← Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
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- [00:00]
A
All right, last question. Who is Public Enemy numero uno?
- [00:06]
B
Who's Public Enemy numero uno?
- [00:08]
A
Yeah. If you want to, if you had to, if you had to pin one of the worst defender out there, who is it?
- [00:13]
B
Wow.
- [00:18]
A
And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, Escape the Drift. And it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, man, I got kind of an interesting episode. So this is a little off the beaten path from what we normally do here, but I thought it was interesting. Interesting because it does tie in to business and that business is the business of religion. So. Joining us today via satellite is Chris Ayub, who is the executive producer of a seven part miniseries called the Religion Business, available for streaming everywhere and@the religionbusiness.com so, Chris, how are you, man?
- [01:11]
B
I'm doing good. Living, Living the dream, brother. How are you?
- [01:14]
A
Welcome. Yeah, good. Glad to have you.
- [01:17]
B
Good to be here.
- [01:18]
A
So this thing, man, has made some noise. You've made a little noise out there with this docu series we have.
- [01:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think anytime, I mean when you look at history, you know, when all going back to when Jesus walked into the, to the temple and started flipping tables over and calling out the money changers and saying that you're, this is supposed to be a house of prayer and you're turning it into a robber's den. Right. And, and the Pharisees and such were plotting his death after that. Right. Like this is, anytime you threaten industry, you cause, you cause massive disruption and there's a lot of resistance. And I'm just speaking the truth.
- [01:56]
A
It seems as though in the days of the televangelists that we're in now and some of these guys getting just terrible press with you've got your fifth jet and the guy in Atlanta that was locking people in his church, I guess, and saying marvin, leave until I guess we raised 50 grand or whatever that was, it seems like it's getting worse, almost not better.
- [02:21]
B
Yeah, I think, I mean part of, part of the thing that's gotten worse is, is if my, my business partner has been working this for 15 years. He's a two time Emmy Award winning filmmaker. He bought the domain, the religion business when he was 25. And he, and he turns 41 this week. So like that's how long this has been in the making. And he's done a lot of studies. And when you look at like anytime the religious institutions are about to lose power and such, they cling on to politics, right? And then they try to shove it down that way. And you're seeing that recently. It's interesting, the Johnson amendment, which was, which was put in place so that pastors could not from the pulpit endorse candidates or from their official role. The IRS came out, you know, right around the time of the big beautiful bill, which has quite a bit of money in it for nonprofits, states that, hey, you know what, like we, the IRS won't, won't go after you and won't threaten your tax exempt status. And this concept of the tax exempt status, like, I mean, it's over 100, 100 years old. But like it's, it's, it was put in place where like the government has, has that control, right? Like you're almost selling your soul for this, like, for this 30 for 30%, right? You're selling it for this tax exempt stat so that you no longer have real teeth in this, in this world. Right? Because Christianity is a dangerous thing. You know, religion's a dangerous thing. I mean, if you stand up for what you believe in, I mean, if you look at what happened to Christ's disciples, it's not a cakewalk. I mean, we are where we're at in society partly due because of weak men, men not standing up and holding line and speaking the truth, it gets some of the craziness that we've seen in our generation, right? Call it wokeness, call it whatever you want, but it's, it's, it's, you know, lots of unhealthy things.
- [04:16]
A
So just from the, in the brief time that I've talked to you already, you seem like a guy that's, that's. You're religious yourself. It's not that you're anti religion.
- [04:24]
B
I am a follower of Christ. You know, it's so funny. I'm glad you brought up the word religious because I don't even know what that word means anymore. Right. Does that mean you're the point? You're a, you know, you go to church every Sunday and you follow this pastor and you do what your pastor, your pastor says and you don't, you know, like, is, is, is that it? I'm, I'm a follower of Christ and you know, it's a Lot of people say they're Christians, and if you think about it, they'll say, like, I'm a Christian. I believe that Jesus is the son of God. I believe that, you know, he died and. And resurrected. And I believe that, you know, he's returning. And I believe, you know, of the forgiveness of sins and salvation and all that. But so does. I mean, the devil also believes those things. Right. But what separates it is picking up your cross and following Christ. And, like, this is the first time in my life, right, this past, you know, definitely this past year and a half, last two years, where I've picked up the cross and followed Christ. I mean, I've put a massive amount of my net worth into this project. I've dealt with crazy threats. You know, I had someone come at me at our. At our premiere in Dallas. Like, you know, I have security now. Like, it's. It's. It's just. It's just wild, man.
- [05:40]
A
So.
- [05:40]
B
But, I mean, it's dangerous.
- [05:42]
A
Well, growing up, what, what, what church did you go to?
- [05:45]
B
When I grew up, yeah, I grew up Catholic.
- [05:48]
A
Okay. Yeah, the. The nuns beat the crap. Beat that out of me. So, yeah, I grew up the same way the nuns beat that out of me, you know, by sixth grade. So, yeah, but. But so you grew up Catholic and now you're just. You're Christian is what you go with.
