Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Friday Fellowship Ep. 1 - Name It & Claim It w/ Jesse O'Neil
63 Plays4 years ago
Welcome to the inaugural episode of a brand new series called Friday Fellowship! These shows will be a little less focused, and a little more light-hearted, and a chance for you to meet some of our old friends like this week's guest, Jess O'Neil! Jesse is an old friend of Sam's, a former roommate/bandmate of Casey's, and guitarist for melodic hardcore band Servants. We spent an evening talking about prosperity gospel, Acquire the Fire, and feeling like an imposter in church.
Enjoy this extra episode, and may the good Lord grant you health, wealth, and absolute certainty, friend!
Recommended
Transcript
Sarcastic Take on Prosperity Gospel
00:00:00
Speaker
But with the prosperity gospel thing, it's just like, it's either, well, you just got to keep waiting because, you know, God's got something big in the works for you. Our time's not God's time. Or it's, wow, Satan stole your blessing. Oh, wow. I never heard stuff like that. That was a huge sheep. Satan stole your blessing and
00:00:25
Speaker
God's gonna return that sevenfold. He just like swoops it and scoops it up real quick right before it lands on it. That was a convenient thing. God has built you a mansion and Satan has snuck in in the night and cut all the copper piping out of it. And then took a shit in your toilet and didn't watch it before it landed. He upper decker drew your blessing toilet. Your golden toilet is upper decker.
Friday Fellowship with Jesse O'Neill
00:01:20
Speaker
a very special episode of Growing Up Christian. I think we're calling this segment Friday Fellowship. And we're having some of our friends on to talk about just some of the fun things that have happened, just like a hanging out. That's kind of what these episodes are, just like a hangout episode. So today we are joined by Jesse O'Neill, who is long time, how long have YouTube been friends?
00:01:49
Speaker
16 years, something like that. Yeah. Started hanging out when I was like 17, right? I had to have been 17, 16 probably. I drove to his house to pick up some CVs. We had met at like a youth group and he came to my youth group. But why didn't we meet Sam? Because of...
00:02:12
Speaker
Because our mom set us up. No, that's not true. I'll fix this. I'll set the record straight real quick. We met this is how can you forget? We met because Jill, my wife had been hanging out with before Jill and I were dating hanging out with Joe.
00:02:34
Speaker
Spencer town. They grew up in the, they lived
How the Hosts Met and Friendship Humor
00:02:37
Speaker
in the same town and they started hanging out, talking, whatever. Jill brought Joe to youth group. Joe liked it. The next week, Joe had you bring him and I hung out with you and Joe that night. That's not, I like the idea that like your mom's matched you like grinder. That's, that's how I remember it. I remember it. It's like a grinder for a homeschool moms.
00:03:02
Speaker
and like a homeschool co-op and they just got together and they said, you know, our sons are really unique. And I think they'd like each other. We should set up a play date. I don't even understand how that would have happened. That's just, that's the story that's been burned in my memory forever.
00:03:24
Speaker
Well, I got to say the only other thing I can think of is like maybe if you spotted each other across the, the table at youth group and you both were like admiring each other's wallet chains. I noticed you. That looks like a man I could be best friends with. Maybe a studded belt and under oath t-shirt.
00:03:45
Speaker
Oh, I mean, that was the connection. But that's why it was because the first time we had to have been at youth group because and
Moving to Lynchburg and New Beginnings
00:03:51
Speaker
we that's that was the connection we had. No, I didn't meet you before youth group. Yeah, you didn't meet me before youth group. We met at youth group. No. Hey, I didn't you like off putting music to
00:04:10
Speaker
This is off to a great start. I know. Great start, guys. This is going really well. Anyway, we've been friends since then. And then I went to his house. We hit it off. However, we met. He's going to be our couples therapist. Yeah, this is couples. I had then I went to it. We leveled on music and then I went to his house because I didn't really have any. I had like four CDs at the time. I can tell you probably what they were. Emory.
00:04:38
Speaker
dead poetic. And I can't really think of the other two good Christian music. Yeah, one was like a Christian punk band that didn't last too long. And oh, project 86 and a project 86. So we connected on music and then that's a good mix. Yeah, right. And then I ended up just like borrowing a bunch of albums and realized that I really liked
00:05:01
Speaker
heavier music after that. And it was, uh, that was it. That was the foundation of our friendship was our cool taste in Christian music. So you guys hadn't even really been friends like super long when you moved to Lynchburg. I guess a couple, probably three or four years. Yeah, a couple of years. I was a junior in high school, so it was just, it's kind of like an instant Beboos thing, you know?
00:05:28
Speaker
I remember the first time Sam came over my
College Life and Roommate Dynamics
00:05:31
Speaker
house, we had a trampoline in the backyard. And one of the first things that Sam ever said to me was, you think I could jump off your roof onto the trampoline? Cool. And I was like, I don't know if that's a great idea, Sam. There's a lot of lawsuit things going on. Obviously, I wasn't thinking that.
00:05:58
Speaker
I let them down easy. I didn't do it.
00:06:06
Speaker
So when we were living in Lynchburg, this would have been my junior year. So I had been at Liberty one year. The second year, I really wanted to get off campus so that April and I could make out someplace. That wasn't my truck at least. So I was living off campus with our mutual friend Tito and Oscar, which was not his real name.
00:06:33
Speaker
And we were basically living with Oscar's girlfriend because she was there all the time. And then I don't remember how you ended up like with us. It's through Tito, I think, right? Because Tito was like, hey, you can come in and sleep in the living room and pay rent. And Tito just like.
00:06:55
Speaker
Offers that out there without consulting anybody else. Yeah, he definitely didn't consult Oscar because he was not for it. It was not for me living there either. When I first moved down there, I was allowed to live on campus as a non student for like a week or 10 days or something. There was like some time period that I was allowed to live on campus as a guest.
00:07:24
Speaker
And being 18 years old, I thought a week is plenty of time to find an apartment in a brand new city where I have no job and really no connections. Well, that week expired and right about at the end of that week, I got in a car accident.
00:07:46
Speaker
I needed a place to stay. I was going to a show. I think you guys were playing there. Not the show, right? Yeah. I was just trying to go to the show at room 180, got in a car accident, and through that, Tito just offered a place to live.
Encounter with Jerry Jr. and Becky
00:08:06
Speaker
He was like, yeah, you can crash on our couch without consulting any of the other roommates. I took him up on it immediately.
00:08:18
Speaker
There was kind of a weird, there was like a weird dynamic in that apartment because Tito, who's kind of like the life of the party, had agreed to live with Oscar.
00:08:31
Speaker
And Oscar and his girlfriend, like I said, she was basically living there. She was there all the time. And they really liked the idea of like them living with Tito. I think they had it framed in their brain as some sort of like little sitcom scenario. And so when Tito invited me to live there, they were not like hostile, hostile, but they made it clear that they didn't want me there.
