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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.
Speaker 1:And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
Speaker 2:Hey, Macklemore. Can we go thrift shopping? That's a great start to our episode. Thank you. It's a great start to
Speaker 1:a song as well. It actually is. I really like that song. Yeah. It's a good one.
Speaker 1:It's kinda stupid, but I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Little inappropriate. So how are you
Speaker 1:all doing today? Is it hot where you are? It's hot where we are.
Speaker 2:What's weird too is it's not the hottest that it's been. Mm-mm. I think I'm just absolutely over it.
Speaker 1:We are Midwestern girls. Okay? We are used to the cold. And I like the cold. Brie doesn't necessarily like the cold, but regardless, that's what our bodies are used to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's just been hot.
Speaker 2:I'm tired of clothes
Speaker 1:that are for hot weather. I do love a sweater.
Speaker 2:I love layers. I feel like they complete the outfit. And I'm just tired of being hot and having my makeup melt off my face, and my hair doesn't like it, and all our cups are sweating.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We were talking to the cheese gentleman today because it wasn't a cheese lady at the farmer's market. It was a cheese gentleman. And I forget what we were saying exactly, but kind of like, oh, I love, like, the crisp fall weather. And he was like, what?
Speaker 1:It's too early for that. I was like, absolutely not. I'm ready. Pumpkins and apples and stuff.
Speaker 2:It really felt like it the other day too.
Speaker 1:I know. It was nice. But I wanna talk about, like, a story to start us off. Ready? I got a letter in the mail this week.
Speaker 1:It was the weirdest letter maybe that I've ever gotten.
Speaker 2:And I thought, gee, this would be great for the podcast. Content.
Speaker 1:So it's a letter from the church that Brie and I used to attend, the one that we talk about all the time. And we haven't been there, what, in at least probably four years.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That sounds right. And it was like
Speaker 1:a fundraising letter, which okay. Yeah. Places send those out all the time. Churches send them out all the time. But I open it up, and it's on really nice, glossy paper.
Speaker 1:Right? The church didn't print this on their printers in the offices. I know. I I worked there. This was sent out to be printed.
Speaker 1:It was expensive. You know, whatever. You open it up, and they are fundraising for $35,000,000 over the next two years. That's what they want to raise. Okay.
Speaker 1:That's a big goal. So tell me what you're raising money for. Does the church need a new roof? Are you sponsoring 50,000,000,000 new missionaries? Like, what's going on here?
Speaker 1:Right? And I feel like that's what most places will do when they have a big ask. They're like, okay, but we're doing it for this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is the purpose. This is what your money is going towards, just so you can stay informed.
Speaker 1:Right. There was none of that. There was absolutely none of that. It was like, we just want to expand our programming. And then there was a note from some woman of how the church changed her life.
Speaker 1:And it was like and this was all made possible because of expanded programming. And I'm sitting there like, what? Give us more information.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Now, I worked behind the scenes at that church. I know the level of waste going on. And I think, you know, anytime you get behind the scenes of any big organization, there is gonna be some waste. But just from the perspective of having watched us spend an extra $200 on bottles of water because nobody wanted to go pick them up from Costco, and we had to have them delivered, it's really hard for me to sit there and be like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Sure. You're raising $35,000,000 for unknown purposes.
Speaker 2:What's even harder is if you're working within a business, like at my office or something like that. If nobody wanted to go pick up the bottles of water, and it cost us some extra money, we're like, blech. We know this is frivolous, but we can spend money on it. Right. From a church's perspective, you think about all of that money is someone's tithe.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Or someone's donation that they've given to the church, and they think that it's going towards something good. They think that God is leading them to giving money to the church for a bigger purpose. And how upsetting if they find out that bigger purpose is just wasteful. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And there were silly things like upgrades to the pastor's seat on the plane or his hotel room, stuff like that. You know? And and it is it's already a hard sell to look at people and say, hey. Can you donate money to the church? Lots of churches will have regular sermons on tithing.
Speaker 1:You need to be giving at least 10%. And I'm not I I understand that that's biblical. But in order to get someone to feel comfortable with that, you have to say, okay. Yes. You're giving to the church, but here's a really churchy phrase.
Speaker 1:Ready? You're giving through the church. You're giving us money so that we can help the community, and here's how we're doing it. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Here's what we're doing. Because maybe your $10 wouldn't make a big impact on its own, but if everybody gives $10, think about how much more we could do.
Speaker 1:Right. And I know pastors have to get paid, and they should be paid well. I I have no issues with that. You should pay your staff well. You should have air conditioning that works.