- [06:02]
B
Yeah. Follower. Follower of Christ I've been dialing into. Yeah, I'm definitely Christian. I've been doing a lot of. Spending a lot of my time in this concept of, like, of home churches and checking that out lately, and I've been popping in on various ones and seeing that model, and it's an interesting model. It's a very inexpensive one, but it really builds great relationships, great community, and they lift one another up. It's pretty cool.
- [06:35]
A
So I don't want to assume what the documentary is about. I have not seen it. But when you talk about the business, the religion business, I'm assuming we're talking about mega churches. We're talking about this stuff. We're talking about where the money flows. You're not necessarily talking about the small corner guy that's trying to. Or maybe you are, I don't know.
- [06:57]
B
So they all play. They all play by the same rule book, right? And they all have access to the same loopholes. And humans will. Humans. So the ones that tend to receive a lot of funds and see that humans will. Human. Right. And the money's dark. So we take a look at the system. So religious organizations. So you have the nonprofit sector, right? You have secular nonprofits and religious nonprofits. A secular nonprofit has some level of transparency because they have to turn a 990 into the IRS. A religious organization has no obligation whatsoever to turn a 990 into the IRS. So all that money that comes in, it's dark. And denominations have been dying in the United States. And this non denominational concept, right, we call them a lot of mega church prosperity gospel. Not that they're one and the same. I'm just saying like that, that is a big up and rising thing. Lots of TED talk type speeches and not a lot of contextual scripture.
- [07:57]
A
This.
- [07:57]
B
And then they pound this thing called tithing, you know, at you 10%. 10%. And then hey, go above and beyond. We got to build a new building and all that kind of stuff. Well, all that monies doesn't have to get reported to an external agency. And the thing is with the denominations, they have some symbol to structure, right? They've got, you know, call it diocese. They have, they have, you know, they have multiple layers and they have audits and they have, you know, they have government, a lot more governance. Whereas a non denominational church or a megachurch if you will, you know, they're often run by a board of directors that the pastor picks and oftentimes it's a spouse and it's a lawyer. We have one where the lawyer is also the CFO, who's also an ordained minister who allegedly receives a housing allowance. And so what we. So within this system people have gotten very creative and shrewd, if you will, creative. And I mean these are not dumb people at all. They're smart and they, they, they, they found all these loopholes within the system. Housing allowance for example is one, or real estate is another big one. And we take a look at all these loopholes and then we explore real world examples where humans are humaning and taking advantage of those loopholes, right? So a housing allowance loophole or a real estate loophole where a pastor received his dad was, was the head of a church and they built up a lot of real estate and had about a hundred million dollars worth of real estate. And then the dad passes away, put son in charge and then they go off and sell and then no one knows where a lot of that money actually went. And then you, you're dealing with key man life insurance policy on dad that passed away and who was the beneficiary versus who got it allegedly and such. So there's just a lot of place for abuse, brother. A lot of place, and it's happening like crazy everywhere.
- [09:55]
A
Well, we were talking before that, before we went live about the percentages of stuff that gets paid out.
- [10:02]
B
Yeah.
- [10:02]
A
So the stuff you were saying was nuts.
- [10:05]
B
So, so Christianity globally in. In 20 in the number I believe in 2020 for the year was 890 billion given by individual donors. And then in the United States, secular nonprofits were about 540 billion. Right. So you're approaching $1.5 trillion in this. In this industry by individual donors. And then you go into now where the donations that are going to Christianity globally and we. Spoiler alert. This pops up in episode seven is. It's about $1 trillion now. And so from, from when the figures were 890 billion, the statistics were estimated to be about 44% goes to salaries and 25% goes to buildings. 6% gets stolen internally by church staff. That's $53 billion back in 2020. And then, spoiler alert, that number is much larger now that we receive in this year in 2025. And that's also in episode seven as well, too. So you're talking about a lot of money. And it's dark, dark, dark, dark, man. And I got to tell you, the wicked love the dark and hate the light, man.
- [11:23]
A
Well, let me ask you this, dude, because, you know, I'm all about pattern recognition, about seeing things that are similar in times and places. And do you see a similarity between the people that are running the biggest hustles through these churches? Like, what, what are the person. Is it a personality trait? Is it just. Are they all. Are they all similar in certain ways? I mean, I'm guessing narcissism is probably pretty high.
- [11:49]
B
I love you. You're. What a great question, because narcissism always comes up. But there's a book, I think it's called, like, the Wisdom of Psychopaths, something like that. And my business partner read this book again. He's. He. He's read like 300 books. He's read the Bible cover to cover 10 times. And, and, and this book was one of the ones that was given him to read in one of his interviews. And they did this study and that one of the top professions for psychopaths is pastor.
- [12:23]
A
Oh, God.