00:08:57
Speaker
And I remember like going into that apartment for the first time and I'm like kind of getting a lay of the land, putting my stuff in place and everything. And I noticed that Oscar had bought, Oscar and Lindsay had bought all three of them coffee cups with their names on it and they had them hanging up. Oscar, Tito and Lindsay. And I was like,
00:09:23
Speaker
What's going on here? They were kind of like the Kramer in that, or Tito was like the Kramer in that scenario. What a great way to tell you that you are not welcome. Yeah, I did not get a coffee cup, and Jesse definitely didn't get a coffee cup. I feel like he was kind of a douche to you. I barely got bathroom privileges. Dude, they were straight humping in that apartment.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, that was the impression I got is that they were not living under the Liberty Way. Had no respect for it. They have not as much respect for the Liberty Way as Jerry Junior did. So that's cool. Yeah, for real. Dude, he's going to lose his his severance package. Yeah. Yeah. Ten million dollar lawsuit filed against him. That's pretty sick.
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah. The school filed this lawsuit against him this week. I think it was right. Yeah. And, uh, for, for breach of contract and for like, I guess they were saying he wasn't honest with the board or whatever. Anyways, not an interesting story, but if you guys, did you guys ever have much interaction with Jerry junior? Do you ever meet him? No, I don't think anybody did.
00:10:46
Speaker
Interesting. Uh, as a non-liberty student who happened to live in Lynchburg, I had the pleasure of meeting Jerry Jr. and Becky at a baseball game. Uh, dude, were you their pinch hitter? No, we went, we went to watch our wonderful roommate Oscar play for Liberty University baseball and then
00:11:16
Speaker
we ended up sitting directly in front of Jerry Jr. and Becky. And Becky was taking pictures of us, like asking us if we could take pictures. And I didn't understand at the time, I thought they were just being nice people. Like they were trying to convince me to come to Liberty. Cause they, they asked if I went there. I said, no, they were like, Oh, you should come. And then, uh,
00:11:43
Speaker
She just asked if she could take pictures of us, and at the time I didn't think anything of it, but since certain events have come to light, now I'm wondering what that was all about. They were grooming him, is what it seems like. They're like, do you go to Liberty? No. Oh, interesting. That actually plays to our advantage. Becky's never had a bearded boy.
00:12:15
Speaker
Oh boy, material, but it's not bad. Be like, we, uh, we definitely can't get caught fucking students. So, Oh, my word. Well, Jesse ended up, we, we only lived together for like one year.
Jesse's Band and Music Memories
00:12:37
Speaker
And then, but then you ended up joining.
00:12:42
Speaker
the band with me and the guys. Guitarists moved away, and so Jesse jumped in on our band, The Poison Written, and it was just the creative juices we needed. You sure about that? I mean, you guys took off right afterwards. I don't remember writing anything for you guys.
00:13:06
Speaker
I remember you specifically saying like, if you guys are moving away, I'm not writing anything for this band. Sounds about right. It was fun though. That was like a fun period to do the band thing. I feel like we had a group that got along really well. Oh yeah, for sure. That was a tag along. I wish I could have done music guy, but never really did. It was like you and
00:13:35
Speaker
Nevermind. I'm not going to. Dude, I feel like I've never really heard your story, like how you grew up and it sounds like it was interesting.
Jesse's Christian Upbringing and Conversion
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm coming to find out that, you know, listening to a lot of your guests and
00:13:58
Speaker
looking at the Discord and Instagram interactions, that my upbringing was pretty similar to a lot of other people's. But yeah, I grew up in a very conservative, strict Christian evangelical home. I was converted, as you may say, at the tender age of,
00:14:25
Speaker
four or five when I had zero understanding of any of life's implications and how any of that would play out. Who led that? Will you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? That would be my mother. Yeah. I didn't think it was your dad. No. Not really sure where my dad stands on any of it. Kind of get the feeling that he may have just been along for the ride. The Republican Party is his Lord and Savior.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's a, uh, that's a accurate description of my dad, but yeah, just, uh, grew up going to church, Wednesday night services, Sunday morning services, youth group on Friday or whatever night we had youth group and really bought in hard for, you know, 18 to 20 years of my life.
00:15:24
Speaker
One of the things I'm going to jump in here and steal some of your thunder. I, um, because I was like a super good youth group boy, I, uh, I remember through like, I guess my junior and senior year, Jesse being like, I don't know, like he was one of the, he had like, oh, it was like questions. There wasn't always like feeling it. And, um, but felt bad about that. Like a good Christian. So kudos for the shame and.
00:15:53
Speaker
I remember always being like somewhat like oh I gotta like no I was always I've mentioned this before on the podcast anyway But I was always nervous when I thought there were people who might not like keep the faith and I was like It always made me a little bit nervous I was like I hope my friend doesn't lose his way because they would really be a major bummer if my best friend burned in hell for all the turn
00:16:18
Speaker
That dynamic worked really well because Sam was my spiritual leader. He was my mentor in life. I looked up to him as the great Christian man that I wanted everyone to believe I was. He was the most legit, too legit to quit even still.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, even still, just a different kind of non-quitting. It depends on who you talk to, though. Yeah, I know. And it depends on when I'm talking. The amount of times that I don't know what to say when I'm trying to explain to people, it's like, I think I'm still a Christian. Sometimes it's like, I'm a Christian still. Other times it's like, I guess I'm like a Christian? I don't know. And then other times it's like, I don't know. It gets weird. I feel like it's super hard to pin it down. And it depends on the day.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's like your name was written in the book of life, and God is trying furiously to erase it, but it's still just kind of like the lingering shadow of it's there. Just to say if that counts or not. I don't know. It doesn't. I guess. According to Pastor Mike. Sorry, Pastor Mike.
00:17:40
Speaker
He's never going to live it. We set him up for that so bad and he'll never live it down and I'll never stop bringing it up. So thanks for the playback on that joke. Jesse, yours is out now, right? You got white out over your name. Yeah, I've been scrubbed from the book. But not before I traded it in for a one-way ticket to hell.
00:18:09
Speaker
But you were for a while, you know, trying to trying to keep it together. You attended multiple youth groups. Yeah, I would say around. So so I was homeschooled K through eighth grade.
Struggles with Faith and OCD
00:18:22
Speaker
And around freshman year of high school is when I was let loose into the world. And it
00:18:33
Speaker
just completely disrupted all my beliefs. And I tried furiously to come back many times. Probably there was a good two years where I just said, I don't believe any of this stuff, I'm out. And then,
00:18:57
Speaker
around like junior year in high school, I'd started coming back to it and come to find out that a lot of that was just OCD and just thinking and just like trauma, just bubbling up saying like, you know, you have to live your life this certain way or else like everybody's gonna think you're
00:19:27
Speaker
just a fraud, you're on the wrong path. And that was about the time where I started going to like two youth groups a week, two church services a week, just trying to like get back to being a good Christian boy and come to find out it just, it didn't work. And I feel like that's a lot of people's story.
00:19:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, I would say I just, are you kind of, uh, like now, are you kind of like, uh, are you in it? I feel like my impression has always been that you're kind of like me and that you're just not really interested in like spirituality and stuff now, or is that inaccurate? Uh, no, that's pretty accurate. You, you've kind of.