Speaker 1:Like, all this stuff. Right? But also, if you're gonna ask for $35,000,000 and you're gonna send out very expensive letters to people that you know have not attended your church in four years because I know what their back office system looked like. They know I haven't been there in forever. If you're gonna do that, you really need to give people a good reason so that you don't look like the money grubbing church that people believe you are.
Speaker 1:You know, there's already that concept. So don't With bigger churches. Yeah. Don't play into it, for heaven's sake.
Speaker 2:I remember when that church or when we first started going to that church, there was a couple things that I really liked that they did. Mhmm. Because they were very much like a community center first. I don't know if it was a community center first, but it was a church and a community center. So it did a lot of good within the community.
Speaker 2:Like, oh, let's go hand out bottles of water to people today. Let's go volunteer at the food bank this weekend. Or they would get up on stage and be like, okay, this is what we did with the money this year. We paid off all of the kids' lunch bills
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This year at this school. Yeah. Or what have you. But now I haven't been there in
Speaker 1:four years. Well, I think you should be able to see that. That's that's what Jesus asked of the church. And as someone who gives to the church, you should be able to expect that. You should be able to expect that they're gonna tell you what happens with your money.
Speaker 1:And so when the church is more opaque, when the church is avoiding those conversations, like, it's time to ask some bigger questions. And I'm certainly not saying all churches are like that. There are some amazing churches doing incredible things in communities. And we've had quite a few people on social media be like, hey, look what my church is doing. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's awesome. Advocate for that and demand that of your churches. Yeah. And yourselves. But, yeah, that's my story to to open us up.
Speaker 1:I just thought that was like a really interesting and weird thing. Why on earth they sent that to me of all the people in
Speaker 2:the world? And I deal with mailers and stuff like that sometimes, and they are not cheap. Mhmm. You have the art cost, the printing cost, and the postage cost, which you're talking at least bare butt minimum, a dollar a thing that they're sending out to people. And they're sending out thousands of So
Speaker 1:if you just saved that money Yeah. You could be at the $35,000,000 tomorrow. Sure. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's what it cost.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. Alright. But today so last week, we had said we were gonna talk about do you remember who? A biblical woman. Jehosheba.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But we're shifting a little bit because some stuff happened in the world this last week, week and a half. And we thought it was important that we talk about that. So I think we'll jump back into Jeba Oh
Speaker 2:my next week. Listen, it's our podcast, not yours. And so we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming because we felt like talking about pants from Chico's.
Speaker 1:We did. We oh, that's what we were gonna call it. Pants from Chico's. So if you have not seen the news recently or well, frankly, they've been in the news for years. But we're gonna talk about the Tate brothers today.
Speaker 1:And that's Andrew and Tristan. Tristan Tate. And they're pretty big influencers. They were on the documentary that Brie watched.
Speaker 2:I think it's called Into the Manosphere. And Louie Theroux is the what would you say? Documentarian? Sure. He's a documentarian.
Speaker 2:And he goes around and there's this concept called manosphere, I believe, right now. Which has people like Andrew and Tristan Tate and a few other misogynistic men on there. And there's this whole movement of men dominating over women and their need for extreme wealth. And that's where they get their value from and their beliefs in women being less than them. And women only getting their value through beauty.
Speaker 2:So anyways, that's what this document documentary documentary focuses on. But these two brothers were on
Speaker 1:that documentary. I think what's really interesting about that whole concept and we'll talk about their story in just a second. But the interesting thing to me is that there have always been people that felt this way. Mhmm. That were so patriarchal that they think women are, like, the ants beneath their feet.
Speaker 1:Right? But at least it was socially unacceptable at one point, and they had to hide it for the most part. Now because of social media, because of the internet, anybody can find a community for anything. And so these people with these horrible, horrible, abusive beliefs have found a community and have justified themselves. And now they believe this loudly.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's what kills me because it just makes it more widespread. I mean, there's a lid
Speaker 2:for every pot. You can find someone that agrees with you almost anywhere, but what's so disturbing is they've made a career out of these awful, horrible beliefs. So much so that they are influencing so many other people to believe the same way that they are, and it's just, it's a nightmare. And anyways, the reason that we're talking about them is because they were arrested. Again.
Speaker 2:Again.
Speaker 1:Now, just as a disclaimer, a lot of the things that we say are allegedly. That being said, there are lots of warrants out for their arrest. So allegedly is, you know, ish.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Look it up for yourself to confirm what we're saying. But Andrew and Tristan arrested by the US Marshals in Miami, Florida on July 18. So very recently, today is July 26. Twenty sixth.
Speaker 2:The UK's Crown Prosecution Services issued an extradition warrant, which basically means they were ordering their arrests and having them being transferred back to The UK because they were fugitives. And they were being sent back to the country that they were wanted for their crimes. Right? Mhmm. That's what that means?
