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Ep. 274 – Pastor Ted Shuttlesworth Jr: This Is the Scrotiac Speaking
261 Plays6 days ago
This week we start off with a Reddit post from a incensed accountant who asks whether or not it’s her Christian duty to lose her job over processing an expense from the boss she doesn’t like. Then we’re sifting through the somewhat recent scandals of Ted Shuttlesworth Jr. – the creeper in the code! Teddy comes from a long line of charismatic doomsayers and flimflam men plaguing south Florida, where he and his wife Carolyn pastor Miracle Word Church in West Palm Beach. Ted came under fire earlier this year when he confessed to having “loose and inappropriate conversations with the opposite sex” which “culminated in sexual activity with a woman who is not my wife,” a statement which paints the rosiest picture possible of somewhere around 15 years of sexual harassment, spiritual manipulation, and adultery. Join us as we dive deeper into this sordid story!
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
humility meekness these are the keys to God exalting you to God lifting you up head and shoulders above the rest humility see pride I love this because pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall and so according to James pride makes God your opponent that's a dangerous place to be man
00:00:42
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And boy, ah we've been dodging the right out the gate current events, but um I got a couple things on my mind today.
00:00:59
Speaker
um First is, and I don't want to get into it, I just want to throw it
Current Events and Political Discussion
00:01:04
Speaker
out there. I didn't realize until like my drive home when I turned on ah some of my YouTube news sources that we were carpet bombing Iran again. so that was a fun thing to find out on my way home.
00:01:20
Speaker
I do like that because of like the War Powers resolutions, they just keep renaming their skirmishes. So that way it's just like a re-up. It's pretty creative if you're 12 years old. It's a bummer that we're here.
00:01:35
Speaker
So I don't know what they're on right now. um Some sort of Epic Fury 3.0. three point zero But I don't know what now some helicopter like helicopters keep going down and i'm I'm looking forward to like the the like like the sequel to black Hawk down where we just get some like really cool rescue mission.
00:01:57
Speaker
um I'm sure those are on the way. I bet already there's some green lit, like ran operation Epic fury movies. If we're lucky, one of them is a porn parody called ah Epic furry. That'd be cool.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, I like it. i try could get into that. I'm stuck in my cockpit. Yeah, a bunch of wolves in in like full military garb just flying helicopters and on their way down, they link up for one final fuck.
00:02:28
Speaker
That would be i mean beautiful. um But on a more positive note... um Graham Plattner won the Maine Senate race. As everybody knows, I've been going to bat for Graham Plattner amidst his scandals, and I will not apologize for it. And apparently now they will the great state of Maine because he got like 78% of the vote in the primary.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, go Maine. The smear campaign was a was horrific, horrendous. ah Additionally, um his acceptance, not like not his victory speech.
00:03:02
Speaker
You have to go listen to it, dude. Yeah, pretty good. It's like, it makes you, it makes you want to move. It makes you want to like join the cause. It makes you want to do something like it was just, it was moving. I'm not even kidding. I haven't been moved like that in a minute by some, like by a politician, given a speech. Like it's, if it's like, Oh, this is a shit. Revolutions are made up. Let's go dude.
00:03:25
Speaker
Uh, So super exciting there. ah Another fan favorite, ah one their primary, ah the infamous closeted conservative gay man, Lindsey Graham. Old ladybugs himself. Yeah, he's still holding on.
00:03:42
Speaker
A huge Pride Month win, I guess. Did anybody even run against him? i mean Yeah, someone did run against him in the primaries. I didn't look too much into it. It must have been like a media blackout or it was somebody who was like, I also like Trump. I'm just ah i'm just more Christian than Lindsey.
00:04:03
Speaker
Lindsey was like a... had some, some shockingly high rank in the air force for him to be the such a giant fucking idiot. Oh dude. He's one of the most hateable creatures in the U S government.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. He's an embarrassment. Like everything he says is just like a verbal nut suck. It just, he can't, he can't,
00:04:31
Speaker
It's like he it's a metaphorical human centipede. His lips are sewn to Trump's asshole and he has no interest in separating himself. Only only now. Only now that like he's just toting the Israeli line before that, you know, when he was like talking about how we had to get out of forever wars and this and that and the other like Lindsey Graham was super anti Trump.
00:04:52
Speaker
o It just goes to show you that they all kind of toe the line in the end. Yeah, they have no principles. in platinner's um In Plattner's victory speech, he rails against Collins for just doing Trump's bidding and the bidding of the oligarchies.
00:05:09
Speaker
And that she has, faith she's like, shell she promised to serve two terms. Now she's running for eighth. She's been in politics longer than Joe Biden. ah He just really, he goes so hard into why she's,
00:05:24
Speaker
Just a a ah spineless like weasel. All these people are spineless weasels. No fucking backbone. She's terrible. It's funny. like I don't remember the details of it, but like one of the women that came out in the 11th hour and was like... I used to date Graham Plattner, and he said some things that were very uncomfortable, you know, in 2010 or whatever, supposedly. Yeah. And it turns out the same way because she was saying like he had talked about like...
00:05:56
Speaker
you know, a home invader came in, he would like sexually assault them and that it was about power and this and that and the other. And like how uncomfortable all that was, which, Hey, look, if he said those things, if, if that's, yeah, it's uncomfortable for sure. It's weird, but that's a big if. And this same lady also ran like a campaign to get, uh, Brett Kavanaugh confirmed. Yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah. Who Susan Collins also voted for. She was the deciding vote. Apparently. Yeah. All of this is a Republican psyop. The whole thing. Like, I'm not saying he was perfect, but I'm saying after he got out the Marines and he wasn't in, and he was, wasn't in his greatest headspace. Yeah. Cool. Like I'm not, you don't have to excuse it, but you don't, that, that that shouldn't define his political career.
00:06:50
Speaker
um I mean, not like you want the shit. i I don't want the shit. I said, fuck. I mean, i talk about running for shit at home all the time. And my wife's like, don't do it. It'll ruin our lives. I go, no, it won't. And then I watched what happened to Plattner. I'm like, oh, yeah, we'd be fucked. Like, yeah, they would just drudge up all the weird shit I've said in the past five years here and just clip it for perfection. Like, I would look like a total monster.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, the DNC really threw everything they had to try to get him to stop him, and it just, like, fell on deaf ears. So yeah good for Maine people. yeah guys rule. I'm going to come there soon. Yeah.
00:07:33
Speaker
So. But it was nice. good It was nice to like have some like good news. And may that's local enough for me. Like I'm not I don't I obviously am not Maine, but I feel like when you're in the northeast, there's like a a kinship to the neighboring states.
00:07:53
Speaker
And so it feels like a small victory for the area. Like it just because areas like I know you can go from one state to the next and go like red, blue, whatever. It could be a massive difference. But I feel like Plattner and the way that he campaigned.
00:08:11
Speaker
One of the things he said it was like, Susan Collins hasn't done a town hall in eight years. He said, I've done 80 or 10 years. He's like, I've done 85 in eight months. like um But yeah, I just, it feels like it's one of those things that builds momentum in your area, even if you're not from Maine, like that a lot of, a lot of people from Massachusetts catch wind of a guy like Plattner and go,
00:08:38
Speaker
this guy's kind of speaking my language and it's just kind of planting the seeds for someone to show up here. That's not just like this button up establishment candidate that just wants to do neoliberalism again, you know? Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah. Screw that. Not voting for that.
Corporate Ethics and Moral Debates
00:09:00
Speaker
Well, um so I found a few things tonight that I thought were fun or interesting or horrifying, but also interesting.
00:09:12
Speaker
And I think I was a big fan. I mean I like the blend of it all horrifying and interesting. Horrifying is general generally interesting. Yeah. i had i I was looking for a few things tonight as well, and i didn't i didn't there wasn't much that I loved, so i'm glad ah I'm glad you brought the heat. But I did want to mention I'm keeping an eye on a couple of things. And remember the Zizian cult that we talked about?
00:09:41
Speaker
oh yeah um august uh that shits the the the murder of one of the cult members parents uh that two of them are charged with that goes to trial in august so that's going to be fun to keep an eye on i'm curious to see what happens there and then another one of the churches that we looked at um the guy who uh ah basically kidnap people and use them for forced labor at his house and farm.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah. He's, he's going to trial soon as well. So I'm just, those are a couple of things I'm keeping my finger on the pulse on too. I always like when we get the opportunity to revisit ah past stories that we've, we've,
00:10:24
Speaker
dipped into but we can see how it all plays out after discovery has taken place and the lawyers are going at it those are going to be two distinctly different yet similar martyrdom cases that they have to make yeah pastor ziz he's going for it that's what she was she went by right was zi yeah ziz interesting Well, the first one that I caught my attention, okay, I figured out why I couldn't find it.
00:10:53
Speaker
So this is a Reddit post in True Christian, and as it turns out, I was desperately trying to find this thing. so I'm like, i I know I saved this. Where the heck is it? But I Googled some keywords, and it turns out it was deleted by the author, and that's part of why I couldn't find it. But I did find the thread,
00:11:12
Speaker
And I can at least kind of summarize what this post was about. So the title of it is my married boss put a strip club on the company card. I need advice.
00:11:24
Speaker
No, you don't.
00:11:28
Speaker
Is it your company? Do you pay the I mean, what do you know? You don't. You need to shut the fuck up and go back to work. Yeah, this was an interesting one because it's a lot different than what we usually cover from these subreddits. But like is this lady as she was talking about? It sounds like she's in accounting or something like that.
00:11:47
Speaker
Christian accounting. Right. She's like and it did sound like it might be like a somewhat decent sized company. Like it didn't sound like some local business or whatever. It sounded like there was a lot of people that worked there. But, you know, and don't know the details.
00:12:05
Speaker
Right. But to summarize, frequentent propane. No, there's a few more people than that. um So this person posted about how recently their boss had put had turned in with his like, ah you know, expense report, a receipt for a strip club.
00:12:24
Speaker
And that this person is married and has three kids. And the poster was like, I really need to, I need advice on what to do here because I do not want to be complicit in sin.
00:12:38
Speaker
And by that, okay. That one really like, Chafes my thighs because that it's only when it's only they only like use that line for like they don't care if that the the bananas they bought at the grocery store.
00:12:58
Speaker
Right. From tortured children. Yeah. like What are we doing? Like you go ahead. I just, yeah so so it's not consistent. I'm not saying like, well, I know we've, I think I've gone down this rabbit hole before. I'm not saying you can't draw lines based on your available options. So for example, um I had like the argument of like, when people go like, Oh, I would never eat at Chick-fil-A. It's like, congratulations. I don't give a shit what you do. Like,
00:13:30
Speaker
But what they especially don't care if you shop on Amazon and don't eat a Chick-fil-A, I especially don't care. Like i I'm not saying you can't make those choices based on the lines that you've drawn. Don't fucking moralize it for me.
00:13:46
Speaker
I don't care. i would rather see somebody like delete their Amazon Prime account than. refuse to eat at Chick-fil-A or McDonald's or whatever it is for whatever reason. i I'm just... Okay.
00:14:03
Speaker
My point just being that like... When you, what the moralization of these things. um So like, oh, what do I, I lost my train of thought actually. Fuck me. Go ahead. Carry on. Formative moralizing. Yeah. I mean, that's essentially what was getting into. Everybody does it to an extent. Mine is currently a wonderful pistachios. Nice. I have to stop buying them.
00:14:27
Speaker
I've, I've sworn them off. I'm finishing a giant bag of them. And then i'm like, I'm not buying them anymore. There's a terrible company that supports a, you know, a lot of Israeli atrocities like i can't one these anymore. But I know that I have like three, four or five things that I use daily that are probably like directly funding the idea. I'm just putting bullets in an IDF sniper rifle.
