In this episode, Sam sits down with Scott, a journalist and author, to discuss his latest book examining the rise of megachurches and their ties to Christian nationalism. Scott shares his experiences growing up in a Southern Baptist megachurch and explores the power dynamics that often leave congregants feeling voiceless. The conversation highlights systemic issues within megachurch culture, including the exploitation of members, the use of hope as a tool of control, and the consequences of silence around abuse. Scott emphasises the importance of validating the experiences of those harmed and amplifying collective voices to challenge these structures. The episode closes with reflections on accountability, transparency, and the need for communities where individuals feel seen and heard, offering validation and encouragement to anyone navigating trauma within church environments.

Who Is Scott

Scott Latta is an award-winning journalist who has spent a decade reporting for humanitarian organizations on conflict, displacement, and climate change around the world. His essays and reporting have been featured in The Believer, CityLab, Modern Farmer, and The Southampton Review, which awarded him the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize. He lives in Oregon.

Connect

1. Scotts website - https://www.scottlatta.com
2. Connect with Scott via Substack: Gods of the Smoke Machine, Bluesky: @scottlatta.bsky.social or Twitter: @swlatta

1. You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
2. To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
3. Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
4. Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

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This is a space for conversations that sit at the edges of faith, identity, power and recovery, especially for those of us who have been shaped so stretched or harmed by fundamental religion or high control systems. Some episodes are personal, some are reflective, some are educational or curious or quietly disruptive.

All of them are grounded in lived experience and a deep respect for the complexity of leaving, questioning and rebuilding meaning.

We will be talking about religious trauma, various forms of abuse, cult dynamics, queerness and recovery, not in answers, but in honest conversations. In listening to these conversations, some parts might be heavy or activating for you.

Please take care of yourself while listening and feel free to pause or step away if you need to. I'm Sam and I'm really glad that you're here with us.

Welcome, Scott. Thanks for joining me.

Hey, thanks for having me.

I am excited about this book because about this episode as well as the book spoilers, I've just, I feel like I've just spoiled the whole episode.

We're talking about a book, but I'm excited because it's a little bit unlike any of my other episodes in terms of, like, you are a journalist, this is work that you've put into.

But it's a topic that so many of my listeners and so many of the people that I've already interviewed will relate to having come from either high control groups or particularly mega church groups. So before we get into the book, I like to give people some context, some grounding.

What is your own story in terms of, like, faith, relationship with church, all of that sort of thing?

Yeah, thanks for asking. So I think part of what drew my curiosity to even do this project was the fact that I grew up in large churches.

So I don't know if, like, statistically it would have been considered a Mega church. But it basically was. And I mean, I walked away from church in my 20s and so. But I've always, you know, it's always kind of been on my mind.

It's been part of my identity for so much of my life. I have family who still go to church and friends who go to large churches.

So I think that it kind of took me being in it for a while and then being out of it for a while to really have the right posture to even take on a project that looked critically at large churches. Because I think so many books on this topic are written from people who are still in the church or people who don't really understand it.

And it's very surface level. So I, I felt like it was kind of a unique backgr to take on the project.

So, yeah, drums came into the.

So many drums and my brother was a drummer, so. So I, yeah, I saw it all.

Yeah.

And I mean, I, like, I was unsurprised as I was reading the book, I was like, I always expect there to be a little part of the person who is writing it when talking about these topics that very rarely does someone go into this having zero own personal connection to church life, essentially. And I kind of was like, I mean, you're in the U.S. it's kind of just like baked into the water over there.

And so like, of course he's come from a church. This was kind of my mentality. So, I mean, we are going for people who don't know we're going to be talking about your.

Your latest book, which I'm going to read because she's a wordy title.

Scott.

Gods of the Smoke Machine, Power, Pain and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in Mega Church. In the megachurch.

So for people who haven't read this book yet, how would you describe what it is actually about in terms of like, we'll talk a lot about like nuance and all of that sort of thing, but just like a scaffolding kind of. What are you trying to name in this book, essentially?

Yeah, so I, I think the book wanted to do a couple of things and. And it really changed as I reported and wrote it over the course of a couple of years.

But I think where it landed was, you know, my intent for it was I wanted to give people who had traumatic or harmful experience in large churches, a chance to share their story. Because the truth is, when you're in a large church and we're talking about churches with 2,000, 10,000, 40,000 people. Big, big churches. Yeah.

When you're at a church that big, you really don't have a story like you. You don't have a chance. You don't have a voice. You don't have any sort of impact on the church. You probably have no relationship to the pastor.

That's pretty rare. And so if you experience something painful, if you experience something harmful, you are a facing the crowd.

And for so many people I talked to, that was their experience. And it took them getting out and often working through years and years of therapy to really feel like they even had a chance to share their story.

So that was really, the main intent, was to find people who really exemplified what I see as a growing issue of large churches gaining power and control and impact.

And so the book primarily looks at megachurches in the US But I'm very interested in asking you some questions about the scene there, because there are. I'm seeing some parallels, I gotta say. Right? Oh, yeah.

So, yeah, there's stacks of parallels. And I mean, I know you talked about, like, you briefly mentioned Hillsong and Brian Houston and things like that in the book.

And so, like, they're obviously the easy comparison, but there are certainly other, like, mega churches in Australia where that. That dynamic is.

Is very similar in terms of, like, we're talking about, like, a system issue here, not necessarily like an individual leader or church issue.

But I'm curious for you, throughout writing it, when did you start to realize that this was like a bigger, institutional, systemic issue of power and control and not just like one dickhead pastor?

Good question.

I, you know, I have a very distinct memory of that moment, and it was when I had spoken with several people who were all women, for the record, who had experienced a form of abuse from their pastor. And sometimes it was physical or sexual abuse, but often it was just like spiritual abuse over their lives and control and things like that.

And I spoke with an attorney here in the U.S. boss Chavigian, who's in the book, and he's. He's Billy Graham's grandson, which is really interesting. And. And he sues churches on behalf of survivors of adult clergy sexual abuse.

And I flew down to Florida to meet with him, and we went to lunch and we were talking about all the cases. He's represented hundreds of women who have taken on large churches. And I asked him about patterns.

Because what I had seen was several stories in my own reporting that really eerily lined up like beat for beat for beat, like the pastor had done abc. And I asked him if there was anything to that and he was like, every time, every single time, it's how they do it.

And he walked me through the steps that were just verbatim what people had told me. It was so odd and compelling to me. And that's when it really clicked for me that it was a story about power. It was a story about control.

It was a story about power.

And then from there, as you unpacked that theme, it became all the different ways these churches build a system to protect that power and to grow that power.

And that happens in little ways, like decisions they make inside the building where like women sit and pastors work and just like org charts and things like that. But then also a theme about the whole landscape of church in the US right now, where evangelicalism is on the decline, but megachurches are growing.

And so I think that has crazy, you know, crazy questions what that makes, you know, implications that start.

That's where I think that has crazy implications for what we're looking for in church, what we're looking for in community, and how these churches are getting more powerful. So it was those stories of abuse, when I saw those lining up, that's when it really clicked and became a story about power. Yeah.

What was it like for you to sort of like see all of the behind the scenes stuff?

Because I think a lot of people can see the outside and go like, yes, we can see these big ticket items are happening in mega churches in, you know, in terms of like, sexual misconduct or like financial exploitation or things like that.

