It Could Happen Here - City of Hate Part 2: Stedfast Baptist Church

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

We discuss the Dallas area church preaching the genocide of LGBTQ+ people from the pulpit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome to It Could Happen Here. This is part two of a, I guess, two-part series about Dallas, Texas. Finally, we're getting in a Dallasxas resident to refute some of this

this slander sure it's my and my my flawless hometown uh i've i've spent a few formerly briefly host to bernie sanders when he had to take care of something i i've i've spent a few summers in dallas i've i've i've been around that's unfortunate i've been around the dfw area i wouldn't recommend spending summers in dallas hold on hold on i wouldn't recommend spending winters in dallas either there's a couple of weeks in spring that it's tolerable to be in dallas try to make it then. It occurs to me that we should ask Garrison, where were you when they killed JFK? I was, I, I'm... Yeah, Garrison.

I was, I was born in the 21st century. What are you talking about? Have you ever mail-ordered a Manliker Carcano rifle in the back of American Rifleman magazine? Okay, let's, let's open by, by first briefly talking about the 31 dorky-ass neo-Nazis who got arrested in Idaho, who are planning to confront riot attendees in Coeur d'Alene. You just said because you missed that episode and you want to talk about it.

That's right. That is exactly why. We've already done the episode, but I'm always down to talk about this. I know we just did an episode talking about it, but I wasn't on that one. So I have a few paragraphs on how it relates to today's topic of christian fascist violence i just want to state that you and i were both hanging out at a party when we got the news about that and it is the hardest i have ever seen you laugh for like four hours so and hey like patriot front's based out of texas so that yes there is a degree of relevance here yes to the bulk of our of our topic today so yeah i think it's pretty funny because a group of over 30 fascists all dressed in the same outfit it's almost incomprehensibly funny trained in saunas so they wouldn't pass

out while crammed into a hot sweaty u-haul truck driving from all around the country to cordelaine idaho so that they can march around with flags and shields to yell at gay and trans kids and you know what they did instead they got pulled over and sat in a ditch while getting their little klan hood masks taken off and spent the rest of a day in an idaho jail and all got doxxed. It's really funny. It's really funny. Especially since, again, their best case scenario was spending a day free in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

I know. And instead they didn't do that. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be like, you can be against cops in the carceral system while still recognizing how innately absurd and hilarious this scenario is. Yeah, it's fine.

When cops in groups like Patriot Front Beef, that's generally a win-win for me. I'm not cheering on police tactics. It's just recognizing that one of my enemies temporarily making another one of my enemies' lives harder is pretty funny. It's really funny. It's the same reason that we don't condemn police violence when a cop shoots another cop like exactly yeah it's blue on blue

violence like it's and like it's just funny and like based on these charges i doubt any of these guys in particular will go to prison for long enough to form like any like dangerous connections with other incarcerated people well i'm sure there's a couple of dudes in there that if you know they were to go to a serious prison could make meaningful inroads with the nazis there but man most of those dudes aryan nations guys are just gonna like they're not going to consider comrades like the the yeah it's yeah yeah i i think i think the Patriot front Idaho situation seems like it'll mostly just be an inconvenience and national embarrassment for them. And I think, and I think we can,

we can let this one just be as funny as it is considering there was 30 less Nazis there to intimidate and attack people at pride. And Patriot front may be now less willing to pull stunts like this in the future. Yeah. I've thought about this a lot and I just can't see any ways in which what has happened could really be a problem um it seems to just purely be funny so just enjoy it yeah look look this this is what happens when you appropriate lesbian culture you get arrested actually that's not all that different from

what garrison was saying immediately after the arrest. That is true. I made a lot of jokes about how Patriot Front looks pretty gay while getting handcuffed. Wow. Shine the cancel radar. Get the cancelometer out. We're canceling Garrison. Anyway, let's continue with this episode. So here is some other fun facts about the whole Idaho thing. So two of the Patriot Front members who were crammed into that U-Haul last weekend were connected to a church helmed by former Washington State Representative Matt Shea, who is also associated with the Bundys, the Oath Keepers, and leads the church at planned parenthood uh he has advocated like civil war if abortion and same-sex marriage aren't stopped kill all the men in left-wing cities

all that good stuff yeah yeah yeah and he was also present at the protest in cordelaine at the pride event this past weekend and we can we can draw like this direct line from the surge of groomer and anti-drag propaganda to neo-naazis deciding to organize and travel across straight lines to threaten people at a Pride event. In the days leading up to the event, Chaya Rajchek, the woman behind the Libs of TikTok account, repeatedly highlighted it, weaponizing pearl-clutching satanic panic. In Rajchek's first post about the Pride event,