00:14:49
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I mean, I switched to Apple Music because the CEO of Spotify just really likes funneling his money into,
00:15:00
Speaker
um AI, like AI attack drone, ai some form of like using AI for warfare and shit like that. Like just the military industrial complex. He's trying to get a return on his tech vampire in it. And you will, because if there's one place to invest where you'll get a return on that investment, it's the military industrial complex.
00:15:21
Speaker
And I don't like that. But you know what I'm not going to do is tell every single person in the world that I'm better than them and they need to get rid of Spotify to save the world. Only the 40 people who listen to this. yeah And let's be honest, they're all more impressed by my giving up pistachios. Yeah.
00:15:38
Speaker
Now, give up energy drinks and... We'll see. All right. Baby steps. Yeah. So this person is talking to she was like very adamant that like she did not want to be complicit in her boss's sin and that she she was like, I know he's married and has kids. And if I was in her position, I would want to know.
00:16:04
Speaker
and How does she know she really like high? Well, that's part of my thought process is like, you don't know that she doesn't know that. And like, it's also I don't know. I'm glad it's not anything that my company does, but like it is what other companies do like that, you know, sales reps and account execs and stuff like that. They take people to strip clubs at in Vegas when they're there for trade shows and stuff like that. They would like never fly at my company.
00:16:39
Speaker
In fact, the guy who I replaced when I moved to to Kansas, his last act was to charge $3,500 to the company card at a strip club in Miami. Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
Nice. And then he called the office it was like, I don't know what happened, but my card got stolen last night. Oh, my God. imagine the hustle. Dude. So he had done something like this at this same place before.
00:17:07
Speaker
So when he came in and tried to get like bottle service or whatever, they actually made him take a picture with his holding his driver's license. like when he when he put gave him gave them his card.
00:17:21
Speaker
And so like the the accounting people call this like this club where they show this big charge, you know and they're like, hey, a card was stolen, and we wanted to know if guys had any...
00:17:34
Speaker
there was if you guys had had any you know If you had any information on this person, they go, oh, it's this guy, Kyle blank. Yes, we have. He absolutely was here. He gave us that card and we have a picture of him doing stuff.
00:17:51
Speaker
And so he got fired and then they withheld it from his, uh, his final paycheck. That's so sick. ah But there was a lot of like moralizing language here about this and that, you know, and I, you know, being complicit in sin and all this stuff and like back and forth. It also did not sound like this person had ever met this man's wife. Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
So it wasn't like this was a personal contact or a friend or even an acquaintance that she knew through like the company or whatever. She was just talking about sending a random message to the boss's wife.
00:18:32
Speaker
And she's like, i did report it to my other boss. And she said, OK, I will talk to him. yeah That means we know about this and nobody cares.
00:18:44
Speaker
Like, I'm not a fan of the idea that like people in businesses do that. I think it's incredibly stupid. I think all you're doing is like a soliciting and attracting business with like that good old boys club.
00:19:01
Speaker
Just like coked out, liquored up like early, late 20s, early 30s sales reps that are just like It's old, guys. It's old, guys. Is it really? it's oh I guess that makes sense. I guess that makes sense. this I think this is a dying practice. I don't think many people do this sort of thing anymore.
00:19:23
Speaker
So it's it's like this is fading out, but it is still present. And, there you know, he turned in a receipt to the company for it. Like there's probably not like a policy against it if he's like expensing it, you know?
00:19:39
Speaker
Right. I doubt it was an accident. He didn't... Whoops. So, one of the responders says, We live in a fallen world. This is a yucky spot to be in. However, you are not in a position to deliver justice. God is. Pray on this. I doubt this is an allowable business write-off. What would you do if it was a charge that simply isn't an allowable business expense? Bring it up with the finance team.
00:20:03
Speaker
Sorry. What what a Oh, man, what a tight spot you're in. She says, yeah, I already reported it to my other boss, who is technically his boss. She said she will talk to him, but put but to pass the charge through since it is already done and it was with clients. I just feel disgusting knowing he is married. I don't want to sin by being complicit, but I also don't know if it's my responsibility to do something. You weren't there. How are you sitting? How are you complicit? The company is complicit. You are not the company. The company is not you. It's not a happy family where you're all working together. It's not a family. You're a company and you just do your job. You're not responsible for the human rights violations that your company does that you don't know about.
00:20:50
Speaker
I worked for a company that... I know for a fact, like you just hear it, you hear it in the, like the way that people talk about it. Like when we started getting into overseas manufacturing um and working with the manufacturers direct, so we can get really shitty pieces of shit, knickknacks for even cheaper and make more of a profit on stuff. That's going to end up in a landfill. Yeah.
00:21:12
Speaker
And we would, I would bring that up. ah the The general complaint, like, cause we had to start getting into, ah doing the occasional like audits on ah the factories we were working with.
00:21:25
Speaker
And I would get, i would get the audit report sent to me. Um, and, And there were times where there were questionable practices and we would have to schedule other audits. But what's crazy is it was so, I mean, these are all, these are Chinese factories. ah There's a level of ah corruption in that, in the the factory, ah the manufacturing world over there because,
00:21:55
Speaker
we At one point, we found out that the people who wrote our report got where they were accused of being paid off, essentially. like We got a tip from someone else that they had been paid off to give a clean report. so we had to hire like We had to lodge a complaint with the company they worked for, but they're all considered independent contractors that are hired. but Dude, it's a mess. It's a mess to make sure that there isn't child labor and forced labor going on.
00:22:22
Speaker
And That like, I mean, some of the things they're checking for is that not all the doors are locked in that kind of shit. And I'm like reading. It's like a 70, 80 page report, if I remember correctly. And I just remember reading through it and being like, This is sick. All the shit they have to check for is pretty fucking wild.
00:22:39
Speaker
And some of it's just like general compliance on packaging and shit like that. And it's normal stuff. But like it, I did what I could. ah When I thought something was weird, I would say something. And ultimately that responsibility lied to the people up top because these audits weren't cheap and it really hit into your margin. So they would come up with reasons to believe that everything was fine.
00:23:02
Speaker
um And I wasn't like, I didn't I didn't love it, but I wasn't I didn't go to Reddit to discuss how I'm complicit in the malfeasance of the daily operations of the company I worked for. Who cares? I'm going home. I'm going to quit eventually.
00:23:21
Speaker
Am I calling a bomb threat? I don't know. I hate that. But the it seems like most everybody in here is like giving a pretty reasonable response of like, hey, don't don't do that.
00:23:36
Speaker
That's not wise. It's not what you you're not supposed to do that. You know, like you don't have a responsibility to like contact this guy's wife or whatever. His wife probably knows, too.
00:23:47
Speaker
like Probably. Knows but doesn't at the very least. Like, does but doesn't. Like, don't. i Oh, okay. But a lot of people don't care.
00:23:57
Speaker
A lot of people do, but a lot of people also don't. And do not consider that cheating at all. So this person says, you as a Christian are not the moral police. Christians have to focus on themselves. This is none of your business, even if you were not a Christian. In reality, he will get what is coming to him, but it is not your place to get him there.
00:24:17
Speaker
Whatever, that's fine, I guess. This guy, a Godward countenance, says, Christians are called to righteous anger, managed by self-control. That indeed does make us the moral police. Be angry and do not sin. Psalm 4.4, Ephesians Is his um user handle Godward Tentacles?
00:24:40
Speaker
It's ah a Godward countenance, and it's a picture of Christ on the cross is his ah profile pic. That was close. Not our business, somebody says, and he responds, love your neighbor as yourself. That means it most certainly is your business.
00:24:54
Speaker
It's like, shut up. I love the people who just twist everything so that way they can just be the biggest bud-inski in the world. Like but it's yeah, I love them. You will be the moral police. It's like I don't what how old are you? Because have you you learned nothing from living on this planet?
00:25:14
Speaker
I don't understand how people can be adults and have learned so little about how life works and how people experience it and what what impact you actually have.
00:25:28
Speaker
You have no and you don't have it outside of your immediate friends who might ask you for advice and then be mad at you for it. But then maybe someday be like, hey, you were kind of right about that thing. Like people aren't listening by and large. That's they don't know. What do you not to strangers, especially what do you do? Not to their employees who don't like that. They went to a strip club. What is this?
00:25:51
Speaker
I think what's funny, too, is like the notion that like because they always bring up this crap about like, you know, to love a sinner, you have to confront the sin, basically. And it's like if you don't have a relationship with a person, you are not in a position to confront their sin.
00:26:08
Speaker
Like it it's not your place to say it's not your job to intervene. Like you have no impact and you're lessening your impact by butting in and like calling them out on whatever, whatever particular thing you think is really offensive, like them being gay or whatever, you know?
00:26:26
Speaker
And I mean, you say lessening your impact and that the fact that you as a person have to constantly weigh strategically try to weigh how to make the right amount of impact for the right people at the right time is a waste of a faith.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like no one needs. really should worry about yourself. Worry about yourself and be an example of what you, you know, that's just, I always think of it in terms of like. Be an example. No one cares about.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Go be an example over there. I'm happy to watch. Wow. That's super cool. How you didn't swear or how you didn't order a beer when we went out for that work thing.
00:27:08
Speaker
What a shining example of something that means nothing to me. wow right Congratulations. Wow. But I applaud your, and your inoffensiveness, you know, i appreciate your resolve. Cause if there's one thing I'll admire, it's the fact that you can abstain from some bad choices. I mean, I've had nights where I'm like, I'm not going drive at home. Like I'm not going to have a drink tonight. And then I have a drink by 5. PM. So I, I, I appreciate people who can,
00:27:38
Speaker
make good choices uh and that's an example to me so i i would be like oh cool i that that's helpful for me like but it's not because i go oh that's cool that must mean you tapped into some higher power and that i need to lean into that so that way i can make better choices no i just need to learn some fucking personal responsibility i
00:28:04
Speaker
Oh, man.
Church Scandals and Legal Issues
00:28:05
Speaker
Okay, all right. So this is a news item that's recent. This is from June 4th, this article, and I think you will like this one. i found it very funny. Okay.
00:28:15
Speaker
And it involves one of our old-time favorites, Mark Driscoll. Mmm. I've been seeing... I see stuff about him a lot. Yeah, he can't really stay out of the news because he's such an unbearable douche. Yeah, and it's...
00:28:31
Speaker
It's a little funny to give him the time of day because I guess his church has gotten fairly good size where he's he's built something to a point where you can't just not talk about it ever. But I wonder if he gets more time in the online discussion than he deserves based on what he's accomplished.
00:28:54
Speaker
Probably just because he's a known name. It's like, guess who said something insane this week? Mark from the school. It's free clicks. You his something? never think other guy's name. What's my favorite guy? The guy that screams all the time.
00:29:08
Speaker
Greg Locke? Yeah, Greg Locke. Or, oh, Greg Locke. He's insane. No, the COVID-19... Oh, yeah. Are you thinking of him?
00:29:18
Speaker
No, no. Greg Locke. Okay. Greg Locke is a lot more malicious than Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland is just a flat out thief. Greg Locke is like a a lunatic and hateful one. An evil, a hateful lunatic. Yeah, yeah. So this is an actual like pretty funny story. so it says Mark Driscoll disqualifies his men's pastor, threatens to sue him for stealing contacts to start new church.
00:29:45
Speaker
Shut the... That's so funny. Dude, the way this is worded is hilarious. That full circle moment. That's like... It shows you that he's never once at any point in his life done any level of introspection.