Speaker 2:Yep. So the total combined number of charges for the brothers is 59. Sure. Involving seven alleged victim yeah. Involving seven alleged victims between the years 2010 through 2017.
Speaker 2:Now is that just their charges in The UK?
Speaker 1:Because I know they also have charges in Romania.
Speaker 2:It could just be The UK.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Both have denied their wrongdoings. They've denied them before. But Andrew personally has 42 total charges. So this is a trigger warning. If you're uncomfortable with any of these topics, maybe just best to skip this episode.
Speaker 2:But Andrew Andrew's charges include multiple counts of rape, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, assault causing bodily harm, offenses related to pornography, and indecent images of a child. And those are 42 total charges just for Andrew. Mhmm. And he's the more popular brother, I would say.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I think he's the more well known for sure.
Speaker 2:And then Tristan has 17 charges, including rape, sexual assault, and arranging or facilitating sexual trafficking. Fun.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And they also have charges, like I said, from Romania earlier on as well. So I don't know if that's in addition to those numbers, but they were wanted in Romania and fled from there. And then were wanted in The UK and fled here. And mind you, they've been in The US for a while.
Speaker 1:It's not like, oh, they just touched down, and we scooped them up and sent them back to England. No. They've been hanging out in Miami being influencers and influencing the young men in our world while being this alleged sort of person.
Speaker 2:Know? I want to say I'm shocked. Right? But based on at least our our country Mhmm. Today, we don't have a problem with people like this.
Speaker 2:We have them in our White House. Right. So why not let them run free in Miami having a good time?
Speaker 1:Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's their story is unbelievable and horrifying because you keep thinking it can't get worse. Right?
Speaker 1:Like, they've been charged. They were charged years and years and years and years ago. Mhmm. So clearly, they're gonna go to prison. Someone's gonna stop this.
Speaker 1:Right? Nope. Keep going. More charges. Well, clearly someone's gonna stop this now.
Speaker 1:Right? Nope. Keep going. More charges. Like, it's just it's deeply horrifying.
Speaker 1:But the reason that we, on on our specific podcast, felt the need to talk about them is because of their religious affiliations, which are interesting and weird.
Speaker 2:I think that and a really big question is Go ahead. How did two men accused of some of the world's most serious crimes become role models for millions of young men. Like, how does this happen? How do we allow this to happen? So just, I don't want this to become like history of the Tate brothers, but just a little backstory for you.
Speaker 2:They were both born in Washington DC, but primarily grew up in Luton, England. Their father is named Emery Tate. He was an internationally respected chess master. Oh, interesting. Super strange, He was basically brilliant, but also very unstable.
Speaker 2:And they spent most of their childhood. Their dad was absent. Their parents divorced when they were young, causing some financial hardships. Their mom's name is Aileen. Come on.
Speaker 2:See what I did there? She was a catering assistant and a dinner lady, which I don't know what that means, but that that was in The United Kingdom, which is where they mostly grew up. Their mom is described by them as no nonsense, which Andrew later said that the parenting approach probably led to his beliefs of dominance and control. And both of the brothers started their careers not in business, not in finance, which you would think that they would based on their current careers. They started out as professional kickboxers.
Speaker 2:Weird. Mhmm. Professional kickboxers later turned into these businessmen talking about wealth and alternative ways to gain wealth, but they neither of them have any formal education, not from a university. They didn't go get degrees in business or, you know, any of that. So they were just started out as kickboxers.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. I don't think I knew that. So in kind of relation to their religious beliefs. So they definitely lean, in case you hadn't caught on from the Manosphere situation, the more extreme conservative side. And it's important because we are in The United States.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of our listeners are international. But here in The US, we are seeing the Christian church align really strongly with the hyper conservative right. And the Tate brothers are no exception. So Andrew Tate himself has been super publicly pro Trump, which should not surprise anyone. Wait.
Speaker 1:Ow.
Speaker 2:I fell off my chair.
Speaker 1:He has repeatedly praised Trump. He's endorsed him politically. He talked about Trump being, like, anti woke and America first and, you know, that kind of vibe.
Speaker 2:And it couldn't be because he had all charges against him and he wanted a pardon?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:Couldn't be that. That was mostly during the twenty twenty four campaign. But then recently, again, they've started attending events in Washington DC. Now mind you, this is after a lot of charges have been filed. This isn't like, oh, nobody knew what was going on.
Speaker 1:Charges have been filed. They've been attending important events in DC. They've met with Republican politicians and Trump allies. And Donald Trump himself hasn't said, oh, hey, I'm gonna defend them or anything like that. He actually specifically said, I don't know anything about that when asked about it.