00:20:26
Speaker
coined the definition like an apathetic agnostic. And I think that fits really well to what I believe. I think there are a lot of times where I think like, yeah, there definitely could be something out there, could be something real, but then I just don't really care enough to look into it further. It just doesn't,
00:20:57
Speaker
It's it's just not what I'm into. As a once in a while you have like a moment. I remember going to one of the top ranking members in the Lord's army. I remember going to the some of the youth groups that you would go to like, I mean, I liked that stuff. And I was like, Oh, I'm interested. Like he was my friend. So I was like, interested in whatever he was, like, was working for him. But they had a
00:21:25
Speaker
This is where the things, this is where things crossed a little bit. And I realized that we had slightly different understandings of what was, uh, what was legit. And, uh, one of the youth groups that he was going to, or the only one I ever really went to with them was they had a woman youth pastor. I wasn't sure about that. You know, I let it go because I was just glad that my friend had found something that was working for him.
00:21:53
Speaker
And I want to thank him because for me being able to accompany him there to check in and make sure he was on the right path, all of this is like super subconscious too. We never had these conversations at the time. It was just, we had certain thoughts about what was going on and what was true and what was real. And it's like, I wasn't really like at the time, like, let me, let me be the spiritual police. Let me
Acquire the Fire Experiences
00:22:22
Speaker
try to like,
00:22:22
Speaker
make sure he doesn't lose his way. It was more like, you know, I just believed that X, Y, and Z was so correct that it was important to me to be a resource for anyone who was maybe having questions or something like that. It wasn't like, I don't know, I didn't just graft onto anyone that I thought might be like, not so sure about the way we grew up. Our friendship wasn't based on that or anything like that, but
00:22:48
Speaker
Anyway, but going to this youth group, uh, you know, they were taking a trip to an acquire the fire and I got introduced to acquire a fire through Jess. I never would have had that experience. And that was life-changing in ways that I didn't expect. I'd like to hear your perspective of what acquire the fire meant to you. Well, I, even at my like most like conservative evangelical, I left that acquire the fire being like,
00:23:18
Speaker
This is a little much. We had brought two of our non-Christian friends hoping they'd get saved. And one of them we're still friends with and he doesn't remember the experience at all. He blocked it out completely. That's like his brain recognized that as a traumatic experience and erased it completely. So if he went to another quiet fire, he'd probably experienced some sort of really interesting re-traumatization.
00:23:47
Speaker
I wouldn't mind bringing him to one just to see if he like short circuited or something. But the message was require the fire and all nighter. It was like a two day thing, right? Yeah, it was Yeah, it was like, it was like a weekend thing. And I think it went from like, midday or morning to, you know, like a 10 11 at night. And then the youth groups that traveled
00:24:14
Speaker
to these events. Usually there was a host church where you would all go back to and sleep on the floor or something. At least that was the case for the time that we went. I just remember sleeping in a church basement. I don't have a lot of memory of the traveling to and from and how that all worked out, but their message at that one was all about
00:24:39
Speaker
It was all about not wearing secular. I mean, yes, sexual purity. No. Well, I think that probably, that definitely came up. No, it was in the secular music. That was part of it. It was all about not wearing secular brands. So like, yeah. Yeah. If you had like an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt, you should get rid of that and get like a. And go buy and acquire the fire shirt for $45 at the merch table. Wasn't there a Christian, like didn't they take the, a breadcrumb and Fitch was the Christian one.
00:25:12
Speaker
Oh, no. I don't remember that. I thought I was going to struggle through that memory, and I didn't. I'm glad that came to me. A breadcrumb and fish was in the Abercrombie and Fitch logo, like font style. That was pretty cringy. But to get rid of that. I never went to acquire the fire. Just set up their merch table like right at the exit. No, there were like
00:25:41
Speaker
30 merch tables. It was like in an arena and there were just merch tables everywhere. I probably went to like four throughout my whole youth group career. Every single year, it was the same thing. It was don't have sex before marriage. If you listen to
00:26:09
Speaker
Blink 182, listen to ReliantK instead. Be in the world, not of the world. And this is how you do it by buying our merch instead of wearing Abercrombie and Fitch. It was a stretch, man. Like how they really tried to get you to abide by Christian culture. It was...
00:26:37
Speaker
They took some far leaps, but I mean, for a time, people like me and myself included really bought into it. Yeah. I think they always get big bands to play. It was so par for the chorus type of outreach event, too. It was like, bring your friends. It's really cool, because we're going to have music.
00:27:01
Speaker
And they would always like what skillet was probably there like a number of times. Yeah. I want to say that. I want to say skillet might've been there the year I went, but we weren't even into music like that. Like the music I remember just was kind of just like, we, I remember standing there and being like, uh, but I also remember specifically like the praise and worship music aspect of it.
00:27:25
Speaker
because our non-Christian friends who came with us were just standing there probably like, what the fuck is going on? They hadn't ever really been to a church as far as I know. They didn't have that experience. It wasn't like they came from religious families. So for them to be there, they were definitely considered a strength. I remember them thinking it was weird at the time, despite the fact that one of our friends doesn't have any memory of it. So I think that's
00:27:52
Speaker
I mean, it didn't leave an impression. It didn't scare him into salvation as they attempted to do. I feel like Nautilus is like a good band for that. Oh, yeah. Maybe that would have been a good band. I don't know if they were there. I honestly, there's like, there's a lot of, probably all of the like good stuff and fun stuff has been blocked out of my memory. And just the traumatizing parts have stuck around.
00:28:21
Speaker
But just like Cutlass and Zoey Girl headlining or something. Just like the most bland, white bread, horrible music. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was that was that was it. Do you guys remember Stellar Cart? Yeah, I don't remember any of their songs. Same. I know. I remember refusing to listen to them based on the fact that they had the shittiest band name ever. So stupid.
00:28:52
Speaker
So one thing that's also different that I'm going to make Jesse talk about is he came from like a name it and claim it background too.
Impact of Prosperity Gospel Teachings
00:29:04
Speaker
So I didn't have any of that prosperity gospel stuff. I kind of had this idea. I remember actually even talking to him a couple of times about it. You know how in like weird conversations that are probably irrelevant in the grand scheme of things like you'll just remember clearly. I remember having like Jesse and I went to a purple door
00:29:22
Speaker
festival in Pennsylvania once. Actually, did we go two years in our mood? Or do we only go one year together? I don't remember. But I remember having a conversation about those types of things. We were just sitting on some wall, having a conversation about whether or not spiritual gifts continued to exist in today's world, like speaking in tongues and laying hands on people and faith feelings and things like that. Because that was his background.
00:29:51
Speaker
That's way different than the background I came from. So I remember those crossroads, but from our conversations, Jesse, those have certainly had a lot to do with some of the issues that have presented themselves as an adult. Yeah, it's really funny the things that you remember that are completely wiped from my memory.
00:30:18
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I, I grew up in a very charismatic church environment, um, which is kind of weird for New England. Like you think, you think like saw that, like then in the South, you know, you have all the speaking in tongues and stuff, but it was pretty alive and well here in Massachusetts. And, um, yeah, a lot of like.