00:30:00
Speaker
Like that concept alone shows you that he's a very dangerous person. he can't be trusted. ah Yeah. Yeah. Like the notion that like, you're going to, you're going to form a splinter group and take away from my congregation. It's like, if you reach more people with the gospel, then everybody wins. Right.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah. Shouldn't you be happy for him? It's so funny that they act like there's um like churches, like churches have non-compete clauses. Like that is,
00:30:30
Speaker
This isn't the Righteous Gemstones. but Hilarious. That would be so funny. to um if I want to see a news story where a church tries to make everybody sign and non-compete.
00:30:40
Speaker
Oh, dude. like Immediately right below this, it says, for Moron Driscoll, and then it has a few other headlines. You say like Moron Driscoll? Yeah, exactly. says, one of the articles it links is, Mark drisll mark Driscoll accused of making minors sign NDAs.
00:30:57
Speaker
I... I've heard that one. ah so this one says. Youth group is so cool and top secret that they can't let all the other youth groups know about it. Cause then you got to hide it under a bushel. Do you? Yeah, they won't, you won't have to because they want you to get it from the official, the original source straight from the tap. Threatening the youth into keeping secrets is a great way to go about church business as we've seen over and over again.
00:31:25
Speaker
In a strongly worded internal statement sent to its real men and real women leaders, mentors, attendees, and staff, Trinity Church, led by Mark Driscoll, has publicly rebuked its former men's and ops pastor, whatever heck that means. no, public rebuking.
00:31:41
Speaker
for it For what it describes as a deceptive and divisive exit aimed at planting a rival congregation. The statement obtained by Protestia.
00:31:52
Speaker
This is some righteous gemstone shit. A rival, like... Oh, yeah. Like, they're going into battle. Like, they're gonna steal their title at the local chili cook-off.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's splintered and formed his own, like, Kool-Aid pickles company. Because Martha, who makes the best cornbread in the county, is going to the new church...
00:32:19
Speaker
ah The statement obtained by Protestia confirms that Julie Crombine has resigned from her position as real women's director. It also reveals that last week, Caleb Glenny and his wife, Jill, resigned effective immediately from their roles as real men's pastor and real women's coordinator, citing plans to, quote, plant a church.
00:32:41
Speaker
Maybe they wouldn't have left if you didn't name it something so stupid. Yeah. Glennie was baptized by the church in 2020 and became the men's and ops pastor in 2023. Men's and what?
00:32:54
Speaker
Men's and ops, like special ops. Yeah, special ops. So stupid. Just what is that? What does that even pertain to? Men's as in men as in males, men's and ops and ops pastor.
00:33:10
Speaker
Dude, churches need to cool it with trying to make their fake ass job sound like real jobs. It's we know you're working for you. We know you're. You're getting paid to not have a real job.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, and if you're an Indiana pastor that's obsessed with like trying to shoehorn your ah your military wet dreams into your like church services, then i don't know. You should be disbanded.
00:33:39
Speaker
A drone should get stuck in your windshield. Yeah. I am not not to do it a hard and fast derail, but I recently was on I recently was looking into a church that I had attended while I lived in Lynchburg because I did not like that place. I did when I went there.
00:34:04
Speaker
We left it while we were still living in. No, we were technically stayed in it while we were living in Lynchburg. But when we moved. like We kind of like fizzled out on going there and just weren't feeling it for a lot of reasons. But one of the people i I never liked was there like assistant pastor, which was the real pastor's son, right?
00:34:29
Speaker
Just one of those like Nepo pastor like situations. um yes And he got like the he got he got Sunday night church and he would do the edge. he would talk about the edgy things like, is it OK for Christians to drink? Whoa, cool, bro.
00:34:47
Speaker
Is it okay to smoke? Whoa, let's break it down. Cigarettes or cigars. Whoa, brother. Like really dumb shit that and like no one fucking cared about. And I remember this is this is I don't I don't want this to sound worse than it is or weirder than it might come off. But I'll let you guys just filter it through your own brains and see how it comes out.
00:35:15
Speaker
His wife always seemed really nice. She was insanely quiet. um But I always, like, I never really liked her husband, the pastor's son. But I thought she seemed really nice. um And I always was like, I think it seems like a weird matchup.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah. And so when my wife and I were there, we were doing this, like ah they did this ah really lame, like adopt a college student kind of thing. We're like couples in the church, pick a random college students name out of a bucket and they fucked the shit out of them. No, that would have been cool. Uh, but it was just like, Oh, you just take them under your wing. It didn't turn into some eyes wide shut shit. It was pretty above board.
00:36:03
Speaker
Boring. Um, um But we got paired up with the ah assistant pastor and his wife, and they invited us out to lunch shortly afterwards. It wasn't just a lunch to get to know them, or it was a lunch with like 20 other people at like Locoretta where you couldn't where we like were sat at the end of the table away from everybody else. And it was fucking weird. where We were like, knew we didn't belong there. And then that was the only time we were ever invited to do something. It's just another classic evangelical like system failure. And the shit, the shit never works. Right.
00:36:41
Speaker
in But I just, all this to say, his wife always had like a blink twice if you're okay look. um Like, I feel like I would occasionally like catch, like we kind of like,
00:36:56
Speaker
make eye contact and you would just like see like this please help like in her eyes. i don't know. It was weird because she seemed nice and was smiley, but like every something just fell off. And I went and did the all the digging and pulled up some public records and did what I could to find as much information as I could. And they got divorced. And I just, I love that for them. She's living her best life out in Colorado now. And he's just failed up at Liberty University. He grew his hair out. He grew his hair out and grew him like a mustache. And he looks like shit. He looks like such a fucking idiot. He's, He just has that my wife left me and I'm trying to be cool again vibe, but you're just, it's not working. You're not a pastor. His church mutinied against him.
00:37:48
Speaker
Nobody liked him. There was a church split over him taking over when his dad died, I guess. This guy was just failure. Total failure. That was, in everything fell apart for him and he deserved all of it. That's all.
00:38:01
Speaker
All right. I can see how that ties in. yeah It doesn't just made me think of it. Made me think of a Mark Driscoll type. Like if that happened to Mark, I would be like he should lose his church and his wife should leave him and his kids should stop talking to him. That's my point. Yeah, that would be justice, I think. So this is just a piece of their letter. um to their leader team. says, mentors and attendees and Trinity staff, we are grieved to have to send this to you.
00:38:36
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah. They resigned, effective immediately to, quote, plant a church. It says, he refused to meet, hand off any duties in defiance of his employment agreement, asked for six months severance, took church members' private information to solicit, urged staff members to resign and followed him, wiped his entire church laptop before returning it, spent money on the church credit card for personal use, had an informational meeting for their church split, and announced as men's get a men's gathering on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. 6.30 within days.
00:39:11
Speaker
And i would I was just thinking, like, man, I would love to see what the actual things that he did are that he's, like, like referring to there. Like, like he took congregants, you know, names and information with him, and it's like, oh, he just had, like, contacts in his phone or, like, people follow him on Instagram. Right, right. It's not like he, like, hacked into a database. That's probably not even...
00:39:38
Speaker
It's a Google spreadsheet, bro. You shared it with him. You don't have to hack anything. Yeah. Yeah. He tucked a floppy disk with, ah you know, like the digital Rolodex into his cleavage and like shimmied out the window.
00:39:51
Speaker
We had no prior knowledge as Caleb has been lying for months. We rebuke Caleb and urge him to repent of sin patterns that have disqualified him as a pastor. The Crombines are with the Glennies.
00:40:04
Speaker
Why? What? What? Why is he disqualified as a pastor? Because he quit? Because he upset Mark. And if you upset Mark, then you are disqualified as a pastor. And he wiped his laptop.
00:40:17
Speaker
well Suspicious. Suspicious. he's a pastor. So 50, 50 chance there is something illicit on there. Probably. if Uh, both families will be contacted by our legal representation for stealing and misusing the real men and real women's contact lists.
00:40:38
Speaker
It's like, what a um what a joke, dude. What joke. Did they copyright it? Did they copyright real men, real women? Like, it's so dumb. The obsession with, like, stupid hyper, like, like, the, the jet, that jet, like, don't even know how to say it.
00:40:55
Speaker
Um, the gender role stereotypes like real women as though it's like a binary. This is what this is the one thing real men and women do. And it's just that there's just that one straight and narrow path and everything outside of that is just sinful.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Screw Driscoll. Screw Caleb Glennie or whatever, too. He seems like a douche. He has a look about him like he would be – he's like, all right, for men's Bible study, I'm kicking off my 12-week series on being a warrior for faith.
00:41:36
Speaker
Now, when Marcus Luttrell was stuck on a mountain in Afghanistan, you're like, shut up, dude. Just shut up. I mean, at the end of the day, you cannot be in like active...
00:41:50
Speaker
like um employ, you can't not be an active employee of any church that Mark Driscoll's affiliated with and get the benefit the doubt from me. like you're You're a bad person too. if Because you know, like any it's not a shock or secret. like Literally anyone who's ever worked with him is like, yeah, this guy gets pretty mad. Mighty mad.
00:42:16
Speaker
And so I don't, this Caleb guy's
00:42:21
Speaker
Probably just piece of shit. He's a knob. Yeah, he's just... He sucks. He's soft. He has all the stupid theology that Driscoll has. He's just really soft about it.
00:42:33
Speaker
All right. You want to hear a story about a soft serve Caucasian moron. Yeah. Falling apart. Yeah. This is a big story. And we're a little late to the party here because like this big article came out March 27th. So apologize if this is old news to some of you guys, but I had never heard of it. And I started reading this article. I'm like, dude, this is so this is good stuff.
00:42:58
Speaker
Bad stuff, but it's pretty good story. So this is this is through this type website, Protestia, which I think is clearly like a Christian publication of some sort, like a you know pretty conservative one. But they do log a lot of megachurch pastor scandal stuff that's interesting.
00:43:19
Speaker
Okay. So this article's titled, Ted Shuttlesworth Jr. Sent Insanely Obscene Picks to Multiple Women Going Back 15 Years. And Ed Shuttleworth Jr. Ed Shuttleworth Jr.
Religious Scandals and Personal Impacts
00:43:36
Speaker
And ah so he says Ted Shuttlesworth Jr. was the longtime co-pastor of Miracle Word Church in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he helmed along with his wife.
00:43:47
Speaker
The author of nearly 20 books, he co-founded Miracle Word Ministries in 2010, which grew into a multifaceted organization with a physical church of 200 congregants, online media, travel crusades, and educational programs.
00:44:01
Speaker
All of his books were self-published. There's no chance he has a publishing company for any of them. Oh, absolutely. The founder of Miracle Word University, fake, he hosted his own podcast show and was associated with the new, savvier wing of the prosperity gospel movement.
00:44:18
Speaker
Is that a brag? it I think it's a slam of some sort in this particular publication. Okay. Here's where it gets a little interesting. So it says, notably, Shuttlesworth Jr. comes from a preaching dynasty, quote unquote, with more than a dozen close members of the family in full time ministry. His father, Ted Shuttlesworth Sr., a prominent televangelist and revivalist who runs Faith Alive Fellowship.
00:44:45
Speaker
One of his uncles is Tiff Shuttlesworth and one of his cousins is Jonathan Shuttlesworth, both pastors with prominent ministries. Now, would you like to hear a compelling story told by Pastor Shuttlesworth Sr.?
00:45:00
Speaker
Is it, it's Shuttles with an S? Shuttlesworth? Yep. S-H-U-T-T-L-E-S, Worth. This, ah I think, okay, get if you're at home, I hope you're someplace where being a little emotional is not going to cause problems, okay? ah Be prepared to choke back a tear because this is a pretty moving story, and this is Pastor Shuttlesworth Sr., the father of the man we're going to talk about tonight, um giving ah just an amazing testimony of healing.