But I'm curious what it was like for you to see, like we say behind the curtain as like former, like people like, behind the curtain in terms of like those smaller, really like hyper strategic ways that this is manipulated to. To look the way that it does.

Yeah, I mean, it was really distressing in some ways.

And I think there was part of me, probably because of my background, that really wanted to give these church the benefit of the doubt in a lot of ways. And I actually kind of had to force myself to be like, no, this is an actual pattern.

They're actually doing this because you would see, you would see stories about. So there's a woman in the book named, named Leslie, and she experienced adult crazy sexual abuse from her megachurch pastor in Washington state.

And there was a detail where he moved her desk out of the line of sight of another woman and so he could come into her cubicle where she worked. And there are other stories of women who were taken into a pastor's office and he closed the door. That happened so, so many times.

And it just moves it beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is intentional.

And so what really became disturbing was a big part of the book focuses on this theme of pastoral restoration where these guys who commit some sort of infraction, it's often framed as like a moral failure. It usually means an extramarital affair.

But it can be much worse where they are taken out of the church where they work, they're moved to another church, they're kind of laundered through that church for a period of time, it's usually a couple of years.

And then they're, they're hired on at that staff, they're sent back where they came from or they go to another church, but basically they're, they're whitewashed through and then they, they go back to the pulpit. And that practice I found really disturbing.

And then when you would see to the links that people would go to, to excuse away the behavior and how the victims were never brought into that process, they were never consulted, they never had a voice. You would see stories about how these women had tried to reach out to time and time again.

There's one woman in the book who spent 42 years trying to get someone to listen for decades.

And that became I think the most distressing part, which is you see how the links that these churches go to, to shut victims and survivors out of that process.

Yeah, I think even like reading like as I was reading that sort of like relocating, rehousing sort of process of those pastors, I think even as somebody who knew that was happening, I think even I was surprised at how just how like hyper coordinated and hyper strategic it was.

And I think I'd love to ask you to speak on that a little bit because I think there are people who will probably be listening to this going like how does that happen? Like how is that allowed? How does that legally happen? Like how are these cover ups happening so common and so smoothly?

Almost like it is just like a well oiled machine.

Yeah, well, I mean one of the main reasons that abusive pastors are allowed to stay back in the pulpit is that adult clergy sexual abuse is not a crime in all states in the U.S. and so if you want to be a pastor, there's no license you have to have, there's no certain degree you have to have you don't have to go before a certain board like a counselor or a teacher. A doctor would have to do.

And so Boz, the attorney I speak to in the book, and he told me, if I have sex with my client as an attorney, I'll lose my license. If I'm a doctor and I do it, I'll go to jail, never mind lose my license. But if you're a pastor, like in many states, it's not a crime.

And so if that happens, first of all, criminal charges really aren't on the table for a lot of survivors. And so then it becomes, you know, if they do want to take action, it becomes a civil case. And it just becomes he said, she said.

And so people deny it. And so then, you know, what happens is these churches have so much influence and pastors have so much influence.

And there's one that I spend a lot of time looking at in the book, and just to use that as an example, this is one church in Alabama, Church of the Highlands, that has gained some notoriety for having lots of these pastors come through their doors who have had these allegations. And then they're restored, and they go back.

And the way that they do it is they have a church networking organization called arc, which is the association of Related Churches. And it's very much like a fraternal boys club sort of group. And. And ARC says that they have planted a thousand churches on five continents, right?

So their goal is 2,000, and they're just a huge player in churches in the US and so a lot of the guys that got restored at Church of the Highlands were from other ARC churches.

And so if you start to look at who these guys have as their overseers, if you start to look at who they have as their trustees, you start to see that those guys are handpicked. And so, you know, there's a pastor in the book in Florida who had serious allegations against him, and he had to leave his church.

And he told a local reporter in Jacksonville, Florida, he said, I have two kinds of oversight. I have my trustees and I have my overseers, and they're chosen by me. And he saw that as a good thing.

He saw it as a good thing because he thought if I do something, I can trust my friends to hold me accountable.

And I think the question in the book is, is that accountability, if it's your friends and you're, by the way, you're benefiting from each other's net worth. And you see this, I'm sure, too, in your scene where there's just crazy amounts of money going around.

But I mean, it all boils down to these guys are friends. They. They're in the same circles. And so it's easy to move pastors around. They don't have to be transparent.

There's no sort of accountability, external accountability. It's all internal. It's opaque. And I think that's how these systems, you know, keep going.

Yeah, it's like, I. I know.

I think for a lot of us, we go, like, we know that that's happening logically, but it, like, it fits for me in that category of, like, it makes sense logically when you think about it. Like, of course you have, like, overseers who are friends and who have the same underlying conditioning and beliefs and all of that sort of thing.

But also, it's absolutely fucking ludicrous and wild to me. Like, it makes. Makes no sense, and yet it absolutely makes sense based on the system that they're coming from.

Right? Yeah. And, I mean, I learned. I was surprised, too. I learned things in the reporting that I thought were crazy.

There was this church in Washington where it was a church I mentioned earlier, where one of their overseers was in Texas. He was on the other side of the country, so I guess if something happens, he gets brought in via Zoom or something.

But they weren't even in the same state. And so a lot of these overseers and accountability, it's not guys in the church. It's not guys in the same city.

And so, yeah, a lot of them are reciprocal. Like, someone will oversee Pastor A, will oversee Pastor B, and he'll oversee Pastor A or his son or something.

And so, I mean, it's just all like a boys club. It really is.

And you can look at their websites and see it because they list the names of their overseers, or if you dig, it's not hard to see, like, who's buddies with who, who's showing up on each other's Instagrams and who's being asked to oversee each other.

And so if they have a guy who has a problem, they, you know, you can contact your friend who's also an ARC and say, hey, can you take him on for a couple of years? You move him over and yeah, you don't have to tell anyone.

What about the people in the churches? Like, the people who are seeing this play out, the congregants who are going like, this pastor left. This pastor's now back. Like, how do we.

What did you see in talking to people who exist in the churches, but they're Maybe not the pastors who are going, like, how do we make sense of this?

Well, they're not told, because often they're not told the truth about the allegations against these guys. They don't have to be told. So they're not. There's a church in Louisiana that I kind of use as, like, the first pastoral restoration process.

That church in the Highlands in Alabama that they did. And when their pastor had an alleged extramarital affair, he was taken off of his staff in Louisiana and he was moved to Alabama.

When the overseers told the church on Sunday morning, they said that they weren't going to tell him what happened and that they needed to just trust them. He said, we're not going to tell you what happened, but can you trust that the seven of us know, well, okay, that's a huge red flag.

And then the pastor who was forced to resign, he told the congregation that he felt God calling him to a new season. And so people in the congregation thought that this was a supernatural calling of God, that he was calling their pastor to a new season.

They didn't know he'd had an affair and that he was being moved three states east and being put on staff at another church. And so, I mean, that's the pattern. You see that there's a woman.

I found a quote where there was a pastor brought on with allegations of serious allegations of sexual assault against his assistant was put on staff in Alabama, and a woman said the staff was told he was there due to financial reasons. So she's on record saying that even the church staff were misled about why these guys were there. So, yeah, I mean, it's just.

I have a feeling that it's a much more pervasive problem than we even really know, because even the pastor, I mean, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Johnny Hunt, who's been through the restoration process, I think, at least twice now in the video where all the pastors are talking about how they restored him after his sexual assault of a woman in Florida, they say that he personally restored 400 other pastors over his career. And so, I mean. I mean, Donnelly knows, like, how many of these guys had actually gone through this process and are still preaching today.