- [12:24]
B
But then, but then, but then when you say narcissist, you know, you got to think about it. It's like, I'm going to be on stage, I'm going to have this image of like, I do no wrong. And I'm not. And I'm not saying it's all pastors because. Right, like, right, it's. But a lot, a lot of them and it's this celebrity and somehow like you became God's financial broker, right? Well, guess what? The money's not going, the statistics show the money's not going to Matthew 25. You know, the sick, the poor, the, the, the like the person who's marginalized. Like it's not going there. And, and as a result of that, no social issues in this world get solved. I mean homelessness doesn't get solved. We've got, we've got almost, we got about 770,000 homeless. Of that,150,000 are children. So it's a lot of single moms and children and, and you, you hear about, oh, this state just got 24 billion for homelessness and all these nonprofits are working on it. How come the problem's not getting solved? Right? How come we have all these people starving? You know, the Foster said there's 400,000 churches in the United States. There's 1.9 million nonprofits. So you're going to tell me with all those resources, human capital and financial that we can't solve this problem or the 7 trillion the government spends every year we can't solve this problem. Come on.
- [13:47]
A
Does the documentary carry over not just from religion but also in the nonprofit?
- [13:52]
B
So yeah, so it, so we, we do highlight non profit. So the, the, the title of it, if you will, it's the religion business. But we also have a subtitle called in the nonprofit Goliath.
- [14:02]
A
Ah, there you go. Sure.
- [14:03]
B
Yeah.
- [14:04]
A
So because there's a lot more non profits than there are.
- [14:07]
B
There are, but there's more, there's more money in religion than there is in the, in the nonprofit. So the nonprofits by has to turn on the tax quantity. Yeah, yeah, there, there's a, there's some level of accountability. Level of accountability there. But the whole reason why my opinion, social. Go ahead.
- [14:24]
A
Now I was going to say growing up Catholic, right. Like the priests lived in the rectory and they were all, you know, it's like three guys back in the little building behind the church and you know, that's where they were and it was a bunch of Irish guys and they were all pretty cool. You know, as a kid, luckily that was my experience with, you know, not everyone church. Luckily. Yeah. But you know, you see this in like, I think one of my favorite things that's happened culturally in the last probably five years is I loved the righteous gemstones. Like I loved that show I thought, yeah, I thought it was amazing, but I thought there was such a level of truth in that with what are some of the stuff you see on tv? And it's like, you know, it just, it really hopefully is bring you, you would like to think that it brings awareness. Right. But the problem I think is, is there's a certain, I think the people that sit at home and send in more money than they should to especially the televisions. I think, I think there's a special ring of insanity for the tele angelist group.
- [15:25]
B
Right? 100% right. Yeah.
- [15:28]
A
And so my question is like, what, what is the, how am I going to put this? What is the, what is the profile of the person that is sending money in to the televangelist? Is it, I mean, is the same person calling Ms. Cleo and saying, you know, what's my future?
- [15:49]
B
It's, it's very vulnerable people. It's people that are, you know, they're very vulnerable. And people go to religious institutions in a very vulnerable fashion, especially like on tv and you see this person, miracles and healing and hey, you want to get out of poverty, you know, give God, you know, you're, you're only making two pennies. Will give God your first penny. Well, that means you, you're not God. Yeah, you're not who? You're not in Matthew 25. I don't see, I don't see you, you got a private, plenty of private jets and a, you know, a 19,000 square foot parsonage that you live in. I don't necessarily think that that's you, but okay, and, and so, and so you, you see people that are in very vulnerable, vulnerable states. And then the other part too is, is that in order to, you know, Jesus says you know them by their fruits. You can't know someone by their fruits if you don't read God's word. So another interesting study that was done was that this mega church and applaud them for doing it. Study done on how to increase one's faith. And they did a very thorough study on this. And it came back that the two ways to do that, one, read your Bible alone. Two, pray alone to God. And so then a critic will go, well, you're trying to forsake the gathering. No, my point is, John, you're an executive, you have meetings with people on your team and if they're just there to be consumers of content and not adding value and don't know what's going on in the context of what we're doing, you Don't. They don't need to be in the room with you. You practically don't even want them on your team, but they don't need to be in the room with you. And so if you're gonna go into a small group setting or you're going to be speaking and talk, and we're talking about, like, a small group Bible study in some sort of gathering where two or more gathered in my name, I am there gathering is the body of Christ. You should know, know, know the Bible. And you should know enough about it to say that what that pastor is saying, that's not what I read in the Bible. Right. I'll give you an example. This lady reached out to us, and she's been following the religion business for a couple years. She. She had a friend that went. That. They used to go to the same megachurch together in Atlanta, Georgia. And this lady said, hey, you need to relate to her friend. You need to watch this docu series. She's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. So she watches the docu series. There's a lot of education in there with a lot of really brilliant theologians that debunk a lot of what comes from the pulpit and what comes from the pulpit as it relates to the religion business, this concept of bringing money in. And she heard the pastor say that you were com. He's trying to raise 10 million for a building. Okay. That's the context here. And then he says, quotes scripture falsely and states that you're supposed to sell all your belongings and give them to the church. And that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said to give it to the poor. And so she got up and left because she knew enough about the Bible and was aware and alert and then goes, okay, like, I'm out of here. Like, this is like, this guy's lying and he's asking for my money to get it do another building. These buildings are insane, bro. And sad part is about these buildings is there's one that I'm aware of, and I'm sure there's plenty more where they raised 30 million for a building. And then this guy went and had blueprints, got the blueprints, and went out and is in that business. He's like, this building costs 10 million. So they raise more than what it is, but you don't know where it goes.