00:45:36
Speaker
You know, I was thinking about a miracle that my wife and I saw a woman. Her name is Donna and she worked in a garage for her parents and a forklift come up behind her when she was working and cut her foot off.
00:45:51
Speaker
One of the tongs of the forklift just cut it right off. They rushed to the hospital in Tampa. Sewed her foot back on, but they said you'll probably lose it. She came to the meeting where... um Which one? First of all, a forklift cut her foot off.
00:46:09
Speaker
Where did this forklift come from? She's in her garage. From behind her. A forklift just sneaks up. No one just has a forklift. Dude, it was it it was a forklift carrying a pallet of like meat cleavers. just It sliced off her foot somehow. Someone actually put the serrated blades on the forklift.
00:46:32
Speaker
Right. Yeah, it cut her foot off. They sewed her foot back on, which already you're like, well, that's nuts. They sewed her foot back on. like But they also told her, you're probably going to lose it.
00:46:49
Speaker
We'll give it the old college try. ah There's a lot of bones in the foot. no Not anymore. Yeah. I don't know how you just put back on, but I mean, I don't know. I guess it depends on where and how clean like this is a clean break.
00:47:07
Speaker
The cleanest break of all time from a forklift. I'll tell you this. It's not going to matter. You know why? Because God was in the room. Yeah. Yeah. I was preaching, I'll never forget this, I was actually receiving an offering and while I was receiving it, here she comes, she had one of those big velcro boots and you can see she was in pain. That's what with severed stopped offering, said, sister what's wrong?
00:47:31
Speaker
She said, they cut my foot off. I said, what? did it, the doctor? She said, no, one of the workers in the garage. And she said, I have no ankle bones, my foot was crushed. Oh, like a shop garage. And i said, sit down right here. She sat down.
00:47:45
Speaker
I had no ankle bones. I had no ankle bones. I had no ankle bones.
00:47:51
Speaker
i thought oh lord but i took the oil that was at the altar and i dumped it on donna's feet and i closed my eyes i just started praying when all of a sudden i felt two ankle bones come out on either side and we recorded this my wife loves to tell the story for tv but literally the god created two new ankle bones for Donna and she took off and ran around that church by the power of God the next night she come back with two red high-heeled shoes on and literally her lawyer called me said couldn't you wait to pray for her till after the settlement he said I had a million dollars on the table but when she got healed he said they took the money away Wow, God's a real dickhead. That's how they not funny. That's not funny. fucked her future, man.
00:48:44
Speaker
Wow. This is such a ridiculous story. God stole her bag right from That's crazy. Dude, if you asked me right now if I could pick a million dollars on my foot, guess which one I'm choosing.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's definitely one that you have to stop and think about for a minute. I... You don't have to stop maybe for a minute. you don't have to stop that long. ah Can I get one of those Blade Runner like leaf spring feet?
00:49:10
Speaker
You can get like a Street Shark style roller blade put on it. You have to wear a roller blade. They just sew the roller blade on for the rest of your life. If you, okay, for a million dollars, would you get roller blades for feet?
00:49:24
Speaker
Like, am I paying a million dollars? No. Yeah. You're getting a million dollars and you just have like permanent foot heels. Dude, would be i would pay a quarter million dollars to have rollerblades for feet. Maybe
00:49:39
Speaker
inconvenient in a lot of ways. For a million dollars, would you would you get rollerblades for hands? That's the question. and Because that's going to affect your life. a lot. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think I'd take him. I wouldn't.
00:49:56
Speaker
um There's a lot I can't do with rollerblades for hands. There's some cool shit I can do. ah You know, you could roll down a hill fast on all fours. That'd be cool. ah That's about it.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah, maybe if they were like prosthetic attachments, you know, like you could swap them out like Inspector Gadget style. Yeah. Because I'm definitely going to want like a tweezer set, you know, because yeah otherwise I'm going to have unibrow problems. this went i I don't know if the unibrow is as much of a turnoff as rollerblades for arms.
00:50:36
Speaker
I guess that's fair. i think you're I think what you look like becomes wildly irrelevant once you have rollerblades for arms. Yeah. Dude, I love the way that they tell stories like this because it's so funny. Like, there's so many things about this story that are absolutely insane. Like, she's got no bones in her foot. They just sewed a like a glob of pulled pork back onto her leg. like But they were like, probably going to fall off.
00:51:04
Speaker
And they went and then they let her out to walk around with a boot. And he looks at it and it's just like, it's just a jello mold of skin like skin.
00:51:17
Speaker
And like, uh, Like they let her out of the hospital like that. They're like, there's no ankle bones. There's no bones doing anything. It's literally just like, it's like watching a water bed when someone jumps on it. It just kind of jiggles and it moves and they put put the boot on let her go home. They let her go home. They need the boat. They have to put the boot on so it can keep it in the right shape. It's like a mold until it's like one of those Japanese square watermelons. yeah
00:51:50
Speaker
Now, my wife, Donna, she loves to tell this story for television. tell du how do you i mean how how How do you get to that point is where I just lose my mind the most? Because we'll never solve that.
00:52:06
Speaker
We'll never solve that motivation, but we know he's lying. Well, why don't we let's see what people have to say about it. Okay. It's got 262 likes.
00:52:17
Speaker
Oh, that's a lot. All right, let's see. Praise God, I was healed when Evangelist Ted Sr. prayed for the lump on my neck. Turns out it was my face.
00:52:28
Speaker
yeah I love God, and I love his faithful servants, Uncle ted Can't wait to see you in Texas next month. Amen. My dad is healed, and those spirits of unbelief are gone.
00:52:42
Speaker
That's not... You're not... that that's not getting healed. Everyone who doesn't believe or who is is inflicted with a spirit of unbelief and you can be healed from that. If you can be healed from that, then why are there people in his orbit that aren't saved? this guy's ah That means you just suck at your job. That means you have like a hit rate of 0.01%. It's the best argument for predestination, dude.
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah. just that they're They're predetermined to hell. The best argument for it is that you're in college and you go to a Christian university and everyone keeps telling you to share your faith and you really don't want to. Suddenly, predestination is super appealing.
00:53:26
Speaker
Dude, Jennifer Garcia, 1566 says, wow, wow, wow, wow. We serve God almighty. Nothing is impossible for him. Glory to God. Heart, heart, heart. Amen. Isn't God good? I love God and I love his faithful servants. Uncle Ted can't wait to see you in Texas next month.
00:53:45
Speaker
Bot. You already posted that, bot. Bot. i I like when people, when someone makes an outlandish claim and someone goes, wow, nothing is impossible for our God.
00:54:00
Speaker
And you're like, it seems like a lot is impossible for him because we're in a pretty dark place in human history. the God couldn't maintain Ted Sr.'s hairline. God clearly can't make Christians on Reddit that are interesting.
00:54:15
Speaker
Can't do that. Yeah. So, okay, so it starts out with all of this. The first indication of all this stuff going on was... um There was like a church meeting on a Sunday and Ted Jr. announced that he was going to be stepping down from ministry because of some infidelity in his life. And in his statement, he says, No, Teddy!
00:54:43
Speaker
Unfortunately, in the midst of so many miracles and breakthroughs, I let my own guard down. Oh, he got fucked by one of the demons he cast out. This is my favorite turn of phrase in all of this. I failed to stand in my authority when temptations came. How come he doesn't have a spirit of temptation? How come he doesn't have a spirit of sexual infidelity? And they're like, how come everyone else a gets the spirit of something, but he just made a little mistake?
00:55:12
Speaker
Oh, well, it seems to depend on who he's talking about it or talking to about it, as we'll see. Needless to say, my actions opened the door, which I allowed for Sim to come through loose and inappropriate conversations with the opposite sex. These sinful actions culminated in sexual activity with a woman who was not my wife.
00:55:34
Speaker
I'm extremely ashamed and deeply grieved by my actions. I bet the loose and inappropriate language is... the most uncomfortably like um most uncomfortable form of like elderly, sexy talk imaginable.
00:55:50
Speaker
Well, we have it. Oh, we have it. We'll get into it. yeah um what's funny is, uh, so his wife is also a pastor there, Carolyn Shuttlesworth, which, uh, will be referred to a lot in the text conversations and stuff as PC pastor, Carolyn,
00:56:11
Speaker
oh when ted's While Ted's comments could be construed as implying that the loose and inappropriate conversations were with the same person he had the affair with, his wife Carolyn clarifies that it was multiple inappropriate conversations. Now Carolyn wrote a statement as well. Dear Miracle Word Ministries partner, I'm writing to you with a heavy heart and with complete sincerity because you have been a faithful praying and giving partner to our ministry. You deserve honesty and transparency and respect.
00:56:40
Speaker
Over the past month, it has come to my attention that my husband, Pastor Ted Shuttlesworth Jr., was involved in an affair with and multiple inappropriate conversations. Now, where's the next statement go? Okay, and and this is how we kind of, I think, can get a picture of what Carolyn's like and what these two are like together, okay Okay. So the next paragraph says, "'Please know this from the depths of my heart. "'Nothing you have prayed, given, or sown into this ministry "'has been false or in vain. "'God has faithfully moved, lives have been changed, "'and souls have been reached.'" While it can be deeply painful and disappointing when someone we respect falls into sin, I encourage you not to allow one man's failure to diminish what God has done through your obedience and faithfulness, which I think you can kind of interpret as like, hey, keep the checks rolling in.
00:57:37
Speaker
Yeah. If any anyone understands the pain and sorrow the situation has caused, it is me and our family. Yet I also know the power of genuine repentance and restoring mercy of God.
00:57:49
Speaker
The hand of God has been upon this ministry for the past 16 years, and I firmly believe that through Pastor Ted's sincere repentance before the Lord and those who he has hurt, God's grace will continue to sustain Miracle Word Ministries.
00:58:04
Speaker
There are moments in every life when we depend fully on the mercy, forgiveness, love, and kindness of God. This is one of those moments for our family. Pastor Ted and I will be taking some intentional time to focus on restoring our marriage and strengthening our family. At the same time, we remain... A.K.A. Establish a new business plan and practice and model. Oh, 100%. 100%. So basically, it's more of that...
00:58:31
Speaker
ah And they both announced that like they are stepping down. Pastors. Pastor Ted says, I've repented to the Lord and asked him to heal and protect my family from the damage this has caused.
00:58:46
Speaker
This, meaning me, I have caused. Yeah, turns out God can't do anything. I have also repented to my wife. Other than my salvation, Carolyn is the greatest gift the Lord has given me. She has been so gracious and strong. She's truly an unbelievable woman, and she continues to amaze me.
00:59:06
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah. ask you to forgive me all this stuff. Whereas this sort of behavior would typically disqualify a pastor from ministry, the the letters make it clear that both of them view it as a temporary purgatory and that he intends to return as soon as it becomes opportune, which is 100% true. He's already working on it.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah. Wait, do we so we don't hear about what he said specifically? What kind of dirty, sexy talk he did? So. Oh, phew. I goes was getting scared. So Protestia, when they heard this statement, so I think they found out in advance that this was coming, right? And then when they heard when you made the statement, they put out a call asking for people who had been contacted by him or messaged with him to ah message them on Twitter or Instagram or whatever.
00:59:52
Speaker
says, following our story several women reached out to us about their experiences with pastor ted and it soon became apparent that these were not instances of mere loose and inappropriate conversations with the opposite sex as ted sought to frame them instead they were occasionally yearslong sustained unfathomably obscene conversations and long-ga manipulation that betrayed a seared conscience and the heart of a devil How on earth was any of that? Why was the first word used occasionally?