00:30:46
Speaker
If you want that Rolex watch, claim it. God's going to give it to you. If you want that Mercedes Benz, just a lot of prosperity, health and wealth, gospel, a lot of laying on of hands, healing, people passing out in the spirit, people running around, speaking in tongues, yelling, screaming. I witnessed my
00:31:11
Speaker
mom do that and like close family friends, just acting like complete lunatics and church services, um, which is like deeply terrifying. Like looking back on it, like when I was growing up in it, I just thought this is great. This is normal. Everybody should do this, but now looking back on it, it's like, it was weird shit, man. It was really weird.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah, I can't imagine like my dad doing that. Like I don't I don't know what I would do if I had to watch him do something like that. Yeah, I always think about that when I see like those Benny hand video or even the what the fuck like
00:31:56
Speaker
COVID-19 guy, Kenneth Copeland. Watching him do that stuff, whenever you watch those showmen go off, I'm past the point of knowing whether or not they've deluded themselves into believing that it's true or if they just can't let go. If they believed it at one point and then as it just snowballed, they're like, I don't really have a choice but to just keep
00:32:26
Speaker
going into this, this arm, like I have no, I think they're psychopaths. Yeah. I think, I think you're, if you're rising to that level, like you're the, you're the type of psychopath that it doesn't, like there is no believe it or don't believe it. Like you believe what's convenient for what you need out of people. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably a lot. There's probably a lot of truth to that.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think we ever went to see Kenneth Copeland speak, but there were a number of like, bigger name traveling preachers at the time, you know, through the 90s and early 2000s that we would, you know, they would, they would travel around to different churches in the area, and they would
00:33:11
Speaker
they would speak and people would come from all over to come hear them speak, this amazing message of health, wealth, prosperity, all that. And we would go. We would go to those church services. We would travel an hour or two to go out to these church services. And there was always a special offering at the end of the service that
00:33:40
Speaker
You know, if you, if you want to be blessed, if you want to, if you want your blessing to come back 10 fold, you know, give, give what your heart is leading, you know, what God is leading you to give. And it's just, it was just a scam. Like I watched my, my parents, I watched my friend's parents just give away, just piss away money to these mega preachers that are, you know, buying private jets and shit.
00:34:11
Speaker
only to watch our people's net financial status never change. It was just like, it stayed the same. It wasn't like- Yeah. Of course. We didn't grow up in any sort of wealth or anything. God never delivered on that promise of wealth. And that's the scam.
00:34:31
Speaker
I think I can kind of see where people get caught in that, because it's a similar sort of motivation as to buying lottery tickets. We all know that. Yeah, but you need one little good thing to happen, and then you say, oh, well, the return on investment is great. And then you just keep doing it. You're like, oh, because that's what they give you is if you're faithful with a little bit,
00:34:59
Speaker
you know, God is going to be faithful with a lot. So you give a little bit and then something good happens by chance. And then you say, well, next time I'm going to give triple that and I'm going to get triple the blessing. And it just, it doesn't really work out that way. It's like you want so bad to see it.
00:35:21
Speaker
You know, and you think about like, okay, buying lottery tickets, like buying lottery tickets, you get two things. You get this long shot at winning some money, right? But most of what you get is like,
00:35:36
Speaker
the prospect of life-changing event. That's what people buy it for. A lottery ticket is like a gift certificate for hope. It's like for the split second that I have this ticket and I either, you know, however long it takes me to scratch it off or I have to wait for them to read the Powerball numbers on their news or whatever, like I have this window of time where there's a possibility that this could change my life right here.
00:36:06
Speaker
And it's like this little flutter of hope
Critique of Prosperity Gospel
00:36:09
Speaker
and anxiousness. But I feel like a lottery ticket shuts down so quick, right? You scratch it off, or they read the numbers off. You didn't win anything, and it's done. It goes in the garbage. All of that feeling is out the window. The Prosperity Gospel stuff plays on the same emotions, but it's something that never has a stop point.
00:36:31
Speaker
It's like you said, you want so bad to find the good thing that's happened to you as a result. You need it to be a good thing. You need to see how God's blessed you because you did the right thing. You feel good about yourself forgiving and then you get to feel good like there's a chance that God's just gonna bring some magnificent blessing on you and it just keeps going and going and going.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's like if you spend $5 on a lottery ticket and you win back $7, you get that hope that something good is happening. So you take that $7 and then you buy more lottery tickets. And I don't know, like you said, with lottery tickets, it's right away. You might lose all of it or you might win back $10. Then you take that $10. But with the prosperity gospel thing, it's just like,
00:37:21
Speaker
It's either, well, you just got to keep waiting because, you know, God's got something big in the works for you. Our time's not God's time. Or it's, wow, Satan stole your blessing. Oh, wow. I never heard stuff like that. That was a huge sheep. Satan stole your blessing.
00:37:42
Speaker
God's gonna return that sevenfold. He just like swoops it in, scoops it up real quick, right before it lands on it. That was a convenient thing. God has built you a mansion and Satan has snuck in in the night and cut all the cock-a-piping out of you. And then took a shit in your toilet and didn't watch it before. He upper-decked your blessing toilet. Your golden toilet is upper-decked.
00:38:15
Speaker
Satan rubbed a booger on the wall above your heavenly urinal. It's funny because I remember even though I didn't subscribe to I quote unquote didn't subscribe to health and wealth stuff. I'll never forget my first year at Liberty.
Prayers for Revival at Liberty University
00:38:31
Speaker
Like, and this was after I started was it must have been after I started going to that prayer group that I had mentioned in the past where it's like pray for big things. Man, I remember all the times that I tried like
00:38:45
Speaker
I would every morning wake up and like for a long time, fervently praying for quote unquote revival on the campus. Whatever the fuck that meant. I just knew that like that was what people were praying for. Like, and that it was like, you know, I was, I was a fairly self-righteous person without realizing it, of course. But judging everybody who, who lived in sin and drank before they were 21 and got drunk or had sex or smoked weed or whatever it was, I had a million things that,
00:39:14
Speaker
made the list of why. And I abstained and I was such a rule follower that it was easy for me to abstain. I shouldn't, I don't know if easy is the right word, but I just had the resolve to do it. And that's, there's probably a million reasons why, but I just remember like all these prayers that I had about like everyone just, basically I was probably praying for everyone to be just like me and care just like me and think just like, so like,
00:39:44
Speaker
And for like, I mean, this went on for months and months and months. And I was like, I remember really questioning at that time whether or not like, this is not gonna happen or it's not, right? Maybe I can, like, I think if I do this and enough other people do it, we can change God's mind and something magical is gonna happen. And for me, I think I was really looking for validation. Like if I prayed for that, and then I saw that, it would be like, that's what I need to know for fucking sure that I am right about everything.
00:40:15
Speaker
Did you watch recess back in the day? Yes, God damn, that was a good show. Did you identify with Randall? Which one was Randall? He wasn't the bard kid, was he? He was the one like this who went, Miss Finster, Miss Finster. Oh.
