Provoked: How to Spot Harmful Spiritual Leaders w/ Cultish

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are.

This is where we hold them. This is where we fight. Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct.

You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir.

That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends, and we are teaching our children to do the same.

God's Word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice, and mark my words, they will have their day in court.

Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the

Word of Christ. If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ, we're not loving

Him, no matter what we're doing with our hands. Hey guys, welcome to Provoked.

I am here with the best person who ever lived. Desi. Hello. It's a cultish mashup.

Woo! Yeah. Yeah, finally. We're all representing here. Represent. We got Jeremiah Roberts, the co -host of Cultist, as well as the

Super Sleuth, Andrew Sonkrant. Super Sleuth! Soon to be baby of number four. Number four. Sonkrant's taking dominion.

That's right. We have a sort of running joke. It's ever since I just went up to Utah. We did a couple episodes up there, and so we were talking about your super secret headquarters up in Harriman, Utah.

But every single time we describe the headquarters, we always give more details, where it's like it's actually in Harriman, Utah, at an apartment complex, right next to a

Costco that's being built. But the Costco isn't open, but there's a WinCo right up the street.

And so it's like, next thing you know, it's like we're literally going to have a pin drop to the super secret headquarters.

Yeah, at some point. That's sort of the running joke right now. That's so sick. Hey, where'd you guys get the light in the background? Because that is dope.

Oh, I got it from just an ad I saw on Facebook that they make neon lights. So I was like,

I need myself a cultish neon light. So I already had the design, and I just sent it to them. I love it. About a month later, I got it.

Yeah, you got the best backdrop ever. So, hey, we're going to talk all things, everything on the show.

Going to cover all subjects throughout history. But before we get into it, hey, go to ApologyStudios .com.

Please become an All Access member. That keeps these bright lights on. That keeps everything flowing as far as money coming in, and then kingdom furthering going out, right, guys?

All we want to do is really get the gospel out, the truth of God's word out. We want to provoke people to, one, preach the gospel correctly, reach the lost, and save babies, and destroy cultural idols, and defend the faith, everything that's good and courageous that people need to do.

So as you do that, go to Apology Studios. You're going to enable us to continue to do that. We don't only want to become kind of consumeristic

Christians. A lot of people kind of look at podcasts or churches, and they consume, but they don't give back.

And so it's good to receive and give back because you're a part of the whole team. It's not just people watching us for an entertainment purpose.

It's actually collaborating with us, networking with us, partnering with us in the gospel effort, in the furthering of the kingdom, right?

Amen. Awesome. Cool, so please go ahead and do that. And you can go to all the different things to support us, right, that I forget every time?

Yep, Instagram, Facebook. Go to wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a like and review. We're working on getting our website finally up and running and should be soon.

Things are in motion. We're making some traction, going to get some merch going finally. But hey, if you don't have any

Cultish merch yet, we got some pretty cool shirts here. Look at this. I love this. Yeah, ShopCultish .com,

and there's all sorts of cool Cultish merch goodies. And we're hoping to get some more designs soon.

We've had our designer kind of on call, and so we're in the process of making new stuff.

Nice. Especially of all things, I think this design here, the Bad Theology Hurts People, was kind of the big one that everyone loves too.

But all the ones are good. People love that one as well too. Oh, I know. This one's awesome because people, do you guys wear this one too?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. They will stare at your chest. I've had dozens of people just kind of look at, like Costco, wherever I am, just kind of look at me.

You probably have a big drop of ketchup. They're trying to figure out what it is. Or you could have a big stain on it.

I usually go like this. Well, the thing is too, is a lot of people misunderstand that logo, so they always think, there's some people like, oh, you guys are like secret agents.

You're actually representing the new age. That's a third eye or something like that. It's not. It's a homage to George Orwell's 1984.

And so the idea behind it is that we're sort of thinking about all the talk about going into the technological age and what that actually means with big tech and kind of all the

Orwellian things that are going on, but really being salt and light during this time because during times of uncertainty, that cults like on there, like Scientology, the new age, and all this look into fringe spirituality because we're a post -Christian culture and that's part of what our show's all about.

So all the artwork and that design is very representative of that. Cool. But yeah, fun times.

We got to get ours going. I know. When we get them going, they're going to be way better than theirs or anybody else's. Well, yeah. I better go now.

Okay, cool. Don't forget about ReformCon because people need to plan for that. That is true.

You can go to reformcon2022 .com? I think it's, I don't know. Reformcon .com.

Yeah, I think it's ReformCon. It's happening soon. October 27th. So you start planning now, start saving.

You can get your plane tickets and accommodations and come out and join us because it's going to be just a great time right around Reformation Day, so that's pretty sick.

Are you coming out, Andrew? Oh, yeah. I'm going to be there. The whole family's going to be there. It's going to be a gas.

Oh, so then the actual best person in the world is coming, Casey Sunkrant, because she is my favorite.

I love her. Oh, she's going to love that. It's not reformcon .com. What is it?

I'm trying to figure out what it is. I wish I had like Joe Rogan's dude that just looks up things. I guess I'm not good enough.

It's Jamie. Can you pull that up, Jamie? Can you see that? He pulls it up in like half of a millisecond. Oh, really?

It's so fast, yeah. But we'll find it and we'll give it to him. Okay, so I want to do something with you guys, and I don't know if you've ever done it on Cultish, but just to get to -

It's org, sorry. Reformcon .org. Reformcon .org. Reformcon .org. Go there and come and hang out with us.

It's going to be sweet. So getting to know Andrew and - Super sleuth.

I mean, everybody already knows them. Like our podcast is like, little down here, and then there's

Cultish, and they're like, they're really the big deal. They know the intimate details about who they truly are.

We'll find out. Oh, this is fun. It's not that personal. It's like, what kind of pizza do you like?

Yeah, so Macy, my daughter, she likes to call it hot potato. So what you do is you have to answer these questions like in the split second, or we'll just make fun of you real bad.

We'll kill you. We'll answer a question for you, okay? So you have to do it real quick. Maybe faster than a split second, get a couple seconds.

So we'll just start with Andrew, and I'll just do you two. How about Andrew? Andrew. And then you have to answer too.

Yes, you do. You have to. All right. Just easy questions. We're just going to try to move through it as quickly as we can just to get to know you better.

Okay, hard questions though. Really, really hard questions. Okay. Let's do it. Explain the hypostatic union.

Just kidding. Just kidding. Okay. What's your favorite food? Lasagna.

Chipper's pie. Sushi. Sushi. Favorite movie? Oh my goodness. I don't really know.

Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind. Oh, yeah. Good one. Mad Max Fury Road. It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah. Braveheart.

Favorite book? Other than the Bible. We know all you do. Favorite book other than the Bible? Chronicles of Narnia.

Fellowship of the Ring. Pilgrim's Progress. I forgot the one I was going to say. The Road. Favorite preacher?

Oh, Paul Washer. Alistair. Alistair Day?

Yeah. Mostly for his accent. Better not say Aliester Crowley, bro. That kind of preacher, dude. No, it's probably his accent.

That's probably why I'm prejudiced towards him. Yeah. He's got a great Scottish accent. Zack Morgan. Yeah, right.

Jeff Durbin. I'm not going to tell him. Okay. Favorite human? Whoever lived. Human. Other than Christ.

And Paul and David. Oh, wow. I've never really thought about this. I'm going to say George Washington because that's the first I thought of.

Don't tell Casey you said George Washington. Winston Churchill.

Don Mays. Jessica Morgan. Yeah. Favorite animal? Oh, a little baby tiger.

Oh, those are cool. Baby tiger. That's wise. Throw it out. Favorite animal?

Yeah, that's a rough one. Jerry doesn't like animals, guys. No, I do. There's just so many to choose from.

I like dogs and cats. It really depends on the dog and it depends on the cat. There's cats that are awful.

I don't want nothing to do with them. There's great dogs. I was actually going to the gym this morning and there was a stray dog that was super, super friendly.

I was going up and greeting everyone. They're trying to get rid of him. So, yeah. Cool. You didn't love him enough.

You didn't keep him. I have three. Okay, go ahead. Meerkats, peacocks, and hummingbirds.

Golden eagles and male lions. Golden eagles are so sick. Those things are huge. Have you ever seen a bald eagle up close?

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Their necks are that big. Oh, yeah. The golden eagles dwarf those. Those things have 10 -foot wings. I've never seen a golden eagle.

They're mammoths. If it was on the table, you'd just be like, I'm afraid for my life. Yeah. Okay, favorite hobby?

Oh, favorite hobby. Playing guitar. Working out. I like interior design.

Oh, cool. Working out, too. Yeah. Song. Favorite song. That's rough.

Wow. Oh, man. Favorite song. Just the one that you can always go to and you just never get sick of.

Oh, End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage. Sweet. Diamond Eyes by Shinedown.

Before the Throne. Before the Throne. And Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. Favorite band?

Favorite band. I'd have to say right now, piano's become the teeth. Currently, right now, the

Black Keys. Citizens and Saints. Oh, man. I have so many. Nirvana, probably. Okay, cool.

That's it. So, we will get into the podcast. So, we kind of want to get in.