Yeah, absolutely. It's wild. It's wild. I feel like, again, it's like that thing. It doesn't. It's hard, I think, to make it make sense in our brain sometimes, because it.

It shouldn't make sense. I am curious, I guess, to bring it back to an Aussie lens for a second. What have you noticed in terms of, like, the crossovers of systems?

I mean, Hillsong, I imagine, is probably your main point of reference for Australia. We obviously have, like, C3 and planet shakers and things like that are probably the other two big ones that we have.

But what have you noticed in terms of why this dynamic is so easy to cross over nations and yet completely different cultural dynamics?

I don't know. So I'm so curious about this. Right. So I think you just. I just saw so many American megachurch pastors just going to Australia. So, like, all these.

All these guys from ARC would go to Hillsong. And there's a great watchdog reporter named Julie Royce who has documented how much money Hillsong paid them.

I mean, it's tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah. Oh, it's crazy.

So, like, Casey Treat in Washington, Chris Hodges in Alabama, Robert Morris, who's in jail right now for sexual assault of a child. All these guys were going to Australia. And.

And so, yeah, I mean, obviously Hillsong and Brian Houston and all that, he would come to the US and he would go to, like, Gateway Church in Texas. So, I mean, I guess it's just like, networks. Right. But I mean, that's kind of the book I really wanted to kind of start writing.

In the middle is like, what is the pipeline? Yeah, there's another church here on the west coast, Bethel Church in California that has a campus in New Zealand, I think.

Yes, they do.

Are you aware of Bethel?

Oh, yeah. I actually was going to ask you about, because as I was reading, I was like, scott, you're not talking about Bethel.

Why are we not talking about Bethel here? And so I was curious, why Bethel? I mean, I did not. Like, Bill Johnson got a reference every, like. Like a couple of references.

But why didn't Bethel feature so as prominently?

I mean, so it was just. I don't know. I mean, Bethel is hugely problematic, and they're not far from me on the west coast.

And I have friends who grew up in Northern California, went to Bethel. I do focus on.

In the last part of the book, which is about Christian nationalism, I focused on a former Bethel worship pastor, Sean Foyt, who's kind of become this, like, far right worship influencer troll, which is a very American thing to be. But it, you know, it is what it is. He came out of Bethel, and so there's a lot.

Some other California churches that these guys are in his entourage and stuff. But I actually, one day I went.

I joined a zoom call for the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, which is Their like college about like charismatic gifting and stuff. Oh, it was so bizarre. But yeah, I mean, that was. I love your thoughts. What are your thoughts on that?

Oh, I mean, my. My very like non therapeutic language around Bethel is that it's absolutely batshit crazy is how I would describe that.

I've had a few people on the podcast who have been ex Bethel members and, and things like that. And I wondered, I guess, whether.

Because obviously a lot of what you focused on was a lot of like, like, I guess like sexual legal misconduct, like that sort of thing. And so I wondered whether it was a case of like. I mean, I think we know Bethel is like hugely problematic.

There's a lot of spiritual abuse and harm that comes out of that space. So I was wondering whether it was more of like a spiritual harm versus, like legal misconduct kind of conversation.

But I was curious to find out why they weren't super prominent. So that was interesting.

And so for just the structure of the book, Highlands was just going to be kind of the. The heart of that narrative.

And we were just going to kind of bounce off of them and zoom out and zoom in and go to a couple other churches as we went. But I mean, you could have easily written this book and had Bethel be the heart of it, because especially in the. In the political part.

I mean, that, I mean, Bill Johnson, I think is hugely influential right now for what's happening politically in the US because of New Apostolic Reformation, which there's been a lot of great reporting and books written on that. He was really kind of the grandfather of that, I believe, and the seven amount mandate and things you hear.

And so as a lot of charismatic or kind of Pentecostal traditions have moved into the more mainstream in the US that you see that iconography now, like you go to a far right political rally and you just see charismatic stuff. I think Bethel had a lot to do with that. That stuff came out of there. It came out of California. Yeah.

I feel like we might have just found two more books for you in terms of the pipeline with Australia and the cross. Cross cultural thing, and maybe one on Bethel. I mean, while we are dropping big names I have to admit that the. It's.

It's probably not a good thing to admit that I probably laughed the most in one chapter in particular, because it is both, like, equally as absurd as it is concerning, which was obviously the chapter about Mark Driscoll, who, like, I just. He falls into this category for me, who is just, like, it is so ludicrous that someone like this has the platform that they do.

And so, like, I am absolutely curious for.

And also maybe to just give a bit of context for people who maybe don't know his story, Why is he such a big character in how he got the power that he did, how he somehow was able to just bypass all of the accountability for some very, very obvious misconduct. Like, his whole church dissolved, essentially. So how does this happen?

I was so fascinated by Mark Driscoll. I think he's so emblematic of these issues. So he. Mark Driscoll was megachurch pastor in a church called Mars Hill Church, based in Seattle.

I watched him with you from Australia. Like, it was insane.

Yeah, I did, too. Like, in my 20s, I watched him from the other side of the U.S. like, I would stream his sermons when I was at work.

Like, so there was something really personally compelling by him.

I think part of it's because he was in the Pacific Northwest, which is viewed as this more secular part of the US but he was just like kind of this magnetic personality. I mean, I look back at that now and see how toxic all that was. But for a younger version of myself, I was so by it. So.

But what we didn't see was that he had fostered an extremely abusive and toxic relationship. And it wasn't sexual abuse or anything like that, but he was just like a bully. He was dominating people.

There's a great podcast called the Rise and Fall of Bars Hill that unpacks all of this. They do a great job reporting that, but essentially, like, you were exactly right.

So his church tried to hold him accountable, and Mars Hill had so much evidence. They had people, you know, testifying to this. They had evidence, they had reports, they tried to hold him accountable. And he just said, no.

He's like, nope, I don't want to do it. And he resigned, and the church dissolved immediately. Immediately. And so that right there is the whole game.

Like, if you're a megachurch pastor and you don't want the accountability, you just don't have to accept it.

And so what he did was he moved from Washington to Arizona and he started Trinity Church in Scottsdale, which is a very different vibe than Mars Hill. And so I went to Trinity and I was so curious because now he's much more, I would say, an open political commentator on the far right, which was not.

You tell me what you saw. But that's not what I saw, like, in the first Driscoll that I was watching in Seattle.

Yeah, no, not at all.

Like, very, like, if I look back on, on his messages from that time, like, still, like, I can see the toxicity, I can see the patriarchy, I can see the misogyny, like the really, like, hard line fundamental beliefs, but not the political connection points. Not at all.

Yeah, no. And so I was really curious about that because he's a very open far right political commentator.

So I spoke to a woman who did several years of field research inside Mars Hill Church. And I asked her, her name is Jessica Johnson. I asked her, was he like this back then? And I just couldn't see it. And she said yes and no.

She saw seeds of it then. But now, I mean, there's a big difference in being in Scottsdale, Arizona and being in Seattle, Washington, and you just.

It's a much more political, much more far right just landscape down there.

And so I went to Scottsdale a few weeks before the election last year, and the sermon he was preaching that I reported in the book was called Should a Christian be a Nationalist or a Globalist? And I mean, what does that mean?