Speaker 1:But Wow. Yeah. But his son, Donald Trump Junior, has publicly defended them. So, I mean, again, it's it's a secondary political affiliation, but it's definitely there. There have been allegations of them donating to things, you know, like like what's happening a lot in our world where people donate to political campaigns and then suddenly their charges get dropped.
Speaker 1:You know, things like that. And obviously their charges haven't been dropped, but perhaps that was what was being attempted. You know? So then that makes you ask the question of, okay, well, what is their religious affiliation? We know their political affiliation.
Speaker 1:It's pretty obvious. No one's Brie didn't actually fall out of her chair. I promise.
Speaker 2:I'm laying down.
Speaker 1:Brie is struggling with the heat in a big, big way. Their religious affiliations have kind of differed a little bit. And it's complicated and confusing. So Andrew Tate says that he was raised Romanian Orthodox, which is a Christian tradition. So assuming they're brothers, they both probably were raised that way?
Speaker 1:I would assume that. Later on, Andrew started identifying as an atheist. And that was kind of prior to becoming famous online. So he didn't really need that affiliation at that point. In 2022, for like a hot minute, he very briefly claimed he was a Christian again and said he was gonna donate a ton of money to the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's necessarily any evidence that he did do that. But it was like, oh, hey. I'm gonna identify with this group. But then later in 2022, so same year, he announced that he was converting to Islam. And this was after a video came out of him praying in a Dubai mosque.
Speaker 2:I feel like he's very indecisive.
Speaker 1:It seems that way.
Speaker 2:Like, pick a faith.
Speaker 1:Well, you have to wonder so he didn't announce that he was converting to Islam until a video went viral. So you have to wonder if maybe he was trying to hide that. There's there's just not a way to know. But he still publicly says that he is part of the Islam faith.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the reasons he said that he's part of that faith is because he likes their view on like masculinity and that approach. And just like with any religion, there are some Muslim people who appreciate him and say, yes, he's doing the right thing. I like his beliefs. I like him as a person, etcetera. And then there's a big group of Muslim people who say, he is not following our faith.
Speaker 2:This is
Speaker 1:not true to what we believe. This is not us. No. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Because we don't wanna claim him either.
Speaker 2:Well, because you would see you would see the same thing in Christianity. You would see people like us saying, no way, Jose. Mhmm. But then people like Trump or the Trump followers who also claim to be Christian would be totally fine with this.
Speaker 1:Right. There's always gonna be bad representatives of your faith Yeah. No matter what faith tradition you're in. Now, Tristan Tate is a little bit different. So once his brother converted to Islam, he did not.
Speaker 1:He stayed supposedly ether Eastern Orthodox. And then in 2026, so this year, he started really speaking openly about that faith and talking about his baptism and saying that Christian like, Christianity is foundational to our culture and Western civilization and blah blah blah. Right? Sure. Now, there is online people are a little bit confused, particularly about Andrew's faith because they're saying that both of them
Speaker 2:are now
Speaker 1:Christians. And here's why. So Tristan has been a lot more vocal recently about his faith. But also, both of them have been, like, they call themselves defenders of traditional Western values and blah blah blah, which obviously we are seeing a lot of in the conservative Christian church right now. So that aligns more with that.
Speaker 1:They also are often in podcasts and interviews and stuff like that with Christian influencers and commentators, which doesn't look good for us, guys. This is not a good image. And then Andrew has also praised Christianity as a cultural role, even though he still is publicly identifying as Muslim. So So he's trying just to be, like, good with everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's like He wants
Speaker 2:riding that line. He wants whatever he's getting from Islam, but also wants to make sure he's protected by the Christians. Right. He just wants to have his cake and eat it too. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so it's what we're seeing often is the Christians not all of them, like Brie and like Brie just said. But often, people just being like, oh, well, they said they're sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It can't be true, right? Because they're Christians, and Christians wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2:And it's horrible. Well, Alyssa and I were talking about this before we started recording, but, like, where's the line?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:What could you do? What was the what's the worst thing that you could do to make someone say, okay, no. That's too much. Mhmm. I don't care if you're saying that you're part of my faith.
Speaker 2:I don't believe that you're living my faith. I'm not okay with this. Because it seems like based on the allegations that they have against them, they're really bad. Really, really, really bad.
Speaker 1:Almost the worst you could do. So what's the line? Mhmm. I honestly think because, you know, Brie and I grew up in this very, very, very conservative Christian sphere. Even more so than I think I realized, we were in that conservative bubble.