- [19:33]
A
Yeah. Because they're just patting it out. What percentage of people at the pulpit do you think genuinely believe they're doing good? And what percentage do you think absolutely understand what they're Doing.
- [19:45]
B
So the percentage. I can't give you specific percentages, but I can break this up in a few buckets. It's a guess.
- [19:53]
A
It's a guess. Yes.
- [19:54]
B
Okay. I would say the majority, I would say 70%, know that what they're speaking is wrong. And it is very difficult for them. Them to unwind. Because how do you unwind all this fundraising and all this that you've been talking about? And how do you unwind a lavish lifestyle? And again, that's not, you know, that's like. Like breaking it up into buckets. You've got people who are misinformed and don't understand the context of Scripture, which means that you probably shouldn't be in this profession. Then you have those who deliberately know what they're wrong. And the reason why I say you deliberately know you're wrong. Why do you hide your financials from your members? Then why are you not telling your members what your salary is? Why? I mean, if you're a publicly traded company and you want people to buy into your business, you have to disclose everything. You know how much a CEO makes, you know how many shares he gets. You know who the board of directors are, you know how many shares they get. Like, you know all of these things. And if you're going to invest in a private business, you're going to know all those things, too, because no one's going to do that. So why is this so different and special? So people just want to hide behind God, but you can't hide behind God. God is light. They're hiding behind the law, and the law protects them from this. And that's why we have this situation.
- [21:15]
A
You know, it's funny. I have. I have a. I have a. I have a plan when I'm king, and God willing, one day I will be. I could solve all terrorist acts in the United States in, like, a day. And here's. I want to hear. No, here's all you have to do, right? And this is from abortion clinic bombings to, you know, flying planes into, unfortunately, big buildings, whatever. Here's all you'd have to do. The problem, I think, with people that take religion way out on the fringe, right, is those congregations don't police themselves because there's no incentive for them to do so. So all you have to do is you have to say, look, if anybody commits an act of violence in the name of any. Any religion, God, doesn't matter who, what, where it is, any type religion commits an act of violence, we're going to trace back to where that person goes to, you know, synagogue that goes to mosque, they go to church, they go to whatever temple, whatever it is, and we are going to revoke the tax exempt status of that establishment and we want back taxes since the day that it initiated.
- [22:22]
B
Yeah, and I think, I think it's, you're talking about like an absolute extreme. But you know, that's, that's, that's a.
- [22:30]
A
You really don't, you really don't think that they would start being like, oh, Billy's a little touched, like freaking out.
- [22:36]
B
I think you could put that all the way to like, hey, if you're caught doing in your mint, which is like your self benefit with this money and you're. Any fraud way, you know, fraud or abuse, like that should be revoked, right? Like, like, like I'm saying, like you're, you're, you're at the extreme of that and I completely agree with you. And I'm saying like you could do that for, for different categories of too, because so much get. Goes away. So much gets. You know, there's a lot of money in there and it covers up a lot of sense.
- [23:10]
A
You know, how do you fix this? Like, how do you fix it? Because, you know, and now that the right is in power, which obviously the right will always look to appease the church, you're always going to have them appeasing because it's a huge part of the rights base. So how do you unwind this? Through legislation.
- [23:32]
B
So I don't think it needs to lead through legislation. I think that the body of Christ has to stand up and start demanding transparency. And so my business partner and I, based on these 10 loopholes that he discovered, built a software platform called Broken Shepherds. And we basically scraped all the federal and state databases and every nonprofit that takes donations in the United States is pulled into this database. So they have to go in and claim they're not nonprofit. Well, there's not an incentive for them to claim their non profit until the body rises up and starts doing things. So we created like a little Wikipedia type thing in there where anyone can go in and if they have known data, financial data, or who the board is or executive director or who the pastor is, if they know any financial information also they are allowed to input it in. But it's not verified data. The verified data comes where they claim it.
- [24:27]
A
But, but aren't you worried at some point? Like because remember when Scientology was trying to get their tax exempt status? Yeah, that was a war. Aren't you worried that at some point you're going to expose something that somebody doesn't want you to see, and they're going to come.