00:40:39
Speaker
I wasn't a snitch. So no, I want if there was anything I wasn't it was like people apparently felt safe around me because I would be like the one like one of the few kids maybe the only kids sometimes who would just be hanging out like there's always probably a couple and that's what you get for being in a Christian school where kids weren't always drinking but even at the party house and be like, I would just be hanging out not drinking not smoking just
00:41:10
Speaker
good straight-laced kid and people didn't mind me being there because Liberty was a weird place like parties were scary at Liberty because every once in a while a kid would get dragged to it and then they'd snitch and then everyone in the party could get kicked out of school as they went to
Pressure to Evangelize
00:41:25
Speaker
Liberty. So like you really weren't allowed to be at parties and you wouldn't really know about them unless people trusted you. Did you ever think to yourself like I'm in the world but not of the world? Oh, yes.
00:41:40
Speaker
I was the king of that. I think it's easy, especially now, to despise the kind of self-righteous things that some of these people do. Maybe it was Dirty Rotten Church Kids this week posted a meme that was like,
00:42:01
Speaker
Christians, I'll pray for you." And then it said the prayer and it was like, I hope that people like Joshua Harris and so and so experienced the full wrath of God that will guide them back to like basically playing for them to be punished. I think sometimes it's like I have a little bit of sympathy for those people because I honestly think a lot of them don't understand how like self-righteous and unbearable they're being.
00:42:29
Speaker
I mean, not that guy, but normal people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why do you think we invited our high school friends to acquire the fire? We wanted them to be like us. We didn't care about their happiness or like what they believed or anything. We just, we were so ingrained in the lie that everybody had to be on our team.
00:42:54
Speaker
that we were recruiting for their team. I think we were just so convinced that our message and way of life was the only way to truly be happy. And maybe we weren't concerned about their happiness. We were just soaked. We were told that there is no real path to joy and true happiness. The church loved to delineate between joy and happiness, right? And you're happy when you're coming inside a vagina, but the joy sucks.
00:43:22
Speaker
Boy, howdy. I love that. That was like such a.
00:43:33
Speaker
Consistent message all the way along and that that's I've talked about it before but like that's part of what Eventually, like maybe start scratching my head was like they're constantly selling you this idea That like oh people around you look happy, but they're dying inside. They're empty their life is meaningless like there's no sense of purpose outside of outside of the church Yeah, did you? Did you ever?
00:44:02
Speaker
experience any sort of happiness or joy, like believing that? Um, I don't know. I mean, that's a good question. I feel like what I remember is all the times that I didn't and felt like it was my fault that I wasn't like I wasn't doing it right. And so that I didn't feel that I mean,
00:44:30
Speaker
I feel like those memories stick out in my head more, but I have to think that there was some semblance of that, at least part of the time. Yeah, I think for me, while I was going through it and just fully buying into everything, I just had a smile plastered on my face. Like, yeah, I'm joyful. I have the joy of the Lord in my heart.
00:45:01
Speaker
Everything's great, even though I'm not truly happy, I'm depressed, anxiety, all these things. It's like, I have Jesus and everything's great. Looking back on it being a few years removed, it's like none of that stuff brought me joy. None of it. And while I was going through it and trying to put on a fake smile and say,
00:45:27
Speaker
you know, convince my friends who weren't Christians or even my friends who were Christians that I'm, you know, I'm full of joy. I'm doing great. It wasn't real. Like none of it really brought any true joy. Like it was just, it just wasn't there. And I think I just kind of
00:45:55
Speaker
Believed what you know, my pastors were telling me is like, you know, if you just stick with it you just keep going like you'll get through this Jesus will deliver you through this and That's just not the case You know, I almost feel like there's something going on there between like there's like internal focus and external focus and
Authenticity in Faith Practices
00:46:21
Speaker
And the internal focus is the hard work of actually examining how you feel about these things, actually examining your relationship with those things. And that was stuff that was hard and that I think I didn't really get a lot of positivity out of.
00:46:41
Speaker
Because I never felt secure. I never felt like I was getting what everybody else was getting out of the message, out of the praise music, out of any of that stuff. Yeah, I can relate to that 100%. Looking back on it, being really removed from it and just looking at it from an outside perspective, I realized now, I never believed any of it. I never got
00:47:09
Speaker
none of it ever truly touched me. It was a goal that I was working so hard to achieve just because it was what was, I guess, expected of me. It was the only culture I knew.
00:47:34
Speaker
after just kind of taking some time away from it, I'm realizing all that work was completely fruitless. I never really believed any of the stuff. I remember sitting in church services and watching people during praise and worship, they would raise their hands, they would be singing, they would be seemingly whether they
00:48:03
Speaker
we're truly or not, we're really into it. And I was just sitting there being like, this doesn't affect me at all. This is just bad music. And, you know, like really simplistic, bad music where you play the chorus 14 times in a row and you claim that the spirit's leading you to do that. But I don't know, man, it just none of it
00:48:33
Speaker
ever really truly affected me. And I think I finally got to try to get into it. Oh, yeah, I try. I try to like, put your hands up and stuff, then you just felt uncomfortable. Like you felt like an imposter. Yeah, I tried hard to get into it. Like I that is one thing that I will say is like, I, I gave Christianity like,
00:49:02
Speaker
the biggest effort I could. And it just, I never believed it.
Children Absorbing Beliefs
00:49:09
Speaker
Like I just, I thought that was what was expected of me. So I claimed to believe it, but it just wasn't, it wasn't true. It wasn't true for me. I think what can be weird too about the idea of belief is like when you grow up in it,
00:49:31
Speaker
and you're not really exposed. Well, you ended up being more exposed to another worldview just simply because you went to high school. But there is this like- Which is every parent's fear. Yeah. Is that you'll get out into the world and they'll, well, every Christian parent's fear is that they will actually corrupt you, which I don't know. Maybe there is some truth to that, but yeah, I just call it being real.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah. It's when you, when you're given this message your entire life, it is a kit. Kids just believe whatever they're told from their authority. So like, I mean, naturally my kids are going to believe the things that I think for the longest time. I don't even have to tell them they're true. I can just be myself and they will absorb that and believe that it's true. And when they encounter anything that says something differently, they're just going to recognize it as a falsehood.
00:50:27
Speaker
whether or not it is or not, that's how they're going to perceive it. And I think that's what's weird for us who were in Christian bubbles for so long, like you and I, Casey, where we went, it was like a just church, Christian school, homeschool within a Christian environment, Christian college. You know, it wasn't until after that that any of us started really reconsidering and my reconsidering looked different than yours.
00:50:54
Speaker
Uh, but we didn't really feel super free to do that until after we were. And I left that bubble into that bubble, but you just get to a point in your life where you're like, Oh, I'm allowed to just explore other options and read things that might not be considered. Okay. And come to new conclusions. So you just do, and you're not looking for new conclusions. Like that's, what's funny about anyone. We're all just coasting through life, trying to find like a,
00:51:24
Speaker
way for it to make sense of it and make our way to this world. Like I wasn't like, you know what, I think I want to just believe liberal things now. Like I didn't just decide to be a liberal Christian. It was just a path that was like, this is what makes, when I observe the world, this is what makes sense to me. And ironically, it looks similar to the way that other people might live regardless of their faith, but it's just like, I don't know, experience draws new conclusions for sure.