01:00:26
Speaker
ah Because there are there are some that are short-term and there are some that are very long-term. Okay. That's crazy. That's intense, man. that is um That sounds real dark. That's not just... That's... that It moves past like your typical horny pastor situation and into... like you're you're now you're like ah like You could be a predator and a horny pastor just because of the power dynamic, right? But I'm just hearing straight up, like he's in it for the thrill of the hunt.
01:01:00
Speaker
He's a pervert. He's a pervert, and then he also gets... um There's some spiritual abuse for sure that happens in some of these. They go on to say that they verified the women that contacted them to make, you know, so they've they've looked into these claims and stuff and seen the messages and everything. And so then they kind of go into each of the victims, right? who They are not disclosing their names, which is good. One of the women who contacted us is Carrie. She met Ted for the first time in 2010 while pregnant.
01:01:33
Speaker
I had never heard of him before he was a friend of my husband and was coming to preach at a camp near our hometown. My husband had offered for them to stay at our house a few days beforehand. There was nothing inappropriate at that time, but the following summer when the Shuttlesworth returned to camp, he began texting me, making references to how he missed my pregnant belly and how he finds pregnant women very attractive.
01:01:56
Speaker
Oh my God. That's one of these types. Yeah. Yeah. She recalls the text messages being very flirtatious. At one point, he coyly asked her if she had any new Facebook friends, which she checked. She discovered she had a new friend request under the name of Richard Long.
01:02:15
Speaker
Oh, God. Are you kidding me, dude? You're dead they're dead ass about that. That's crazy. And because there's this is a Christian publication, right? In parentheses, they say, a common nickname for Richard is Dick.
01:02:33
Speaker
Yeah. Their readers can't put that together. They did not put that together. He asked me to review a book he had been working on. It was a graphic sexual novel of sorts, and the characters were directly inspired by him and I. I knew that this had crossed a line, but didn't know what to do about it.
01:02:51
Speaker
Carrie shares that she unfriended him, but that months later she got her first iPhone and Ted began texting her again. Here, she is honest. I was at a weak place in my life, and honestly, the attention felt good, so I engaged.
01:03:05
Speaker
He started sending her messages of incomprehensible letters and words, making it look like maybe his toddler had been playing with the phone. Finally, he told her she needed to decode them, and she realized he had reversed the alphabet.
01:03:19
Speaker
She learned this text code and would respond to him in the same way. What a cheeky little fella. my god. the Wind talking over there.
01:03:30
Speaker
ha ha ha ha. He would always talk about my appearance, ask what I was wearing, and eventually began asking about my sex life. Multiple women, some separated by ah be separated by a decade and who did not know of the other's existence, told us that Ted would share intimate details of his and his wife's sex life with them.
01:03:49
Speaker
He began sharing details about his and as well as the ways his wife would please him, even if he was on the road traveling for ministry. He would tell me the things she liked in the bedroom and what he liked and that she would send him pictures and videos. He even sent me some examples of her asking me to do the same.
01:04:09
Speaker
What? He sent other girls nudes of his wife? Yes, he did that a lot. Can you do this exact same thing? Uh-huh. I guess what's creepier about it is is that whole part. like why Why not just, did that help ease women into it?
01:04:33
Speaker
Maybe it's like ah like a the emergency escape hatch is like, well, I'm just showing you what my wife and I enjoy in our healthy sexual relationship, you know?
01:04:47
Speaker
I'm sorry if that was just a little graphic for you. Yeah. I don't know. That's so odd. It's so weird. So these messages carried on for years, despite all his talk and fantasy, and even after Ted visited and stayed over at their house while visiting the family, he kept his hands to himself.
01:05:08
Speaker
He was always telling me that he would like to do what he would like to do to me slash with me when he would visit, but never acted on anything more than a hug, maybe a kiss on the cheek.
01:05:18
Speaker
In all of this, Carrie acknowledges that while she was manipulated and preyed upon, she was not a victim and she was not sinless. I have to take ownership of the role that I played, but he came from such a place of influence. I couldn't help it, which man, that's a little sus.
01:05:34
Speaker
He was in such a place of influence. Yeah, not not a lot. I mean, I think it sounds more like she allowed him to influence. her uh what is it i need to know what this guy looks like i'm picking i keep i can't stop thinking about um oh baby billy look looking guy like um from the right stones but that's probably i wish he looked like that he looks like he's hairless no he's kind of like a dumpy bald dude
01:06:06
Speaker
Oh, not like completely dumpy, but like he's not a he's not like some physical specimen or anything like he's not kind of out of shape. he does Yeah, he shouldn't be spitting this kind of game.
01:06:17
Speaker
No, no, he actually he's pretty hairless. He looks like ah the judge from Blood Meridian. The new he looks like, ah you 2025 Howie Mandel.
01:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, actually, that's pretty good. Pretty good way of looking at it. I was captivated, even though I knew it was wrong. It began a very dark downward spiral for me spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally. I would work for 40 plus hours per week, volunteer anytime I could look for ways to escape my reality in an unhappy marriage and slowly let my guard down.
01:06:51
Speaker
Let down my guard against all sin and just let it be. I didn't really know how to be honest with myself or my husband at the time. She began to imagine a life with Ted and believed that they might leave their spouses.
01:07:04
Speaker
Ew. Yeah. She's really fallen for this turd. That's when I began to learn he had sent many other people these types of inappropriate messages. I was stupid enough to believe he actually cared about me. I felt so dirty and gross, but there was nothing I could do to fix it.
01:07:21
Speaker
I wonder how she learned. I'm curious about that as well. Like how recent was that? He got confused with who he was texting. Oh, maybe so. That's actually a possibility. Yeah.
01:07:34
Speaker
ah Distressed and disillusioned, she slowly began to pull away from him, but he kept sending her random messages, even up until 2017 when they stopped altogether. Ultimately, Carrie's first marriage ended in divorce.
01:07:46
Speaker
Before my divorce, I had been struggling with the weight of this sexual sin that had entered my life. I let my guard down in so many areas and was so angry at God because it felt like I was collapsing and Teddy was rising and I was the one...
01:07:59
Speaker
the one trying to do the right thing. I confessed all of my sin to my husband and we attempted to fix the marriage, but there was no restoration there. So this is kind of a funny turn in this person's story. She eventually met a new man and future husband and the two grew close. He was not a Christian at the time. And when she told him about Ted and his messages, he was livid, disturbed and disgusted. He sent a met, he sent Ted a message back in code, which he never responded to.
01:08:29
Speaker
And the message says, lip, lip, lip, lip. Can you still read backwards? Probably been a while since he used that code. Need a hand? It says, f you, you fat piece of crap. I hate you.
01:08:41
Speaker
For being a man of God, you truly are the scum of the earth and a horrible husband. You've ruined someone I love dearly's life, and you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. F-ing scum.
01:08:54
Speaker
Answer my message, you dirty. nothing like that I feel like you wrote that. Did this happen to April? Because I feel like you... the the the The language is very you.
01:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty good. I like it. eight a plus Um, Carrie didn't stay completely silent. She told a few people about Ted at this time, including her sister-in-law, Chloe.
01:09:22
Speaker
Chloe became familiar with him after he preached at several churches in the area, having mutual friends in a ministry partnership. They too began texting. I was young young and naive to the fact that Ted was interacting with me in a flirtatious matter for quite some time.
01:09:38
Speaker
He would pop up in messages for pretty regularly, multiple times a week sometimes. Um, I thought he was just being funny and nice for quite some time until I asked a mutual friend what he meant by telling me he would purchase me a birthday gift at VS because I was clue clueless what he was alluding to.
01:09:57
Speaker
Victoria's secret. Yeah. I happen to not be clueless, so I put that together. They didn't think their readers would get it, apparently. He's not allowed to shop at the mall, you know?
01:10:10
Speaker
Because if you go to Victoria, I mean, if you go to the mall, then you have to worry about stores like Victoria's Secret, Hollister, Abercrombie and Fitch, where they have the model, the plastic like ah mannequins out out the door.
01:10:25
Speaker
main entrance that are a little too sexy and even get like, the young children might mistake them for actual adults yeah that look sexy and that's not okay. And then you got worry about Spencer's gifts. You got to worry about Hot Topic.
01:10:43
Speaker
um You have to worry about some lady who's standing outside one of those places where they try to get you to buy like perfume or get your nails done. don't know.
01:10:55
Speaker
Every time I go, someone wants to put lotion on my hands, and i' too like I'm good to even notice where they're coming from. But there's always someone who wants to give you a free sample of lotion and put it on your hands. Yes, I don't want it.
01:11:09
Speaker
I never want it.
01:11:14
Speaker
Are people really this naive that they can't tell that people like he's flirting with them? Why is he texting them in the first place? and I feel like Christians get... I feel like they're lying. They're liars.
01:11:27
Speaker
ah i you know I like to believe all women until they pretend they're too naive. Then I go, you're lying. I can't trust You couldn't put it together until he said you buy you some Victoria's Secret stuff? you're You're so naive that it was so... like i didn' I thought we were just friends. Oh, okay. So, like, wait, that was that woman who said that, was she married or is she single?
01:11:50
Speaker
Well, she must have gotten married at some point, because in the next thing she says, he would skirt around sexual-related ideas, especially my becoming pregnant, commenting on quote, how I got there.
01:12:03
Speaker
Looking back at conversations after realizing they were too personal for an evangelist family friend, many times the conversations were, was vaguely flirtatious for no real reason.
01:12:14
Speaker
No, here's she's a liar, dude. If she thought that it was just friendly, her husband would have known about it from the get go. It would have been like, yeah, Teddy is just like this fun guy. He likes to text him in me sometimes. And then he'd be like, Oh yeah, Teddy, that guy's great.
01:12:33
Speaker
But none of that happened. just She eventually mentioned these conversations to Carrie, who in turn shared that she was also texting him, mercifully discovering each other's... way, dude. completely soulless. he doesn't He doesn't even do two degrees of separation. He's just... It's like incestuous with how close all these people are to each other.
01:12:56
Speaker
Yeah. And like, there's people that he has like sort of a, you know, a distant relation with before he starts texting him like these two. And then there's some where like he really worked on him for a long time.
01:13:11
Speaker
um Then there was Tiffany whose story brings us up to the present day. And I think this Tiffany's the one that like, this is the one especially where you're like,
01:13:23
Speaker
lady she really like, she actually tried to like do the right thing throughout the whole thing and trusted this guy who took advantage of her trust.
01:13:34
Speaker
Okay. um Not saying that the others didn't by any means, you know, but like this one in particular is is especially egregious. yeah Okay. Also to be clear, I'm not saying that there weren't manipulated, but I don't, I'm just saying i don't trust the level of naivete. The,
01:13:52
Speaker
They're hoping the reader assumes. Yeah. I mean, given your disdain for fat people, it comes as no surprise to me, really. It's far the course. You never disclosed that any of these people were fat.
01:14:05
Speaker
No, I bring... um This is a callback. but ah what I forget what it was, but I know I closed the episode by like, Sam hates fat people. Good night. I don't remember what we were talking about. so Tiffany was born and raised Roman Catholic in 2019 while visiting her mom from out of state. She heard him preach while attending a church in Massachusetts where he was the guest speaker for a week of revival meetings.
01:14:33
Speaker
oh man my neighborhood baby oh dude i need to know more about this guy she she was in the the belly of the beast the rat nest she so wait she was at a it was that she was at a church in massachusetts massachusetts that he came to speak at yeah he was a guest speaker at they don't say what church no they don't on unfortunately that's disappointing that's public record Here, she was saved and baptized, becoming a member where she stayed for years. It's where she also became a part of Miracle Word Ministry and the quote-unquote victory tribe, which sucks that. God, that sucks.