- [24:39]
B
Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I, I know that I've already, I've already dealt with it. I mean, there's, there's, I've already dealt with security issues, and I know that it's just going to get worse as time goes on. But, like, I, like, I have to be willing to die for my, for my, for my faith. I have to be willing to, to do that. And I, that's being a, being a Christian is a dangerous thing. It's not an easy thing. It doesn't mean I go out and fight people with my, you know, on all that. And like, I'm a combat sports athlete. If someone comes at me, I can hold my own. I, I was in the military and such and, like, I'm well trained. I, I can hold my own. But it's, it's not necessarily. That's not what I'm looking for here. But I'm not gonna, like, walk fearfully to not speak the truth any light. Like, I truly feel like God called me to do this. And.
- [25:27]
A
No, it definitely. You're obviously committed to it in a way that's, that's, you know, you're committed. There's no question. It's like, what do they say? You know, if you, if you look at breakfast, you know, the, the, the cow is committed or the cow is interested in breakfast, but the, the chicken is committed.
- [25:43]
B
Yeah, that's funny.
- [25:44]
A
But you got. Let me ask you this, because it seems to me though, for the body to rise up, you got to solve a bigger problem first, which was within organized religion, there's like a culture of shame where you can't stand up, you can't stand out because you'll be ostracized. You know, I had a very, I have a lot. Because we're very close to Utah here, right? So we have a lot of big business people that come through the podcast that are. Some of them are still Mormons, and some of them are, are retired Mormons, if you will. And I asked them the same question all the time, which is, you know, I don't know if you know this, but, like, Utah is the Ponzi scheme capital of the world. It just is. And I'm like, why do so many people get involved with these Ponzi schemes? And it's like, because it's this fear of the church, of not going with what everybody is doing. And there's this immense Pressure all the time. Because if you don't live up to the values and opinions of the church, that's the main pressure in your life. And I think there's some of that in all religions. You know, I mean, I can remember being, you know, young and being Catholic where the priest was kind of taking notes on you. Like, you weren't here last Sunday. Where were you last Sunday, right? They know if you're there, you're not. You know, like you talked about tithing earlier. Like they keep track of that stuff. So how do you, when you're, when you're involved in an organization that has that kind of social pressure on you, how do, how do people, how do you be the first one to rise up?
- [27:11]
B
Well, I mean, it takes, it takes, it takes courage. And I think that you have to feel, you know, you have to feel called to. And you have to ask yourself, like, what am I, what am I really following here? Am I following Christ or am I, am I following this, this dark, this dark path here? Like which, which way do I go? You know, there's can't be accountability without transparency. And the transparency won't come until there's. This is a trillion dollar river, right? A trillion dollar river. And we want to encourage generous giving with transparency and we want to encourage one's faith with God 100%. And so that money needs to be steered towards places where impact is at and the impact is measured. And so we're hoping with non, profit, some non profits stepping up and we have some that are, and we're working on a lot of automation on our end to make it, make it better. We're in kind of a beta stage right now, but it is available for download. Whereas, sorry about that. Whereas they get, whereas they get, they begin to claim their profiles that people start to see because we give them a transparency rating. We're not the arbiter of what an executive director or pastor should make. As long as you're being truthful and you're putting it out there, you get, you get the same credit. If a pastor makes a million bucks or a pastor makes 10,000 or doesn't get paid at all, they get the same.
- [28:32]
A
Look at that and make a decision. You can at least look at that as somebody that's a donator and make a decision of if this is worth your money.
- [28:37]
B
So we can get, we can get enough non profits to step up, you know, and, and claim their profiles and be transparent. You'll start to see the river start tilting towards transparency because where transparency lies there's accountability and impact will happen and human flourishing will happen. And that's the only way any of this is gonna, is gonna change. And it's just like anything else. John, you've seen enough of these movements, right? Like, it takes time, right? Like I, I, I, you know, without, I don't want to like go into the specific things, but you know how like five years ago when people were saying they weren't gonna get the COVID vaccine, Right. They were looked at as, some people were looked at as crazy. You're an anti vaxxer and you're this and you're that. Now all of a sudden that's a cool thing to say that you didn't get the COVID vaccine. Right. Whereas before I wasn't allowed into buildings. My board at the time I was president of a company was like, we need you in Canada. I can't go. They won't let me in. I need you to go to la. They won't let me in a building. I need you to go to New York. I need you to go to Sweden. I couldn't go anywhere that they wanted me to go because I didn't have the COVID vaccine. And so I was looked at very poorly. And so, you know, they were great with me in understanding and such. But like, I was, I was, I was not the most favorable person at that time, let's put it that way.
- [29:57]
A
Sure.
- [29:58]
B
And so that wasn't. But then, you know, five years later, it's a cool thing. And so this takes time. And I think it's going to be a cool thing at some point for people to stand up and say, I want transparency for my church or I'm not going to give money there. Like, I need to know this. And it takes, it takes education and it takes time and it takes seeing things over and over again. And just like that woman that was in the church that saw this pastor, you know, saw this pastor get false scripture, she was like, I'm out. I'm not giving this guy anymore.
- [30:31]
A
Look, I don't think you necessarily have to know the Bible inside and out. Some guy locks me in a room and says he's not letting me out until he gets 40 grand. I'm not going back. I'm not like, I'm like, that's the moment where I'm like, this probably doesn't seem right to me. I don't think I should be here.
