimes if we focus too far in advance, I feel like it takes us away from the present.
De’Vannon: Hm. Or as they, or as they say in the Pentecostal churches, you don’t wanna be so heavenly minded that you ain’t no earthly good. Amen.
Oh my gosh. I really don’t like the fact that I still have in me things from my church days. But, you know, I guess it wasn’t all bad.
Stuart: No, I, I, And I think that’s, that’s the hard [00:31:00] thing. I think that oftentimes when people go through, like deconstructing and walking through, processing out their faith, we can end up kind of feeling bad or ashamed of where we, we were.
But I, I, for me at least, I’ve gone like, Okay, that’s what I was raised around. I, it’s taken me time to figure out which baggage is shit and which baggage needs to stay and, and, and kind of processing through all of that along the way, because there are nuggets that have happened, but by and large, there’s probably like more dump truck loads that were.
Not helpful, but, but I do think that’s essential in the spiritual path of being able to, is being able to figure out, yeah, what can I take from this? What good can I take from this? And then let me flush the rest of it down the toilet.
De’Vannon: Mm-hmm. . So speaking of putting on a production and a show, you had quite the quite the choice words for the the movie through the eyes of Miss Tammy Faye.
Stuart: Oh, . Okay. That one. Okay.
De’Vannon: Yes. . Now for those of you [00:32:00] don’t know Tammy Faye Bacon, Miss Mr. Jim Baker. Were probably the most colorful people on television, especially over there at tbn back in the day.
Stuart: back in the day, which became I think, yeah. But yeah, keep going. Yeah.
De’Vannon: personally. I loved it. I loved the show because I like anything that exposes the foolishness of Yeah.
Television ministry and the bullshit side of Christianity. You didn’t like it though, so tell, talk,
Stuart: give me your, Oh, my, my pushback on, on it was cuz I, I have, I have, I had a, I had a gullible mother who loved Televangelist and Jim and Tammy were on all of the time and those folks, and, and, and my only issue was with the movie.
I think Tammy Faye figured stuff out and went on to do good stuff. I think the movie kind of gave her a free pass of being a part of this whole whatever that was, you know, the [00:33:00] cluster fuck of Christianity that was going on. That was ptl. And, and I just, I, I thought some of it film wise was just a little.
I wish they would’ve dialed down on some of the bigger stuff because there was, there was abuse like supposedly. I mean, I don’t, I don’t think they even hint on the fact that Jim Bakkers been accused of raping someone as well too. And so there’s, there’s a bunch of weirdness surrounding that and just trying to glaze our way out towards the end.
That’s what kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth cuz I remember, I remember a lot of that and, and I do, like, I, I, I appreciate how Tammy Faye changed and how she changed stuff within it, but at the same time I thought the filmmakers were a little they were a little heavy handed and made it just all bad, Jim, but I think that they were two people that were involved in whatever that craziness was.
De’Vannon: I wonder why that may be, maybe they were so overwhelmed with so much bullshit that they could pick from, they just didn’t know how to handle
Stuart: it. No, you and you’re right, and [00:34:00] I’ve had to do that too. Like you, when you get raised around stuff, like I’ve, I have friends that are worship pastor. That have had to work through the idea that like, wait half of what we do all the time is almost just psychologically messing with people, you know, just the lights and the music and getting everyone in that right mood and they can, they know what they’re doing with it.
And you’d mentioned hypnotism earlier, and I’m not saying it’s hypnotism, but it’s definitely conditioning people for a situation and creating the expectation for people in the situation. So, I mean, to give Tammy Faye a, a fair shake, which I would say is that she may have been swallowed up in all of that, you know, to where this is all God’s work.
And it is, it’s very, it’s very it can be very intoxicating and, and it can be something that really, like you’d mentioned earlier, turn you into a wolf and sheep’s clothing.
De’Vannon: Yeah, you know, there’s a lot of makeup to keep on all the time. it cause money.
Stuart: Oh my gosh. I felt bad for Jessica Chastain cuz I think they said [00:35:00] she’s like the actress that was portraying her, she had like four hours a day.
I’m like, oh that. No, that sounds awful of trying to recreate that look.
De’Vannon: That’s drag queen say all the time. It takes a a lot of money to look this cheap.
So that’s in the eyes of Tammy Faye. You could find it on different networks and shit. I recommend it and I love it because these, these people are kind of like at the beginning of the tell tele evangelical wave. So these people pave the way for your Joel O Stings and for your T Jakes and for your Joyce Meyers and everything like that.
You know, it’s not like I don’t see similar practice. Know across all of these ministries, it’s up to you to decide who you can trust and who you can’t. But, Mm. fuck with churches. I don’t, I don’t walk, walk in ’em. I don’t know none of that no more. And I’m not bitter. I’m just logical now. And I, you [00:36:00] know, and I critique things and it’s not okay with me for these churches to break in all this money.