I don't know if anybody – has anybody interviewed you about Cultish? Yeah, from time to time. Yeah, cool. I mean, they're a big deal.

That's so insulting. They're just so – they're so cool. Well, the cool thing for me is I actually overheard in here the first meeting that you had with Jeff.

Really? About Cultish. Yeah. I was doing my little thing, and I was listening to you guys, and it was pretty sweet.

And I just didn't know where to go, but just to see what God has done with this is amazing. Yeah. You know, how far -reaching and how – what a vast audience you guys have.

It's just amazing to see what God's done. So, kind of take us back and, like, what gave you – why did you want to do it?

Where did it begin? What were the thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, honestly, it has to do –

I mean, most of you will probably – you guys get a lot of viewers through Apology of Studios. A lot of people know about your podcast, so they've seen a lot of our interactions on the street with our

LDS friends and neighbors, and that goes back years upon years, and even before there were even cameras out there, which

I was a part of. And so – and that's how Apology – for Apology of Church and Apology of Studios, there's

Apology of Christian Ministries, which the entirety of that focus was an outreach to the cults, giving a

Christian apologetic response. And so, as the church grew and the studio began, they got involved in more projects like End Abortion Now and kind of the other different things that they're into.

So, it just – it became kind of like a shuffling on the Rolodex as far as when it would get brought up.

And I always kind of – that always seemed to be, like, the area of just where I was passionate about. Like, I understand the importance of everything going on with EAN or abortion outreach.

And I've been to the middle. It's important work. But it just – if you had to just – for some people, like, that's their calling, and that's just what they're passionate about.

So, for me, doing apologetics in regards to giving answers to people looking, you know, for dealing with different aspects of the cult, the occult, all that, like, that's just what

I'm passionate about. So, Jeff kind of sought me out. I think we were at dinner at the Thai food – this Thai food place right across – right next door to where we used to have a church at.

And so, he just kind of mentioned me as, like, hey, you should maybe head up, like, some sort of ministry similar to kind of like the cults, sort of like how

EAN is just strictly focused on ending abortion. And so, I was trying to think, well, what would that look like?

Well, why don't we start off with – what if we just did a podcast that's strictly focused on the cults?

Like, who knows? We might run out of ideas, but at least we might as well just give it a shot. And so, we were kind of, you know, formulating.

We couldn't think of a name, but we still were planning for it. Like, well, the name will eventually come. And I think it was, like, three weeks before our launch date, which

I think was October of 2018, and I still couldn't think of a name.

And then Jeff came up with the idea. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's brilliant. So, what – do you guys remember any of the names that were in the running?

Like, ones that it could have been? It was something like – something to do with, like, the shackled mind or something like that.

But it was just – the struggle was is that I think in the Christian community that sometimes just the titling of your podcast tends to be, like, very polarizing, where if it's the

Reformed Theonomic Five Solas – like, the Reformed tribe of Christendom is a very niche group in and of itself.

So, when you start putting all these titles on it, it's like you're really polarizing your audience. So, we wanted to have as broad of a spectrum as possible.

So, I was trying to think of a title without necessarily, like, all those, like, theological lingo terms.

Right. That would sort of, like – because I wanted people, especially from the unbelieving world, to kind of get into our content.

Right. Exactly. So, yeah. Jeff came up with the idea, and I think – really,

I think the driving force, Andrew, and you could compliment giving your thoughts on this, too, but I think really the driving force behind, like, why we did this was, one, you know, just the need of – you know, right now, like, where we are as a culture, where we are as a society, we're in a post -Christian culture.

And it's very indicative of any time that secular humanism, it ends up being the main zeitgeist.

There's just a – all the culture just delves into paganism and different cultic groups, especially during times of political uncertainty.

That's where you can have Jim Jones -like characters to kind of be a beacon of hope, and that's where people get sucked into the cults.

You saw that during the 1960s. And I think what we're going through right now, just in the world, is very similar to all the changes and uncertainty going on in the 1960s.

And back then, you saw people like Jim Jones. You know, even later on in the 70s, we had people like Charles Manson.

You know, L. Ron Hubbard came to fruition during that time, and just a lot of different cults. And so, like, our real passion was that, you know, we see all these shows going on that are on HBO, that are on, like,

Hulu, that are on Netflix, that are kind of dealing with the cults. In fact, there's a

Netflix show, Wild, Wild Country, that was all about the Rajneesh in the 1980s. And in the show, like,

Walter Martin makes a brief cameo, like, talking about it. Oh, that's cool. So, you know, and we just saw, like, well, all these shows, they're kind of, they're doing what the

Christians should be doing, as far as doing documented evidence of former cult members and showing how they got out.

And they would do, a lot of them are very well done and would do a good job of showing the damage of, you know, we're going to be talking about people who are narcissistic, and you see that in cult leaders.

Like, you see that, they give good examples exposing that, but I don't think they could ever give a true accounting for that just because, you know, they didn't really put the gospel into it.

And so, these people were leaving the cults and really didn't have any hope. And that's why, you know, in our intro, we play that little clip from Walter Martin where he says, you're in a cult,

I love you, and I want you out of it and with Christ. And so, that's really, yeah, our driving passion is to bring the biblical gospel to be a beacon of hope for people that are stuck in the cults or are coming out of the cults and are jaded and really don't know how to pick up the pieces.

That's awesome. What do you think, Andrew? Like, what's down the road or what are you thinking? Yeah, just to piggyback a little bit off of what

Jerry was saying. Like, it says in John chapter one, like, Jesus Christ is the light and life of all men. The light has come into the world and the darkness will never overcome him.

So, even though we live in what we can say like a post -Christian society, we don't live in a post -God governed world.

So, we're in a society that's under rebellion and as dark as it is, we know that the light of the gospel shines that much stronger, meaning that there's people that need to go out there and preach and be the salt and the light in the weird and fringe areas of society.

And Jerry and I love to talk about weird stuff. Like, even before culture started, Jerry and I would have multiple meetings and we're talking about weird new age stuff and just fringe topics that a lot of Christians don't like to talk about.

And that's like our bread and butter. That's what we love and what we enjoy. So, what we want to do in terms of cultish moving forward is, well, how can we take cultish and utilize the other gifts that God has given other people on a platform so that we can just keep, you know, pushing the light of the gospel out there into the kingdom of the cults, right?

So, entering the kingdom of the cults and the power of the gospel will overcome it eventually. So, that's kind of what our focus is and it's just been a blessing so far.

I mean, me personally, I was never supposed to be part of the podcast in terms of speaking on a microphone. I was just going to be like that researcher guy in the background and then things changed and now we're just moving on forward and doing things.

So, yeah, that's only a blessing. And that's all to how Andrew got his name Super Sleuth because he was literally sleuthing in the background.

I remember that when you guys first started. Yeah. I mean, it was almost like the way I could describe it because like, I feel like I always live and operate in movie quotes.

So, that scene from the original Matrix where Tank says, what do you need? And he goes, guns, lots of guns.

And all of a sudden, there's that whole shelf, you know, comes up. That was something Andrew would say, what do you need?

And I would say, I need information about Scientology from 1960 to 1965.

And actually, you know, it'd be like 20 pages. And it's all pictures of Tom Cruise's face. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So, it just sort of become, you know, a big thing. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people out there who have great ideas.

And, you know, I think, and usually, it's like you have the thrill of going after it initially, but then it just comes down to like the monotonous, just like grunt work.

A big part of it is, and I think the biggest challenge is that you just have to be consistent, you know, just doing one thing.

And for us, it was just, you know, doing the podcast. In fact, I remember in 2020, you know, when everything started hitting with COVID, I just made the decision that no matter what, you know, whether it was like live or die, whatever

COVID actually is at the time, like we're going to make sure that we drop an episode every single week.

And we did it. That's great. And I feel like kind of pushing through and kind of, you know, getting all that done through 2020 kind of set a precedent of just pushing through.

Because there are a lot of people who have great ideas and they'll maybe kind of get started, but then they'll stop and they'll take three months off and then they try and get started.

But you lose. We're going to be more consistent. It's consistent, you know, and thankfully, you know, we've been able to leverage.

I mean, you think about where Jeff and Luke came from when the studio started. I mean, we kind of have, we're standing on the shoulders of all the hard work that they've done.

So we have the leverage of the studio. And, you know, really, I think when it comes to like long term, as far as where Kuldish is,

I mean, we've had quite a few episodes, we've really kind of made a point to kind of emulate what

Walter Martin did back during his ministry, where he kind of always, you know, sought to, you really went to seek out common ground with different people from different denominations, different backgrounds, just as long as there's unity on the essential.

So we could figure out how we can partner together, how we can collaborate. So we've had people like Josh Lewis on,

Stephen Bancars, Mike Winger, you know, just a bunch of other people that just from all over the

Reform, not even the outside of the Reform world, just online Christendom in general. And so it's been great.

And I think, you know, long term where we're headed, we want to try and emulate what, you know, Walter Martin tried to do with the

Christian Resource Institute, having it just sort of be, you know, an archive of, you know, resources where people can kind of really have more of that.