Speaker 1:And the people in that sphere that are still living in that sphere, I don't think there necessarily is a line. As long as that person says, I'm a Christian, I don't necessarily think there's a line that could be crossed that they wouldn't say, oh, forgive them.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Which God talks a lot about forgiveness. I do understand that. But that also doesn't mean you allow people to continue to act this way. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean that you turn a blind eye when people act this way. Like, you need to act. You can't you can't allow this to continue. This is not okay.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This is not how a person who has the holy spirit living in them would live.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. Jesus never said forgive people and then let them continue on. Like, doing what they were doing in the first place. Because if someone wants forgiveness, that also equates to change.
Speaker 1:Yes. Forgiveness doesn't mean, oh, they forgave me, so now everything's fine and I'll keep doing what I was doing. It means, oh, they forgave me. This is a chance to do better.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And there are people out there, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Mhmm. There are people who go to prison for terrible, horrible things. And they turn their life around.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And maybe they don't get out of prison. I don't know. But their heart changes. Right.
Speaker 2:And I'm not seeing a heart change Right. In either of these brothers.
Speaker 1:And it's okay for Christians to say, I hope to see a change in you, but I'm not gonna trust that until I see it. It's okay for you to say that. You don't have to say, well, you said you're gonna change, so I'm just gonna believe you and duh
Speaker 2:duh duh. Yes.
Speaker 1:That doesn't have to work that way.
Speaker 2:Also, Alyssa and I, again, were talking about an incident that happened at a church that we were going to previously. And we've talked about it on the podcast before. There was an incident where one of church leadership put up a camera in one of the bathrooms and was recording women, children, girls, whoever was in that bathroom, they were recording. Mhmm. Anyways, that was a huge reason why we left.
Speaker 2:Or maybe that happened after we left. Happened after
Speaker 1:we left.
Speaker 2:A reason not to go back. Mhmm. And I was talking with someone about this who identifies as Christian, someone that I'm not very close to. And they were saying, well, yeah, everybody makes mistakes. In my opinion, that's not a mistake.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. That's a very intentional choice. You know what you're doing is wrong, and you're making a choice to do it anyways. Same thing with the Tate brothers. You know what you're doing is wrong, but you're making a choice to do it anyways.
Speaker 2:Are we okay with that?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:If you wanna say, I didn't know this was wrong. I truly made a mistake. Okay. That's a different conversation. Right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now there is a really interesting pipeline. And part of what I think is really important to call out is that it's not uncommon for men who get accused of abuse, who get accused of the horrible things that the Tate brothers have done, and then say, oh, I'm a Christian. And the Christians rally around them and revive their careers. It's happened a lot. So I wanna talk I'm gonna call out a few of the people that it's happened to so that you can see that this happens.
Speaker 1:And we need to stop letting it happen because it looks really bad.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So not just the Tate brothers. Obviously, you can see them. So first, there's Russell Brand. So multiple women accused Brand of rape, sexual assault, and abusive behavior. He denies that.
Speaker 1:A few months after this came out, he was baptized, started carrying a bible around, started producing explicitly Christian content. And a lot of Christians said, hooray. He's part of us now. He's part of the club, part of the group. Forgive him.
Speaker 1:Forget about all of that other garbage that he did before. We forgive you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now, mind you, the Christians weren't the ones that had been abused. Mhmm. But the Christians decided to forgive him. This also happened with Shia LaBeouf. He was sued for alleged sexual battery, assault, and emotional abuse.
Speaker 1:Not poles. Sorry. And later entered the Catholic church and was confirmed. Now he has talked about having addiction issues and stuff like that and seeking treatment for that. But again, he goes into the Catholic but essentially Christian church, gets to be part of the club, and then people forgive him.
Speaker 1:There's even people now this there's a lot more examples. I don't have all the examples because good heaven said take all day. But there's even examples within the church. We have one of our least favorite humans on the planet, Mark Driscoll. Pew pew.
Speaker 1:He was removed from leadership at his early church after allegations of abusive leadership. Those same allegations are starting to happen at his current church. But he made all of the bylaws so they can't get rid of him. And after being accused of all of this abuse, he just went and started another church. And it's a huge church.
Speaker 1:Tons of people, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people attend this church and forget about all the stuff in his past. Because, oh, well, he's a Christian.
Speaker 2:Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. But sure you became a Christian, but like we talked about before, your heart didn't change, your actions clearly didn't change. Nothing else about you changed other than this facade Right.
Speaker 2:That you've put up. And unfortunately, the Christian people are known for this facade where you whitewash the outside and make yourself appear like the tombs, whitewashed tombs. You make yourself appear Christian and holy. Mhmm. But on the inside, you're rotting.
Speaker 1:You're awful. We really think the same because rotting was the word that was about to come out of my mouth. Some of the other Christian examples are Ravi Zacharias. He just passed away, I wanna say maybe, like, a year, year and a half ago, and he was a major Christian figure. Everybody had heard of him.