No, I read it and I was like, really?

What are we. What are we even doing? And so, I mean, there were MAGA hats, there were American flags. It was very much a political rally.

And at one point he just like, took out a piece of paper and was just reading off a list of like, far right talking points. He's like, on aid to Ukraine and the NATO and the World bank and of course Covid and climate change. But it was really bizarre.

And so, I mean, here's the issue, I think right now. Why does that matter? There's a lot of, like, far right megachurch pastor trolls.

But like, he matters because he is hit on something that is really appealing. And his church is growing, Trinity Church is growing really, really rapidly in Scottsdale.

And so, I mean, I would not be surprised if eventually they had the same footprint as Mars Hill, you know, several campuses in several states. He wants that, clearly. But also because of this current administration, he got access, real access to actual levers of power.

Like, he said in one, he was really close with Charlie Kirk. And so he said at one service, Driscoll did that at a political rally in Georgia. Charlie Kirk introduced him to JD Vance backstage. And so he.

He met the vice president of the US At a rally.

And, I mean, I think that's one of the big differences from the landscape that I grew up in the 80s and 90s is there were political pastors then, but, like, they didn't have the vice president's number in their phone. Like, you didn't just meet him at a rally, but, like, he got access and power all the way to the top. And so, I mean, some of these pastors do, but.

Yeah, I. What. What do you see? And Driscoll, I'm so curious. That's amazing that you were watching him, too.

Yeah, I mean, I think what I would say about Mark Driscoll now is probably, like, really unpleasant language. I maybe don't want to put voice to.

To be fair, but particularly, like, as a woman, but also just, like, I don't think I could name, like, another pastor who I see as much, like, toxicity and harm just, like, spewing out of his mouth essentially. Like, I. I don't know that I could. I mean, Sean Foy is probably as close to him as.

As, like, in terms of someone else, but, like, yes, it's problematic. Pastors everywhere and really harmful pastors, but I just.

I don't see anybody else further top than Mark Driscoll, which is why I was, like, excited almost to see the chapter come up and go, like, yes. Okay. Because I just think his, like. I was gonna say arc, but, like, that might get confusing based on the. The organization, but, like, his, like.

Like, pastoral arc is just wild to me, I think, from the outside.

Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, just from a writer perspective, I was so curious by it. But what Jessica Johnson helped me understand was that.

And she said, well, when Haggard crashed out of New Life Church in Colorado, he also moved to Arizona. And maybe that's a coincidence, but what she said was, when these guys do that, they need a new crowd to run with.

And so Driscoll was in this kind of reform theological crowd, and, like, that was kind of his bag. And he was really became Persona non grata after, you know, all those allegations of abuse and leaving Mars Hill.

So he needed a new crowd, and so she compared him to a chameleon. Like, she saw this as a very much a character reinvention that he's doing very intentionally in Arizona. So, I mean, he's. I'm so fascinated by him.

I think he's definitely worth watching, certainly over the next three years to see how far he. He carries it.

Yeah, yeah. And absolutely, like, how far he can push it. Almost, like, how many more boundaries is he going to push?

And, yeah, I mean, like, I am curious because I know that I'm gonna sort of, like, shift tangents for a moment because I know that, like, throughout reading, you're sort of going like, I went into this church and I had this conversation, and I went into this church, and I'm like, how. How are you sitting in these churches? I mean, like, I've floated the idea. My wife is, like, terrified.

She's like, absolutely never step foot in these churches. I'm far too traumatized for that. But, like, as a therapist, how is your nervous system after doing this process?

Oh, my God. Thank you for asking me that.

I mean, it definitely felt kind of subversive on one level, because, I mean, the truth is, it was a very easy reporting gig because at a church this level, you just float in, you float out. No one speaks to you. No one gives a shit. You're there. No one shakes your hand. No one asks your name. Like, you sit wherever you want and you leave.

The room's dark and loud, and no one needs you.

So, I mean, for someone who is just, like, super introverted and would rather sit at home and read a book, it was kind of a dream to just go in these huge churches and no one cared. And also, like, as a white dude with a beard, like, just blended right in everywhere I went. Right. Like, I could have taken the stage.

Like, no one would have blinked. So, like, that. That. I do recognize that also, especially in the political spaces.

But it was, you know, I mean, I had to confront a lot of things, personally. I had to think about the former version of myself who used to sit in those buildings and feel something very different.

I had to think about family members who are really struggling with spiritual loss and spiritual abuse and how, you know, are really spinning right now and in the kind of the worst part of that grief and missing that, a space like that. And now I'm on the other side of it, just wishing that, you know, they could walk through it and. And come through it okay. But, yeah, it was.

It was complicated. But, you know, I.

At the very end of the book, I chose Intentionally to go to a small church and went to a church that had 11 people in it on the Sunday that I went. And that was much harder to go to that church.

That was kind of a nightmare because, like, you talk about, like, the anxiety being seen, like, everyone. And this was in Alabama. So, like, everyone's coming up to you, they're shaking your hand, they're asking about your dad and your granddad.

And so, I mean, but I felt that.

I felt a lot of power in that after having been to so many big churches where I was anonymous, to be in a scene where everyone was, like, coming up to me, like, the evangelicalism, the legalism aside, like, just on a human level, it was actually refreshing to, like, have people come up to me and, like, see me literally, and shake my hand and stuff. So, yeah, it's a great question. I mean, that was, you know, for. After a year and a half, going in large churches, you know, it was.

I was ready to move on by the end of it. And also, mega churches are just the same. They're just the same church to church to church.

So I honestly, I hit a point where I was like, I don't think I really need to go to anymore because, like, they're all like, the music's the same, the preaching's the same, the looks the same, the people, you know, so that's part of it too.

I mean, how did you not become desensitized, though, and not just, like, become like this ball of, like, cynicism? Because, like, I feel like that I would just become so cynical and, And. And pessimistic about it because it's like, what else do you do with that?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was an issue. I. About halfway to 60% of the way through the writing, I was really kind of in that place.

And luckily I started reading a lot of interviews and listened to podcasts with a writer. I really love George Saunders, who's written a lot of fiction, but he's also written some nonfiction. And so he. You gave an interview.

I was listening to him talk about. He did an article where he went to the US Mexico border with, like, some militia border patrol guys.

And he talked about how he went in very closed off. He went in with a certain perspective about that work and that story and those guys.

And he said that actually, like, when he started talking to them, he opened himself up more to a space of curiosity about what led them there, about them personally, about the things that they were saying, more of, like, a human connection. And he said that that Just really helped the writing. Like it didn't change how he felt about being there.

But he said if you go into a piece of writing and you're just closing yourself off to every avenue except one very, very narrow one, he felt that that was very limiting in his reporting.

And so what I tried to do is I tried to just go in more in the spirit of curiosity about the people around me because again, I've been there, like I've seen sat in those chairs and I still think about spirituality a lot and I have family there. So I tried to just be more open to it.

And honestly, like, the thing that really surprised me about this was some of the most pleasant conversations I had with people in all the reporting were with pastors. And I was so surprised by that, especially pastors and specifically pastors in Arizona, which was very odd to me.

But I started contacting pastors of small churches, close to really large churches because I wanted to ask them what it was like being a neighbor of a huge megachurch and, and had great conversations with them. Like I would get off the phone and be like, wow, I feel really. Well, I feel great about how that went.