And so there's going to be, we're going to, we're hoping actually to sort of launch our cult, our super secret

Cultist 2 .0 project later on this year, which I'm super pumped for. Yeah. I was just thinking about what you had said about, you know, just time wise of really there's these like moments in history where I feel like people are vulnerable because there's a lot of chaos going on and people are scared.

And so that's when the wolves come in, you know, and really try to capitalize on people's fear and they're reaching out, looking for answers.

And so that's when you see the cult members come out and they, they try to gather up as many people they can to deceive.

And so the work that you guys are doing is so important because what you're doing is, you know, destroying any lofty idea that raises itself up against the knowledge of Christ.

And so I love it. And I'm so encouraged by both of you and just the work that God is doing through you.

You guys harmonize so well in your personalities, just in your different giftings and the makeup.

I mean, that's why I think it does so well. And just, just for people to be able to come on and be like, look, I have a family member that is really into Bethel and you can be like,

Hey, here's some, a ton of information just right. So they're, they're able to log on, listen to your interview with Lindsay Davis and get firsthand, you know, knowledge of what it's like to be in that and then use that to help share the truth with their loved ones.

So I think it's wonderful. And I pray that the Lord would continue to do this till you guys are super old, gray.

And yeah. Yeah. Kind of like when Andrew looks like me. Yeah. Yeah. Come on,

Jerry. You're only one year older than me. You just had a birthday, huh? I did. Yeah. I did. 41. 41 and young.

Andrew is 30. I am 32. Oh, you're 32. 32 now.

32. That's not bad. Yeah. Cool. Well, hey, so a couple more questions on the cultish topic and then we'll get into cult leaders, narcissism in general and talk about maybe cultural stuff.

And then, you know, you know, unfortunately the pandemic, one of the huge true pandemics in the nation is narcissism in the pastorate and, you know, predominantly in the

American Evangelical Church and how devastating that is. And not many people talk about it, but anyway, what are some, well, how many views do you guys get?

Like a week, do you guys know, or a month, or? We kind of look at downloads. I just looked the other day and we had 70 ,000 downloads in the last,

I think it was like a week or two weeks. I can't remember, but typically it's around 26 to 30 ,000 downloads a week.

Oh my goodness. Man. That's phenomenal. It's how many we have too and it's our parents. Well, yeah.

Mom and dad too. That's funny. Well, I think when it comes down to like the numbers and stuff, like I don't view it through, you know, talking about people who are like narcissistic, like, well, that was just because we're sort of a big deal, like channeling

Ron Burgundy or something like that. But I think honestly, the fact that we get as many downloads we have as one,

I think it's just an aspect of being consistent. But I think ultimately, like numbers is always indicative of the marketplace of ideas.

And so that was, when we looked at, we initially had the episode of defecting from Bethel, it went from having 2 ,500 downloads because we were still a super small podcast that were just getting off the ground.

We got, you know, the bombshell defecting from Bethel interview. We went from 2 ,500 downloads to 38 ,000.

Wow. In like the blink of an eye. Yeah. And so, you know, the question for me with it was like, okay, what is going on here?

There's a marketplace of ideas behind why that's there. And I think because, you know, we're dealing with topics that are on people's mind, you know, the ideas of different cults, the fringe, all those different aspects, and that's just becoming more normalized.

Like there's a video that right now it's going viral of Megan Fox and her relationship with Machine Gun Kelly and how, you know, they're into taking like ayahuasca and like drinking each other's blood.

And this is just and it's like, this is something that you'd see out of a movie like 20 years ago.

And now this is like normal TMZ stuff where you have people out in the open, like doing stuff that really is ancient, ancient paganism.

And so you see the normalization of that. So it's on people's minds. So having a definitive

Christian response or a Christian apologetic towards all these different issues, whether it's UFOs, psychedelics, you know, whatever the topics are, you know, it's just something that's on people's mind.

So I think that's really indicative of the just the marketplace. And that's why I think it's important to have like a podcast like ours.

We can kind of put the gospel into these conversations that are on people's minds. That's awesome.

So cool. Any like, any problems that you guys didn't foresee or any difficulties when first starting out?

Any attacks, people coming after you? Because of course, you guys are taking apart sacred cows.

Yeah. And so kind of explain, explain some of that. Well, what

I love is what we learned kind of early on getting negative one star reviews on Apple podcasts, where at first it was like, oh, it felt like a knife to the heart a little bit.

And then Jerry had this brilliant idea to actually post them, right?

So utilize them to your benefit. And that has actually been extremely helpful, even in thinking about the content that we're creating.

We're doing this all to the glory of God. It shouldn't be for us personally anyways. We shouldn't have a personal jab, you know, if we get a bad review.

So I think some of the difficulties at first were Jerry and I figuring out really, well, what does it mean being behind a mic?

What is it for? And what is the purpose? And why am I doing it? I think the biggest struggle, if anyone's honest with themselves is, are you doing it for the glory of God or are you doing it for yourself, you know, and if you're really honest with yourself.

And so I think that's probably one of the biggest struggles is getting over some of your fears, being behind a mic, thinking that a bunch of people are going to listen to you just to get the truth out there, to see what

God's going to do with the truth coming from his word, because it's his word that, you know, renews the mind and that's the truth, right?

That's awesome. That's good. Okay. Also good stories. Like you have, you guys had messages, people saying,

Hey, like I watched the show and I'm getting away from Bethel. I'm getting away from Jehovah's witnesses. Any of those?

Yeah. I think one of my favorite, one of the first messages I got, I remember just like, wow, this is incredible.

And it was something to the extent of right after we did one of our first podcast, it was

Leah Remini and the Jehovah's witnesses, which is about, you know, Leah Remini and Mike Rinder, they did the really popular show

Scientology, the aftermath. And they did a followup of one called their look, their investigation into Jehovah's witnesses.

And they're, you know, they're just viewing all the people who had been shunned or been disfellowshipped or, you know, something happened with them not being able to donate blood, but they never really brought the gospel into it.

So we kind of brought up what they brought it, brought up the things that, you know, they brought up in the podcast and we tried to give a biblical response to it.

And so, you know, one of the things that Jeff said, and it's one of those things like you don't know the impact of what you're going to say when you're behind the microphone.

And so there's one point where Jeff said, and I think we're talking about the aspects of being shunned.

And Jeff was saying, well, if you experienced that, like that wasn't God to begin with.

And so like this lady, you know, she sent us this message and was like, she had been shunned and disfellowshipped by her entire family.

And she was at the moment, I think she got to a point where she was like suicidal. And she just happened to find our podcast.

And like when Jeff said that, it was like for her, she described it as like a beacon of hope.

Like she didn't even know it was like possible. And so, and she just like, was like, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And it was like, oh, wow. You know, cause it's just one of those things, you know, Jeff had just gotten, you know,

I think he had the seizure back, it was back then. And so he was just kind of showing up at the studio, he was probably like a little out of it, you know?

So he just kind of said what came to mind, you know, and then I think there's another instance too, where, you know, we did an episode on the word of faith movement.

And I think that I met up with a guy from Tennessee, I mean, I don't know if I told you this, Andrew, and he wanted to meet up with me cause

I was going to be there two years ago for the Fight Law Feast conference. And he basically said the episode from the

Word of Faith movement that we did, he, his wife sent it to him because of the fact that, you know, she just wanted him to, something to listen to, but he was in a relationship that wasn't appropriate.

Not that it was a full blown affair, but it was definitely headed in that direction. And there was something that Andrew said in this podcast that like really convicted him.

And so it made him, you know, cut off this relationship, it's not a good relationship. And then, you know, that became, and so that podcast began, it became like a catalyst to like heal their marriage, which

I had no idea that wasn't like, Hey, we're going to say the super smart thing, you know, or Andrew, whatever you said in that podcast.

And like, literally, I know for me, like I was looking on my phone, it was right when Donald Trump had declared the state of emergency and I was looking,

I was working at Costco at the time and I was looking at, you know, the huge panic buying and everything that was going on.

I'm like, Oh my gosh, that has to be me. I have to go into work tomorrow to deal with that. So I felt like the whole time, like being anxious behind the microphone because I was thinking about work the next day.

So in spite of, in spite of me being scatterbrained, like that podcast was used to bless this, this couple and to like heal their marriage.

So it's always cool. We get messages like that. It's always awesome. That's cool. Praise God. That's awesome. I'm sure you guys can go on story after story, but just amazing what

God's done. And so, okay, let's kind of transition over into the, our kind of focus and I guess it's, it's narcissism, but it's kind of like, which

I think both of us are trying to do in both of our podcasts is protecting people from harmful spiritual leaders, right?

Because the Mormons don't understand. I think leadership, even in the Mormon church or the Jehovah's Witness church, you know, when

I was hurt from narcissistic pastors, I just didn't understand. So what you guys are trying to do is kind of, you're trying to conceal or sorry, yeah, reveal what the cults try to conceal, right?

You're trying to take the, you know, remove the emperor's clothes and let them see behind the curtain and say, this is what you guys truly believe.

This is what's going on. And so what we need to do is we need to expose spiritual leaders and point them out because they're wolves and they hurt.

And there is such a vast amount of the church population in America that are being hurt.