Speaker 1:Everybody knew about him. And after his death, they found out that there was, like, massive sexual misconduct and abuse happening for years. It had been going on for a long time. And Christians didn't not everyone. There was a lot of, like, I'm brokenhearted because I can't believe this person that I trusted was like this.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. There was a lot
Speaker 2:of that.
Speaker 1:But there were also the Christians that said, but look at all the good he did. But look at all the good he did, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Everybody makes mistakes. Exactly.
Speaker 1:You can't imagine the pressure he must have been under.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I don't care. I just super don't care. And I don't think God does either. But also, like, open your eyes.
Speaker 2:There are people out there with just as much pressure, with just as much plates that they're spinning, and they're not doing this. Mhmm. You don't have an excuse. There is no excuse for your behavior.
Speaker 1:One of the really interesting ones that I came across too when I was doing my research is Jim Baker.
Speaker 2:Man with the the buckets?
Speaker 1:With the buckets. Yeah. Our generation probably has not heard of him so much, but, like, our mom's generation and further back had like, he was a big deal. His wife was Tammy Faye Baker, the woman with all the makeup. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But this man was convicted of fraud. Okay? He went to prison for defrauding his church. This isn't even alleged. Okay?
Speaker 1:He went to prison. And then when he got out of prison, he went right back into ministry and kind of acted like he hadn't done anything wrong in the first place.
Speaker 2:Just kidding. I wasn't there. I was
Speaker 1:at a retreat. And he started selling religious products. I think he was doing it prior to as well. But he started again selling religious products on TV. And if I don't know if you guys are familiar with this.
Speaker 1:We are. But they call them the Jim Baker buckets. And they're hilarious because it's like, it's a bucket of, like, sustainable food. Is that the word It's I doomsday prepping. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, MREs, like, that kind of stuff. Like like, food that's gonna last for a really long time. And we have a family member that has a bunch of these. And I find it hysterical because can I just ask, what are we doing prepping for the end times? Like, Lord, take me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I thought I was going up.
Speaker 2:I I don't wanna survive. I don't need to eat this freeze dried mashed potato. Take me.
Speaker 1:I'm done. I'm good. But that was what he did. And he had been convicted of fraud to begin with because of that. And yet, as a group, the Christians often chose to forgive him.
Speaker 2:And don't we think Jesus, if he came down, would be like, what in the frick, you guys? You were selling buckets of dehydrated food and slapping my name on it Mhmm. Calling it holy. You're manipulating my people into buying your buckets of crap. Right.
Speaker 2:This is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Talk about using God's name in vain. Yes. I mean, seriously. Back to the Tate brothers.
Speaker 2:Alright. I'm back. We're looping it back around. So they created this persona called the Top G persona, which is awful. But basically means the ultimate dominant, the most successful man.
Speaker 2:And that's how they built their brand. They have a bunch of online businesses, and all of them are subscription based. Mhmm. And that's how they were making all of their money. But basically, their brand was like extreme wealth, dominance, expensive cars, using women as status symbols, absolute confidence, even when you don't know what you're talking about because you didn't go to school for finance.
Speaker 2:Never admitting their weakness. And Andrew, this is important, would repeatedly tell his followers, the world is unfair. Become dangerous. Ugh. Why?
Speaker 2:And what do you mean by that? Because clearly the way that you were living your life you were a dangerous person. Why did that make you better?
Speaker 1:I think that's the point, though. It doesn't he doesn't have to be better. I don't think he's concerned about being better. He's concerned about walking out of this life with as much as he can carry.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know? I mean, that it shows all through their lifestyle. Extreme wealth. For what?
Speaker 2:They're not doing any good
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:For it. Anyways, a lot of their followers were young influential boys. Mhmm. And they finally heard someone saying, you matter. Right.
Speaker 2:And not just you matter, but you matter more than this person. And because you matter more than this person, you need us you need to pay us 49.99 a month. And we'll send you these monthly classes Mhmm. On how and why you're amazing. They also started the reason that they got so popular online was because they would pay people to share their content.
Speaker 2:So suddenly thousands of people were sharing the content of the Tate brothers. And so the online algorithm said, everybody's talking about So the Tate then it kept pushing their content and pushing their content. And all of a sudden, the Tate brothers were everywhere. They also preached that violence was sometimes necessary and okay. I think that's really one of
Speaker 1:the biggest dangers of of the Internet, of social media, because anybody can say anything. Mhmm. And actually, Facebook, Meta, whatever, just lost a lawsuit, like a major lawsuit about how they did not protect their users, and they allowed all kinds of horrible content and addictive content on their platforms. So I'm sure you'll be seeing that in the news. But it is like, no one's stopping these people from saying this.