And I, I talk about Lakewood a lot cuz that’s just where I was, you know, had I been at Felicia’s Church of Latter Day Saints and I would be talking about fucking Felicia, but that’s not where I was. And so, you know, did, did break in all this money and then be firing volunteers. Mm-hmm. for where they hang out at when they’re not at church, you know, when you’re off camera.
Mm-hmm. . So I’m not okay with
Stuart: that. It’s a business, it’s a, I think it’s easier if you begin to see it as a business and not a church.
De’Vannon: Oh, it’s, it’s a grif. And so for those of you don’t, Oh yeah, Grif is a Grif Is this religious shit we’re talking about? Or Republicans or like when Donald Trump’s wife, one of one of his ex wis fell her ass down the stairs and died the other day, you know, he took to his, his social media platform he created and gRED, he was like, She’s dead.
Would please donate ? So that, that’s like a gr yeah, if you want further education, what Grifting is, [00:37:00] I do recommend Ms. Betty Bowers on Facebook. That’s hilarious. She’s hilarious. Trademark Glory, as she always says. She’s very funny. Look up Ms. Betty Bowers. Very funny. And so now you were on a documentary called, In God, We Trump, I’m gonna include a link to this in my showy notes.
I watched it on Vimeo earlier. It’s the good like hour and a half of your life. I suggest everyone watch it. It’s called In God, We Trump in this documentary. Traces the parallel parallelization, That’s not a word. I’ve decided that it is the parallelization of Trump and Evangelicals. And how basically evangelicals created the ability for Donald Trump to become the president of these United States, and then all the as fuckery that followed.
Talk to me about your experience on this documentary and why you agreed to be a part of it. [00:38:00]
Stuart: I don’t know how I got involved it in the first place but when I heard, I think it was through a friend, I think a friend of a friend knew the documentarian and was telling me about what was going on. He was trying to like find people to talk to as he was going around the us and so I reached out to him and we became friends too through the process of it.
But he was just like, Yeah, I just want pastors that’ll actually be honest about stuff that’s going on here. He had a lot of conservative pastors that would not go on camera talking about what they honestly felt like. and yeah, when he traveled down here, cuz I’m in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I was part of that leg of the tour.
He, we set up a spot and talked about it and I was, I do much of what I do on the radio. I just tell it like it is, is the way I see it. And yes, this is the do, I mean really what’s been happening is, especially with Roe v. Wade falling recently, this has been the conservative, like evangelical rights essentially wet dream for [00:39:00] 40 to 45 years.
And so they’ve been moving this for years, this amongst other social issues and trying to ingrain them within politics because they saw politics as the way to be able to make social change happen, which is hilarious because they talk about God being the God of the universe and he being all powerful.
But God needs us to infiltrate the government because God’s too flacid to do anything. I, at least that’s how I do it in my own head when they talk about it. But it is, it’s, it’s, it’s a weird, disgusting thing that began to happen. Well that’s been happening for a while. If anyone remembers like eighties, like the moral majority or like promise keepers, all this other BS that was kind of all in the line of where, where we are at now with what happened with the Supreme Court.
And it’ll be interesting to see what happens because I feel like, cuz this, this, I don’t think this is in the documentary, but they’re, they were, the, the Christian right was toying around with different issues that they thought would be flash points in culture to be able to beat their drum [00:40:00] on. And they, Jerry Falwell on a bunch of them, they would try certain ones, they wouldn’t work.
Eventually abortion became one of those things. Because before that actually Evangelicals and Christians really didn’t have as much of an issue with abortion. With this, I mean, our country has been, we’ve had abortion since the beginning of the beginning of our country. What? Well, we’re founded with what do we, you know, we’re a Christian nation, we’re founded with values, eh?
They like to play around with the fact that we don’t know history well, and they like to reframe history and tell us like how it’s going to be. But we’re now at a weird point in history where I feel like the, the dog finally caught the car, and I, I don’t think the Republicans know what to do with it.
I think they finally got what they wanted and now they’re like, Oh, all right, let’s just go take more . Like, we have nothing else to do. We’ve already stormed the castle. Let’s take more. Which is also a terrifying period of time that we’re moving into
De’Vannon: mm-hmm. . Yeah. It sucks to be a woman right now. Yeah. [00:41:00] I mean, if I could scoop you all up and whi away to the the, to the island of Lesbos where supposedly so many of you emerge from, you know, I would let y’all just go have all the hot lesbian sex with each other for the rest of the time and just do whatever the fuck you want or invite occasional deck over or whatever.
And so, but that’s not gonna happen. So whatever I can to stand in solidarity with, with you women, folk, I’m more than happy to do.