And a lot of them don't even understand. They're subjugated by extremely controlling leaders, narcissistic leaders, self -absorbed leaders, self -focused.

Like what you said was perfect about, hey, you know, the cultists should be about God's glory.

So we shouldn't feel jabbed if we get personally attacked. That's the best way to think about it, because we, as a true

Christian leader, does it all for his glory and lays down their lives for the sheep, doesn't step on the sheep for their own self -promotion, right?

So what I wanted to do is ask you guys about, you know, cult leaders. And what

I'm seeing is a lot of similar traits in even American pastors. You know, they say narcissism affects 90 percent of pastors in the world, 90 percent.

That's a big problem. That's a big issue we don't talk about. So maybe throw this question at you, kind of give us an anatomy, the anatomy or the breakdown of a cult leader's traits that are similar leader to leader.

So go ahead. Yeah. Andrew, do you want to jump on that? Like, what are your initial thoughts? Yeah. My initial thoughts, especially when we think about narcissistic traits and cult leaders is we can kind of think biblically, right?

Like in Romans 1, it says that we exchange the worship for the immortal God for creeping things, images, things that are not

God, the creation and not the creator. So I would I would think that cult leaders and narcissistic pastors or narcissistic leaders, which

I would probably say 100 percent of cult leaders are narcissistic, is they want you to worship them.

Right. So that's the issue. Or like for Joseph Smith, for example, he wants you to worship a god of his own creation, which comes from his own mind.

You know, so narcissism in itself is taking the worship that is ascribed for God and wanting it for yourself.

And that's not going to be good for anybody, because the only thing that's beneficial for somebody in terms of spiritual worship is when you're worshiping the true and eternal

God. That is actually good for you. That changes you. It convicts you of your sin. It makes you more like Christ because you want to you want to know

God. You want to get into his word. But with cult leaders. Hold it right there for a second.

Maybe what we should do, and I know you wanted to do this too. Let's just define narcissism, because a lot of people don't even know what that word means.

Because I think as you continue on, we'll be using that term a lot. So what does narcissism mean? What's the what's the definition of that word?

You could just throw out kind of I'll give you the etymology of it. I'll give you the etymology real quick. The term narcissism comes from a first century book by the

Roman poet Ovid, and it tells the mythical story of a handsome young man, Narcissus, Narcissus, sorry, who spurns the advances of many potential lovers when

Narcissus rejects the nymph Echo, who was cursed to only echo the sounds that others made.

The gods punished Narcissus by making him fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water.

When Narcissus discovers that the object of his love cannot love him back, he slowly pines away and dies.

So what do you do? I guess he's sitting by this pool of water and he just he lives to look at himself.

Right. And so that's where it comes from. So narcissism is somebody who's totally self -absorbed and thinking about it clinically and psychologically,

I've done a lot of studies on it, you know, sociologically. It's it's

I mean, I think through the power of the blood of Christ and forgiveness, you can be changed.

But from kind of like a psychiatric look at it, a lot of these people don't change just statistically.

I think God can overcome any type of sin. I'm not saying that. But it's just a person who's wired to be self -serving, self -absorbed.

They're incredibly charismatic individuals. They they can sell you a ketchup popsicle in a white dress when you wear a white dress.

I mean, these people are incredibly believable. And I'll get into that in a little bit. But that's kind of like the narcissist. They have no empathy.

They will gaslight you. The narcissist comes out in conflict, too. They will never take responsibility.

They will defend themselves to the hilt because they're defending their pride. But ultimately, they're like these people that are so believable and that people follow them.

I'm going to ask you guys about this, too. But they're in it for themselves. And long term looking at them, they can only hold the charade for so long.

Think about Jim Jones. Yeah. I mean, he started out as a great preacher. Right. He was directing people to the Bible early on.

But then he ended up peeing on the Bible and stepping on it. Right. So they can start out right and believable.

Benny Hinn started out believable and orthodox. He ended up bad. But that's kind of like the definition of narcissism.

But I'll get back to you, Andrew, and what you were saying. Yeah. So I'll piggyback off that because this is exactly what I was getting to is that they are the anti God.

Right. They are. They try to take all of the characteristics and the things that only God is the one that should truly get, which is worship.

And they ascribe them to themselves and they give nothing back in return except harm. Right. So exactly what you described is exactly what

I was going for in terms of what the narcissist does. Right. Like high cares. They're highly charismatic.

They're all of these attributes that they just want to be worshipped. It's self -worship is what it is. And it's not good for any human being to not worship

God, but worship something else instead. They can care less. They can care less. They just want it all for themselves, essentially.

Right. Yeah. And I think it's also why I'm glad you define those terms, because so many times like a word like narcissist and even it's a it's just an emotional impact word.

You know, the people just sort of throw that out there, but not necessarily define it. But I think, you know, even right now in today's society, you see that really through like social media, like there is a tendency now to where it's like, oh, well, if you have if you're a tick tock influence and you have like you have half, you know, you have half a million followers and you can do like one post of you, you know, we're doing you're doing your workout.

And all of a sudden, you have all these people commenting and affirming you, oh, you look so good. You're all that. And so, you know, almost in a sense where not only that, but like even social media is a plethora to for even like cults and recruitments now where you have the whole influencer model.

I mean, that's that's another big thing where it's, you know, there used to be a while where cults would kind of recruit in secrecy through just like handing out pamphlets and you know, through that sort of recruiting.

But now through digitally, there's so much more opportunity, especially. But yeah, I think when it comes to the aspects of narcissism,

I think you see that all the time, you know, with all the different cult leaders. And I think, you know, one thing that's interesting is that a lot of the typical secular points of view, when they look at a different cult leader like Warren Jeffs or Jim Jones or Charles Manson, you think about the kind of the four horsemen, just kind of like the really big players is that they usually kind of deal with the

Freudian model where they say, oh, this this person is a completely a byproduct of their society.

And this it was because with Charles Manson, it was like, oh, it's because this was the relationship with his mom or because he didn't have a father figure in the home or Jim Jones.

It was the same thing. It was just it was a dysfunctional family. His Jim Jones's father was a

World War One veteran. And so he was he didn't he was very inactive, wasn't engaged with him because he had really bad lung damage from the chemical weapons that are used in World War One.

And so he was pretty much disabled. And so that kind of led Jim Jones to sort of, you know, seek for attention.

And so people always deal with that. But I think one things Andrew is getting at is that when you actually look at cult leaders, and I think when you actually look at it holistically, you have to think ultimately biblically, like who are these people?

They are image bearers of God. But even though they know God, you know, they suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

They worship the creation instead of the creator. And ultimately, it's them believing that they're God. So it's really the ultimate form of narcissism.

So when you see, you know, like there's a documentary that came out a couple of years ago called Holy Hell about these people who are in this group called the

Buddha field. And this guy was just a nut job. But ultimately, you know, these people were mostly damaged and wrecked from the 20 years they committed to this with all this crazy, you know, manipulation that included a lot of different aspects of really graphic sexual abuse, how these people are taken advantage of.

But it came down to the fact that this guy was convinced that he was

God. You know, the same thing with Jim Jones. You know, he believed that he was God. And so when the people down in Guyana took the poison and you have the mass suicide that happened,

I mean, they literally believed that it was God telling them to do it. And so and it's interesting, too, because I think in this conversation,

I mean, I'm curious to kind of hear about like your story and how you actually was were interacting with, you know, the pastor that you were connected to that was like narcissistic.

So many times we like to think of those people out there who are narcissistic. Right. But we don't think about the people that are right next to us.

And ultimately, like, how can I how can I avoid this myself? I think it's indicative of the culture. In fact,

I think that's one of the reasons, too, why right now, as of right now, the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial,

I guess, is wrapping up. But everyone was watching it. And I think something like that is so appealing because there's aspects and traits of narcissism that you can see in Depp and Heard's interactions.

But everyone likes to think about this is just my thoughts and conjecture. I mean, everyone likes to think about it out there, you know, because they don't really have to think about myself.

You know what I mean? So it's almost like a meaningful distraction in a sense. But I think it's it's definitely everywhere. You see it in the cults.

You also see it in church leadership. You see it in politics. You see you see it everywhere. Yeah, I think it's just really it's it's it's

I think it's like it's the real pandemic. Yeah, it is. It's just an absolutely damaging one. And so many people are duped into it.

That's why I have such a passion to like, you know, put up the warning signs and say, gosh, you really have to look into the people that you're submitting yourself to because they don't come off as these, you know, horrible people.

They are so incredibly believable. Look at Joseph Smith. I mean, if you can if you can convince somebody to drink

Kool -Aid to kill themselves. I mean, think about the power of persuasion that that person has. So these narcissistic cult leaders and pastors and spiritual leaders, they have this ability to communicate and to persuade.

And usually what the narcissist will do is he will love you as long as you're giving him what he wants.

But the moment that you know that you've got a narcissist, he will drop you like something that you drop.

I can't think of. Hot potato. So another characteristic that I've seen people who are narcissists do is that they take things that normally would be virtuous, but they weaponize them.

They weaponize virtue. So one example would be if someone comes up and says,

I just want to let you know that I forgive you. You're like, wait, what? This actually happened to me one time.