01:15:17
Speaker
It was a transformative experience. A new babe in the faith, she devoured Ted's messages, who is a charismatic speaker and presence. He taught me basically everything I know about Christianity. I got really, really into him and his ministry and teaching.
01:15:30
Speaker
This ministry became her life. She formed a relationship with Ted and the team. She traveled with him to his meetings in North Carolina, Virginia, and Massachusetts, helping them put on evan evangelistic events while pouring her blood, sweat, and tears into the mission.
01:15:45
Speaker
A single mom in her mid-30s, she found the work spiritually fulfilling, finding meaning and purpose in seeing the Holy Spirit move and transform lives. In fact, despite living halfway across the country, she visited 13 times in 2023, the year that they established themselves as Miracle Word Church, to be with them.
01:16:03
Speaker
Soon, she was being treated like family. This was the time the messages started. So she got the real family treatment. That's a... Yeah. That's a...
01:16:15
Speaker
it's a ah ah charismatic family treatment. For some reason, he doesn't get horny until you're like family. You know what? You're like my sister.
01:16:26
Speaker
ah You got kick. You go to Discord. You ever play Roblox?
01:16:36
Speaker
For years, their text messages were innocuous, mostly focused on the next event with some encouragement thrown in about how much they missed her and how much she missed them. And then one day, he just literally said to me, we're just having a conversation again and talking about, i was just thinking about you, whatever. And then he said he had something to show me and asked if I wanted to see it.
01:16:57
Speaker
I was like, sure, let me see, because I don't know what he's going to show me. Yeah, we all know what he's about to show you. And he sent me, this is the foot he leads with.
01:17:09
Speaker
His wife's nudes or his dick? ah Both. He sent me a picture of his wife performing sexual acts. That's your, that's your like entry line.
01:17:21
Speaker
That's so insane. That's incredible. That's in incredible. I just, I can't. wait It's the bold the boldness you have to have. like This guy, i don't know if it's just the like the thrill. It's like gambling, right? the thrill of the possible loss that gets you fucking going. Yeah.
01:17:47
Speaker
is it is it It's got to be that. It's the flaunting societal norms. It's like showing your your power and influence over people by being like, I can do this and I don't have to worry a bit about you saying anything. You won't like cross me.
01:18:00
Speaker
The risk. Obviously, the risk. Oh, excuse me. The risk didn't pay out. He got caught. He overextended his hand.
01:18:11
Speaker
But like that's nuts. That's nuts to... to To have whatever mechanism in the human brain that's weighing consequences before making decisions, his is just always off. Or his is always like cranked to a 10 horny.
01:18:28
Speaker
Because we know your brain's not working so good when you're that horny. He's got that Gretchen Wilson syndrome. His give-a-dang's busted. This guy needs to just, what he needs to do is just get like on a bust and nut schedule. It needs to be like baked into his day every like three hours because he's not going to be doing this shit if he's coming more off. Like he's just, if you, if you could have that post nut clarity before you texted these people, you'd be more normal. You wouldn't say weird shit like that.
01:19:02
Speaker
He must be like the thrill of it must be the text conversation because he didn't seem like he followed through on them in most cases, except for one. He did have an affair with one person, but says Ted would comment on his wife's sexual performance and lament that she wouldn't perform certain sexual acts with him, asking Tiffany if she'd be willing to do those things with him. He also like his butthole. ah It's gotta be something like that, right? Because,
01:19:32
Speaker
I mean, he's sending pictures of her blowing him. Like, he wants, she wants him to, like, put him in the change your diaper position and lick the fucking shit out of his rim. God.
01:19:47
Speaker
He wants it nasty. He's an animal, dude. You know this. you know My wife won't wear my dad's old clothes and change my, like, jizzy diaper.
01:20:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:03
Speaker
ah
01:20:06
Speaker
too far let's just we'll just alienate our last 10 listeners it doesn't matter dude i think the worst i honestly think the worse it gets like this the more our listeners end up going up i think maybe so um he also brought his wife further into it engaging in what seems to be a fetish or kink which was like isn't this all a fetish or kink I mean, he almost made it seem like his wife was into it, telling her things like, would you let PC, Pastor Carolyn, watch you perform oral sex on me? Would you honor her in this way?
01:20:43
Speaker
hi Ew. This guy has no honor. do you bring honor into it? She would love that. She would love to see it. Would you do it to her?
01:20:54
Speaker
Would you honor her in this way? Ew. Terrible. That's worse than his follow-up question to me. Go back to sending me butthole pics. Stop talking.
01:21:07
Speaker
but After sensing her discomfort, he told her to delete it, insisting that she didn't save them on her device. He's like, I'm just kidding. He's like, he's like a hundred absolutely egregiously graphic text deep. It was like, just, just kidding. Sends a bunch of silly gifts that say, just kidding.
01:21:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah. How do you pull back from, would you honor my wife with fellatio? Yeah. That transgression wasn't enough. how do you How do you pull back from it? How do you? It's nuts.
01:21:45
Speaker
You just like, hey can I see your phone? And then you just throw it into the lake.
01:21:52
Speaker
Because on another occasion, he sent her a solo picture of himself, which she's definitely not going to be into. Right? yeah None of this is tracked with her. Why are you still going for it?
01:22:05
Speaker
ah Right. Like, cut your losses, dude. Like, you want to get... and At this point, I can't help but be convinced that he wants to get caught and put an end to all of this. Shocked, uncertain, and filled with shame, she confronted him about it, the man who led her to the Lord. She told him it wasn't right, that she was going to delete the Snapchat snapchat app and that they should talk about it.
01:22:28
Speaker
So here's where it gets gross. Oh, they're snapping like that. Okay. Snapchat. ted insisted to her that this had never happened before and promised it would never happen again in doing so he redirected the blame for his actions onto her telling tiffany it was her fault for being so beautiful and having such a great body and that he never reacted this way to anyone else Just blaming her on shit that actually she has no control over. oh yeah. but You didn't try to gaslight or manipulate like a normal pastor and blame it on their actions. It's just your physiology.
01:23:06
Speaker
It's the way, you know, you're ah the way God made you is he made you a stumbling block. You got a God for that reason. He's blaming God. Oh, it's not my fault. It's yours because you're so hot the way that God made you. So it's really God's fault. Yeah.
01:23:24
Speaker
He lamented that the enemy had gotten a hold of him. He begged and pleaded with her to fast and pray for him to break the devil's hold on his life, placing the responsibility on her to defeat this wickedness. He needed her help and couldn't do it on her own.
01:23:41
Speaker
Would she help him for the sake of the church and ministry, for all the good they were doing to transform people's lives and bring them into a relationship with Jesus? Would she fight for him?
01:23:52
Speaker
She committed to that. It like trailer to a pilot of a Christian soap opera. Yeah. It's so insane to be like, please, you got to fast and pray for me. Don't eat. You know what would help me break this spell that I've done to myself and that I've foisted upon you is if you don't eat.
01:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, unless it's my ass. He's like, wait, no, I'm still just kidding. Please, that's my sickness. Keep praying for me. You know, if you go back to the original Septuagint, you know, the rabbinical order, eating butt is not ah it's not technically breaking your fast.
01:24:31
Speaker
And it's keto. As long as it's clean. as long i means As long as you're not ingesting any calories. So she committed to the, that she would, she would fast and pray for him for days, believing that the only thing holding back these demons was her entrance entreaties and intercession. Oh my God, this is so sick because they've been doing this for like over a year, right?
01:24:58
Speaker
I don't know how long the explicit texts had been going on, but it seems like she kind of, she kind of called him out on him relatively quickly. Yeah, and now she's just, oh, okay.
01:25:10
Speaker
Let me, f like, why? Why do people believe that? people Why do people do this? Someone makes a disgusting mistake and they go, oh, I got attacked by the demons. And then they're like, let's all pass the prey together.
01:25:26
Speaker
And then while you're like fasting and praying in a dimly lit room, that same dude tries to put his hand up your skirt. And you're like, wait, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm being attacked again. It's just these people are pathetic. Like you're not starving hard enough.
01:25:43
Speaker
ay ah I'm just tired of like hearing about it. Just now it these stories never fucking end. And I'm not trying to be victim blamey, but like, yeah like it creates, it just creates these like there's environments where this shit keeps happening and people keep being surprised. I don't know what, like, I think there's like,
01:26:08
Speaker
There's so many things going on in this like situation, too, because it's like... She's really like made this whole this ministry her whole life. Yeah, yeah. So, like, to...
01:26:22
Speaker
To admit that this is like a farce and that this guy's a con artist is like yeah basically to derail your entire life's mission, you know, and now not only is like, are you, would you have to and unravel your life?
01:26:38
Speaker
to like really, you know, come face to face with it. But he's also like one transferring some responsibility for it to you and then giving you a role in like fixing the whole thing and keeping the ministry going, you know, through your efforts to beat this. It's like so many different like little manipulative things tweaks yeah to the story line i forgot that this particular person had actively involved herself in the ministry it's just i dude if there's anything that's become a complete bummer from doing this podcast it's just reading i mean again every single day you can just hop on the internet and find a new half dozen to a baker's dozen of pastors who or are engaged in some sort of like predatory behavior and sexual malfeasance.
01:27:30
Speaker
And it's every day. it is I was thinking about this today because every time around this year, somebody asks me if I want to put my kids into VBS. And I usually have to come up with something pretty quick on why I don't.
01:27:44
Speaker
ah Actually, the problem is nobody asks me. They'll ask my wife. And she's like, ah yeah, let me talk to Sam. And then we just never talk about it. Like we talk about it. We just never re-mention it. So my kids don't go to VBS. But like I like i was thinking about it today. i was like, that's the craziest thing is like at vb like my kids if i decided to send my kids to VBS I want to do, i want to know of a, like, I want something to do a like a broad study on the percent, the, the, the percent chance you have of getting molested by a group of people. And like, because I was thinking about how much, how distrusting I am of sending my kids to something like that now, you know, Um, after mean everything we've like talked about now, all the, the daily arrests that you see, like I would not send my kids to a VBS just to get them, like just to get myself five free days. Cause I'm like, I would send them to literally anything else and they would be statistically way less likely to get molested by somebody in a position of authority.
01:28:59
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, like in terms of odds physically, ah one, one in eight, maybe emotionally, five and six. So yeah, i don't know.
01:29:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's, uh, I'm glad I don't have to make those kinds of decisions. Cause it would not be fun. Cause there's a part of you that's like, well, I remember having fun at those kinds of events, you know, like maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but like, I also, you know, like at our church, um,
01:29:29
Speaker
the people who were actually like putting the thing on and and conducting it, like we knew those people. If you don't go to a church and you're just like handing your kids over to people that you don't know anything about, i don't know.
01:29:42
Speaker
It's tough. And there's situations where you can't avoid that, like preschool and, you know, whatever. But it just, it adds an element to it when you know that they're going to be talking about heaven and hell and all that.
01:29:54
Speaker
Yeah, and that's it like when I was a kid in in VBS, I already bought into those ideas. So listening to people talk about them wasn't weird or different or challenging or thats out
Manipulation and Deception in Ministry
01:30:05
Speaker
of the ordinary. It was normal.
01:30:07
Speaker
Those were normal conversations for my kids who don't ever learn about these types of things and haven't. had the ideas of heaven and hell discussed with them, they would be like, what is like, that's just the information alone would be problematic. And I'm trying to keep my kids from learning about it until they can learn about it in a way that makes them be like, yeah, sounds like more myth. Like I'm not worried about it. Yeah. You want them to stay lost until it's significant, you know, significantly harder for them to be saved.