Like, they were really kind and they cared about the project and they didn't care that I wasn't going to church. And they like, they recognized me as a person. And so anyway, I just tried to stay as curious as I could.

But I mean, there were definitely times where, I mean, I did walk out of a few spaces. I walked out of a Sean for it rally. I walked out of Driscoll's church because I did just hit a point where I was like, I've seen it.

Like, it's not going to benefit me to stay here for two more hours and be yelled at by these guys. Yeah, yeah.

What did the smaller churches say in terms of like the impact from mega churches? Because like we have a lot of. We probably fall into that category where we have a lot of smaller to mid sized churches.

But the mega churches get the, the notoriety they get the, the big noting. So I'm curious what that was.

Yeah, so I think that's an important note actually when you, when you talk about this book, is that. So mega churches comprise about 1% of all the churches in the U.S. tiny percentage. Now the impact they have is huge.

So it's completely disproportionate to the actual percentage. The average church in the US I think has about 60 people. So it's very small. And I think a third of pastors in the US now are bi. Vocational.

They have more than one job. So it's hard to be a pastor. It's really hard to be a small church pastor.

And I mean, those guys never really get reported on when you talk about mega churches. So I was curious. It was not always easy to get them to talk, but I did find some that were really happy to talk about it.

And I mean, you see kind of a spectrum of responses.

The really small church I went to in Alabama, they were just down the road from Church of the Highlands, which is the second largest church in the U.S. it has 60,000 people. And I don't think Church of the Highlands has been a very good neighbor to them when they moved in.

I mean, the other thing is these mega churches, they have 18 to 26 campuses sometimes. Churchill Highlands has 26 campuses in the state of Alabama, which is already one of the most church states in America.

And so they opened a campus a mile down the road from this church that had been there a decade, that had 11 people in it. And he lost a quarter of his church. He lost five families immediately to this mega church. And the pastor, Brian, he was really grieved by that.

He said that their church tended a small community garden in their small town in Alabama, Churchill Highlands moved in and bought a greenhouse and squeezed them out. And so he was just like. He threw up his hands and was like, when is enough enough for these guys?

Like, they took five families from my church to add on to the 60,000 at their church. He was upset by it, and rightfully so.

I heard from others, though, in Arizona that are down the road from the third largest church in America, Christchurch, the Valley ccv. And they said that CCV has just been giving cash, like, large amounts of cash to small churches. Like, they'll get a call.

Shaking your head, like, they'll get a call. And CC will be like, we want to give you some money. How much money do you need?

And like, he's like, they come and they get coffee with me and they tell me, you know, not everyone's going to like my church, so I want to be able to have a relationship so I can send them to your church. And I'm like, I guess that's the right way to do it to be in mega church.

It's like a parent trying to buy their kids love. That's what it reminds me of.

No, here's an ice cream cone. I'm moving in, right?

Like, let me just treat you like the patronizing, condescending way that I'm actually going to. But I'M just gonna make it look nice and fluffy and. And financially beneficial for you.

It's so true. Maybe it's more like morally honest to just move in and steal other people and like not give them a dime.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's probably more transparent but not necessarily super beneficial for the smaller mid sized churches.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the big shifts that you see in the megachurch landscape.

And I'm actually curious what it's like there because in the US this is a very intentional ship where in the 80s and 90s megachurches were the big sanctuary, they were the big arena, kind of the Joel Osteen Church, like that, the righteous Jim Stones Church, the church I grew up in.

Well, now this new model is franchises and I was actually curious and so I, I counted the, the number of CCD campuses just in Phoenix, Arizona and I compared it to like UPS stores and Chipotle restaurants and like gyms. And it's like the same number of like burrito shops in Phoenix equals this church ccv.

And so that just gives you an example of like how frequently you see them just driving down the road. Like you. They're just reminders of them everywhere.

But this is a huge shift in the model is they're moving from the big centralized campus to a franchise out model. Is it the same thing there?

Yeah, I mean Hillsong obviously has that franchise model for sure.

Like we've campuses all over the shop and some like, particularly like not all of them are big grand campuses like the ones in our capital cities and things like that. Yeah, C3 and Planet Shakers are probably like circumstances. They do have multiple campuses and things like that.

But I think just based on the cultural landscape and the fact that like religion is not as baked into our water as what it is in the US I don't think that it would be at the same level of franchising as what it is in the US by any means. I think Hillsong would be leading that path for sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think some of that, like I said, is probably just, just like our cultural landscape around in Australia in particular. Yeah, it's. Yeah. It's not as connected to our political climate as what it is to you guys.

It's like, I mean, we had like a window of time where our prime minister was like basically besties with Brian Houston. That was a good time for us.

But.

And would like feature at Hillsong conference and things like that, which we totally love.

But it's that, that sounds that Sounds so quaint to me. And like, I would love for that to be the worst possible thing. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there's. There's like a lot of. There's still a lot of harm. There's still, like, we, we know that that's happening.

It's just, I think, understanding that it's not as like a big, grander scale as what it is in the US Just, I mean, obviously, like, like nation size, like religious landscape, all of those sorts of things play a factor in that, I find.

Yeah, I, I do want to ask a question, and this is probably connected to something that's happening here in Australia as well at the moment, that in one of our particular states, we're having an inquiry into cults and high control fringe groups. And so there's a narrative at the moment, and it's something that I'm really conscious of in the podcast is.

Is holding people's stories ethically and compassionately and gently. And so I am curious for you what it was like for you doing what is like a mass expose, essentially, but not making it feel like exposure and re.

Traumatization for the survivors that you're talking to.

Man, that's such an important question. And I.

That question was in my mind a lot and because I was also conscious of my posture as a writer because I think it's almost ironic really, because what I was seeking to kind of unpack was the imbalance in power, the power dynamic between, like a victim and an abuser in a large church. Well, there's also a power dynamic between a reporter. Yeah. And the person that they're talking to. Right. So they're trusting me with their story.

And also, like, my posture as a man, my posture as a white man, my posture as, you know, who I am in my own background, like, it was. There were imbalances of power in those conversations, and so it was a big responsibility.

So, I mean, there were a lot of difficult conversations with people. But honestly, what I found that surprised me, that I kept finding was that people really wanted to share their story.

The people who wanted to speak with me, they were glad for the chance to finally do it because they had lived in that space too long where it wasn't possible. It wasn't possible to share their story because there's a woman in the book who experienced something really harmful at her megachurch college.

College, which is a whole other trend that's super fascinating is megachurch colleges. And I know Hillsong's a big player. They're a big part of that.

But what she said was, you can't take your personal story to your mega church because as one person, because it's so easy for them to just dismiss it as your personal experience. And look around, there's 10,000 other people here who are growing and spiritually thriving, and look at all the good we're doing in the community.

This is just you. And so she said, you. You have to raise the voice of the collective. You have to show them that it's a pattern of several people.

And so that really, I think, kind of became the thrust of the book, was showing these patterns and to raise several voices across the spectrum. But, yeah, I mean, I thought about that a lot. So, I mean, there were just practical reporting things I did.

Like, I only focused on stories to people who had been on the record publicly. I left a lot out. I used public documents and public court cases.

But I struggled a lot with, you know, what to include, what not to include, how to honor people's story, people who didn't speak with me personally but were still on the record publicly. What was my duty to them. There were lots of nuanced questions about it. But, you know, I. I hope in the end that I just did.

I did right by those stories, because that was really the important thing to me was to. To give people a chance. Yeah.