00:51:55
Speaker
Like going back to the subject of like joy, what did you get joy out of those things? You know, out of that stuff. Like I think, and I wonder, okay, so this is something I haven't thought about before, but I was teasing out as we were talking here.
Apologetics and Internal Doubts
00:52:10
Speaker
It's like, there's a big, I think there's a lot of kids in that
00:52:17
Speaker
age group, you know, and I know I was in that where you kind of get sucked into the apologetic side of things, you know, learning all the arguments to defend the right view of the viewpoint of thing. And I feel like that's more of an external focus. Like that's you looking outward and picking out what's wrong with other people's beliefs with full confidence that your memorized message is correct. Right. And I feel like that external focus
00:52:45
Speaker
maybe offered more joy and purpose than looking inward and saying, do I really believe this? This doesn't ring true to me. Why is that and how do I fix it or how do I deal with that? I feel like when you're constantly looking around you and saying,
00:53:05
Speaker
you know, what's wrong with the world over there is that these kids are having sex before marriage and these kids are drinking and the Catholics believe this and that's totally wrong. Like those apologetics points where you're just like learning arguments are almost more fulfilling for at least for people like me anyways, that wasn't feeling it on the internal level than that, like the introspective part of growing as a Christian.
00:53:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think people just mistake the feeling. Everyone, every human, everywhere at any point in time loves the feeling of being right. It makes you feel so fucking good. And I think that's just what's mistaken for joy. So you dig deep into apologetics and you're like, I felt fucking amazing when I had all the right things to say and that person looked like an idiot. Like, I don't know, that's why I loved apologetics and made me feel good. I was able to convince myself
00:54:03
Speaker
Also that the things that I believed about it were true in a way that just didn't necessarily add up. I didn't have to add up. It was just like, let me just set them up and knock them down and then I'll feel good about myself. That is, that's a very good way of putting. I think for me, the joy of being right is better than the joy of trying to grapple with the fact that like you don't have any sort of emotional connection to the things that you're talking about.
Faith as an Anchor in Life
00:54:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think with Christians is they just have like a certainty anchor where they can latch onto this one thing that gives them hope. Where for me, the thing that kind of brought me out into a broader perspective of joy or happiness or whatever is I realized that
00:55:04
Speaker
everybody's going through the same shit, whether you're Christian or non-Christian. Everybody's dealing with financial issues, depression, mental health issues, anything and everything. Everybody's really going through pretty much the same stuff. But the Christian culture just has that kind of directs you back to, well,
00:55:34
Speaker
Like, yeah, everybody has things going wrong in their life, but you have Jesus, you have joy, you have this certainty. And it, everybody kind of was the same. The only thing, like everybody would complain about the same issues. Everybody would have the same gripes. Everybody would vent about the same things. And the only difference was
00:56:03
Speaker
was Christians would just tag it with, but God is faithful. That's the only difference. It doesn't change the fact that you need to go to therapy or you need to- Get a new job. Get a new job or do any of these things to progress your life. The only difference was non-Christians maybe just learn how to
00:56:32
Speaker
deal with stuff on their own or found their way out of situations in a different way. But Christians were just like, God's going to get me through this. But in reality, Christians just maybe took a little bit longer to figure out that they just had to get their shit straight by themselves.
Breaking Shame in Youth Group
00:56:54
Speaker
Dude, I remember being like early teenage years and stuff. Like we heard so many messages about like lust and sexual sin and stuff like that. And I don't know that it was necessarily like taught this way, but the way I interpreted what was being taught was like, if you are having trouble with these things, there's something wrong with you.
00:57:18
Speaker
Like Christians don't have those feelings. And I remember like, it was like years before, like, I remember my friend and I kind of like, we confided in each other that we both like struggled with.
00:57:34
Speaker
lust and whatnot, you know? Dude, I remember, I was like, I couldn't believe that there was another person in our group that was having trouble with those things. And I was like dumbfounded. I'm like, oh, thank God I found somebody else that is. You know, meanwhile, everyone, every dude in the youth group is just beating it raw.
00:58:03
Speaker
I have my, I'm going to throw up with my younger brother on blast real quick and I know he won't care for sure the story. But he was, you know, my brother had to say my younger brother doesn't consider himself a Christian anymore. But he went through all the same stuff like he went to did youth group did all the Bible studies, everything was like youth group, boys Bible study, church, everything and he was trying to connect with it. And
00:58:27
Speaker
he was doing this with one of the studies he was doing with a bunch of other boys. I don't know if he was in high school at the time. I think he must have been in high school at the time. And I remember hearing he might have been the one telling me I don't remember but it was just like, he was the only one there was how many boys there all of them in high school. He was the only one that was just like, you know what, fuck it. Sometimes I look at porn. And everyone was just like, quiet for a minute. And then it was like,
00:58:54
Speaker
Boom, floodgates opened. Every single kid there was like, oh, I guess sometimes I do too. And then they were actually, and what's funny is like, I don't know what it was that made my brother feel like he could just say those things. And he's still kind of like that where he's always been able to just be truthful about who he is. And that's a fantastic quality to have and one that usually gets squashed out of kids who grew up in evangelicalism.
00:59:17
Speaker
for real. But it's just all it took was honesty. And you know what was funny is like, that conversation, despite the fact that, you know, I would, and we would all disagree that like, these kids need to feel horrible about that. It's just, it allowed them a lot of freedom. Because even once it came up, like the youth pastor at the time, he knew everybody was but you can't just tell everybody they are like, Come on, man, we know, we know what you did. But once they talked about it, it was like,
00:59:47
Speaker
and even kind of reduce some of the shame that came with it. It's just like, yeah, this is all really normal stuff. Of course there was still the message of like, you know, just there's a way to seek God, maybe you won't do it as much anymore. But it really actually like allowed people to feel like just better and just because they could talk about it. And it's just, I think that's one of the problems is like, we, there's so much repression and refusal to talk about it, you know?
01:00:15
Speaker
Sam, do you remember when I confessed to you? So there was a time where I was done with Christianity and I was going to make my way in the world. And this was in high school, I had a girlfriend, we were having
01:00:41
Speaker
premarital sex, just horrible, horrible people. And
01:00:48
Speaker
And in that time, so that's a whole fucking story that would take forever to tell.
Confession of Premarital Sex
01:00:57
Speaker
But in that time that I was dating her, I ended up coming back to the faith and started going to youth group and everything. Started bringing her. Started bringing her, tried to convert her. That was a lot of fun.
01:01:12
Speaker
caused a lot of conflict in her family, really great times. But we, you know, for some reason, a 16 or 17 year old boy just couldn't keep it in his pants once he got a taste. And I just started feeling so guilty, just like keeping me up at night guilt about my sexual sin that
01:01:41
Speaker
it was burning a hole in my heart and I had to tell somebody. So obviously I go to my spiritual mentor, Sam Chippen, and confessed and made it this like, to me it was this like huge emotional thing like, we're having sex. And I don't know, I don't know what you felt about that, Sam. We never really talked about it afterwards, but you know, I felt a little bit better
01:02:11
Speaker
I got that burden of sin off my chest. I'd like to hear your. I remember that specifically because we were watching. I had a giant bedroom. Me and my brother shared it. We had a couch right in the middle of it and then facing a TV. It was a pullout couch. I remember
01:02:36
Speaker
laying down. We pulled out the couch into a bed. We're just like laying down on it, watching a movie. Let's see this. I remember this is the pillow talk. This is the pillow talk comes in. He like rolls over and looks at me. No, I don't know exactly what the specifics were, but it was I remember Sam. Do you know what a mountaineer is? I'm shooting more ropes than a mountaineer.
