Hi, everybody, Welcome to nonprofits. Today we're going to talk about interesting and kind of scary article from newsweek. Um, so, I like any other week in America, we have a streaming hate preacher spreading dangerous ideas. Recently, in Tennessee, pastor Kent Christmas, Yes that seems to be his real name. Totis told his church that the Muslim faith was becoming more successful
because they're willing to die for their beliefs. Um proceeded to ask God to give Christian men and women this same type of passion, willing to die for their beliefs. So inside of this vague pseudo call to action, it seems like this is a problem for everyone else around those types of people, given how easy everyone seems to be these days in being influenced by religion or conspiracy theory theorists to take up different arms in their pursuit of bad ideas. Kelly,
you you have any thoughts on this? Just kick us off? Yeah? Well, who would have guessed that another crazy pastor was coming out of Tennessee? Right? Does anything come good come out of Tennessee? Present company accepted, of course, friend, Yeah, so I had my first thought, I and you knew me, and my brain always goes to silly places. But my first thought was onward Christian bombers marching as to war with the
bombs of Jesus to kill those that will abhor. But to be fair, he didn't come right out and say we should go strap bombs on and throw yourselves at heathens. Um, it's he really walked around it. And I've been talking about how they a lot of people on the extreme right have been using laundered language. You know, it's like they take some words and clean them up, and so they think they've made them acceptable. But we all
know what they're doing. And that's what he's done here. Like, like I said, he didn't come right out and say it, but he came right out and said it. Anybody with the half of brain can see it. He didn't conceal what he was trying to say at all in any way, shape or form. So um I was when I was whenever I see him doing this kind of a weird message, it always comes up to me is making them look dumber than they should look because they think we're gonna fall
for this that for this laundered, cleaned up language. Right, So Helen, what do you think. I know you've got a lot of thoughts about this. I always have thoughts, um, So I don't have a lot to say about someone like this because it's always the same Christian hateful rhetoric we
hear all the time. And yeah, I he did clean up the language which you brought up, Kelly. But it's like that possible diability thing, you know, like, well, I'm saying horrible things, but I'm gonna but this way, if someone calls me on my shit, I'm I can back it up, you know, I can kind of hide under that guy's
and that's what he's doing, and it's really really dishonest. And and again, like just because he might not strap a bottom onto his chest or get his pressures to do it and do something terrible, doesn't mean they're not going to do something else terrible. Like there's not like other there's not like Christian terrorists in this country haven't done other terrible things to promote their faith, like
you know, bomb and abortion clinic. So you know, it's it is an issue that we need to have a lot of I don't know, caution about because like, yes, he is saying the thing that we don't want people to do and he's doing it because of his imaginary sky daddy, and his imaginary sky Daddy really likes it if you do violent things apparently, you know, even though he's the guy to love in peace. So yeah,
that's that's worrying. And I really wish people wouldn't spread stuff like this, like what happened to church, like you know, feeding the hungry and teaching kids to do math like volunteering and stuff. What happened to that stuff? Why we talk about this anyway? What do you think about all this? Yeah, this is an interesting thing, and it could have something to do
with my familiarity with these types of individuals. Like again, it confuses me sometimes when when I speak to people in other parts of the United States, because this isn't normal for them, right, But like preachers like this in my area of the country have definitely been around for while, although they've picked
up a lot over the last couple of years. Um. I wonder though, and I'll throw this to you Raphael and than anybody else of course that has thoughts on it is is us talking about this making this more problematic? Should should we be reaching out towards more secularists, non religious and atheist folk, or should we be reaching out more towards the liberal marginal Christians or is
that maybe a better focus for us. It depends on our goal, but I definitely had some of these similar thoughts of like, are we platforming this crazy person? As well as, like you said, these preachers have always been around. There's always been doomsday or preachers. There's always been people spewing hate everywhere you go. But if the Internet they spread, they become more prevalent. They you know, there's a Internet. It's amazing, but it's