it was about how the satanic temple was promoting the event in an ad-elated tweet by someone claiming to represent local Satanists. On June 7th, Libs of TikTok posted, quote, family-friendly drag dance party being promoted by the Satanic Temple in Idaho. We are living in hell. Which is a nice little pun there that I can't quite tell if that was intentional or unintentional about Satanic Temple and living in hell can't quite tell if that was intentional or unintentional about Satanic Temple and living in hell. Anyway, I thought that was funny. Dave Riley, a white supremacist who attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,

who also organized with Identity Europa a few years back, he actively solicited Libs of TikTok to draw attention to the Pride event and sought her help in trying to, like, get publicity for the protests against it. Quoting the SPLC hate watch, quote, The Idaho Tribune also drew attention to it. Idaho Tribune, far from a real newspaper, is an obscure junkie news publication that on multiple occasions has promoted Riley's political activism. Anti-racist activists also tipped Hatewatch off to infrastructural overlap between a website that promotes Riley by name and Idaho Tribune. Hatewatch reviewed the source code for Dave Riley's website and the Idaho Tribune site and confirmed that the two sites share graphics from the same web hosting account, meaning that they

are likely controlled by the same person, unquote. And then on June 9th, Libs of TikTok posted screenshots taken from the Idaho Tribune about the Satanic Temple and the Coeur d'Alene Pride event, boosting content from that white supremacist-linked website to her 1.2 million followers. Every single one of these figures using fascist rhetoric and utilizing stochastic methods, including Chaya Raichek, her financial backer, Seth Dillon, and people like Tucker Carlson are all responsible for inciting events like this. Tucker led his show last week by using a Nazi reference when referring to a pride event in Dallas. In terms of stuff that's like outside of, you know, conservative states like Idaho or

Texas, late last month, Rycheck, as lips of TikTok, targeted a Bay Area drag queen storytime event, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's drag queens reading children's books to kids in a public library. And then on June 12th, it was stormed by a group of around 10 men dressed in Proud Boy attire and shirts that read, kill your local pedophile. They threatened attendees while shouting homophobic and transphobic slurs, terrifying a bunch of kids who would come to hear Queens read stories. So how did this kind of stuff and like, how did this rhetoric spread so quickly? Like how did this groomer stuff get so volatile so quickly just in these past few months? In our War on Trans People episodes and my Operation Prideful episodes, we discussed the history of this sort of save the children and pedophile rhetoric.

And in my City of Hate episode earlier this week, we talked about how this wave of homophobia was able to write off the conspiracism of Pizzagate and QAnon. And then in this episode, we're going to talk about the types of places that this extreme bigotry was able to fester this past decade, and how it relates to evangelical Christianity and Christian fascism. I'm going to play an audio clip from a city council meeting in Arlington, Texas that happened on May 25th. Take a listen. My name is Jonathan Shelley. I'm the pastor of Steadfast Baptist Church, and I'm here today because I have church members that live in Arlington. I live only a few miles away from here,

and I do business in Arlington on a weekly basis. I'm horrified and ashamed that this city has decided to promote and solicit pride in this city. Pride is nothing to be celebrated. In fact, it's an abomination. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 8, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogancy. And the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate. According to God, we should hate pride, not celebrate it. We should humble ourselves as

virtually the whole room said that we were a nation under god according to the american flag and we were a state under god according to the texas flag we should humble ourselves to what the bible says and not what the small minority here that is bullied would say. Amen. In June of 2020, Mayor Jeff Williams officially announced he accepts a Pride Month in June for the city of Arlington. But I don't understand why we'd celebrate what used to be a crime not long ago.