And I was didn't really know, like, what do you forgive me for? Oh, well, it's when you did this, this and this and this and this, this to us.

So it's kind of like I had to accept his forgiveness. And then, but it was the forgiveness was sort of a catalyst to label it, to throw out all these accusations.

Yeah, exactly. That's like, that's like one example. Gaslighting. Right. Yeah. No, that's good. Before we,

I will segue into just focusing on pastoral narcissism. But I kind of wanted to ask you guys is how, how do you think they they've convinced, like the

Branch Davidians wore Nike shoes, right? And no, that that was that wasn't that's a

March. Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate. Yeah. So Heaven's Gate, Nike shoes poisoned themselves. You've got

Branch Davidians stayed inside of a burning building. Right. Is that correct?

Sorry if I'm getting these things wrong. Jim Jones, Kool -Aid. Right. How, why do you think these people got to the point to where they were so deceived?

I mean, how do you get to that place? Biden mask, Fauci vaccines.

Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I mean, just, just to know too, like I, a lot of people have the idea of the

Branch Davidians. I don't believe that they, they burnt the, I think the idea that they held themselves in there, that they were burned alive.

I think that was part of the official story that the government did. I'm fully convinced at this point, given everything

I know about Waco, it's actually the government that burned them down. And they could, people actually couldn't leave.

They are actually, they went for safety because they're, they're hitting it up with tear gas. That's a whole nother story.

But I think there were elements of, you know, David Koresh, you know, that were narcissistic as well, too.

I think when it comes down to like people like Marshall Applewhite or these other cult leaders,

I think it's ultimately, you know, there's an aspect of, you know, people are just incredibly gullible and able to be manipulated.

If you actually look at the category of people that were part of the

Heaven's Gate cult that did this mass suicide, it was very intelligent people.

I mean, people who are like real estate investors and like, you know, very high, high class people.

Cause I mean, cults, they want, a lot of them are about making money. So it's like, we want to kind of seek out recruits that, you know, have a

Rolodex of sorts. Right. So, okay. Let me just reframe this question a little bit and you can jump into Andrew, because we want people to come on this show and the veil to come off their eyes.

So there are people locked in cult systems right now. Well, you know that, but what should these people be looking for in the people that they follow?

Like, what are some characteristics? Like, it's like, Hey, these are the things, these are the warning lights going off.

This is what you really need to do when you look in the individual, like what, what characteristics should we expose to warn them?

Yeah, I would say if you're in a Christian church, if you are suspecting something, talk with, talk with your pastor, bring it up to him.

The Bible says, bring that thing up to the person. Right. And if you are, have legitimate concerns, but there's no, let's say care from the person that is supposed to be shepherding you.

If there's actual concerns that are biblical, but there's no care for what the Bible says, that's a big red flag. That's a big red flag because every pastor is held accountable to Jesus Christ and the words of God.

So I'd say anything that's taking away from the standard of God, that's probably the biggest red flag that you can think of, because what can keep us from actually being under the bounds of false leaders, any of these things is the word of truth, because that's how we are to dictate our lives is from literally what the

Bible tells us. Even, even pastors, especially pastors are supposed to be held to the standard of the words of God.

I mean, I think that's the biggest, the biggest thing. And I think to answer your question real shortly about how do people get to that point?

Well, it's kind of like a frog in a boiling pot of water. You know, it's like it's slow, the water, you're already in there, but the water slowly getting heated up until all of a sudden you're frying and you can't jump out, you know?

So little by little things changed. Like with Jim Jones, for example, it got weirder and weirder and weirder, but it didn't start off extremely weird.

But by the time people were already so deep into it, they felt like they couldn't leave. There were a lot of people who did leave, but that's the frog in boiling water type of atmosphere, feeling like you can't do anything without this person leave.

If you can't do anything without your pastor, leave because you're not supposed to be able to do things without Jesus Christ, you know, in the words of God, not the person.

And you see that amongst like, I know for sure with Jehovah's Witness and LDS is like if they were to leave, it is their whole life is their families disown them.

Yeah. So it's like you said, you're all of a sudden you're in it and you're like the implications of leaving are so, so huge that you're like, my whole life is going to change if I if I do this.

Yeah. I mean, you know, we've talked to so many people at the LDS ward and I have personally, and I'm like,

I don't know if I've told you this, but a young guy came up in Tempe, came up to me when I was out there trying to hand out tracks early on.

And he's like, under his breath, he's like, dude, I know that this is, he said this is fake.

I wish I would have been recording. Yeah. It would have been powerful. I've had that happen too. Yeah. You know, I know it is, but you should see this wife

I have. You should see these kids that I have. There's no way I'm giving up my family and all that I have.

I'm just not giving up. That's why I'm staying here. Yeah. Multiple times. I know this is, I know what you're saying is right, but I'm not losing my dad.

I'm not losing my mom. And that's a powerful grip. I mean, that's the grip, you know, in Taoism in Japan, Japan.

I mean, that's why they, it's really hard for any type of gospel inroads in the country of Japan, just because of how tight family is, you know, and the

Hawaiian islands to Oahana. Anyway, I can talk a little bit about why

I'm so passionate about narcissism and the pastorate. And then you guys can, we can kind of just jump in there.

So, yeah, I took up a pastoral post. I had my own church in San Diego.

I don't know if you guys know from 2009, 2014. And, you know, we were, we had a hundred thousand bucks in the bank.

We're trying to buy like a building and God was like shutting the doors. And prior to that, God was opening me up to abortion.

And in my spirit, I was like, man, there's just something that needs to change. So I talked to a lot of my brothers and spiritual authorities, and I think it's just, it's just time to close the doors.

And it was a good time. God did a lot with that church in five years. I got saved in that church. Yeah. God saved you.

And Dawn and yeah, a lot of our family baptized a lot of our family. It was pretty cool, but he was just different direction.

So, you know, I'm bummed too. I'm like, man, I really want to become a better leader and a better pastor.

So I had connections to Arizona because I was an associate pastor at the age of 20 here at a church called

Bible Fellowship Church, 35th street, McDowell. That was going good and poured our hearts into that.

Jessica and I did. Zoe was born in Arizona at St. St. Luke's.

Is it St. Luke's? I think it is. I can't remember. So anyway, this, this pastor starts letting in a bunch of revival preachers from Uganda that are like, the revival is going to be here.

And if you just give me 3000 bucks for a speaker system, we can get the revival going and there's going to be, would you fast?

Let's fast for a hundred thousand dollars. And I'm like, what the heck I'm 20 years old. I don't even know anything about this.

So I talked to my pastor. He's like, dude, get the hell out of there, you know, which was the best thing because that church absolutely tanked.

So anyway, that was my connection. I went to Bible college, tons of ministry roles. I come to this church and this guy's 83 years old.

This is after I closed my church in San Diego. And I'm like, okay, maybe I could be mentored. I've never really been mentored in my life by a spiritual pastor or by a pastor at all.

And it was just a bad experience. I only worked there for about a year and a half, but I didn't really know about narcissism.

And I think a lot of the people in these churches, they just don't know, you know, it's what you know is what you know.

And so if you only know a church experience dealing with a spiritual leader, that's narcissistic, you're not going to know anything other than that.

But the first thing you see when you walk through the church is a big picture of himself on the wall. Can you imagine that?

If you walked into Apology and it was me and Luke and like on the wall or Jeff on the wall, I mean, that is number one, red flag, get out of the church, right?

And so what you had in this cultural environment was I thought I was going to be mentored, come to find out, he really didn't want me to come.

We thought he was on death's door, but he really didn't want me there. And he saw narcissists will see younger men.

And this is a big trait as competitors, right? Somebody that you can compete with, you know, who's a huge narcissist in the scriptures,

Saul, right? Cause Saul, what did he get so upset? Why did he want to kill David? You remember?

Um, because the women were singing, Saul had killed his thousands, but David killed his 10 ,000.

What did he want? He just wanted the glory of men. He wanted the glory and praise of men. And so he would throw spears at David and then by God's sovereign grace, he would like come to, and then go back into this narcissistic and remember what, why did he want

David to wear his armor? So he could boast that it was he who won the war by gifting either gifting

David his armor or so that from afar, people would think it was Saul that was out there.

Right. So he's a great study into like, you know, you look at the, uh, Saul, David and Absalom, three different pictures of leadership in the

Bible. It's awesome. I won't get into that. But anyway, it was this church and you got this guy who was in it for himself.

He's, you see younger men as competitors, you do everything for you. And it was just a culture of pastor worship to where when you celebritize a pastor and he has got all of the focus and everything revolves around him, like you were saying,

Andrew, when you can't do anything about him and you really come to see him, you know, you're in trouble and the church is in trouble.

So it's, it's that type of individual. He's masterful for it with his words and he does everything for him.

He's a great communicator and everything is revolved around him and what he does. Nepotism thrives in these types of churches, right?

Because this pastor, this narcissist always feels like he's entitled, right? I'm entitled to better treatment.

I can, I'm above the law. I don't have to really do what everybody else does. I can just do whatever you want.