also dangerous. Like everything else that's amazing, it's it's letting these people reach people everywhere, and who knows, you know, they could influence someone to do something horrible in another country, another state. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be in Tennessee in his home community. So now I don't know how big of a church this person has, but you know they have a worldwide reach now, So any thoughts on that? Kelly Um, Yeah,
I answer your question a star. I think we need to reach out to both, and I'll explain why. Obviously, we need to reach out to the secular atheist community because we are that community, and we're the people who are most concerned they hear language like that. However, there is a whole large group of liberal moderate Christians, as you said, and they don't
like to hear this stuff either. There's a there's an organization of churches that have gotten together to fight back against Christian nationalism as an example, and those So we need to get a hold of those people because there are allies in this fight, and you know, maybe we don't want them around either, but right now, let's get them to help us get rid of the really bad ones, right and then maybe fifty years up the road we can work
on being nice and getting rid of them too. But yeah, I think we need to reach out to both communities, and we need to show our community that we can ally with theists and get something done too, because there's a lot of people on our side that probably might not be willing to do that at first. So I think that that's important to reach out to both sides. So, yeah, Helen, you want to you want to add
to that. Yeah, I agree with us because I have to imagine and like you know, sometimes eight is get a bad rap and we have things straight about us that you know, we you know, hate, I want to kill children, and you know, we're worshiping the devil, though I don't know how that got started, but like there's all these terrible things, like we don't have any morals, you know, all these terrible things that
are said about us. And I'm sure the modern Christians or any religious group that has a hate group within it's part of its community, isn't gonna be super excited about that. And it's like, this is not the religion that I believe in. This is not what Jesus taught, you know, our and for me, like I would rather play ball with those people on top of the secular humanists and be like, hey, maybe we'll have less hate in the world, less violence, Like let's work towards that. Let's not
you know, yes you can't. You have to find a way to preach your faith. And though I have quibbles with that and problems, I don't think the best way is through violence to scare people to you know, doing
those things. And I understand that this preacher is coming from like a very passionate sort of you know place where he's like, well, you know, we have to be just as extreme as other religions, you know, And I'm just like, yeah, but even within the Muslim religion that those people are few, true, you know, those are those are the extremists. So and I think he's missing the point. And it comes off to me as a racist and uh like racist and bigoted and you know, and a
lot of problems with this. So it just it just reads very gross. And I and I definitely know people that are religious that would not want to be associated, you know, with this type of people. You know, this group, and I'm sure all of you know someone as well that are
religious and we don't want to be associated with groups like this. Um, all you think about that us are yeah, absolutely absolutely, And I think I think you all, um, you know, really touched on something that that I was I was hoping we would, which is the need to reach out because there are so many you know, believers out there. Believe me, folks, Yes, this guy is from my state, and so is a handful of other people that I just don't want to name because I don't
want to give him anymore airtime. But there are thousands and thousands, if not millions of believers in my state that absolutely abhor this type of this type of rhetoric, right, and it is it's it's terrible. And I wonder too, because there was so much of it that was I think very clearly in a Christian nationalist lens. I mean, how many times did he mention Donald Trump, right and explicitly saying about his you know, what his parishioners
should do in regards to that. You know, I sometimes, I know this may be a little strange, but sometimes I just I'm not so sure that the call to action that this preacher gave that was the violence is going to be picked up as much as the political call to action that these preachers man. I wonder, I wonder what what y'all think on that too?