That pattern of, like, collective raising that you just mentioned, what is your opinion? Because as you said it, I was like, do they actually even care about a big pattern either?

Like, obviously we see that, like, it's easy to dismiss one individual, even, like, a few individuals, but, like, even raising as a group, as a collective, of. Do they even care about that?

I. I mean. I mean, try not to paint with too broad a brush here, but I can talk about what I saw in my reporting, which is that. Honestly, no, like, there's.

There's a culture of silence in really large churches. And. And that's not me saying that. That's, like, people who share their story with me saying that, which is that.

So looking at church, the Highlands, specifically this church in Alabama, they have a phrase that they use in that they teach to kids in their program where they say silence is honoring that. You should not even engage with criticism of the church.

You should not engage with critical questions or people like me who are asking these questions, because that's dishonoring God. That's dishonoring spiritual authority. And so you don't even need to engage in it. Well, a million problems with that.

That creates a culture of silence.

And also, like, what I saw in My reporting was when churches don't come forward on the record about these issues, it creates a space for speculation to really fester and run rampant. Because just taking Birmingham, Alabama, for example, where this church is, they. They had these practices.

And because they weren't being honest about them, like pastoral restoration, they were building a building on their campus. They weren't being forthcoming about it. And so the community was just like, rumors were spreading like crazy. What are they doing?

What is this building? Who are these guys going in there? What does this fence mean? And the church just was not engaging with it because that was their practice.

So, I mean, no, I. I think they only start to care about it when it affects their brand, when it affects their bottom line, when it hits the media, when it becomes a thing. Right. I think like a scandal, like, that's when, like when they're forced to.

When you force their hand to care about it, that's when they care about it. But I have not seen a lot of churches who have cared about it just for the sake of the people who were hurt. Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, that culture of silence often comes under what I will often talk about, you know, on the podcast, but also with my clients in terms of, like, understanding the impact of, like, fear based theology and fear based practices and things like that. But I'm curious, in mega church culture, it's shiny. It's.

Everything is like big, like big plans, big life, God has big, big plans for you, all of that sort of thing. And so I'm curious what you saw in terms of how, like, we understand how fear is weaponized to gain control and obedience.

But I'm curious how you saw hope being weaponized to gain that instead.

Oh, my gosh. Wow. What a question.

I mean, so I think there's something kind of contradictory about even the idea of a mega church which tries to open its doors wide to the whole community. It has this really glossy, shiny brand. The music sounds like popular music, whatever. It looks like the whole world around you.

And it tells you you don't have to change anything about your life to come to church here. Yeah. Once you get in, however, and you get drawn deeper, you have to change everything. And you're told you can't look like the world around you.

I have.

I spoke with a therapist in the book who said that when you get drawn in, you hit this legalist core of steel is what she called it, a core of steel and legalist.

And these aren't book clubs, they're not social clubs, they're evangelical legal fundamentalist churches and they're founded on that and they're not going to move off of that foundation ever. Like that is the thing they will not compromise on.

And so she said, where people get hurt is you come in this cool looking church and you think, oh, these people are cool. They might even be a little bit progressive, like maybe we could go get a beer, maybe they'd be cool.

But like, if you're gay or if you're liberal politically or anything, like you will hit these walls along the way where you are told, no, you can't be that here. And you, you actually, if you are, that you're a sinner and you're going to hell for it, like, then you get into like dark theological issues.

But yeah, I mean, the notion of weaponizing hope, I think is a really, a really powerful and poignant way to put it because you do experience a sense of hope when you find these communities. And I mean, I found it myself, I felt it where you feel like you found a faith community.

But then the deeper you get drawn into that funnel and you start to hit that fundamentalism and you see the pastor at the front, how much money he's making and the people he's insulated himself with, and you start to see kind of the cracks. I mean, it leads to, I think, a lot of people getting hurt. Yeah.

And I mean, if we sort of like can, like you sort of said, you know, that there are aspects that are just like not going to change, like that's not going to happen. And so I am curious what you think repair and change looks like. And is it even possible, like, is there ever such a thing as a healthy mega church?

I don't think so. Me too.

I was hoping that was what you were going to say. Otherwise this is going to be a very interesting conversation.

I'm not going to ramble for five minutes about that one. We can move to the next one.

No, I mean, I, I met, I, I saw some paths forward for people, but they did not involve fundamentalism, they did not involve evangelicalism, they did not involve legalism. So there's, so there's a lot of groups in the US that are trying to find a path forward outside of those structures.

So there's a group called the Post Evangelical Collective, which a lot of churches belong to, where there are, they do not identify as evangelical or legalist. And they, rather than like shunning you off and like calling you a sinner, like, they're actually, like, they welcome questions.

They, they're kind of shame Proofed in a way because like they don't like get into issues of legalism and sin and all that shit. So like, I think that is one path forward. And then there's a lot of like healing groups too for people, a lot of virtual spaces.

Restore Voices Collective is one I found that I mentioned in the book where a lot of people and you foster this community here with your show. A lot of people who have these really profoundly painful experiences have found a human to human group.

But I mean the idea of a megachurch, like it's founded on all of this toxic stuff that like it, there's no way for that to be healthy. I think if it's funded on like legalism and fundamentalism and shame and sin and like tithing like you could go on and on.

But yeah, no, I mean, I think for me what comes to mind is that like I don't think there can be any healthy mega church because I think it's founded on everybody who attends essentially just like losing their sense of humanity. Because you are not seen as a person. You lose your voice, you lose your ability to be an individual in that space. You just become one of many.

And I don't think that that fosters any kind of safe space at all, irrespective of any like doctrinal or any other issue. I think that in itself just creates that culture of silence, that culture of like, you don't exist unless you benefit us.

So yeah, totally gross. No, which is honestly one thing you notice when you go to these churches. It's why they push small groups so, so hard.

Like you go in these churches and they're immediately pushing small groups on you. Because I think these churches, they, they're not dumb. Like even they recognize like a Sunday morning, like that's not like a real community.

You have to find your group, you have to find your people. On Thursday night you're going to go to someone's house. Like so like even the churches know that you have to find more than just the Sunday service.

But I mean it is a viable community for so many people. It's a viable faith experience. People are finding value in community there.

So I think that has a lot to say about what we're looking for in community in church. But yeah, no, I agree with you. Yeah.

What would you say to the people who think that this just happens by dumb luck? That some pastor just creates these, that these mega churches just happen by dumb luck? That this is not a strategic intentional process?

You mean like the growth of these churches and the Power that they get. Yeah, I would say that. Wow. I mean, a lot. I mean, the truth is a lot of megachurches grow out of. They start small.

They start in like the Rick Warren at Saddleback Church. Like, he's a famous example where I think he says he started in a garage or like church. The Highlands started in a high school.

Like, they do start in small community spaces. And then there's something that is attractive about the pastor or the music or the brand and they grow, grow, grow.

But I think the new model of church planting and groups like ARC and these church planting groups, that it is much more strategic marketing and strategic brand work that's going in. And actually have a funny story about this. I was in North Charlotte, North Carolina a couple months ago for.

Not related to reporting for something completely different, but I had to go into a church for something. And I went into the church and I thought, oh, this really. This feels like an ARC church.

Like, I had been in so many churches, like, this feels like an art church. And I couldn't put my finger on it. And I was like, it's the font, it's the chairs, it's the color. Like, what is this?