I want, right. I can put my kids in positions of power and that's actually God doing that.

You see what I mean? All of these were signs that I didn't see, uh, until a year and two years into it, where I really studied and said, this is an incredibly sick church.

I got to get my family out. Thank God I would never be here. As a pastor of apology, if I didn't go. Yeah. So when you actually look,

I mean, you're giving your particular experience. Do you think just American Christianity or evangelicalism as a whole, just because it's commercialization,

I mean, you look at typical churches around the Valley and everything's very much a program. We want to get people in to enjoy a message.

You want to get them out, but it's usually you have to centralize them around, you know, people to look at.

And so I remember churches that I was at where I saw who they were behind closed door, but then

I saw that perfect cookie cutter picture of like, Hey, look at me. I'm the, I'm the children's ministry director.

Look at me. I'm this, I'm this person. And so let me, let me add some balance to this a little bit.

So, okay. So you guys got, you got a guy who, you know, quintessential, um, powerful leader, who's,

I believe is a really humble person and not a narcissist. And that's John MacArthur. Right. And we all know his name and he's incredibly influential, but I believe he really does give

God the glory. And God just uses him as a central male figure, a pastor to motivate and teach a vast number of Christians.

Uh, so I don't want to demonize God using a pastor and people looking to a particular shepherd because they, he gives them a good diet.

Right. I love Jeff and a lot of people come to listen to Jeff, not because they worship him, because he handles the word of God rightly as well as pastor

James. And he doesn't do it for his own vainglory, but he is central because of what he provides as a, in the diet of his pastoral production.

Does that make sense? So I'm trying to get balanced. I'm not trying to demonize God using particular individuals.

What'd you want to say, Andrew? Yeah, I was going to say, do you think, um, the narcissistic pastor in a sense, if they were to have a public platform to be interviewed by anyone on the news, they would probably, uh, they would put down the words of God to elevate themselves in the eyes of others.

So they would have essentially really bad theology and they would spew bad theology just to get praise from others.

Whereas John MacArthur or pastor Jeff, when they are interviewed, they don't, uh, shamefully talk about the word of God.

They actually talk about what it says and that's why God uses men in that way. No, I, yeah.

And I absolutely believe that. I do believe some can be, um, clever too.

I mean, they can actually know the word of God, but the narcissist will direct everything back to himself, right?

The narcissist wants to get you focused on who he is. So, um, you get away from Christ, you get away from giving him glory and it's just about giving me glory, right?

The narcissist is going to dominate, um, the conversation. You can see it in him.

He just wants everybody to look at him. He wants everybody to, to, to, to know him. He puts people in different categories of, you know, the people that really give me glory are the people

I'm really going to invest in. The ones, uh, I really don't care about them. So it's a caste system of importance and that's absolutely devastating for a pastor to do.

Can you imagine if I thought as one of your pastors, if I thought somebody was more important than the next person?

Yeah. Paul talked about that too. He said, Hey, the, the parts of the body that are unseen, these are the most important and I'll get into this too, because what we do is we celebritize demonstrative ministry positions, don't we know people, if I'm not a pastor, if I can't sing in the worship team, if I'm not up on a stage,

I must have no importance. That's one thing I say in our membership meetings, when people come into apology is,

Hey, that's not biblical. We, as your pastors want to cultivate your gifting, it's, you're not here just to support people who you see a lot on the screen.

You see what I mean? Um, so I didn't, I know I'm getting off on the bunny trails, but that's kind of the pastor.

Yeah. He doesn't really care about theology. Those things are not on his radar. He'll know it only for self -promotion, right?

He will study it only for the purposes of elevating himself. I would say the most insidious narcissistic past pastors probably do know well, theology, you know, to get like Ravi Zacharias, like what a tragic ending, you know, having him as by his fruits, probably somebody who was an absolutely believable guy.

And maybe he, he wasn't in the faith because what he was doing behind closed doors for such a long period of time.

So I don't know if we want to get into that too much, but, um, yeah, anyway, what we do, especially in the

American evangelical church is we create narcissists. We do because of the way that we train pastors.

Right. And unfortunately, even in the way that we, we build church buildings, it's like all centered down, all the lights, all the, even the way that they ramp the sub floors, it's all looking to one individual.

And we make this individual more important than our eyes. And the worst thing that you can do to any man, any pastor, any, any guy aspiring to be an elder is kisses, but is give him praise.

Somebody said this to me. They said, Hey, look at your most successful time will be in obscurity. And your most time of testing will be in popularity, right?

Because what gets us the most is when people praise us and we start believing the press and not immediately give the glory back to God.

We started believing it. It feels good when people are just like, you know, worshiping you and butt smooching and, you know, us pastors, apology, that makes us sick because we know that that is not what we want to cultivate.

Right. Yeah. Um, go ahead. No. So it's interesting too, because, uh, you mentioned about one, a couple of things is that, first of all, you mentioned that, um, they see the younger men as competition, like narcissistic, narcissistic pastors.

And I think that also goes towards, there's, you see that carried out a lot of times in different cults.

So one of the things that Warren Jeffs was infamous for doing is that as he was growing the FLDS group that he saw, you know, the younger men, you know, cause sometimes, you know, you have 60 something wives and, you know, not every single person, you know, that gets birth is giving birth to a girl.

A lot of times they're giving birth to boys. So as these boys were going into adolescence and going into puberty, uh, where Jeff saw them as competition.

So he would actually literally take these kids outside of the compound and just say, get out of here, like you're done.

I don't want a thing to do with you. And he would, but he would do it in the sense that they had committed some sort of grievous sin and that it was unforgivable.

And so therefore they could no longer be part of, you know, his, his movement. He was God's prophet.

And so what would actually happen is that Utah, there's Utah started just realizing that all these boys were showing up at, you know, certain areas like in salt lake and, you know, 15, six, 14, 15, 16 years old with no background, no edge, you know, no real living in the real world, like no real educational background and trying to like pick up the pieces.

And so there actually were organizations, I forget the name, the title of it to actually like rescue these boys and actually give them a life out because of, you know, what they had kind of grown up with.

And so, you know, you see that aspect too, but I think one of the biggest things that you see as far as, you know, narcissistic traits of a cult leader is that one, they want to put themselves as the center, as the central authority where it's, everything's, everything revolves around them, but there's no checks and balances.

Everyone has to submit themselves. And we always look at extreme people like Charles Manson or Jim Jones, or these other people that everything revolves around them.

You can't question them. But most of the time when you have these groups, you know, you look at, you know,

I think one of the reasons that show the rise and fall of Mars Hill, uh, talking about Driscoll is that at the end of the day,

I mean, I was blessed by a lot of his teachings. He's a gifted teacher. Yeah. And, but the reality is that he, he self appointed himself and there wasn't any true accountability.

And when all you do is surround yourself by your yes men, that's not a good place to be like sometimes like good spiritual, you know, good, healthy, spiritual accountability is where you surround yourself by people who are willing to tell you what you don't want to hear.

Yeah. And that is what narcissists will do. They will surround themselves with people that just, you know, they, they come in like steam rollers.

They're type of, they're typically type a very extroverted, dominating presences when they come into a conversation in a room and everybody's kind of put back on their heels.

And it's kind of like, Oh, you know, you, you celebritize and you deify this person in their mind.

And I think they're, you know, you said narcissism is basically self -worship, making yourself a God. That's exactly it.

And you really accomplish that when the people treat you like they should only treat God, should be praising man like that.

That's absolutely nuts. Yeah. Well, and there's always some sort of recourse against, uh, you know, going version, right.

Or even questioning. So in like a typical bully there's, you know, physical, but I think more common would be ostracization, you know, like, so,

Hey, if I questioned this person, that means I'm not going to be accepted anymore.

I'm not going to be in the in crowd or I'm not going to have the friends that I enjoy right now, because they're going to turn on my, their backs on me for even questioning this person.

So it's, you know, kind of intimidation through isolation. And that's, you see the

Jehovah's witness and LDS doing that. It's like, you are going to be, you know, our backs are going to turn on you if you even question.

Exactly. You know what the key problem is that leads to what you just said? Like, um, retaliation questioning is church government.

It's spiritual, uh, entity government, whatever it may be. So in cults, it's always pyramid, right?

It's always top down, but in the Christian church, and I might get in trouble for this, I don't believe that that's a biblical model of church government.

I don't believe in a senior pastor who runs the top and then has the elders down here on the next rung and then the deacons that type of church government creates.

I think I would, I would just go on to say this. It creates, it is, is the single greatest factor that creates narcissists is improper biblical church government, celebritizing pastors, making the pastoral role more important than the other ones that too, because it isn't, we're just, we're just guys that function in this office and we, according to Jesus should be the feet washers, remember?

I mean, he taught us what spiritual leaders should be. He said, no, you need to be doing this, not promoting yourself, not asking me if you could sit to my right or my left, you need to be washing feet anyway, but it's that church government, that's what creates it.

Now within a proper church government, it's a plurality of elders with the different elders serving different functions.

We would call pastor Jeff, maybe the lead, uh, elder among elders or the, you know, first among equals, first among equals.

Exactly. That's, that's more precise and better definition, but we don't have that type of culture and it's, it's awesome.