- [30:45]
B
Well, what's the name of your podcast, brother? Escape the Drift.
- [30:47]
A
Escaping the Drift. Yeah.
- [30:48]
B
Escaping the Drift. Right. And that's kind of on the concept of escaping the Matrix.
- [30:54]
A
Kind of. Yeah. So the whole idea behind the podcast name is, is so many people hand their life. And I think this is probably an apropos topic for it. So many people just hand their lives over to the wills of others without even realizing they're doing it. And this is definitely that where people are just like, well, this person that I view of in a place of stature is telling me this is what I have to do to get into heaven. And that's the guy I listen to or gala, let's do whatever. And so I got to do this.
- [31:23]
B
Yeah, fear's a great tactic, isn't it, man? You're going to lose your, you're going to lose your job if you don't fall in line, you know, and then you're so. I love, I love that, you know, you're, you're speaking that from the business sense. But it's 100 applicable here. So there's a book that I've been reading called Organic Church, and this author talks about, I mean, he was pretty bold. He's calling today's modern church here in the, in the west the Matrix, right? And when you deep dive deep in, you're like, wow, that's bold. But then when you think about it, the Great Commission is to, you know, to go out and make disciples, right? Make disciples of all nations and. But they don't want it threatens. Like, the message of that runs antithetical to scripture, like, or from, from the message for the. Okay, so the message in scripture runs antithetical to the business practices of an organization because that organization needs money and it needs to keep funding the next building, and it needs to, it needs to compete with the church down the street. So it needs to have better music, it needs to have a better coffee bar. It needs to have better childcare. It needs to have better everything. Otherwise they're going to lose consumers to the other place. It's like, what's my competitive advantage? It's called religious economic theory. And so you get kind of put into this matrix, this building, and you're not, you're going there on Sundays, but you're not going out into the world and making disciples. You're going and just getting, getting talked to. You're not necessarily going, going out, because if you went out, you're likely not going to be coming back and donating. You're going to be going out and giving money to the poor and putting money there and putting money for the sick and, and those Matthew 25 charges that we have.
- [33:16]
A
You know, it's interesting when you talk about being taught kind of how to think and how to feel, and I'm curious about this. Is. Is this really just a Christianity problem or is this really. You see this overall religion, or is that something you guys even study?
- [33:33]
B
So we, we, like Nathan and I are both. Are both followers of Christ. We're Christians, and so we hold our faith to the highest standard. So we focused pretty much on. On Christianity. But this is what I'll say, though. Christianity's Christianity makes up about 30% of the world, but it makes up well over 50%. I think it's like 55% of the. Of the. The world's wealth. So, yeah, so there's a lot of money there. Right? So that's part of the issue here.
- [34:07]
A
Yeah, that's funny. Many, many, many years ago, I worked with a dude that was from Pakistan, I think, and he was like, fresh off the boat. Pakistani, right. And I asked him at one point, I said, you know, can I ask you a question? Because he was a cool guy and we got along. And I said, why? What's the problem with, like, you guys and Americans? Like, what's the problem? And he was like, you gotta understand, we're raised in a religion where we're told this is the only true way to live. This is, you know, all of the things that we do, this is the only true way. It is the only way to live. And we are dirt poor. And we see you guys living a completely different way, and you seem to have everything. And that causes a lot of internal, you know, we resent you for that. And that's how I grew up. And he goes, it wasn't until I lived here that I realized, well, no, opportunity is everywhere. But it was just such an interesting dynamic, I think. And it kind of goes with this that people are just. The person at the pulpit, regardless of religion, has such a power to shape your. Not just view of yourself, but your worldview as well.
- [35:16]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely it does. I mean, it's a very. That's a very powerful position. So I also relate it to this brother. So we as Americans can, I want to say, the vast majority of all of us agree that there should be term limits in politics, right?
- [35:35]
A
Oh, my gosh. Without question.
- [35:37]
B
So. And why we say, why is that? Well, because you can go there for two to four years and probably hold your line. But the vast majority of it, with all that lobbying money and all the insider trading and all the stuff that happens there, and the big bucks. I mean, this isn't like made up stuff. You go in, make $170,000 a year, and then you come out of 75. Yeah. Multimillionaire.
- [36:02]
A
Yeah. $28 million in the bank. Yeah, but AOC is worth like 20 million now.