Speaker 1:Now you can say, oh, well we have a right to free speech, blah blah blah. But do you have a right to do harm? Because this actively does harm to women, obviously. Mhmm. But also to the men that listen to this.
Speaker 1:Because this is raising a generation of men who are abusers, who are abusers in an extreme horrific way. And for them like, let's say that you spend ten years of your life listening to this and believing this. Do you know how much work it would take to get yourself out of this?
Speaker 2:To deprogram yourself? Yeah. Because you've been paying however much money per month being told and fed, you are the most important person in the world. You matter more than everybody else. Women are status symbols.
Speaker 2:Women are your property in marriage. That's truly what they would believe. And if what happens if all of a sudden you start to think, maybe that's not true? Mhmm. A huge waste of money.
Speaker 2:How many people have I hurt? So it's a lot easier just to be like, no, this is true. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You don't if you can justify it, then you don't have to question yourself. You don't have to assume that, hey, I've abused people. You don't have to apologize. Right.
Speaker 1:You don't have to wonder, is God gonna forgive me for this? Because if if I were that level of an abusive person, I would have to wonder that. And like we talk about all the
Speaker 2:time, they're selling the promise of power. Mhmm. And the church wants this too. It's nothing new. Everybody wants to feel powerful.
Speaker 2:And they found a way to sell
Speaker 1:it. Mhmm. Yeah. And and here's what like, Jesus has a lot to say about who people are and who you should be as a Christian. And he never says, believe everyone who says they're a Christian.
Speaker 1:There's there's no verse that says that. What he says instead, you can find it all through the the gospels. But in Matthew seven, he talks about knowing people by their fruit. How does the world know you? Does the world know you for love and kindness and goodness?
Speaker 1:The world certainly does not know the Tate brothers for love and kindness and goodness, and it's not gonna know their followers for that either. John the Baptist said, bear fruit worthy of repentance. So let the world see the goodness in you for heaven's sake. In Acts, it says that repentance should be demonstrated by their deeds. So reflection of your heart, because you've already because you are a Christian and that flows through you, you should be able to see it.
Speaker 1:I think their
Speaker 2:listeners must feel an incredible amount of turmoil within a weird soup inside them. Because the Tate brothers are telling them that love, kindness, and goodness are weakness. They should not have that because they're masculine, they're the ultimate dominant, and anger apparently isn't an emotion. But they shouldn't have emotions. They shouldn't show kindness or goodness.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But also, the world right now is telling telling them that they should be Christians as Mhmm. Because Christian Christianity also gives you power over people. Right. But if they actually stepped a foot inside a church, a church, hopefully, would tell them exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Know them by your fruit. Have kindness and goodness and
Speaker 1:love in your heart. So what a weird turmoil inside you. And what a weird group of things to get smooshed together. Because we are seeing this exact attitude. There's a reason that these people are on Christian podcasts and are aligning themselves with supposedly Christian political figures.
Speaker 1:There's a reason for that. It's because we have plenty of churches out there that are saying, no, this is what God wants. This is who God says men are supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Like Mark Driscoll Mhmm. Who is a pastor. He's the one who said, I don't wanna worship a hippie Jesus. Right.
Speaker 1:Or I I think he's the one that said women are homes for penises. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2:Was that him or was that Pete Hegseth's pastor, Doug Wilson? But I don't think so. Doug Wilson is the one that said that women are just people that people come out of.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean, it's the same concept. They're all preaching the same message, and yet none of it has anything to do with Jesus. So why, as Christians, are we sitting back and saying, yeah, no, this is good. This is clearly, they are Christians because because why?
Speaker 1:Like, because they said so? And it's an interesting I wanna real quick before we finish up, I wanna talk a little bit about the psychology behind that and why people do this. Like, why do they align themselves with Christianity? And part of it is because there's all these psychological concepts out
Speaker 2:of them.
Speaker 1:So one of them is called in group bias. And it's one of the bigger ones. And it's basically humanity likes this us versus them concept. We like to be better than other people. Not just Christians.
Speaker 1:Everybody. We like to think we're up at the top. So it's me versus you. And when someone comes into my group, my Christian group in this case, now you're part of us instead of part of them. And so now I'm more willing to explain away your bad behavior, to assume that you had the best motives, to be more patient with you, to believe that change with you was real, I'm more willing to give you grace.
Speaker 1:If you're part of my group. My inner circle. Yeah. As opposed to the them out there. The sinners, the pagans, you know, all that.
Speaker 2:There's also
Speaker 1:the social identity theory where it says, when Andrew or Tristan Tate says, I'm a Christian, that means, hey, you chose our team. Oh, we win. We we get to say, now you're part of us, this big influencer with a big name. Kinda like how Scientology holds up Tom Cruise all the time. Oh, hey, he's the face of us.