In fact, according to the Texas Penal Code, in section 21.06, homosexual conduct, a person commits an offense if he engages in deviant sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex. In fact, that is still on the books today, even though Lawrence v. Texas overruled that in 2003. But God has already ruled that murder, adultery, witchcraft, rape, bestiality, and homosexuality are crimes worthy of capital punishment. Arlington, just for context, is one of many towns in North Dallas that if you happen to have weed on you,

you're going to want to tape it to the bottom of your balls before driving through Arlington. Thanks for that great, great weed tip from Robert Evans. You're welcome. You're welcome, Garrison. So, that is Pastor Jonathan Shelley, who lives in Grand Prairie. He was there at an Arlington, Texas, city council meeting, casually advocating killing gay people

while citing Texas's laws against homosexuality. Their church and this connected branch of Baptists that we'll learn more about later have an intense record of preaching genocide against gay and trans people and also a fair amount of anti-Semitism. Big, big shocker there. The previous pastor at this church, which was called Steadfast Baptist Church, but the previous pastor, who resigned in 2019 due to allegations that he paid for sex workers, was involved in gambling, and had smoked marijuana. I guess he should have taped more of it to his balls. He garnered

national attention for celebrating the Orlando Pulse Gay Nightclub Massacre, which killed 49 people. From the pulpit, the pastor said that God should finish the job and referred to the murdered patrons as sodomites, perverts,

and pedophiles. The new pastor, John Shelley, continues this same strain of preaching violence against gay people. This next clip is from June 2021, right after someone died after getting hit by a truck at a pride parade in Florida, which we later found out was a complete accident, but I don't think the public knew that at the time. No. And obviously people, I mean, I think all of our assumptions was, oh, God, you know, this is the thing. Yeah.

Well, here's the clip. It's going beyond just saying you do all this wicked stuff. It's saying you enjoy it. You enjoy murder. You enjoy malignity. You enjoy hating God. Look, there's only one group that enjoys that. It's the pride parades going up and down the street.

And you know, it's great when trucks accidentally go through those parades. I think only one person died, so hopefully we can hope for more in the future. You say, well, that's mean. Yeah, but the Bible says that they're worthy of death. You say, are you sad when fags die? No, well, that's mean. Yeah. But the Bible says that they're worthy of death. You say, are you sad when fags die? No, I think it's great. I hope they all die. I would love it if every fag would die right now. And you say, well, I don't think that's what you really mean. That's exactly what I mean. I really mean it. So yeah, it's important to remember like that's June, 2021. So even a year before the big wave of groomer stuff got pushed this past spring with the help of lives of tiktok and that kind of shows how

susceptible modern conservatism was to this resurgence of in your face homophobia there's been people to working to like keep it here the whole time just bubbling beneath the surface and now it's just completely boiled over um and i'm gonna say like the rest of the episode's gonna get into some pretty dark stuff uh there's gonna be a few more clips that are pretty are pretty gross uh if you want to if you want to check out that's totally fine after this episode i myself i'm gonna take a little bit of a break from covering this sort of thing because it's taking a little bit too much of a mental toll uh because it's a lot of genocide it's it is it's it is it's pretty intense uh if you do feel the need to leave before you go just remember this simple phrase for keeping safe in the dfw area tape it to your balls and your happiness won't be smalls. So here's another clip from June 2021 of Shelley reiterating his call for the government to execute gay people after he received some public backlash for the previous clip that we used.

And I personally believe that all of these sodomites, you know, people that are men with men are pedophile because that means that they just simply are attracted to children. They're attracted to these people that are the ages of 17, 16, 15, 14, 13. Even though they're a grown adult, they're going after children and very young children often cases and molesting them and hurting them. And, you know, anybody that loves children, loves their family, would want this person to be executed through the proper channels. That's what I believe. That's what I teach. I'm not a violent person. So my kind of fear is that Shelley or someone like, you know, John Doyle that we talked about in our last City of Hate episode is not that they themselves will bring a weapon to some future pride parade or go on a

rampage and assault or kill gay people, right? It's that one of their followers or one of their fans will. And these types of pastors and far-right media figures are intentionally leading people on to that outcome. To quote Haymuth Mehta, who's been tracking Steadfast for years, quote, because while Shelley is celebrating murder, he's also handing his congregation a metaphorical loaded gun. And if somebody eventually uses a literal one to follow through on what they believe to be God's orders, they know that Shelley will be proud of them, even as he tells the world he has absolutely nothing to do with it. Unquote. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America from ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So under the pressure of activists, Steadfast actually got evicted from their old building in Hearst, Texas this past March for spreading their extreme anti-LGBT hate and calls for violence, which was in

violation of the terms of its lease, which prohibited violence and threats. The church has an active Gab page, which kind of tells you a little bit about the people running this sort of operation. Insteadfast publicly organized and live streamed their sermons on a very active Facebook page, which is no longer active for reasons that we will later discuss. And then during these past few months, they've relocated their church from Hearst to a building that's part of a strip mall in Watauga, Texas.