Stuart: And the sad part of it is with all of this is that it is really all a show with conservatives. I, I’ve I re this is years back when I, when I was at a pastor’s meeting in our community, I was in, and this one pastor used to love to brag about how they would go and picket abortion clinics.
And about what great work they’re doing in the church. And I remember afterwards I didn’t like call ’em out in front of it, but I was like, Hey, like, wouldn’t it be easier? Like, wouldn’t it be more Christlike to go and be like, Talk to these young women, say like, Our families will take your [00:42:00] children in.
If that’s really what you care about, we, we’ll pay for your medical. We’ll do all of this. And literally, after I do this whole thing with the music, man, that’s too much work. He literally told me that. I mean, not in front of anybody else, but he told me in my face, Oh, that’s too much work. So essentially picketing and shaming people, that’s God’s work.
Caring for the children and the women that are in these situations, eh, it’s inconvenient. And you know, he kind of said the quiet part out loud, but it’s what so many folks, so many folks I think are in that weird dichotomy of this is evil. All right, well if you think it’s evil, how could you fix it? I don’t wanna fix it.
It’s too much work.
De’Vannon: Sounds about Republican. Yeah. Because, you know, they only need, and I just wanna remind people that there is no national religion. The, the last time that I checked, this is not like the Middle East or something where we are officially the Nation of Islam, or everyone here is a Muslim.
The, the United States is not supposed to be that way. Everyone here, this [00:43:00] is not a Christian nation. Mm-hmm. , but don’t really like the fact that we have God on money and his name is invoked. Personally. I liked hearing about God since I follow him, but at the same time, we don’t have a national religion.
And so really, I think everyone should be left to themselves. But
Stuart: Well, and God, we trust wasn’t even added to the money until like the fifties. So again, like this is when they get all mad, like, Oh no, it’s, it’s this recent history. You guys, you’ve put a bunch of dbags about this.
De’Vannon: And I’m sure that was, there was some sort of political advantage to that at the times.
They wouldn’t have just done that out of a love for God
Stuart: because, Oh, even that, even, I mean, how you hear a sock about it, how the prayers been taken out of school. I, this is what’s burned me. How do you take prayer out of school? Like, are you like, Oh wait, hey Johnny, your eyes are closed. Are you praying?
Stop it. No, Maybe they took public ative school, which public prayer a lot of times is fairly useless. I feel like it’s just pageantry and [00:44:00] speeches, but they, they don’t understand even what they’re saying, I
De’Vannon: think anymore. And the thing that gets me about like the Republicans and the evangelicals, you know, as you’re saying, they only wanna take their agenda as far as it goes to achieve whatever their end goal is, which is to be reelected.
So ban this, Ban that, okay, I have more power, you know, fuck ’em. If we care that same mindset, people who are on drugs, people who have certain sicknesses and stuff like that, you know, let’s just be against it. You know, let’s just lock ’em up and stuff. Mental health issues, but we’re not really gonna fix it.
Like, it’s absolutely senseless to me, like in my case, to lock me in jail for, carry a bunch of meth on me, or for getting caught high, or whatever the reasons people may be in there. But you’re not gonna rehabilitate me for all that time. I’m just gonna get it back out. I’m gonna do the same shit. Mm-hmm.
So, but when these people, these Republicans and these supposed Christians, all they, their talk is always about how they can change someone else. I never hear them say, [00:45:00] You know, and at least in those sincere way they talk about their relationship with God. You know how they love him or what the spirit is doing in their life and you know what’s going on with them.
You know, it’s always about how we can go and fuck with people over here. Yep. But, but the Lord already told them that there’s gonna be many people that says to him in that day talking about when they stand before the judgment thrown, we cast out devils in your name and we did this and we, we fucked with this person and we banned this.
And the Lord told you that He’s gonna tell you that depart from him, you, he, because you never knew him. You were too busy putting your energy into changing other people that you never bothered to cultivate a true relationship with the
Stuart: Lord. I, I think you’re right. I mean, I think in so many ways, and that’s been one of like growing up as a kid around church, you learn how to do church.
Like, you learn how to act, you learn how you’re supposed to show up and do. And then even working in ministry for years, it was like, again, it’s like a, it’s a higher level of knowing what you have to [00:46:00] do. But, but some of the biggest growth I’ve had is, is, is that internal work. You know, it’s, it’s that internal space that it’s not about performing, it’s not about that.
Some of it is about . Yeah. About seeking the god of the universe. Some of it’s about learning to heal broken places within me and, and being able to do the work to, to, to process through all of that. But I think it, it takes a lot of contemplation and introspection, which I, I, I, again, I don’t feel like a lot of modern day Christianity, at least in America, pushes a lot of contemplation and deep thought.