And sure enough, I opened the Ark website and they have a little find a church directory. And that church was in art. So just to find feel of being in that church was enough for me to know I was in an art.

I was in one of the thousand art churches.

So it is very intentional the way that like even the architecture, the way these churches look on the outside, they just look the same, they feel the same, the vibe is the same, the songs are the same. So I would say that you get both. You get churches that start small and then they end up growing. But it is a strategic business opportunity now.

Yeah.

To start a large church. And there's.

I mean, ARC is just one of many church planting organizations in the US that are planting hundreds and hundreds of these churches across the country.

Yeah. And I. I remember you talking a bit about that when talking about Chris Hodges, because he does not. Like, this might sound mean.

He does not look like what we expect a stereotypical like mega church pastor to look like. He does not have that like physical, like charismatic nature that we see in like a Carl Lentz or in a. Like a Joel Osteen or something like that.

That's not what you get from Chris Hodges.

But I like, I remember you talking about that quite a bit in the sense that it's his brain that got him what it is because it's so hyper strategic and marketing and all of that sort of thing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean he was a former account accounting major and so like he knows business and he, he, so he pastored the second biggest church in the US and while I was writing the book, he stepped down and became their founding pastor. And he's still there, but he just handed off the day, like the week to week preaching duties.

He still preaches and stuff, but now he oversees Highlands College. He oversees ARC business stuff. He oversees much more the business side of the, of the organization.

And yeah, I mean it's so funny because like I have family close to that church and like, why do people go to this church? Why do they like him? I've heard that so many times. Like why are people drawn to him?

He's kind of goofy and he's not funny and his sermons are like so fluffy and like, why do people, why are people drawn to this?

And I think that there's lots of different brands of megachurch pastor and I think his is the corporate executive where he's just kind of, he feels like, like the C suite sort of pastor where you know, he's speaks like an executive. And so you feel like you're in a, in a business environment.

Yeah, I mean throughout this process you are talking about and targeting I guess some pretty hefty names in this book who have a lot of like big legal financial teams behind them. Have you had any pushback?

Not yet. Okay. That's something I spend a lot of time faking.

I mean, I think at one point there were like five guys in the book who were in active litigation against someone, accusers or something.

But like when I first started, I, I had done, I had not done this level of reporting in a while and so I found like a journalist hotline number and I called them and I was like, I found this document. Is this okay?

I probably shouldn't share the story, but it was like this, this grizzled newspaper guy on the other end of the phone and he was like, yeah, do it. You can do it. Run with it. And so that made me feel better. Once I had like some old newspaperman yelling at me that I was okay.

But no, I haven't heard that. I mean, I think that, I mean the truth is there's nothing stopping anyone from taking like exploring legal options.

But I did have attorneys review the book. And I mean everything that's in there, I. Everything is cited, everything is sourced. Everything was already on the record anyway.

So no, we'll, we'll see.

I mean, it sounds like whilst, like the.

The legal covering is there, like, I imagine it would have still been a bit like emotionally jarring to put this out into the world with the names that are in it.

Yeah, yeah, it was kind of. It's been kind of a slow rollout and I think that it's starting to kind of like.

I went back to Birmingham a couple weeks ago and gave a couple of readers. It's close to church, the Highlands. And so I think word now is out in some of these places.

I'm going to Dallas, Texas in a couple of weeks doing an event really close to Robert Morris's Gateway Church. And he was a huge scandal last year when it came out that he had sexually abused a child in the 80s.

And I'm going to be close to the bookshop as close to his church. So I am going to these places. I did a reading close to Driscoll's church in Arizona. So, yeah, I mean, I'm. Part of me is kind of bracing for that.

But so far, I mean, I think people are just glad that someone is doing this, honestly.

And that's what I've heard at events is I've had people thank me and I've had pastors come to book events and thank me for doing this because, like, they're pissed off by it too. Like, it makes them look bad. They're not happy about it.

So I think by and large the reception has been really positive and really supportive and that's been really gratifying.

I'm curious as just like a, you know, typical US citizen living in the state of your country at the moment with Christian nationalism and, and whether this process of writing the book shifted the way that you thought about that.

Yeah. So the last third of the book is all about the 18 months leading up to the election.

And I wanted to kind of track that build up through a few different mega churches, mostly in Arizona. And obviously we know how that went, but in the end, I, you know, I. I've just living here and like, watching how things are going day to day.

I don't think we've ever had a system set up to be more amenable to these guys getting power and access and money and all of this, and it's only going to get worse. Like, why would it not? Like, the next three years are just going to be a nightmare for this stuff.

I mean, because, you know, these guys, they have more access to the White House and to the administration than. Than ever.

And so, no, I came away extremely distressed about that, and I think that this year, I finished the manuscript last December, so I was even done before, you know, Trump took office. And the last year, obviously, has been so much worse, I think, than anyone even expected for that.

Yeah, I usually. I didn't start with this in the episode, but I usually.

Whenever I'm talking to someone in the US I usually do what we would, as a therapist call like a welfare check of just like, how are you doing over there? Because it's a shitstorm.

And it's like, you know, it can't be easy to be living in this, but also for a period of time, you were all also kind of, like, baked into that writing and reporting. And so I can't imagine that that would have been an easy process.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's awful. And I recognize that I'm extremely fortunate and privileged just in my position.

It's so much more awful for people who are, you know, migrants, refugees, undocumented, you know, you name it. Women, girls, you name it. I do a lot of work in foreign aid. And so, I mean, that has been an absolute nightmare, the way that that has gone.

And so, you know, the reporting. I was doing the reporting when Biden was in office, and it was all kind of started to fall apart at the end.

And, you know, it's actually had conversations with my editors about the book because it builds and builds and builds to the election, and then I just don't mention the election at all. I just skip right over it. Yeah. And they were like, you should. You have to write something about the election. But I was like.

I mean, the point of that. Also, like, Trump's name is not in the book. That was an intentional choice. I just did not want to use his name.

And part of the reason for that is, like, these issues have existed long before him, and they're gonna exist long after he's gone. He's, you know, gasoline on the fire for this stuff. But we saw it in the 80s and 90s, and it's gonna carry on. So it's just a.

It's a report of a moment in time, and unfortunately, it's an extremely dark and distressing moment. Yeah.

I am wondering, because I imagine, like, you've obviously learned a lot about megachurch systems, culture, the way that they run, all of that sort of thing, and I'm wondering what you think the biggest misconception about mega churches and their systemic influence and power is.

Yeah, I think there's a lot, honestly, and I, I learned so much of the reporting. But I think maybe just want to start with is that I think mega churches get a bad rap or they get a rap that the people who go there are. It's are.

They're very surface level believers. They kind of, they're like, we used to call them back row Baptists in the south growing up. You float in, sit in the back row, and you leave.

But the truth is, like, when you look at the numbers, like, people who go to these churches are extremely committed. They're young, they're diverse. These are diverse churches. They're not all white spaces.

And so these are people who care a lot about their faith and they care a lot about their church. And I mean, I think that's surprising, but I think it also makes the problem worse because these are the people who care the most.

And I think these systems are being built to coalesce power and control, and that's where people are getting hurt. I mean, you can get hurt in a church any size. That goes without saying, but I think there is something unique about large churches.

But no, I was surprised by the data. When you look at is that these are not kind of like, you know, like flinty, you know, people who don't care. I mean, it is easy to float in and out.