We are not yes men, we will challenge and we'll be challenged. And of course we, we, we vote by majority, you know, the majority consensus.

That means that there could be a guy who doesn't agree and we don't agree on everything, especially we go through so many things you guys don't even know about so many issues, we're putting our heads together, but we're not like, okay, let's just say, do everything that Luke wants to do or anything that Jeff or James wants to do.

No, we, we test and try each other. And we all, we always hold each other according to biblical standards, right?

Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head too, because that's where you get away when it doesn't become biblical standards.

It's the law of the dude. It's whatever dude things, whatever, you know, Manson things or Jones things.

But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then instead of like, why it's like, because I remember, like,

I love my dad, but I remember, you know, there are times where, you know, the, you know, my dad would tell us to do something as, as kids.

And, you know, we were like defined, we're like, why, you know? And my dad was to be like, well, because I said so, you know, and there's points

I, there's obviously, you know, he does have proper authority, but I think, you know, when it does talk about, you know, children obey your parents and the

Lord, you know, where this is right is because, well, why would, cause this is what God says you're supposed to do, right?

Like, do you want to, and so you're not appealing to your own authority, but you're appealing to God's higher standards. I remember Jeff was giving examples of stellar, you know, when he was younger and how he would, he would articulate that there was no, even especially when

Stella would be like very, he'd have his moments where he was like, raw. And I'm sure you've had that too with your kids where like, are you, when you're disciplining them or you're not the final authority, you know, because ultimately it's not about obeying you.

It's about, you know, having your children live in such a way that's pleasing to God and realize that that's ultimately should be their heart and should be their motive.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess you're right. That's a good point. And we got, I guess we're always tempted to be infected by narcissism, which is you just do what

I say. Um, I've done that as a father, but I think it's gotten to the point, you know, cause

I'll typically say this, Hey, this is what God's words say. This is why you're being punished. And the Bible says, no, no grumbling or complaining, no punching your sister in the face face or whatever, but it's, it's always like, why, why, why, why?

And then I'm like, because I said, because they just will not comply with it. Right.

So with narcissism. Yeah. Honoring us honors God. And also it's teaching them to be submissive and to submit to a higher authority than themselves.

And right now God has placed us in that position to steward their lives. And then, right.

Ultimately though, they're, they have to submit to God. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Do you have a thought, Andrew? Yeah, I got it.

I got a thought. You guys are making me think about this. Like, it seems like narcissism, narcissism has invaded every sphere of government in our culture, right?

Self -government, family government, church government in the civil government.

Right. Like the only thing that can stop narcissism is actually dying to yourself. And the only way we can die to ourself is to actually believe in the death and burial resurrection of the

God, man, Jesus Christ. Right. Like our issue with narcissism is like you said, it doesn't, it doesn't stop just at the church.

It is a big issue in the church, but it's also a big issue with just self -governing individuals that actually aren't self -governing because they don't have a heart changed by God.

And then we have families where we have husbands that are narcissists. We have mothers that are narcissists, growing children that are narcissists.

We have a civil government that doesn't bow its knee to Christ. And then they're a bunch of narcissists, right? Like just because you may not be in a, uh, how am

I going to put this? Just because you may not be in a cult or even let's say if you're an atheist or an agnostic and you're listening to this and you don't go to church, doesn't mean you're not actually giving someone worship that does not deserve the worship.

Yeah. Right. Like there's the thing, there's things the civil government does that they have no authority to do. They don't have the authority to raise your children yet.

They do. Yeah. You know, like these are, these are real things. This is all narcissism.

This is a form of worship. That's only, I'm not saying God's a narcissist by any means, but what I'm saying is God is the only one that can rightly give worship and then actually give things back to the people when he's getting worship that actually benefits them.

The narcissist wants the worship, but they cannot give anything good in return because they don't bow. They're not

God. That's excellent. That's really biblically accurate. What you just said. Yeah. He's the only one worthy of worship.

He's the only one worthy of worship. It's, it's a giving and exchanging to the narcissist is not going to give to you.

It's in the act of worship. It's almost like, um, well, I think that's a biblical definition of it. It's like a baby in a fetal position receiving nutrition from the mom.

That's a, that's a definition of worship. It's because in the act of worship we're receiving from God drawn to me,

I'll drawn to you. It's in your presence is the fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore. So it's a spiritual transaction to where we're giving him what's rightly due to him.

And he's giving to us love and mercy and whatever the gifts of God forgiveness, forgiveness and everything.

But that's an extremely good point. And that's, that's the answer to people want. Why does God want worship? Well, he wants it because he's worthy, but he also wants it because he gives through it.

It's a conduit of his gift giving to us. It made me think about how often you talk about, um, you know, pastors getting out and doing the work of evangelism or going to the abortion mills because the sheep are going to emulate their shepherd.

Right. And so part of the huge, one of the huge dangers of a narcissistic pastor is that the sheep are going to emulate him.

And that is going to then, like you said, Andrew, it's going to flow downstream. So you got narcissistic dads and moms, and then you create a whole culture of selfishness of narcissistic people who it's just destructive.

And that is exactly where I was going to segue into is why do we want to sound the alarm? Why do we want to sound off?

Is because of the detrimental effects of the narcissistic individual. And that's it.

The characteristics of the kingdom emanate from the character of the King. You, those do you submit to spiritually?

You will become like that. Narcissistic dags, narcissistic dudes. It's all going to flow down.

It's what happens in that environment. Yeah. Um, so what would be some examples too, because, um, you know, aside from examples of narcissistic pastors,

I mean, you've spent a lot of time as a pastor doing counseling. So there's, I mean, I was looking,

I did a post post on our Instagram and our Facebook socials to say, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word narcissist?

And usually there's so many of the comments. I mean, Facebook already had like 300 something comments and a lot of them had to deal with someone that they had a relationship with.

Maybe it was a, you know, a mother -in -law or an ex -husband. And so, you know, in many ways, you know, really the culture is indicative by the impact that the church is having, you know, in the same way that Francis Schaeffer said that, you know, all of the abortion, every single abortion mill around, uh, on the corner exists there by permission of the church.

And so the ex, every narcissist, especially those who profess Christ are in some sense, a reality of like apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

You know what I mean? So what would be examples of just how you've seen that, like in relationships and in situations where like you're actually dealing with, you know, a couple in conflict, obviously, you know, you don't need to name names or just give generic examples.

Like how do you see that played out on a day -to -day basis with just people coming into your office saying, you know, and usually it takes time to kind of flush out, okay, what is the situation?

What's going on here? But then given your experience, you can kind of see how is someone reflecting these narcissistic traits and how do you actually confront and deal with that?

Sure. A lot of that in biblical counseling. And that's what I do 90 % of the time is biblical counseling. But I'll just say in a marriage relationship, it's the man wanting to rule the house.

And I had a guy tell me one time, he's like, Hey, I'm the King of my house. And he was a professing Christian.

I said, no, you're not. Jesus is the King. But what was he betraying? He was betraying the fact that you live by my law and my rule, or you will suffer for it like an iron fist.

But you see it marriage relationships predominantly. And it's just the dude and he just wants to rule and it's like submit or else that's narcissism, right?

That's just creating a culture within the family unit of wanting worship from your wife and your kids when you can't do that.

And people will say, well, they need to submit and I need to lead. Yeah, you need to lead, but you're not the one that they're to be conformed to.

They're to be conformed to the person of Christ as the standard and his law, not your law.

You're just a medium of his standard through you leading by that. So that's probably where I see it the most.

Um, but you see it in relationships too, you know, in pre -marital relationships where it's a controlling individual and they want to control their fiance and everything that they do.

And, uh, you know, they, they falsely accused them of having an affair or sleeping around with no good evidence.

So it's there too. It's just that person that wants control that wants to live above the law that doesn't really care about anybody wants everything focused around them.

It's only what they want to. And spouses can live like that as well. It's a, I get to choose wherever we go out to eat.

I get to choose what, you know, it's just me, me, me, me, me. Um, but yeah, it's insidious and it's everywhere.

I would, I would challenge all of us to look within, because I feel like like Spurgeon said, that demon of pride is going to be with me till the day

I die. You know, narcissism is really just an offshoot of pride. And so I think all of us are vulnerable to it because in our, you know, flesh, we want to make everything about us.

We want worship. We want praise because we want to always take it away from God, even, you know, redeemed saints, you know, we have to war against the idol of, of narcissism.

You guys have prayed before, like, God, I, I pray that I didn't try to rob you from your glory, rob your glory for you in this podcast.

You've prayed that before, or I'm going to go preach in front of a person or I'm going to go speak at a conference.

Lord, help me not to do it for me. Help me do it for you. I don't, you know, from what I'm understanding is just the narcissist doesn't do that or, you know,

I don't want to paint the narcissist in a picture of just somebody who's unforgivable and unchangeable and it's not the case, but narcissism sets in when you don't do that.

Right. You don't check yourself. Right. You don't like, I'm automatically, you know, give God the glory in what you're doing.

It's all me, me, me, me. And just like, you're just like this vacuum sucking up praise.