And, and also they do a terrible job with mental health cuz a lot of time it’s just pray it away. You’re depressed, we’ll pray for you. Hmm. That’s not gonna always fix things. , sometimes you need to go to a counselor and that’s okay. Or a therapist.
De’Vannon: Yeah. Right. That’s like that shit. There was a politician some damn where, and there was like a shooting that happened and like, or maybe [00:47:00] they had like a really bad trouble with like people getting shot, but this one lady’s son had got shot like in his neck when a bullet came in the house.
And the, this politician, I think it was in Kentucky, you know, he got on TV and he was like, I have a solution. We’re all gonna pray and .
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that that, that’s been one thing that has like gotten me like for, for the longest time I think prayer had been set up as some sort of like, almost like a, just dropping a penny in like a fountain kind of a thing.
And, and one thing I’ve grown in as they’ve kind of grown processing myself, spirituality in spiritually and kind of walk with God is that if we’re praying for a problem that we can already fix, I think God’s gonna be like, Why are you talking to me about this? You know what I mean? Like, you have it within you already to do it.
You’re just being lazy and you don’t wanna do it. We’d rather just punt and just say, All right, God’s gonna do it because it makes us feel better for the moment.
De’Vannon: But you know it.[00:48:00]
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, so, so, so much of what, you know, the church has preached these days is about like, either against people or the acquisition of things. Mm-hmm. . And so, which still takes your attention outside of yourself, but, you know, the Lord said that you can gain the whole world and lose your soul.
He says you can take a whole city and not be able to control yourself. There’s so many warnings, you know, in the Bible about being mindful about, you know, redirecting your attention, getting back the center mm-hmm. . So, so don’t get so caught up on going, knocking on people doors, trying to convert them, or trying to go and get rich.
When you forsake the thing that’s the most important, which is your own damn self improvement. And so, I don’t know, the Lord already has beat this dead horse all throughout all the scriptures. I don’t think Republicans really read the fucking Bible, but I don’t know. It’s [00:49:00] already been said either, either y’all hardheaded asses are gonna listen, are you not?
And when I say y’all’s hardheaded asses, I’m not talking about my base. You know, my beautiful cus listeners and my audience, I’m talking about the, the, the conservative person who happened across this show, .
Stuart: And that’s Yes. Who, who, who ends up seeing, like being able to use scripture as a weapon against people, which it was never meant to be that way.
We’ve got cloer passages, we’ve got all sorts of other stuff that people use Scripture and, and it’s not meant to be. In that way.
De’Vannon: Mm-hmm. . But when people are insecure and shit and they’re not whole on the inside, then that’s just a form of abuse. You know, they may not be taking their fists and punching someone in the face, but using a scripture to punch someone in the spirit or in the heart, it’s still abuse so
Stuart: well, and so much of that’s taught where there’s just like, I think we, we make everything so binary, like, you’re good or you’re bad.
Like this is either good or bad. And we take like, any kind of [00:50:00] gray thinking or any middle ground or context out of situations, because a lot of folks read scripture without context, which is a terrible way to read scripture without understanding what else is happening, Like what is the author trying to convey, all those kind of a things.
But I, I, I feel like that we get taught to do all of this, and then at some point, if we’re just told, we’re all sinful, we’re all terrible, and God’s not happy with us. Well, I can see a system where people be like, Well I don’t, I don’t sin or quote unquote sin like he does. So I can really push that cuz it makes me feel better.
And then the worst folks that would say that, and again, quote unquote sin because I think that we’ve used sin very incorrectly in lots of different ways, but where people would be like, Yes, I don’t struggle with that, but I really do struggle with that and I don’t like what you’re doing with your lifestyle even though I really wanna live that lifestyle.
So somehow I’m gonna continue to do this and just be a big f and hypocrite in the whole process. So RINs and repeat RINs and repeat for American Christianity.
De’Vannon: I want [00:51:00] you to talk about, from the documentary you were talking about how, how Oral Roberts had laid hands on you trying to heal you of asthma
And he, I think he forced you to lay on the ground. I’ve had this happen to me before, certain churches, but you actually were not healed of asthma. And give people background on who Oral Roberts is. Ah,
Stuart: I’ll give you just snippet in my background. Again, I told you conservative, conservative, conservative.
When I was three years old, my I, a sister that was born that was severely like autistic and especially back in eighties, nobody knew what to do with it. So my mom’s answer is, We gotta get her healed, right? Fix. We have to fix this because that’s what we do. We want to have like a nice little middle class family.
We need to fix it. So they would drag, she would drag me around cause my dad wouldn’t go cuz he was a good conservative. But she would drag me around with her and my sister to tent meetings, revivals. Eventually we end up with, or Roberts or Roberts again, counter prosperity preacher before the time kind of a thing back in the day.