But a lot of people who go to megachurches care very deeply about their faith and about their church.

Yeah, and, and I think, and I probably know that largely because I obviously work with a lot of people who have come from mega churches, but also the two people that I founded the Religious Trauma Collective with, Jane and Elise, are both ex hillsong people.

And so I like, I know the, the level of devotion, and I think that level of devotion is why we can see the amount of like, labor exploitation in mega churches.

Because you wouldn't devote yourself as that level of a volunteer if you weren't devoted to the cause or the kingdom or whatever language that church is using.100%.

That is such an important point that I actually have not been asked about and have not gotten to talk about. And I think that is something that is huge in mega church culture, which is the exploitation of labor.

And there is part of the book that talks about megachurch colleges and ministry training programs and internships and the absolute abuse of labor and unpaid interns, underpaid and unpaid students, and what they require of you, how many hours you have to work and not get paid for it. And programs, by the way, where you're paying. You're actually paying to participate in the program and work for the church.

You're reading description to these programs and you're like, I think I'm reading that I would have to pay thousands of dollars a year for the right to work here on Sunday morning.

And they call it a practicum or they call it a training program, but, like, you're running sound, you're working with children, you're directing cars, you're doing something, you're paying for the right to do it. Hugely exploitative.

Yeah, Hillsong's really good at that. Like with Hillsong College and things like that, which is that you are paying to attend Hillsong College. And yes, there is, like, the.

The theoretical, like, course side of things, but realistically, like, a good portion of that is like, unpaid ministry and unpaid, voluntary, like voluntary positions and, and work and, and things like that.

And, And I think what makes it tricky is because it is a church, there is the spiritual layer that's going over the top of that, which is that you also can't be tired or upset or frustrated, frustrated or mad about it because you get to do this. Like, this is something that you should feel grateful that you get to contribute to the growth of the church and the growth of the kingdom.

And so you can't even be tired. Like, there is this exploitation, but you're not even allowed to just feel tired about it because you should feel grateful for it.

Yeah. And so that's so right. And if so, if you do feel that way, you feel like a personal failure, you feel like it's your fault.

And if you're experiencing spiritual abuse or spiritual pain of some kind, you feel like you're the reason for that. It can't be the church because, I mean, God called you there. Also, you start to question your faith.

Like, how could I have been called to a place of pain? I heard that. I know you've heard that from so many people, like, trying to just make sense of that and. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that.

I mean, spiritual abuse and spiritual power are just most. I think it's one of the most profound ways to hold power over someone is spiritual power.

Because it doesn't just become like a person to person interaction. It becomes like your relationship to existence and life and big questions about life and purpose and meaning and all those things.

And so the spiritual authority of a pastor, like, is just such. Such a toxic place to start. When you start to look at the issues of these churches like, they can't be questioned. You can't.

You can't approach their authority, things like that. So, yeah, I think that's such an important point, Sam, is if you start to feel those things, you start to blame yourself.

Yeah, that's what I felt, and that's what people I spoke to felt. And then where does that leave you? Where does that leave you? I mean, huge. Completely empty and broken in so many ways.

Yeah, absolutely.

I. I know we haven't really been talking about your particular story, per se, but I usually usually like to ask in these episodes, and so I'm going to sort of, like, reframe it a little bit, because I'm curious what this process of, like, investigating and reporting has had on your own sense of personal spirituality.

Yeah, I mean, so it's funny, when we set out to write the book, I was talking to the editor about it, and she said, you're going to have to write a book that appeals to people in the evangelical world and people who are out of the evangelical world world. I was like, I don't know if that's possible, but we'll try.

Do you know people in the evangelical world? This is probably not gonna fly.

Yeah, well, it's funny because a couple weeks ago, I got an invitation to do an interview with someone, like a pastor's podcast, and I got interviewed, asked to do an interview with an atheist podcast on the same day. I was like, oh, I guess we did it. We did it. We appealed to both sides.

But I think where it left me personally was like, I mean, I was kind of fortunate that I had already kind of walked through the deconstruction and deconversion process in my 20s. That was really long and, you know, grieving process, by the way.

Like, to lose your faith, to lose your spirituality, it takes a lot to work through that. So I was able to kind of approach it more, I think, from a clean reporter's perspective, which I think helped me.

There were no moments where I sat in these spaces and, like, longed to be back in them and be like, wow, I really miss that. Like, that did not happen. I mean, 10 years ago, who knows? But I had come through a place where I was like, nah, I'm good. Like, I had this, and I've.

You know, I'm in a different place now, so I don't know. Like, I have family members who are just deep in church, and they were. We have good relationships and.

And I don't know how the book's totally been received by people in my life, by the way, like, that's. It's, I think, probably harder to talk about than they let on, if I'm being honest.

It was probably a difficult book for them to read or to receive, to kind of go after the system in this sort of way. But I'm uncomfortable with it. I'm comfortable where I was.

But I will say it took a long time to get there, and I couldn't have done this project when I was going through it.

Yeah, I like to end these episodes with some encouragement. And I was thinking about this earlier because I was like, how do I reframe this question for people?

But I'm wondering what you would like someone who is either currently in a mega church listening to this, because I probably sit in the middle of that spectrum that you just described in.

In the sense that I have people who want to burn it all down and people who are still Christians, progressive Christians, people of faith, as listeners. And so what would you say to someone who is either currently still in a megachurch or has just come out of one? What do you want them to know?

Yeah, I mean, I had someone ask me, like, what would it take for you to go back to church or to go to America Church? And all I could think about was, what are the systems of accountability and the systems that are in place to actually hold leadership accountable?

If you go to a megachurch, I think you. It's incumbent on you to think through those questions. I think if you're going to sit in that space with those. That much money and resources.

A megachurch is a system just like a college, a university, a corporation, or the military. It's a big body of people.

And whether, like, theology and supernatural stuff aside, like, sociologically, it's a body of people that is structured for power. And so I think you have a responsibility if you go there to ask those questions about who is holding my pastor accountable.

How much money do they bring in each year? Where does that money go? What percentage of it goes to charity, goes to ministry, and how much of it stays in this building?

I would just say just try to do the work. And if the church is not giving you those answers, you don't have to stay there. Like, I know it's not always easy to say, just leave your church.

Like, that is hard. That's a grieving process. But for people who have come out of Omega Church, I would say whatever you experience there is valid. Your story matters.

It's okay to have been hurt there. It's okay to have big questions about where that leaves you. And it's okay to not know where that leaves you.

I would say that many, many people have had similar experiences than you probably realize, because that's what I learned in the reporting was so many people did. And so I would say that.

I would say what one woman in the book told me, which is, I see you and I hear you and your story is valid and it's okay to not know where it's going to leave you. But yeah, I mean, I just hope that people feel seen at the end of the day. Yeah.

Beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me. This is really fun.

And thank you so much for putting so much time and energy and emotion into what I would have probably called like a soul sucking process of doing that book. So, like, thank you for doing it because it's needed and we need people who can hold that and contain it and not lose themselves in the process.

Yeah. Hey, I was happy to do it. I was honored to do it.

My next book's going to be about something very different, but for the purposes of this one, I was happy to do it.

Thanks, Scott.

Thanks, Sam.

Thanks for listening to beyond the Surface. If this episode resonated, challenged you, or named something you've struggled to put words to, I'm really glad you found your way here.

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Notes.

As always, you are good. You have always been good and your story matters always.