Is that how I'm saying it, Robert? Yeah, that's, that's the thing about any town in Texas is you doesn't have, it doesn't matter how you pronounce it because they're Texans. Watauga, Watauga. Do whatever you want. Fuck them. is it doesn't matter how you pronounce it because they're Texans. Huatayuga. Huatayuga. Do whatever you want. Fuck them. Anyway, they're now a strip mall church,

which I think is a good look for them. I mean, okay, I will correct you here. You're saying that like it's funny as opposed to just the way everything is in Texas because Texas is a giant strip mall. Yeah, I guess so. And while John Shelley is pretty bad, right? We've heard a lot of bad clips of him

talking about how gay people are pedophiles and how they should all be killed by the government. He's not the only guy at Steadfast preaching violent and genocidal rhetoric. Enter Dylan Oz, formerly based out of Boise, Idaho, now preaching at Steadfast Baptist Church in Watuga, Texas. On Sunday, June 4th, Dylan Oz, while preaching from the pulpit, said that the, quote,

solution for the homosexual is for the government to execute every single gay person. Here's a clip of him saying that. What does God say is the answer, is the solution for the homosexual in 2022, here in the New Testament, here in the book of Romans, that they are worthy of death. These people should be put to death. Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with a crime, the abomination of homosexuality that they have. They should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality that they have. They should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be

sentenced with death. They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head. That's what God teaches. That's what the Bible says. You don't like it, you don't like God's work because that is what God says. I don't think that the Bible says anything about guns, actually. It's been a while since I read the King James Version that Steadfast exclusively uses. So maybe it's like a translation thing, but I don't remember anything about shooting or bullets or guns inside my Bible. But speaking of translation things, I'm going to go in a little theology rant here about quote unquote, lying with man or lying with men. Um, and how scholars actually believe if you look at the original biblical texts, not the

crap like the King James version and the nonsense based off that horrible translation. But the chapter is where people pull stuff, supposedly condemning men for laying with men and quote unquote, homosexuality, which is obviously like a very word, does not belong in a text as old as the Bible. Like that just didn't exist yet. But those passages would probably more accurately translate to condemning adult men who rape young boys. And even if they didn't, even if it was about adult men with other adult men, I don't fucking care and neither should most christians because christians are not following all of the laws of leviticus nor should they like that shit was for israelites thousands of years ago to make their culture distinct from

other surrounding nations like christians aren't railing against the use of mixed fabric for christ sake yeah are you not supposed to oh i am too there's there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff i believe in eating shrimp but i think if you use mixed fabrics you should be executed you should be lying against a wall and shot in the back of the head absolutely that's the only thing but anyone using mixed fabrics death penalty instantly yeah it's like obviously there's not these churches preaching against mixed fabric. Here's Christian preacher Dylan Oz again, justifying his calls for the execution of gay people by falsely claiming, obviously, that all homosexuals are pedophiles. Here's the thing.

Here's why reprobates, here's why homosexuals are so dangerous to society. They're not like other sinners in the sense that every single day that they are alive, they're being filled with more and more and more unrighteousness. That is a scary thing. You want to know why we say that all homosexuals are pedophiles? Let me make that very clear. All homosexuals are pedophiles. And people say, well, what about all the straight people that molest children? They're f**ks.

I don't care what you call them. If a person is with a child, you're f**ked. You're a reprobate. You're a sodomite. I don't care what kind of classifications our government wants to give them. All homosexuals are pedophiles. Now, here's the thing. Here's what I'm not saying.

I'm not saying that every single homosexual that's alive right now has committed that act with a child already because it could be that they haven't had the opportunity yet and they will at some point later in their life. This is why we need to put these people to death through the proper channels of the government because the Bible says that they are being filled. So here's the thing. Yes, maybe not every single homosexual has been with a child yet, but what about tomorrow when they're filled with a little more unrighteousness?

What about in a week from now when they're filled with a little more unrighteousness? What about 20 years from now? What are they going to be like? If you look up the statistics on these sodomites that abuse children, they're with so many children it'll make you throw up. Disgusting. These people are not normal. They're not your average everyday sinners.

They're what the Bible calls reprobates. They're rejected by God. They have no hope of salvation. So in 2021, John Shelley with Steadfast Baptist Church, with the help of a network of aggressively homophobic churches, made a two-hour, quote-unquote, documentary about how to, quote, Jesus Christ.

protect your children. And the title is called The Sodomite Deception. Oh, no. See, all right, look, if we're going to do this thing where there's licenses for people to buy guns, can we have there be a license to make a documentary? Can we mandate that too? So the quote-unquote sodomite deception claims to expose how the LGBTQ community is contributing to the collapse of modern society, which I mean based. The trailer opens with a real banger.