- [36:07]
B
I, I, I don't, I don't know, but I, I believe that. And then, and then, so then you, then you, then, then we got that, that house painted, then go to the religious house. I mean, I think, you know this concept of being a lifelong pastor in today's system. At some point in time, the system will eat you. There's too much money in there. And it's dark and it's, and it's a by. You're a byproduct of the system, just like you're a byproduct of the system in politics. Right? Like, you look left, you look right. This person's doing it, that person's doing it. And a lot of it's not illegal, right? You know, a lot of it's not necessarily illegal, some of it, but, but you know it's wrong because you don't want your constituents to know. And then again, you know it's wrong because you don't want your congregation to know, right? It's taxpayer money, it's donor money. You know, it's all this money that's going in. I mean, goodness sake, like, people are getting taxed 30, 40%. And then you got state tax, you got property tax, sales tax, and then on top of that, you're giving 10%. And then you look around and you're like, okay, why is crime so high? Why are there homeless everywhere? Why are there sick people everywhere? And all these people are profiting off of me. Go into the medical system. I mean, it's a, you know, oh, take this so you can get this and we'll treat you for this like it is. And, and at the end of the day, the religious institution, the church is supposed to be the bright shining city on the, on the hill. And if that one's not, the institution's not, how are all the other institutions going to be?
- [37:41]
A
When did this, when did this start? When did this go from being, you know, I'm, I'm the Little House on the Prairie and the church with this, the one little guy to, to this.
- [37:52]
B
Like, yeah, great question. So there's a direct correlation to technology. So, you know, it's like, it's like, okay, you know, you know, you have newspapers, right? And then you have radio, and then you have TV and then you have Internet and then you've got streaming channels and then you've got all these social media platforms. So the more access they have to reach you, the more money there is, there's more money in it. It's, it's, it's just, you know, basic economics from that sense. So it has just gone up like that. And you will see, you know, when the Vatican needed money to, to, to build something, I think it was the basilica. Then they were like, how do, what do we do? Oh, we'll start selling indulgences. Right. And it's the same thing that, you know, in the 19, in the 1900s. Right. I think like around nine in the 1950s, my, my business partner has it the exact year. But around that time, you know, tithing became a thing up here in the United States. Right. It's like, well, why we need money to fund these buildings and you know, this is a full time job. Yeah.
- [39:01]
A
So that started in the 50s.
- [39:03]
B
Well, the concept of tithing goes all the way back to Melchizedek.
- [39:08]
A
But somebody found it in the bible in the 50s and said, wait a.
- [39:11]
B
Second, how can we get this? How can we see this? Yeah, exactly. How can we get people to, how can we start funding these things? And it's like, well, where in scripture can we point to something and everything? But the whole thing is, it's been completely taken out of context. Right. Like, you know, we're not talking about like the, you know, God given land to you and then it's, you know, we're talking about like, you know, the first bits of agriculture and grain here. And then all of a sudden that ties into. Well, yeah, you're supposed to give us the first 10 of your paycheck. We're, you know, you're supposed to give God's house that. We're God's house, we're the storehouse. And it's like, okay, well Christ told us who to give money to.
- [39:47]
A
Yeah.
- [39:48]
B
And it's not going to them. It's not going to them.
- [39:52]
A
The middleman isn't getting there. Well, let me ask you this because I don't know if you thought about this, but I normally ask, you know, we have business owners, CEOs, all these things. How, how AI is going to implement and affect their business in the years coming up? Where do you, I mean I, I'm sitting here thinking you're going to have chat bots dialing people that know everything about them 24 hours a day asking for money.
- [40:18]
B
Absolutely. So this, remember what I told you, it's like, it goes like this the more access you get. Yeah, well, they're using Chat G, Chat GPT and other, other chat engines for their sermons now. They're literally just a lot of them. They just type in, hey, what's a good sermon on this? And they, that's their start comes. Yeah. And then, you know, they make a million dollars plus a year doing that.
- [40:44]
A
Well, I mean, you're going to see them with the AI. You're going to see them with, literally they're going to make AI generated clones of themselves and they won't even show up. They'll just be on screen.
- [40:53]
B
Yeah, that. It's a very dangerous direction when you, when you think about it. And that's why, like, you gotta know, you gotta know them by their fruits.
- [41:00]
A
All right, so let's say somebody's listening to this and they're like, holy crap. You know, I'm religious. I like going to church, I like doing this. What should they do? What's the first solution?
- [41:11]
B
The first thing they should do? I encourage everyone, read your Bibles, pray to God, you know, and I would say make sure you are. You got a good accountability group with you. Walk in fellowship, walk in the light as he is in the light. And, and, and know what? Know. You need to be able to know them by their, by their fruits. Right. And so I would say don't be afraid. Like, watch, like I say, watch. Watch a docu series. If you go on our at Broken Shepherds, you'll see a lot of the data that we're trying to populate there. I would encourage them to start asking questions to their leadership. Sir, I've noticed, you know, I looked at, I looked in the, the financial thing, it's a pie chart. I don't really see what salary you have. Do you disclose that to the congregation? I don't need to tell you that might be the answer. Do you receive a housing allowance? I don't need to tell you that either. So ask those questions and don't be afraid to. And you know, if there's a couple people that you need to take with you to ask those questions, do it out. Do it lovingly and kindly. Don't. You don't need to be rude about it. Just ask, Ask those questions. And if they can't tell you that you probably, your money's probably not going to impact. It's probably not going to. Matthew 25.