01:03:04
Speaker
I remember him telling me, I really remember being like, I don't remember showing a lot of shock. It was just like, oh, oh. I'll pray for you, brother. I don't even. It's like, what's it like? Yeah. Can I try? Can I come? Can I just watch? I know, man. I really don't remember. I just remember being like, well, here's another one who didn't make it. No.
01:03:33
Speaker
I really just, I just remember the conversation distinctly, but I don't actually remember much of my reaction. But the fact that you don't remember being like, oh boy, and giving you like a shame message is kind of cool. I feel like at that point, even in my life, I knew like, this is what most people are doing. And, you know, yeah, there's probably some sort of pray about a thing or
01:03:57
Speaker
I really can't even imagine what I said. I wish I could remember. I wish you remembered. I don't remember what you said. You could have said nothing. Just the fact that I was able to relieve that burden of sin off my chest was enough. Confession. That's why Catholics do confession for the amount of time that evangelical shit on Catholics.
01:04:25
Speaker
Everybody loves that. Everyone wants to find that person. They can just like spill their guts too. And you just do it and you walk away and you're like, oh, okay, I'm good for another week, I guess. So when you guys, like when you guys first started having sex, were you out of the faith at that point in time?
Religious Guilt in Relationships
01:04:46
Speaker
Yeah, you can't have sex unless you are so right. I mean, even if you claim it, you know, but so did you have like feelings of guilt after the first time or? No, I would say like it took a couple weeks or months or something for that to settle in. And then it it's it's a really weird way that it happened. It was kind of like a weird panic attack kind of thing where
01:05:14
Speaker
Like all the crushing guilt just came down at once and there was no way to get rid of it. It was a fun time of, uh, of life, but, um, and that's, you know, that's why I started going to youth group and church and stuff like multiple times, like after going to therapy and dealing with it, like an adult come to find out, it was just like a bunch of anxiety and OCD and religious trauma and stuff.
01:05:41
Speaker
It's cool the things that you find out when you're like 30 that you should have known when you were like 16 years old. But yeah, there was there was an event, a personal event where shit hit the fan. And I just felt completely guilty. I told her, you know, we sat down, I told her we had to stop. I told her like,
01:06:05
Speaker
I can't live my life this way and I can't date you unless you live your life the way that I'm called to live my life. And it was stressful and it was super immature. After she put her finger in your butt. Yeah. Thanks, Sam. I feel like my understanding of having sex at that point, I would have been like concerned that I got a disease.
01:06:36
Speaker
Like I didn't correlate that with like having different sexual partners. I just thought that like sometimes having sex gives you diseases. Yeah, I did get a disease, the disease of sin. That's one you can't take an antibiotic for.
01:06:58
Speaker
We forgot about the conclusions in that song. Just sing a song with your hands in the air. After our conversation, you were like, I need you to be my accountability partner. So every single time you guys hung out, you would drive to my house after and I have to smell your dick. I don't know if we're going to put this one out. I'm going for it.
01:07:26
Speaker
Yeah, what is it? Some of the some of the creative ways that we we tried to abstain from having sex was, which is like, it's so it's funny for me, probably not funny for her or anybody who's not a Christian to think about it this way. But like, I'm telling her it's like my beliefs that like we cannot have sex. She does. She doesn't have any of these hang ups at all.
01:07:56
Speaker
So like looking back at it, I'm like, Oh my God, I was a complete psycho for suggesting any of this, but like we would.
01:08:09
Speaker
I mean, just all the typical Christian things, like all the things that I heard, you know, I took advice from youth pastors and like all this stuff, like, well, don't hang out together and, you know, go hang out in public or hang out with friends instead and never hang out by yourselves. And like, of course none of that happened. But like, I like, I don't know, I gave it a good try for maybe a couple of weeks or so.
01:08:38
Speaker
A real good stint that you know, I feel like pat myself on the back for that one. I think like, you know, we talked about like, being angry and having to work through like, your anger and stuff as you as you leave the faith or leave your version your old version of the faith to your new version or whatever. Like, I think one of the things
01:09:06
Speaker
that makes me the most angry and there's really no one to blame. I mean, it would be silly for me to blame the church or whatever for how I interpretive messages, but just like the amount of stress that that
01:09:21
Speaker
those like ridiculous beliefs caused April and I during like our dating times. And like, it was a time where we should have just been focused on like having fun and getting to know each other. And it should have just been a great time. And there was always like this black cloud over your head of like, you know, a lot of what we're, you know, we're getting dangerously close to the line, you know? Yeah. And what's the amount of, I mean, you just make them up as you go.
01:09:51
Speaker
I mean, the line is technically vaginal sex, but like you honestly are like, but kissing leads to it. So we probably shouldn't make out for Oh, well, then you make out you're like, I'm definitely not going to touch your boobs. And then it's you just keep making up lines. And then feeling bad when you cross them and then redrawing them, but still feeling bad. Like it doesn't feel better when you redraw the line. But you can't go back. It's just so strange. It's a weird thing to experience.
Sam's First Kiss and Firsts
01:10:22
Speaker
That's at least one good, one like really good memory out of the whole thing is like the first time we kissed was on the railroad tracks on a right by campus. You know, you could kind of like go down by the side of the campus on the hill there. Yeah. Like looking down towards Walmart and all that. And so I remember like we went down there and we were like sitting and talking and stuff and we ended up kissing and that was the first time I'd ever kissed a girl.
01:10:47
Speaker
at all. So I remember, I had to get back for curfew. And I remember getting back from curfew and Ryan's like, what? What do you, what? And he's like, what's wrong with you? I was like, I don't know. What are you talking about? And he's like,
01:11:10
Speaker
Did you guys kiss? And I was like, yes. In typical Ryan fashion, he's just like, oh yeah, that's my boy. That's funny. You know what's funny is making, there's obviously a lot of negative aspects of what that can do. Like, oh, like holding off to do everything for this long.
01:11:37
Speaker
In some ways, it makes all those first experiences that much more explosive in your brain. You're just like, why? Because you finally did it. I never had a problem with kiss. I didn't really feel like there was any need to abstain from that kind of stuff. I think I didn't internalize. That's a slippery slope, Sam. Yeah, I know.
01:11:59
Speaker
There was a lot of stuff that I was just like, look where you are now. I know. Yeah. Married with two kids to the same person, to my high school girlfriend. Yeah. The Lord blessed me. Okay. That's just like, come on. I was faithful to God and did a successful marriage. Did your moms try to get you to read? I kissed dating goodbye.