And it gets to the point where you're not even aware of it anymore because you've, you've just stopped giving him glory.

And it's all about receiving yourself. And I think that is like the downward spiral of that individual where it leads to gaslighting and victimization, rolling over people like Driscoll did in so many instances, being above the law.

Right. What'd he say? He said, I'm building this church on the body of so many bodies.

Right. I mean, what did he say? I could just do whatever I want. I could roll over. It's, it's, it's bad.

And I love the guy. And I don't want to throw too much poop in his face. He accomplished so much.

And I don't know all the ins and outs, but he's definitely a picture of where that can infect somebody and really hurt them.

Right. Like if you don't, like you said, if you don't check it and ask, you know, keeping bearing fruit and with repentance, you know, daily and just saying,

God helped me to turn from this. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It kind of seems like we can have a tendency to become narcissistic when we forget that there will be a day where we will have to give an account for everything we have done or said before the

Lord. Right. Like judgment is coming. Right. And there will be a resurrection of the dead and the books will be laid open.

Right. It's like, do you fear the living God? It's a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the living

God. And anyone who especially calls themselves a pastor, if they're narcissistic doing things for their personal gain, guess what Jesus says that he will not lose one of his sheep.

And he hasn't lost one of his sheep and his, his crucifixion and resurrection was perfect. That means he will remove you personally.

If you try to get between him and one of his sheep, it's like you forget that the living God is actually reigning on a throne and he's ruling.

I think having, not having a healthy fear of God can get people into a position to where they then start developing some sort of God complex, because I mean, we see it in the beginning in the garden, right?

We see it in the beginning. You will be like God. If you eat this, did God say that? It's a very narcissistic thing to say, well,

I'm going to take this fruit. Cause you're really only thinking about yourself. I mean, it's something like Desi said, we all have to battle with this because we're fall.

We were fallen, right? We were descendants of Adam and Eve. Those were our first father and mother.

It's in us. We got to kill it every single day. Yeah. Yeah. And you think about the enemy, he's a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

So he's stealing and killing it. All he wants to do is destroy anything, create the image of God. Cause he lusts after that himself.

And what does he do his first temptation? You shall be God. I mean, he wanted to destroy them by having them pursue

Godhood, right? And you could see if you try to run after that and, you know, worship yourself or receive worship, it's the most destructive thing you can do in life.

I mean, that's kind of maybe coming to a landing point here. Thank you guys so much for your time. Yeah. But that's kind of like the cry.

I appreciate all of your input was just spot on biblical and super seasoned and matured. But that's what we want to kind of tell you guys as we closing up this podcast is if you were in a cultish environment, um, if you're in the

Mormon church, Jehovah's witnesses, whatever it is, if you're in a Christian church with Baptist, a

Baptist name or non -denominational or whatever, and you have this type of spiritual leader who demonstrates these narcissistic traits, it's time to get out.

I mean, I've worked with guys who have lovingly confronted their pastors and a lot of them repented, but a lot of them don't.

They will stay stuck and who they are and they will defend their sin. Just like what's his name?

Gandalf or Grodo, Frodo? No, Gollum, Gollum. You're like hybrid.

Are you thinking like Grogu from the Mandalorian? He defends that ring, right?

I mean, it's his precious because it's the source of all the praise that he loves and he worships and he eats up.

But if you're in that, it's, it's time to get out. We can be as Christians loyal to a default, right?

I'm staying in a toxic environment with an absolutely unbiblical and unqualified pastor leader because of loyalty.

No, your family's going to suffer for it. Your kid's going to grow up hating the church because they grew up in a disingenuous environment, right?

An ungenuine or whatever the word is, environment. So that's why I'm so passionate about it because it hurts.

These people control these people, victimize themselves. Are they, they, no, they victimize other and they paint themselves as the victim.

Um, it's, it's time to go. And so hopefully with our mashup and our great conversation today, you can be made aware of these red flags and you could get the hizzy out of that environment and get the help that you need.

Yeah. And just one last thing too, is I think that, you know, we were talking about like narcissists. I think one of the key points is that ultimately we need to look to the word of God as our standard.

And so I think about how, how actually should we, I mean we're supposed to be imitators of Christ and what did

Christ do? Christ always submitted. He didn't act on his own authority. It wasn't because I said so. It was ultimately, but I say to you, he spoke, he always referred to the word of God as his authority, but also he submitted himself to the father.

So he always said, not my will, but your will be done even when it was inconvenient. And then also emulating to, you know, somebody who is a follower of Christ, who is preparing the way of Christ.

John the Baptist, one of my favorite verses, John 3 30, where it says he must increase, but I, but I must decrease.

And that's the exact opposite of the typical narcissist who basically says, I must increase and I must increase.

And I think too, um, you know, being in a situation where, you know, we're in a ministry that's public and, you know, we're going to be broadcast on a

YouTube video that's in 4k that who knows how many views it's going to get. You know, I think at the end of the day, like one of the things that's always kind of hit close to home is just when

Jeff talks about preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. And that's a reality. I mean, it's, it's cool that, you know, we all have a nice t -shirts, we have a big, you know, there's people that enjoy the show that, you know, we, we get, you know, it's ranking well right now, like a most recent episodes ranking well in iTunes and all that.

But at the end of the day, you know, I'm 41 and a hundred years from now I won't be around. And who knows?

Like, I don't know what's going to happen more than likely. I mean, cold word, this is just a point that God is using this.

I don't think anyone's going to remember us a hundred years from now. I mean, someone might download and reupload it on whatever metaverse archives there are.

Like bionic guys. Yeah. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it's like, am I really, what really matters is, is it all about the brand or this podcast or whatever, but life and life of eternity are the people are souls that get saved that come to know

Christ from these fraudulent counterfeit religions and cults to know the true and living

God. I think that's ultimately like what matters in the big picture. And I think when you have that, you know,

I mean, it's, I think for me, and this is just, I give the praise of God for that. It's like when I, there's people at church who are visiting and they're like,

Oh, you're Jeremiah from culture. I love your show. And I just immediately, I'm just like, Oh, that's awesome. Praise God. Like I immediately,

I just make an effort to try and give the glory to God. Cause there's, there's been a couple of times where I'm not going to lie when it was one of my first outings where I was sort of out where a bunch of people knew me,

I felt a little bit puffed up and that, and then later I walked away, like feeling like, ew, that was kind of like, yeah.

Yeah. And when we all have done that, but it's just that, yeah, those little things that just check us and keep us with the right perspective, the right creature to creator understanding.

Yeah. He is worthy of it. We are not, we're like the moon. We reflect the light.

We're not the source of it. No, for sure. Any last words, my brother, before we go? No, that's good guys.

Praise God. I love you, man. I appreciate you coming on the show. You guys were so great. I hope we can, I hope we can do this a bunch more times.

It's biblical and so solid and I appreciate it and love you guys so much. Awesome. I would just say that, you know, if you're sitting here going,

Oh crap, I'm under a narcissistic pastor, you know, just pray about it.

Don't act suddenly. You want to do it biblically. Talk to your spouse about it. Approach your leadership.

Don't just go out, you know, guns a blazing, pray, you know, pray about it. Approach them in a spirit of humility because some people will repent, you know, but here's the little thing.

If you're thinking, am I, if anybody's trying to rob Jesus Christ from his glory consistently and they're not just doing it and then being like,

Oh, you know, I, I was trying to grab the glory there and then they repent from it. I'm talking about consistently trying to take what only belongs to God and give themselves the glory.

You're going to know it and run for the hills. Yeah, exactly. And that's good. And that's, I'll close that out on that.

Cause that's important. So what do I do when I see these characteristics? Don't be a bull in the China shop.

You just walk into the pastor's office. Yeah, you can't do that. That's crazy. Um, because here we pastors, we are human and we all deal with pride.

Right. Right. And we're, we're sinners. I'm not, I'm not trying to, you know, call out all the people with, with pitchforks and do a witch hunt for really qualified men of God.

They might not even realize they're doing it. Some of that's true. And you can contact me through provoke because I've walked people through a good process because I don't want to demonize any type of pastor who's a great guy who's struggling or who's proudful.

I mean, these guys are pretty, pretty, you know, their characteristics shine through everything and you can see it, but I'd love to walk you through that.

We can, we can talk all about that. Again, I'm not all about trying to tear down pastors. This is just trying to build up the people of God and get the church into a knowledgeable position to where they actually scrutinize their spiritual leaders.

That's what I tell people coming into our membership, you know, who meet with me and Elliot and others is you. And one of the most important things you could do, you need to put eyes on the men that you're submitting to cause you are going to be affected by it and your kids and your wife.

And if we hear that guy's not qualified, get out, run for the hills, they've got to be qualified and humility is a huge aspect of that.

So again, don't want you to attack your pastors, but I do want those in genuine toxic environments with genuine narcissistic leaders to get out.

It's, it's important. So love you guys. Well, thank you for joining us with the cultish provoked mashup.

We're so thankful to be joined by these guys. Thank you guys. Yeah. A lot of stuff coming.

We're going to try to be more consistent, but we love you guys. And we thank you for support. Go watch all of cultish buy all their stuff to send them all your money and support them.