But again, Griffy and all sorts of other fun stuff. [00:52:00] And so then I found myself, I think I’m probably about seven at the time I was, look, I was a kid, grew up with asthma, and my mom just like shoves me in line, doesn’t tell me anything. She just shoves me in this line to like get marched up on the stage and I, I figure out what’s happening.
But again, I’m standing there and they’re. Do like the hand to the head, like an asthma, You’re healed. Cuz they, Oh cuz what they did is they wrote, they asked me what my problem was and I had a card to my hand and I had to write down asthma. So like I hand it to a dude, he whispers the oral and then, you know, which again that name, I just feel so weird about it anyways.
But , it just feels like a pet name. He had a whole background, I don’t know, continuing on, but yeah. Or Roberts. So yeah, whispers, asthma grabs my head, pushes me back and I’m not trying to be like, I was a kid wanting to be like, I want God to heal me. And he pushes me back and I just step back and I keep standing there cause I’m like, I don’t feel any different.
And then, so it happened like a few times eventually to where they had these guys kind of like, they push me where they kind of made sure they caught me and pulled me [00:53:00] back cuz hey man, he’s healed. And I’m like, I, I knew as a seven year old, I need my inhaler. I’m not healed. But then the answer for my mother was, Oh, you just didn’t have enough faith, which is the loop hold.
They put you into that trap with. If it didn’t work, not my fault, it’s yours. You didn’t have enough faith, which again, is hugely abusive, especially to children and actually any human to say that, yeah, if only you had enough faith, God would’ve fixed you, but not sucks to be you.
De’Vannon: It reminds me of a lot of bullshit that I heard when I, I was watching a, again, another documentary on Netflix to keep sweet prey and obey documentary.
Is that good? I
Stuart: haven’t, I haven’t, I haven’t dipped my toes in that one yet.
De’Vannon: I bing the whole damn thing. . So you dip your toes, your dick and everything else in it. I, it is worthy. Okay. Thank you. And, and that, so that [00:54:00] documentary all is about the I think the fellowship of Latter Day Saints Jeff’s, you know, the them people and people living offensive seclusion and, you know, 50 wives and a shitload of children and everything like that, and so on and so forth.
It’s, it’s, it’s,
Stuart: they, they’re the folks that even the mor, like the, the normal Mormons are like, those folks are crazy. Which you
De’Vannon: So tell me about the time and Oh, and speaking of documentaries, look, is there any documentarians running around out there? You can come recruit me because I’m ready to spill all kinds of tea. I’m ready to bring my mouth and talk. I ain’t shy about shit. I’m ready to go on some documentaries. Right. This audition taper here,
I will use it. It worked for Steve Harvey before he, yeah, before he had all of his five businesses and shows now when he was still doing standup and stuff. When, when he had a, whenever he had a camera in front of him, he just looked through the camera and said, [00:55:00] Hey, you people who control the shows, I want a talk show.
I want, you know, he’s looked into whatever camera was in front of him and said what the fuck he wanted and he got it. So, so yes, I wanna be on documentaries. I want my talks yet, I want, but deals. Give me everything. Fuck it. . Tell me about the time you smuggled a Cameron to the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Stuart: That, Okay, so I, I, this is part of me being probably a counter cultural Christian, even back when I was in the mix of it. So I, I’d worked for an evangelistic organization where we would we worked with like at risk street kids type of stuff. And so the whole goal is that we’re supposed to just evangelize them, send ’em to the kingdom.
But I, that never sat right with me cuz I was like, what are we inviting them into? Like, just pray a prayer so you’re not going to hell. And then No, no, I was like, it needs to be, you’re inviting someone [00:56:00] into something greater, like a different way of doing it. And so we were, we, I took some of these kids, like street kids, which is hilarious.
Like you’re taking them down to do missions work in la. So, you know, so their whole idea is I’m spending my spring break helping other people that are doing the, in some like, yes. So when I took them down there, I just I was like, I know TBN is around here. And I told them, I was like, I just wanna take you into the thing that is absolutely not Christianity, , none of this has anything to do with Christianity.
And so they let us in, they let us, I didn’t even really smuggle it that much. It was mainly just the idea where, I think the guy at the door, I was like, Oh, I’m such a fan. I love this and everything. And he was so great. So I. Essentially just lied. And so he led us with a group of kids in, Cuz I was like, Oh, we wanna show the Youth of America how wonderful this is at TBN Studios.
And it led me to walking around and mocking everything on video that I was seeing cuz it is nuts. Spray painted gold toilets, all the other stuff. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s [00:57:00] gross. It was like, yeah, it was like Liberacci had an orgasm somewhere and it is tbn like it was, everything is painted gold. Everything was just over the top like decadent in ways that you’re kind of like, what is, is this Vegas?
It really felt like Vegas more than it did any kind of a Christian ministry. But like cheap Vegas, whatever that is. , like, we’re fake in Vegas, so, so it’s more like Reno, I guess. .