Do you do you think just at all? I mean, look, I'm not condoning what he's saying, of course, right, I'm not in the slightest, But I'm asking do you think that we're more likely to see political action associated from this in that, you know, continuing Christian nationalist thrust that we've seen, or are we more likely to see violence associate or both? I guess what what do you think? Raphael? So? In general,
I think, um, the way people look at bad ideas ideas. As a spectrum, you're gonna have some most people that clearly are you going to be influenced from like nothing from zero to one hundred, you know, your hundreds or the people who are like, I'm gonna blow some shit up. But I think, I hope maybe it's more maybe more appropriate that those people are in the minority, even within the spectrum of people are going to be influenced by this type of uh screaming in a church. So I'm thinking he's
gonna have influence for sure. I just don't know how many, or if at all, they were going to have any type of violent influence. But I do agree that I think he's going to have a huge influence on people's voting habits um, because everyone who's too chicken shit to like strap a bonder themselves, which I hopefully is everyone, Um, what else are they gonna
do. They're going to vote, They're going to protests, They're going to show up at pizza parlors because they've read something on four Chan or whatever. So there's like the spectrum that I see from this type of uh. You know, you take one bad idea and you take it a lot of places. It's kind of like you know, holy books. You read it a lot of different ways, and in that sense, you know, it's, um, it's kind of scary because I think he will, he does and
will continue to have some kind of influence on people at large. Kelly, what do you what do you make any other? Yeah, you're absolutely right. That is that is a problem and I and that's it's a big problem with allot of the ministers today and I think I think the IRS should be looking at him more and to be taken pulling away that nonprofit status from a
lot of churches, especially ones like this. I do want to point out though, and because you did mention that, you know, there was a lot of Trump in this article, and it was all it was a lot
of it was the journalist putting that Trump in there, you know. And Trump was actually mentioned thirteen times, I think once it was in relation to the minister, and the rest of it was, well, this guy supports Trump, and Trump is bad and Trump is bad and Trump is bad and Trump and I wanted more information about what was going on with the minister.
And I've mentioned before that I took I was the English major. I minored in journalism and I was just like really mad, so mad at this article because I wasn't getting the information I wanted, and I was getting more stuff that I didn't want. So I thought, I thought the person writing it definitely had an agenda. And I want to point out that in the original quote, the guy did mention that it was young men we needed to go out there and strap bombs. Yet young men we need to be going willing
to be go out there and kill themselves. Wasn't talking about the old man like he was. I just wanted to mention that Helen is weird. It's a little sexist, Kelly. He didn't call for a woman to do it either, So true, true, we want I'm not going to say that it was bad so hashtog equality. Yeah, yeah, I don't know so. But besides that, yeah, I didn't notice the Trump riddick was a
little much. And yes, there are people that are part of those extreme the extreme right that you know, are have that Christian nationalism vibe and they like Trump and they think that somehow Trump and their religion go together like peanut butter and jelly, you know. And that's really bothersome because you can be a religious person and not like Trump, you know, or you can be you can like Trump and not be religious. You know, the people come
and all, you know, colors and opinions and everything like that. So I guess I really wish that they did he did focus more on what the preacher was saying, because that was that was the thing that we were We were all had a lot of concern with this, you know. Um that's why we're talking about it. Um And yes, there has been more calls of violence, there's been more calls for actions since um one TRUMPUS president and since he's been out of the White House that there's been a little bit of
a law on the rhetoric. But that I think that's because consequences have happened, you know. But that doesn't mean people aren't going on message boards and spreading heeful things and haful ideas. So you know, I'm just I would hope that the language like this would fell down, you know, But it seems every single time we did this show, there's some preacher saying something really stupid. Yeah, it feels more and more regular, unfortunately, Yeah,
it does. Yeah, for sure, M Kelly d have any final thoughts on I wanted to go back a little to revisit it. Something I mentioned before about the thing enough the language, because you know, he really what he said was, and this is paraphrased, very much paraphrased. I didn't say you should go be a suicider bomber. I simply said, Islam's growing fast and it's doing damn good. And then Muslims they fanatically killed themselves, and we need men, brave, young men who are willing to do that.
I never said they should do that, just that they should be willing to do that. And I'm wondering to myself, to what end, to what end do you need men to go kill yourself to show that Christianity is right? Isn't that kind of against the religion going out and killing people and blowing up yourself and other people. It just didn't make any sense to me at all, and I had a real problem with the whole thing. I obviously it just doesn't seem like the guy was really taking his own faith seriously.
And I just wanted to mention that at the end, and that was it because I didn't because guy was a real minister. I don't understand how you could be preaching this stuff. Yeah, yeah, A little strange to me too, but thanks so much for watching everybody, and if you want to hear more from the nonprofits, click here.