01:30:40
Speaker
Yes. Well, one to you better than a millstone was around your neck. Better. So says hours after hours on her knees and supplication without eating, begging God to deliver Ted, who surely must have been praying as urgently as she to keep the demonic wolves at bay. Like in my mind, I needed to help him overcome what he was feeling towards me so that we can continue to move move with the church and the ministry. That's how he literally drew it in my brain.
01:31:10
Speaker
At this point, she had been with them for five years and lived and breathed the ministry. In fact, her face was plastered across the ministry and church's Facebook and Instagram pages, and she modeled and promoted their clothing line.
01:31:23
Speaker
But this wore on her soul. He stopped sending her pornographic home videos and she put it past her, surmising that it was a secret they shared and that she helped him overcome for the sake of the mission.
01:31:34
Speaker
Now and then still, he would send her comments, which in hindsight and with eyes open, she now considers subtle and suggestive innuendos. And here's a text conversation. Okay, I'll try to differentiate voices here so it's clear.
01:31:49
Speaker
Miss you. i miss you more. March can't come soon enough. Hurry. She already handled it so bad. She already handled it immediately, terribly, right at the gate.
01:32:01
Speaker
I took my LTC class last Saturday, which I think is licensed to carry. i cannot wait to finish my paperwork. I thought it licensed to curtsy. Oh, that could be. Yeah.
01:32:12
Speaker
Kind of like a finishing school sort of thing. Yep, how you learn how to like put out silverware and ah you know fold a napkin. You learn about all the slurs that you can't say. Yeah. I cannot wait to finish my paperwork so I can learn to shoot. We can go together one day when I move.
01:32:32
Speaker
Here's my favorite comment. I'll teach AR-15. i'll teach you a r fifteen <unk> I'll teach you how to shoot an I'll teach you
01:32:44
Speaker
He's talking like the dude from the Goonies. I took a lot of notes in class so I can choose the right gun for me. It's big, but you can handle it. I'll make sure to take a few shooting classes because I have no idea yet.
01:32:58
Speaker
I'll show you how to hold it. He's just trying. He won't stop. No, he sucks, dude. I hate this guy so much. This is where it gets infuriating too. is long as you're like, that was bad enough, but this is where it like starts to really like, you're like, oh my God, I hate these people.
01:33:16
Speaker
This past October, nearly seven years of pouring her heart into the place, she received an official job offer to work for them and Miracle Church, Word Church full time. Seven years of free labor. she gets a job offer. Dude, that's the year of the Jubilee.
01:33:34
Speaker
Seven years of being an indentured servant to this place. Wow. She finally worked off her debt, slavery, and wow. Good for her.
01:33:46
Speaker
This meant she would have to leave her state and move to Florida. Tiffany packed up her entire life, said goodbye to all of her clients for her home cleaning business, which she owned her own business and she shut it down to move, right?
01:33:59
Speaker
Took her daughters with her and ultimately spent more than $10,000 on the move, then another $10,000 to secure a new home. There was much fanfare, with her church throwing her a going-away party to honor her years of service and to pray for this new chapter in her life.
01:34:15
Speaker
In January, four days before she moved, Ted messaged her telling her how excited he was to have her come down and become her pastor in person. Hey, checking to see how the progress is going. We're so excited to have you down.
01:34:29
Speaker
Movers just finished loading the trailer and off they go. We leave Thursday morning. Let's go. I'm almost there. It seems unbelievable still.
01:34:39
Speaker
It's happening. The start of forever. It's going to be a massive blessing. This is like middle schoolers. Yeah, they almost like talk right past each other when they talk, which is very annoying to read even. Yeah, it feels very juvenile.
01:34:56
Speaker
I'm happy about it. someone Someone just purchased translation equipment for the church. which What does that mean, translation equipment? They can reach all peoples.
01:35:07
Speaker
Oh, oh. I don't know why I had it in my head that it was like they're going to translate the Bible. They might. they're They're broadcasting in other languages. I got it. Yeah, yeah. yeah I think that's it.
01:35:20
Speaker
Uh, she said, it's going to feel so unreal to be there the weekend and not have to leave on Monday. It definitely will feel different. Like is actually the beginning of the rest of my life. And also the fact that my kids are even ready to go with me on Sunday means absolutely everything to me because I know, you know, they don't go to CCC, which must be her church. That's great that they're so ready.
01:35:42
Speaker
So 25 is your first Sunday? Yes, this upcoming Sunday. And it goes on and on and on, right? um She talks about like how she saved money so that she could give like her first fruits offering to the church when she gets there and all this stuff. Oh, gross.
01:35:58
Speaker
Gross. So here's the here's the twist. She arrived on Saturday. He wasn't there to preach that Sunday. However, it wasn't clear why he was absent. The following Sunday, Ted was present and announced to the whole church that he had been having an affair. While this confession was not streamed, we have required or acquired a recording, which you can hear in part.
01:36:19
Speaker
blah, blah, blah. The excitement Tiffany felt for months leading up to her arrival vanished in an instant. Both her faith and her future were thrown in turmoil. The next week they announced that Ted would be stepping down from the ministry. Several weeks later, they announced that they were closing the church in audio that was not released.
01:36:37
Speaker
But how did he come to be exposed? One of the women Ted was messaging and sending pictures to, Claudia, was attending Rodney Howard Brown's The River Church to participate in their healing ministry.
01:36:49
Speaker
She began to feel a deep sense of guilt and conviction, however, and told the leadership about what had been going on, as well as the emotional and spiritual toll that it had taken on her. River Church leadership contacted the leadership at World Harvest Church in Georgia in October 2025 to inform them of what had been uncovered, and they confronted Shuttlesworth with the evidence, telling him he needed to fess up.
01:37:12
Speaker
So October of 2025, he's confronted and told you need to fess up and step down so like this lady that he's supposedly his family to that they're so close with he knew for months that this was all coming to a head and that his church was going to fall apart and he let her sell off like close her business sell off her house and everything and spend 20 grand to move down there and get a house only to that sunday Tell her that the church is closed. Not even tell her. Tell everyone, the congregation, that he'd been having an affair and then immediately closed the church. That's crazy. Dude, she should file a civil suit against him.
01:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, or she should file a Molotov in his window. He had that information. He knew what was coming up, and he just fucked her anyway.
01:38:06
Speaker
Yep. I mean, he totally screwed her. What a crazy story. This guy's a total piece of shit. Thanks. This is a, this is a good one, man. i feel like we haven't good, had like a good, full, full bodied story like this in a minute. Yeah.
01:38:21
Speaker
Yeah. I know. It's a, it's good compelling. Tiffany says he asked not to be publicly exposed until after the holiday. So he could spend time with his family and have one last holiday with his wife and kids. Um,
01:38:33
Speaker
They acquiesced, and Ted spent the next few months teaching and preaching while they continued investigating. All the while, Miracle Word Church in Florida was raising money, collecting tithes and offerings, and even putting on a big end-of-year seed offering push as the days ticked down.
01:38:51
Speaker
As the new year approached, Ted repeatedly tried to squirm out of telling his wife in the church, bargaining and asking for extensions, including 21 days to pray and fast about it.
01:39:02
Speaker
And given his physical appearance in the confession video, I i think he ate more than butt during that fast. yeah Between October and January, however, another woman Ted was messaging was discovered. One of the young women, Alana, who had had pre-existing professional relationship with him because she had helped with tent meetings and revivals, confessed that he had been sending her messages as well.
01:39:27
Speaker
Later, she would also reveal that they engaged in sexual activity. Tiffany says that Ted framed the sexual encounter with Alana, which he swears only happened twice, one of which occurred last year in March, as a successful demonic plot from spiritual forces to shut down his church.
01:39:45
Speaker
Twice is only twice as bad as once. Right? That's a great, that's a powerful point. I'd Should have been a pastor, man. i could i can I can words my way out of things.
01:39:58
Speaker
He lamented that the devil wanted him ejected from the ministry, all while minimizing his own culpability. He claimed Alana was the one who pursued him and who took advantage of him, as he wrote in his message to ministry partners, I failed to stand in my authority when temptations came.
01:40:16
Speaker
What a tough sell. I've only done this 17 times. and But I'll blame her again. I'll blame this one. It's her fault. This time's different. And he told me out of his own mouth, he told me the first time I was with her was last year and that I was so depressed. I was feeling so low because I'm always pouring out into everybody and I forgot to pour into myself. She got me in a weak moment and I was just so depressed. I was so weak mentally and I forgot to pour into myself.
01:40:47
Speaker
Dude, he's always pouring into other people, you know? that's Yeah, it's all it's just really hard. Pouring into their DMs, pouring into their holes. they're at their holes yeah When you just like when you it's just hard to be that compassion. He has compassion fatigue, you know, empathy, empathy fatigue. It is tough. And, you know, nobody's more aware of that than Satan.
01:41:12
Speaker
The enemy. he know that Yeah. He's just preying upon his loving kindness. After Ted was initially found out, but before he he publicly came clean, this is interesting, his uncle Tiff Shuttlesworth and cousin Jonathan Shuttlesworth appeared on their programs and while not naming him, condemned his actions as sinful and predatory.
01:41:34
Speaker
and They did. They made like full hour-long like sermon videos talking about sexual scandal in the church and what should happen to people who are discreet. Yeah. His uncle, by the way, is nuts.
01:41:47
Speaker
He is like a full-fledged end times lunatic moron. And ah his cousin, Jonathan, i watched some videos of him. Like, he was appearing on a lot of Christian shows to talk about the implications of the Iran war on prophecy. woody That's all riveting.
01:42:05
Speaker
It's all, like, June of last year, too, like, during the first, like, spat of bombings. And he's like, he's like this is God gathering forces. This is, the you know, the Iranian regime is going to fall, and we're going to see more like a Saudi Arabian, you know, sort of regime. This isn't a this isn't the um the battle of Armageddon, but this is the precursor to it. God is setting the the prophetic chess pieces for his final push to victory.
01:42:30
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like you're just setting exit strategies for when it comes out that you're wrong again. Yeah. It was like, I just like wanted to comment on every video, like, wow, this prediction holds up.
01:42:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:42:46
Speaker
Following the ministry's implosion, Tiffany was crushed. Oh, wait. tiy Tiffany alleges that Ted was furious at his relatives for talking about him, even anonymous even anonymously, and that this upset him.
01:43:00
Speaker
Following the ministry's implosion, Tiffany was crushed, confused, and furious by the initial revelation. These feelings were compounded when she realized that she knew that they knew she was going to uproot her entire life and move halfway across the country for a job in a church that would never materialize, yet they brought her down anyways.
01:43:19
Speaker
They knew she would be leaving an established cleaning business to be thrust into a situation of likely having no job, paying rent and taking care of two kids with no source of income at a time when the church was unraveling.
01:43:31
Speaker
Because Tiffany was so dedicated to the church and it had become such a big part of her life, the news of the affairs wait hate weighed heavily on her. She felt alone and abandoned. She reached out to Pastor Carolyn and Pastor Ted multiple times, but they never seemed to have time for her, always pushing her off. She was in a brand new city and state and didn't have any anyone.
01:43:52
Speaker
And dude, like she posts like her text message exchanges with him at the time and they are like really sad. That's that's such an awful situation ah to put someone in.
01:44:05
Speaker
Yeah. And ah so she was like really trying to hold the line for them for a while, you know, and like they just gave nothing like she wants to. She like needs to talk to them. She needs help. She needs resources. And they're basically like, God is working with us. We're ah we're making progress. Things are healing.