De’Vannon: But that’s a part of the hypnotherapy though, you know, So the basis or, or conditioning, you know, it’s all a part of hypnotherapy.
And then h therapy, all it means is to overload the conscious mind so that you can gain access to the subconscious. And you do that by simply making the conscious mind focus on more than one thing. Because my conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time. And so if you’ve got all of this crazy, fake, opulent shit going on and bitches running around where faces full of clown makeup and the [00:58:00] shouting, and the hollering the music, you don’t, you, you, you don’t have no ability to be critical unless you intend to be critical.
You know, you’re, you, you are in conscious overload. Mm-hmm. . And then that’s how you become suggestible, as we call it in Hy therapy. Your mind is now in a suggestible state and you will receive what’s being presented to you. With much less criticism, if any at all.
Stuart: Did you just describe a Sunday morning service?
Oh. Oh. Was hidden it there? I’m joking. . But it almost, I mean, that’s the whole idea we’re we conditioned you to be receptive to what we’re saying in, in a weird, manipulative way. I feel like church ends up kind of doing that in their own controlling, non-controlling way.
De’Vannon: You know what, say having this discussion right now makes me think about that chant that Joel does before each time he preaches.
So he’ll get his Bible and wave it around and the whole church will chant with him and he’ll say, This is my Bible. I am, I have what it says I have. I am what it says I am. And he’ll say, You know, my [00:59:00] mind is opened, My heart is Seth if I’m about to receive, you know? And then there’s just this whole thing I’m like, and I’m thinking, Oh my God, this, you know, there was a whole, He was hypnotizing us the whole time.
Mm-hmm. . You know, it seems like an innocent group chant and everything like that, but now the shit seems really culty when I look back on it. Mm. Why you can’t just get up there and say, What the fuck you gotta say? Why you gotta have us chant with you to, to say that we’re now gonna be vulnerable to what you wanna say.
Mm-hmm. .
Stuart: But it’s, it’s, it’s about Brandon and it’s about keep bringing you back every week. You know, It’s about, it’s again, you mentioned being a drug dealer. This is kind of being like a holy drug dealer, but it’s never gonna get you what you want, but it’s only gonna give you that taste and keep you coming back every Sunday
De’Vannon: with promises of what could be.
Mm-hmm. .
Stuart: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. You’re wanting to read, you wanting to achieve something that, and if you haven’t achieved it, eh, it’s on you . So that’s the perfect way to set up a gr. So if you have any problems it’s [01:00:00] probably be
De’Vannon: between you and. Right. There’s no accountability. There’s no, like, if you fuck up this, this is gonna be your punishment.
Mm-hmm. , or if you don’t do a good job, this is gonna be your punishment. There isn’t, there isn’t any of that. So they can get up there, speak for 20 minutes, and then, you know, make a fortune every time they sell a book. And they really haven’t done that much . And when people, you’re right, but their audience doesn’t demand it of them either, because that’s just how easy c how easy a sell Christian people are.
But so in this documentary, in way to talk about this, that we’re gonna talk about one of your podcast episodes, it to how, to me and then we’ll wrap it up. Kind of like the, a big part of this, the shade against the evangelicals, was that how they’re supposed to be all Christian and how opposite of that Trump is, you know?
Well, one of the funniest parts, it would be funny if it wasn’t so damn serious. You know, they were [01:01:00] comparing Jesus and Trump. I one of those damn comedians that has like a late night show, he was like, you know, you know Jesus, you know, heal the sick. Trump grabs women about the pussy, you know? Yeah. You know, Jesus, you know, pray for the babies.
Trump wants to fuck his daughter, you know, whatever be, and they were, the evangelicals were like, Okay, but he’ll still get our agenda for it. So we’ll overlook all of the pussy grabbing and the daughter fucking, and the paying off of the whores and everything like that. . But what, what do you think about how the, how non-Christian Trump is and how he was embraced by evangelical?
So this has got me thinking that evangelicals are just like a church of Satan cloaked in across.
Stuart: I think that what happened was around that time it was probably that probably shifted cause I’ve been doing my radio show for, for a while. But that was, I think even Trump entering the scene somehow, like laser focused me in a different way with my snark, [01:02:00] where I was just kind of going like, how, Wait, okay, I know evangelicals are full of bullshit, but this is, this is like, this is a whole mountain range of bullshit that I just, I don’t even understand how you sleep at night trying to talk about how he’s God’s chosen.
I, I, it’s, it’s hilarious. , but, and it, and it was like, it was for me, flabbergasting. I was just going like, I, none of this makes any bit of sense, but it does. I think at the end of the day, if evangelicals want power, Jesus never told them to go after power. I mean, this kind of reminds me of the Old Testament a bit where it’s Samuel, Samuel, the prophet Samuel’s like goes to God and he is like, the people want a king and.