Speaker 1:Well, here, Christianity, look. Here's a famous person that chose you. Same
Speaker 2:in the same way that obviously we've all looked up what celebrities share our birthday
Speaker 1:with us. The exact same way. We're basically related. Pretty much. And then there's also the idea that people like a redemption story.
Speaker 1:You can see that in the books that you find at Target. People like the idea of someone being bad and then realizing their terribleness and turning good. Even in the bad guy books, like where the the guy is a villain to begin with, usually by the end, even if he's not a good guy, he's in love with the girl and so he changes at least for her. A redemption arc. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And frankly, it happens in the bible too. You've got Paul who was killing Christians left and right and then had an experience with Jesus and fully turned his life around. You have Peter, who was a train wreck, and I think continued to be a train wreck, but a godly one. And then Zacchaeus, who we talked about a couple weeks ago, the prodigal son. There's lots of stories like this.
Speaker 1:And so our brain says, the bible says this can happen. The bible gives us really strong examples. Paul was killing people. Okay? This was extreme.
Speaker 1:And he went a full one eighty and did good with the rest of his life, according to the bible. So we're supposed to believe that this can happen. But my guess is that the Christians that were the family members of the people Paul killed weren't super trusting of him immediately. Probably not. It probably took a while, if ever, for him to regain their trust.
Speaker 1:And that's okay. It was on him to earn their trust again. It was on him to say, my gosh, I was horrible. I was the worst human alive, and I'm trying. And I understand if you never forgive me.
Speaker 1:You have to, though,
Speaker 2:seek forgiveness Mhmm. And change. Yeah. You can't just say, I'm a Christian, and then continue to live your life Mhmm. Terribly, defend your choices, and hurt people.
Speaker 2:You can't.
Speaker 1:And that's why, like, Paul's story makes sense because he did change. He did turn it around. But he still may never have regained those people's trust. Mhmm. And that's okay.
Speaker 1:As Christians, it's okay if they felt like that. As Christians, it's okay for us to look at the Tate brothers and say, I don't think so. God can forgive you, but I don't trust you. I don't trust this change because I've seen no change.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That's okay. It's okay for us to say that. And I hope that that we do, that we reject people that are using our faith, using our God to hold on to their fame?
Speaker 2:I would say Christianity talks a lot about discernment. Mhmm. When I went to college, all we talked about was discernment. Open your eyes, sheeple. Don't be manipulated this way.
Speaker 2:Just because they're saying they're Christians doesn't mean they're acting very Christian. Mhmm. And don't let yourself be sucked into that.
Speaker 1:And ask yourself this of the people in your life too. Because, yes, this is a a very extreme example that's very visible in in the newspapers right now. But there are plenty of Christians in your day to day life who behave this way, who use God's name to say whatever they want to say.
Speaker 2:Who on earth could you be talking about right now? That's so silly.
Speaker 1:It's so strange. I can't pull 45 names out of my butt. No. But ask that question. What are they doing?
Speaker 1:How are they living? What is their fruit? If it's not good, it's not God. Did you like that?
Speaker 2:And that I'm gonna learn how to cross stitch. Cross stitch that into a blanket. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But with some cuss words.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I love Jesus, but I cuss a little. Another great thing to put in cross stitch.
Speaker 1:Okay. So next week, we're
Speaker 2:talk who are we talking about again? Her name's Jehosheba. Am Too hot. I am assuming is how you say her name. And she's not talked about a lot in the Bible, but she did do something that preserved the lineage of Jesus.
Speaker 2:So she's important to talk about.
Speaker 1:So we'll talk about her. I'm gonna have to learn about her and how to pronounce her name because I got nothing.
Speaker 2:I think we should come up with a nickname for her. Maybe Jill.
Speaker 1:Well, I tried at the beginning and you gave me a weird look. Because you said something stupid. Okay. And I
Speaker 2:don't remember what it was, but it was stupid.
Speaker 1:How come your nicknames are good and mine
Speaker 2:are stupid? That I'm not saying a nickname right now. I'm just saying her name.
Speaker 1:Okay. So we'll talk about her next week. I need to go find some air conditioning because I think I have melted throughout this episode. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You guys.
Speaker 1:It's real hot, man. Stay cool out there. We weren't built for this.
Speaker 2:We were not. We're just Jesus. Disgusting. I'm ready anytime.
Speaker 1:Any day now. Alright. Well, we love you very much.
Speaker 2:Love you. Don't take b 12 before you go to bed.
Speaker 1:Oh, a good note, Carl.
Speaker 2:Yep. That's just a side note.
Speaker 1:Love you. Bye.
Speaker 2:Love you. Bye.