- [42:31]
A
If they can't answer the, if they, if they can't answer the simple question of where Is it going then? It's probably not going anywhere good.
- [42:37]
B
I got a really good Real World example. You know, somebody watched down the DOCU series and went into one of the places that was profiled in the docu series and went in there and said, I want to know what your housing allowance is. This person was their largest donor. And he said, I don't need to tell you that. And he goes, what about the 1.5 million I gave you for scholarships for poor children? Can you give me a list of names of kids that got scholarships? Nah, don't need to tell you that. Can you tell me how many scholarships are given? Nah, don't need to tell you that. What about the building? Yeah, I didn't tell you that either. And he said, sayonara, peace.
- [43:17]
A
Yeah, I don't need to tell you that.
- [43:21]
B
Correct.
- [43:22]
A
If you want to keep my money, you probably do.
- [43:24]
B
So I'm beyond, like, you know, at first in this journey, it's like, hey, they're a byproduct of the system. We extended olive branches and such. But, like, you know, you're doing wrong when you won't. You won't answer questions to the people who are giving you money. Can you run a business, brother, in any way, shape or form where your investors, your stakeholders, your shareholders, your members that you could talk to them and treat them that way?
- [43:51]
A
No, absolutely no.
- [43:52]
B
Absolutely not. You. You would be. Oh, my gosh, dude, you would. You would be on the worst list in the world. No one would ever want to do business with you.
- [43:59]
A
Done in one second. So. All right, last question. Who is public enemy numero uno?
- [44:06]
B
Who's public enemy numero uno?
- [44:08]
A
Yeah, if you want to. If you had to. If you had to pin one of the worst offender out there, who is it?
- [44:13]
B
Wow, There's. There's several. So I'll say, like, you can give me the most.
- [44:19]
A
You give me the most wanted list. It's fine.
- [44:22]
B
So, like, Kenneth Copeland's one of one. One of the most notorious ones, right? So his net worth, allegedly, I have to say that, is about $750 million. And so Kenneth, back in the day, right, this is like decades ago, was trying to raise money for this thing called the revival capital of the world, right? And he wanted to have a. Build like a hotel, a theme park for members, and raise money for it. Have an old. An old age community for people. And then had an airport, wanted to have an airport built so they can fly into and all that. Well, the airport's in his name, okay? He has a 19,000 square foot parsonage on there that gets to avoid a $170,000 ish tax bill that the church pays for that donors dollars pay for. There's oil, oil like oil being like pumped there. There's an airport, I said with his name on it. But not, not, that's not for other people. And yeah, and, and a radio station got built. Right. Which again, more access to money. There was no theme park, there was no hotel. None of that was built. Right. And so you got to kind of look at that and go wow. Then I look at the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter Day Saints. They've hit in the, in the, in the business world, brothers, you know, called Escape Velocity. They will have a trillion dollars in assets estimated within the next decade. They have $265 billion in assets. So they could, you could, you could buy every team in the NBA over twice and still have money left over. And the wild thing is, is not, not the original Joseph Smith, but like the third president, his name is also Joseph Smith in 1907 said the church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints will, will get to a place financially will no longer require a tithe. Well, that day is, is definitely here because their operating expenses are a absolute fraction, a drop in the bucket to what they have in assets. Yeah. I mean so today, today, you know, they, and then they have a, an investment fund and they got in trouble with the SEC because they lied over 600,000 times. It's an investment fund that like owns malls and hotels and orange orchards and they're the second largest private landowner in the United States. And guess what? It's registered as an auxiliary to the church. Yeah. So it's interesting. There's a couple for you.
- [47:01]
A
There's a couple. And. Yeah. And if you do business with us here in Nevada and you're a Mormon, the thoughts and feelings of the. I'm just kidding. Nobody's listening at this point. Was fine. No, it's just me and you. No, we're good. Well brother, I appreciate it, man. I can't wait to watch the documentary. I'm going to go home and check it out. What is that? Where can they find it if they want to find it?
- [47:19]
B
So it's on thereeligionbusiness.com and by. And then around Labor Day weekend timeframe, so early September, we will have it up on Amazon.
- [47:29]
A
Oh, I love that. That's great, man. And where can they find you if they want to find, I mean not come find you but you know, in general connect with you.
- [47:37]
B
I appreciate your clarity on that one.
- [47:39]
A
Just try to keep you safe, that's all.
- [47:41]
B
So our on Instagram, our handles at religion business, we've been axed from a couple other platforms. So we're at religion business or you just type in goodness. You just type in the religion Business.
- [47:55]
A
I never know if your camera is being. Just getting dropped or you're actually being attacked while we're. Every time that happen, I never know. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, well, Duple, thanks for coming in, man. It was, it was a really interesting talk. It was fascinating. And yeah, it's eye opening and, you know, look, if you listen to this today, if you're someone that is highly religious, that's. That's okay. That's actually encouraged. That's great. Just be mindful of what you're doing with your dollars because if you're really trying to help people, you might be sending them to the wrong place. We'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.