Samuels, and then God’s like, No, no, it’s fine. Let’s keep this whole judge system we have here. And they’re like, No, the people really want a king. And he is like, All right, let them enjoy Saul. And Saul was a nut bag, but it’s what the people thought they wanted. They wanted that, they wanted to be led in that way.
They wanted to be able [01:03:00] to say, We want someone that leads us so we don’t have to think and we feel good about ourselves. And, and I feel like that Trump was the opposite of everything Jesus was. And, and I, and I feel like it gave a lot of Christians a, a, a weird, like hard on towards, Yeah. Yeah. We can give it back to him now.
Like, enough of this Jesus stuff. Jesus. You know, he’s a little bit of a puss. He’s a little bit of a hippie here. But you know, we like King Jesus. We like this idea of Jesus on the throne, being a badass, you know, is, and that’s what we want. And so they want more of the kick ass and takes names kind of a situation of Jesus.
They don’t really want. The, the Jesus that existed. Or also like maybe we want some more Old Testament wrath. We want some more of that, cuz that’s tasty for us. Cuz the people we don’t like get killed. We like that. So yeah. It, it really just feels like they’ve progressed
De’Vannon: in, That’s what happened. See, that’s what happened.
When people don’t have peace in their hearts, [01:04:00] you know, you can’t appreciate the, the, the God who is the still small voice. He already told you this before, it said the, the fire broke out inside the mountain, but God was not in the fire and the winds and all the storms. But God wasn’t in any of all the, the crazy shit.
He didn’t appear until all it was silent.
Stuart: You know, Silence makes us
De’Vannon: uncomfortable. Yeah. When you’re wrecked on the inside. Oh,
Stuart: absolutely. But like to think of like, Yeah, but I mean, I, I can’t think of many services actually having like, yet we don’t teach people about meditation and about contemplation and about digging deeper into ourselves.
Because I think they’re afraid of, of what would happen. So we condition people to be whatever we say a Christian is in this box, we check off all the little markers and we’re like, Good qualification done, Move along, make sure they’re tithing and now they feel like they’re going to heaven. That’s all that matters to us.
De’Vannon: I just did a, one of my solo dolo [01:05:00] episodes, Solo dolo was just, how you say? By your damn self, shout out to kit cut, you know, and everybody out. So you know, and I was talking about that, how, how you don’t actually have to tie then you’re not gonna go to hell and you’re not actually going to be cursed if you don’t tie.
Then I talked about all that, you know, so I’m very happy you said that. And so, yeah,
Stuart: Jesus, I mean, that’s all Christ talks about is the heart man. Like, it’s just, you know, what is, what’s in front of you? You know? What, like, are there people in your arena that are suffering that need help? Well then that’s, if you claim to be follower of Christ, go help them.
Don’t ask ’em questions, just go help them. You’re not trying to fix them. You’re trying to just be some sort of taste of heaven and a lot of times what life can be like as hell. So I, I feel like we’re just trying to give ’em a bit of taste of heaven and kindness and grace and compassion, cuz the world’s hard.
De’Vannon: But just remember, you know, the Lord said if you don’t show mercy , he said, If you show mercy, [01:06:00] you will receive mercy. But if you do not show mercy, then you will receive judgment without mercy. Mm-hmm. . Now one of your episodes from the Snarky Faith podcast and radio show was called Nitty Gritty Faith.
And I felt like the title was most fulfilling to your general personality and everything like that. As I have gleaned so far. You talked about three things in there that stood out to me. You talked about Alyssa, it was like a woman who was like, raped, molested, or something like that, but she didn’t wanna go to the church that she knew.
They wouldn’t believe her anyway. Something bad happened between her and a guy. Mm-hmm. , you, you talked about Denzel’s, what Denzel had watched, had to say about the Will Smith slap heard around the world, and then, and then the last thing you talked about Brian Houston and Hill Song and how he quote unquote to temptation, which that was tied to the Denzel thing.
Cause you’re talking about people blaming Satan for every damn thing. So yeah. Is there [01:07:00]anything you would like to say further about these things, ?
Stuart: First of all, I wasn’t really picking on Denzel, but I did not like the idea that you took away accountability in that situation. So that was like, don’t put that on.
Oh no, don’t do that. Like you. Will did what Will wanted to do. And that’s, and let’s just let that be, those were Will’s actions. He did it. Let’s not blame it on something else. And like Yeah, with, with, oh, the whole Hill song thing. That is a documentary that is just gross to watch. But again, you’re right.
Like it isn’t like, Oh, I fell from temptation. It’s kind of like, no, you’ve been like, you felt like there was no, you somehow like got rid of whatever goodness was left in here, . It’s almost like the inverse of falling from, of falling from temptation. It was just kind of like, whatever bit of like of spine you had, you sold that crap out and said, I’m doing this for Jesus.