01:12:24
Speaker
No, I feel like I had like a feeling that that book was out there. But like, that wasn't popular within my circle. Because they were already that was like, we've been saying this, dude. Come on, Josh. This is our message. We we made this. No, I had it like, my mom just kind of like dropped it around the house.
01:12:46
Speaker
they got it probably like the homeschool convention. I don't know if people know what homeschool conventions are, but they're cool. And so she brought that home and was like, this is it. Here's this book, like, you guys should read it. And we're like, Okay, and then we didn't. And it never really came up again. I don't know if my parents ever read it or thought like, this is, this is right, or anything. But it wasn't, I got that message.
Skepticism Towards 'I Kissed Dating Goodbye'
01:13:11
Speaker
Like, I don't think I would have read anything in that book that I wasn't hearing already. So I was just
01:13:17
Speaker
I just remember when I got that book, I was like, I don't think I agree with that.
01:13:22
Speaker
I didn't feel weird about it. So I just, we just kind of all ended up ignoring it as a family. Yeah, I think that's kind of what happened too. Like I remember my mom when I when I started going to a public secular high school, my mom giving me that book and being like, you should really read this. And I think I read the back of it.
01:13:47
Speaker
and just the overview of what it was about and thinking, this is total bullshit. But I didn't say that to my mom, obviously. I was just like, yeah, I don't think I agree with this book. And I never read it. And we just moved on. But she tried. See, I think the problem was they were going for this cool look for the cover. But I think even at that time in our lives, we all knew that fedoras were fucking stupid.
01:14:15
Speaker
He's just like, this isn't the guy phone. Not our guy. Yeah. Dude. So talking about acquire the fire. So I never got to go to acquire the fire, but I did go to an all nighter
Youth Event All-Nighter Fun
01:14:33
Speaker
one time. My buddy Jesse and I went with his other youth group. Right. And I was really excited to go because his cousin was going to be there and I liked his cousin a lot.
01:14:44
Speaker
But what I distinctly remember about that all nighter was they had a pool. It was almost like a college campus where they did it. So we were in the rec center. And they had time periods during the night when you could go and swim in the pool and stuff. And it was surprisingly, I don't think it was segregated. It was just like girls had to wear one pieces and that was it. What about modest tankinis?
01:15:13
Speaker
No. His cousin on another youth group excursion wore a tankini and they made her wear a giant t-shirt over it. I'm sure she turned out just fine.
01:15:29
Speaker
No internal shame. But I remember we were, we were at the pool and we're like goofing around and stuff. And you remember, and maybe Jesse was this guy, but you remember there was always like that one kid that was like extremely hairy for his age. That was, that was Jesse. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, I nailed it. Yeah. When I met him, he had a beard and I was like, what? Really? Oh yeah. Well, there was one of those kids at the pool. I mean, he was just like, like,
01:15:59
Speaker
just a bear, you know, kind of a chubby kid, big lots of chest hair and stuff like that. And I remember he was wearing a white bathing suit. Yes, I love where this is going. Keep that up. Dude, I remember him. That's the first time. It was maybe the most notable.
01:16:24
Speaker
Dude, this kid climbs out of the pool, and I remember just seeing his dong just clapping. He might as well have been naked. I mean, it was just all on display, like the whole twig and berries. I was just like, oh my word, there's girls around.
01:16:49
Speaker
I remember I had a white bathing suit at one point, and it wasn't that obvious, but I remember being like, oh, this is a problem, and never wore it again. No one said it. It was just like me swimming at a friend's house. It was just like a couple of guys. And if it was noticeable, it was the kind of guys who would be like, I see your dick. It was high school. So it wasn't, of course, people would have said that. But I was like, it's time to retire this bad boy. He doesn't get to see the light of day again.
01:17:19
Speaker
Well, lucky for us, dude, I bet you, if you would have ended up at that's right.
Modesty and Humor at Youth Events
01:17:29
Speaker
That's exactly right. Oh man. It's all on the women to just keep us in check. Right. Yeah. Make sure they don't make sure they're not stumbling blocks for us. Horn dogs over here.
01:17:45
Speaker
The ball's in your court, ladies. Yup. Let those balls come. Oh, before we break here, on a more serious note, given the fact that Jesse, you're out of the church, and Sam just won't admit that he's out.
Humorous Doubts in Faith
01:18:10
Speaker
I'm trying, Casey.
01:18:14
Speaker
He's coming our way. Our bond is strictly on us trying to make each other just see the light. I'm sure it's hard to narrow it down to like a specific point, but looking back at it now, do you think that the point at which your faith started to fall apart was when you listened to that lady pastor?
01:18:45
Speaker
Who's this question for? Nobody, it's not a sincere question. Yes. A house built on a foundation of sand, it cannot stand. If it wasn't for that, I never would have fallen apart. I really remember feeling so like, I remember telling Jesse, I don't know if I'm on board with that, but that it wasn't like,
01:19:13
Speaker
a total deal breaker. Like I understood that there was different ways of thinking about it or interpreting this or that. But that my understanding was that women shouldn't be doing that. But it's funny because they always got like, if it was a pastor of the church, you've been like, No, no, no, no, no, no. But then it's a youth pastor. And you're like, it's just kids like, I guess they get a little bit of a pass. Like you didn't take it a real gray area.
01:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, it could have been a slight bit of nepotism there because the youth pastor was the daughter of the head pastor of the church. So he may have manipulated the scriptures there a little bit to allow her to preach to our formidable minds.
'Straight Edge' for Christ Sermon
01:20:05
Speaker
We should go back to that church. That poor lady was the only one willing to talk to a bunch of teenagers. Like no one else wanted that job. Probably not. I mean, given that one of her sermons was being straight edge for Christ. So she must have noticed that there were a couple of like hardcore kids there with exes all over their clothes and sparked an idea of like, yeah, that's a, that's a
01:20:34
Speaker
That's a great secular idea that I can adopt for Christianity. Do you props to that lady for like doing the research and finding out what straight edge was? No one in my church would have known what that was. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, straight edge was kind of cool because it gave us Christians an excuse to like.
01:20:55
Speaker
like be part of that scene and then also not drink and do drugs. That's a great point. I was too afraid to drink alcohol or smoke weed or anything. So I just adopted Straight Edge as my music scene identity and everybody was cool with it.
Engage with the Podcast Community
01:21:16
Speaker
No more questions asked. It's like just one more reason that you are better than everybody.
01:21:22
Speaker
And then at a choir fire, they tried telling T-shirts that said straight edge for Jesus. And then it was just, you know, made a lame again. All right. Well, dude, thanks for coming on. It was fun hanging out. Thank you for having me, guys. Yeah. Jesse will definitely be back at some point. So.
01:21:46
Speaker
It was a good time. Before we break, as always, if you're not in the Discord, definitely jump in there, share your story, let us know where you're coming from and what you've been through. You can find the links in all of our social media pages.
01:22:03
Speaker
And other than that, I mean, if you're enjoying the show and you can relate to it, you know, we'd appreciate it if you'd leave a review on iTunes, maybe share it with your friends. Think of it as a love offering. Yeah, make us a love offering. A faith promise offering, yes. Over and above. You still have to tithe, but it's extra.
01:22:30
Speaker
that's what I heard