01:44:25
Speaker
Have a good day. Yeah, just sideline. Because they don't want... Because, dude, once a the Reaper comes for their money, they are fucked. We know ah how that stuff always plays out, you know?
01:44:37
Speaker
They're not gonna... There's gonna be nothing left for her. They're gonna skim off the top. They're gonna find a way to weasel as much of it into their own pockets as they can. it's nothing Nothing good comes to this but of No fucking frauds. And he was he was so clearly doing like a Greg Locke situation. Like, you remember when Greg Locke had that affair and, you know, like divorced his wife and immediately married like his assistant or whatever. And he like was preaching sermons about how like, you know, idolatry can mean a lot of things. You know, your bad marriage could be an idol.
01:45:11
Speaker
Like he was just prepping the audience for what he knew was about to happen. Like when it all blew up. this guy is so clearly trying to maintain a group of like core supporters so that he can like come back. It's, it's not even funny because basically like the church split, he was like, we, you know, we really encourage people to to keep meeting and stay together in this time of trial.
01:45:34
Speaker
But a lot of people were like, yeah, we're out. But the core group that was left over, says, as some folks peeled off citing revelations about Ted's sin as the impetus for their departure, the core group became tighter.
01:45:47
Speaker
Ted formed a private group chat called The Cool Kids. Shut up. or What a nerd. He sucks, dude. Freedom tribe. The Cool Kids.
01:46:00
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah. So they were just like visiting other churches in like coordinated fashion. um She says, Tiffany says, and I was talking to one lady and had not said anything about my personal story. I was going to take this information with me until the day I die, I promise. And it was the fact that she said to me, oh, did you even know that he was sending pictures of himself and his wife to other women? Yeah.
01:46:24
Speaker
And I was like, no, I had no idea. And she said, yeah, somebody saying that he sent a picture of his wife performing a sexual act to him. And that was the very first picture he sent to me. So I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew that it was true because I had seen it with my own eyes. And that was like, everything came falling on me kind of because I was like, wait, I have been this idiot for this long.
01:46:49
Speaker
It hit her like a ton of bricks. She knew about the affair, but not about the sexting and not the other people. She had kept his secret because she thought she was the only one. So then she goes on to like call him out in the text messages, which basically he's like,
01:47:03
Speaker
ah my My mom and dad just showed up, ah so I gotta go Bye. oh my god. And he just like ran from it.
01:47:15
Speaker
It's just ridiculous. Like, oh yes, the the lord is touching me. Thanks, I appreciate like that more than you know.
01:47:24
Speaker
Nobody's gonna touch you anymore, dude. It's over. Finally, that ethereal handjob. Yeah. yeah You got the spiritual castration, and you should maybe opt for the chemical one, too. Yeah. um So she basically is like, kind of gets fed up with his crap, and then...
01:47:48
Speaker
Now she sees clearly the extent to which Ted manipulated her and she wishes she hadn't kept quiet for so long.
Potential Comebacks and Criticisms
01:47:54
Speaker
She also takes responsibility ah ah she also takes responsibility for her actions. While Ted would use his position as a minister to take advantage of people in a classic case of clergy sexual misconduct and sexual harassment, none of the women we spoke to sought to frame themselves as victims.
01:48:12
Speaker
As for the shuttleworths, they've not ruled out a comeback, instead suggesting that it's all but inevitable. As the letter they sent to their ministry partners indicates, this is just a temporary setback, and both of them see a bright future in the ministry.
01:48:25
Speaker
Ted wrote, For now, I am stepping away from ministry. And though I am currently stepping down from ministry, should God, in his in his mercy, give me another opportunity, I'm willing to answer the call.
01:48:39
Speaker
And for some reason, these people always hear a call from God offering mercy. Yeah, he's always ready to forgive them. you know They're so important.
01:48:51
Speaker
And offer them a new opportunity. There's no just like, repent, no repent, restitution, move on. No, they keep the bag. They keep it all every time.
01:49:04
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, and his wife's kind of said the same thing. Pastor Ted and I will be taking intentional time to focus on restoring our marriage and strengthening our family. At the same time, we remain committed to the calling God placed on our lives many years ago.
01:49:18
Speaker
Though he is stepping away from ministry for the time being, I will be stepping forward in a greater greater leadership and ministry responsibility during season. my God. And I am deeply grateful for your continued prayers and and checks, I mean support.
01:49:32
Speaker
Yeah, whatever, dude. Let her just revel in her husband's failure. Who cares at this point? Like, you can't move away from this. Someone's going to take advantage of somebody. She might as well, like, get something for the humiliation that he put her through. Yeah. Yeah.
01:49:47
Speaker
Given her response, like I'm not all together convinced that she wasn't like somewhat aware of this. Like they had some sort of. I'm just being like ridiculous. She's obviously a terrible person. She is. She was probably doing half of the sexting, you know?
01:50:05
Speaker
Yeah. He's like, all right, let me take. Let me get every another video of you giving me a blowjob. I'll send it to her and then we'll make this work out great for us. We'll be rich. We'll be rich someday. And she's like, all right, baby, let's do it. I get off to the idea of other women watching. like that's creep You know they get some weird, kinky shit going on there. Which, whatever.
01:50:25
Speaker
If God wasn't involved and people weren't getting fleeced and taking advantage of, you know, if that's your thing, I'm not here to kink shame. I am here to tell you you're a bad person if you do this through the church and make victims out of people who didn't ask for that. But...
01:50:41
Speaker
yep It's not consensual. I only like things that are consensual. He said, so he's still got some sort of like subscription thing, like a sub stack or something like that. So he recently posted it. It's okay. So his profile says Ted Shuttlesworth, Jr. Admin. And then his bio says revivalist soul winner, devil harasser.
01:51:07
Speaker
God, oh so stupid. Are all women the devil? Yeah. to him uh if you are sexual harasser those those dirty vixens tempting him to uh to sin he says hey everybody i'm excited about the video that just dropped in the hashtag righteous by design identity authority and the finished work of christ course today's lesson asks the question why was the bloody death necessary though they sound extra theological we're examining terms like propitiation and atonement.
01:51:41
Speaker
Most Christians never understand why the punishment for sin couldn't have been something other than death. This is one of the most vital topics to understand as we take a deeper look at the blood covenant that we have through Christ.
01:51:54
Speaker
Riveting. Yeah. Amazing stuff. A whole a whole series on make-believe. Very cool. You have to pay for it, too. This isn't free. This shit's not free. No.
01:52:06
Speaker
I forget how much money it is a month, but yeah, it's it's clearly, it's like a sub-stack type deal, I think. But yeah, you know, at the end of the day, like, it's just so clear.
01:52:18
Speaker
It's so clear how like unrepentant these people are by the way that they frame these things. And this one is particularly egregious. I think like his response to it, because he's clearly like trying to minimize the, you know, what he actually did and, know,
01:52:34
Speaker
You know, the way he talked about that, that other lady, like catching him at a moment of weakness, you know, because he hadn't poured into himself enough. So I don't know. It just sucks, dude. His whole family sucks.
01:52:48
Speaker
And, uh, I think on a closing note here, um Let's see, because I think this is, you know, this really speaks to, like, the kind of spiritual leader that, ah you know, old Ted needed in his life.
01:53:03
Speaker
Surrounded by preachers, but nobody to save him from the oncoming truck, okay? Yeah. I don't hate anybody. I hate the devil. you know I hate what he does to people. But I love people. I always give this analogy. i have a five-year-old son. And if he was out on the interstate just goofing off on the yellow line, and I look down the road and I see a Mack truck coming. As a loving father, I'm i'm not going to stand on the side of the going, better get over here. You're gonna be grounded. No, I'm going to run out there screaming. And if it's in the last moments, I'll dive if I have to and knock his body off of the interstate and take the hit for him. If somebody's lens is so far zoomed in that all they see is this big dad running out, yanking a little five-year-old's arm, zoom your lens out and see that there's a Mack truck coming.
01:53:42
Speaker
And if I didn't act as I did, his life would have been gone. And the the reason people have an issue with the way that we approach the LGBTQ community, those that are living in sin, not because we have hate in our heart. It's because we've zoomed our lens out. And I can see the Mack truck of eternity coming. And I don't want to see you end in hell. I didn't call it a sin.
01:54:01
Speaker
The Bible calls it a sin. I don't change the word of God because the culture changes. I don't hate any anybody. boy i thought I think he's misunderstanding or misrepresenting a little bit here because I think the Mack truck was the top in the gay porn that he watched right before talking about this analogy. Yeah. This is...
01:54:24
Speaker
Okay, first of all, anyone who grew up in church has heard that dumbass example. It might seem like God's being harsh, but like, if you were there and you were going to, it's like, that's not the same. Like that, everybody knows, that you're not saying anything intelligible.
01:54:40
Speaker
Like no one, that's not smart people shit. We get how that works. We get that if a kid's walking in the street, you might grab their arm and maybe it could break or dislocate. Wow. No one, what do you think you're doing with that example?
01:54:54
Speaker
you're Because you can't see it if you're laible oh wow if your lens is zoomed in far enough, all you see is this big dad chaining his gay son in his basement so he can't go out and touch touch another boy's pee-pee. But if you zoom out, it kind of looks the same, okay? But the this analogy has limitations.
01:55:19
Speaker
It's that. It's the the analogy. I just, I grew up also hearing that one. Like in, i even as like a 13, 14 year old kid, you're like, I feel like this analogy is not working. Like,
01:55:35
Speaker
the Like in one, like you make this hypothetical bigger picture where you connect dots and people go, wow, okay, that does make sense. But like the analogy in real life doesn't make anybody go, hu that doesn't like, it's it's not making you think you're not thinking of like the, like the dad grabbing the kid's arm. You're not like, you see this big mean dad. You're like no, you see a dad saving his kid's life by any means necessary. I don't,
01:56:04
Speaker
what if he like How does zooming out help that? or make it like that That doesn't do anything. What if he got him out of the way by spin kicking him in the chest? yeah That would make more sense.
01:56:15
Speaker
What if dad was in the shower when he noticed it and he ran out into the street completely naked? And just bear with me because... The Mack truck was farther away, but they live on the highway so he could see it. This analogy has limitations too, but we just have to, you know, blow them wide open. So dad runs out to the highway completely naked.
01:56:39
Speaker
He was just masturbating in the shower. His dick is still hard. How do you think that looks now?
Conclusion and Advice
01:56:49
Speaker
ah Changes everything when you think about it. Praise God. I would, uh, if I heard those analogies in church, I might've taken things more seriously.
01:57:00
Speaker
Yeah. So, okay. I think as a, you know, to put a, to put a period on the end of this sentence, when it comes to old, uh, pastor Shuttlesworth.
01:57:11
Speaker
Fuck that sucks. Holy shit. He sucks so bad. I fed up with his world. Everybody betrayed me. I fed up with his world.
01:57:22
Speaker
pretty Yeah, I've been using the sound clips enough. i'm not My delivery is not very good. No, man, you've you've lost it. You've lost touch with ah oh you've lost touch the soundboard a little bit.
01:57:37
Speaker
All right, everybody. Well, thank you for listening. ah You know what? I'll just say this. Guard your heart, folks. You got to guard your heart. And when somebody is texting you out of the blue, a person who doesn't make sense, assume they're a pervert.
01:57:55
Speaker
That's all we can conclude from all of our vast studies here. I conclude make sure they're not married and have nothing to lose.
01:58:06
Speaker
that's That's what, I think just worry about that and you'll be fine. Yeah. And don't eat Chick-fil-A. Yeah. Or wonderful pistachios. Shop on Amazon.
01:58:16
Speaker
Have a good one, everybody. we will talk to you next time.