And the other one that I can’t remember what the other one is. I, I have a weird, I don’t know if you have this problem. I, I will end up [01:08:00] doing a show and I almost have like amnesia afterwards, after like crank out a show. I, I, I have either have taken notes or I don’t remember much of it, but, but I’ve been around situations where yes, in churches where people have tried to cover up stuff.
And, and it is, it’s sick that that happens and it’s sick that they sweep it under the floor because when that happens, they’re caring about the church more than they’re actually caring about the human being. And when a church becomes an institution and not a group of people that becomes very problematic in the church period to begin with.
Cuz if Jesus tells us, we’re supposed to go love others, and as soon as you turn a Church America style you turn, you set up a church, it is set up like a business. And when you, even if it’s, even if it’s a nonprofit and any business or organization, their first, their first need is money and survival.
So from that one moment, from that one moment, you’ve said that the church cares about keeping the church alive, not about serving others around us, if that makes any sense. It’s, it’s a weird, it’s kind of a weird way to think about it, but I [01:09:00] feel like that’s how we’ve fallen away. People serve the church.
Church doesn’t serve the people.
De’Vannon: Precisely. And the church likes to. They’re so rotten at their core because they like to pick and choose about this. So they wanna pay their staff members like the world. They say, We wanna give you a corporate salary because there’s no reason why you should be paid less cuz you’re at a church.
We wanna pay you the same way you would be paid if you were in a secular company at a Fortune 500 company. And so, but you are, But you’re filing as a nonprofit, you’re not paying taxes. So you don’t wanna pay your share, your fair share, but you want to act like you are a regular business. Mm-hmm. . And then when.
Traves, these happen. You wanna go and take free money from the government too, So
Stuart: I mean it’s, Yeah, yeah. It’s all, it’s all just like, Hey, hey, come on. We’ll take more. We’ll keep taking more, we’ll take more. But I will say this, I have, on the flip [01:10:00] side of it, there are like those that are like Lakewood. I, I feel like I’ve been on the other end of it where churches pay people slave labor and just say like, Well, you’re doing it for God.
You know, that’s kind of the reward that you’ve got to, So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve never, I, I don’t know if it’s either because of talent ability or there’s this thing in me that would probably hate myself, but I’ve always steered clear of those places where I, I felt like to, to take that next step up. It would mean me having to swallow down a fair amount of myself to do that.
And I don’t want my children to be able to see that, cuz I think that’s disgusting and I don’t wanna see that myself either.
De’Vannon: Well, congratulations to you, sir, for maintaining the possession of both your nutsack and your spine through all that have been through, because they’ve been,
Stuart: they’ve, they’ve been, they’ve been hit quite a bit.
but yeah, they’re still intact. ,
De’Vannon: cause Republicans and all them people don’t have either [01:11:00] anymore. They’re nu list, fine list , and they’re just gomen go invaders. That’s all they are. They have power and no soul. So that wraps up what I wanted to cover with you today. I hope everyone checks out. The, in the, in God, we Trump documentary.
I hope everyone checks out snarky faith.com, which is this man’s website. He’s on Facebook, he’s on Instagram. All this is gonna go into showy notes, as it always does. Is there anything you would like to say, Stuart? Anything at
Stuart: all before we No. I love one thing I love, I like interacting with people.
So one, I may have said something ridiculously stupid here on the show, and if you have a question about it, you can reach out to me and ask me about it. Or otherwise. I like dialoging with people. It’s, it’s, for me, it, after kind of escaping institutional like Christianity and trying to be able to do that on my own, I’ve, I’ve [01:12:00] learned that engaging others that don’t think like us is, is incredibly rewarding.
I used to hold meetings in pubs where we, at the beginning, since we were in the south, so you’d have atheist show up trying to like, mess with our meetings. We weren’t trying to evangelize, we were trying to get people to talk and they’d eventually get pissed at me because. My whole point was, Oh, that’s a really good, I understand where you’re coming from.
That’s a good point. Yeah. Tell me more. And, and so those kind of things. So I, I enjoyed spiritual conversations with people from all different walks of life. So if any of us, if anyone wants to reach out, find me. You’re right. I’m, I’m findable online. I believe I’m the only steward Deloy in existence right now in the world.
So if you can’t find me, that’s on you. Not you listener, you .
De’Vannon: All right. Thank you so much too for coming on the show. May the blessings be upon you. Amen.
Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the Sex, Drugs & Jesus podcast. It really means everything to [01:13:00] me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at SexDrugsAndJesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com in jesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.
My name is De’Vannon, and it’s been wonderful being your host today. And just remember that everything is gonna be right.