Most Americans are repelled by the mere notion of homosexuality. The CBS News survey shows that two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort, or fear. One out of ten says hatred. The documentary celebrates historical laws that criminalize homosexuality and criticizes more recent laws that expand LGBTQ rights. In the film, Shelley advocates for the death penalty to be used on the LGBTQ community and uses many slurs across

this whole thing. All of them use all kinds of slurs, as I'm sure we've heard this past episode. The pastors of other churches, part of the new independent fundamental Baptist movement, also featured in the documentary. Here's a collection of said pastors screaming in the trailer for The Sodomite Deception. Oh, thank you, Garrison. Thank you for playing us a trailer of people screaming. That's going to be fun. Starting off with Shelley saying, quote,

why aren't all these Baptists standing up and saying these freaks should go back to hell, should go back in the closet, put a bullet in your head. Why aren't they saying it? Because some of what he says is hard to hear, so I'm just saying that for you guys so you know what he's saying. Anyway, here's some of the trailer. It's pretty funny.

Why aren't all these Baptists standing up and saying these freaks should go back to hell, go back to the closet, put a bullet in your head. Why aren't all these Baptists standing up and saying these freaks should go back to hell? Go back to the closet. Put a bullet in your head. Why aren't they saying it? It's time to call a faggot a faggot, a transvestite, a disgusting dog. No homos will ever be allowed on this church as long as I'm the pastor here. Never!

Is the law of the Lord perfect or is it not? It's perfect. And what did he say? Put them to death. You know, people say like, well, aren't you sad that 50 sodomites died? Here's the problem with that. It's like the equivalent of asking me, you know, what if you asked me, hey, are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? No, I think that's great.

I think that helps society. You know, I think Orlando,ida is a little safer tonight now that 50 you know the tragedy is that more of them didn't die i mean the tragedy is i'm i'm i'm i'm kind of upset that he finished the job because these people are predators so yeah that sucks uh but man there is just a lot of men in their 40s screaming about gay people. They seem really concerned. Yes. Yeah.

Someone in that clip is noted homophobe and the Holocaust denier, Stephen Anderson, of faithful word Baptist Church. He's the guy shrieking, never, never! Anyway, steadfast church members and pastors have continued to show up at city council meetings in multiple cities throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

This past Monday, people associated with the church as well as residents opposing steadeadfast's bigotry, spoke at a city council meeting in Huatuga, Texas. I'm here today to let the council know of the hate group that has entered their city. This hate group is called Steadfast Baptist Church. It was in June of 2021 that I first came across the offensive defamation against women and the LGBTQ community. The hate statements, videos, and social media posts prompted me to join the protest that started in Hearst and now has moved to your city. And I apologize for this,

but this is quoting him. They are all dirty, disgusting skank whores. In another video, he also states that women in positions of leadership and authority are actually a curse upon our nation. Council members, at the very least, you should encourage the strip mall owner cider property of Dallas to revoke this church's lease. So yeah, there was there was kind of like this back and forth at this city council meeting. Multiple multiple people from Steadfast responded by screaming into the mic and continuing to advocate the execution of gay people. One guy that I'll that I'll quickly play a clip of is Philip Milstred of Steadfast. He went further and made a veiled threat of violence. The city of Otaga and its police officers

are allowing this community, this sodomite community, to intimidate church members from worshiping God the way he should be worshiped in truth. And if you don't do something something will happen bad so that's fun um it's also a strong strong definition of the word veiled well i mean like in terms like obviously they're talking about execution and genocide he's talking about like actually doing physical like actually like as vigilantes doing physical violence which is different because steadfast usually tries to frame their violence within like it's okay because it's

a part of the government right uh so when they're like talking about just doing like vigilantism or like saying like we're going to take this into our own hands right it's it's it's it's a little bit different watuga mayor arthur minor this past tuesday said that he is discussing the status of steadfast baptist church with the city attorney while also stating that the attorney has told him that it's a first amendment issue so that there's quote nothing that the city can do at this time but we are looking at other avenues unquote and i mean that's to be that's probably probably fair yeah it's hard to make a church leave a place yeah so he did not he did not elaborate further than that but he did encourage

people to bring up the issue with uh the uh the person holding steadfast's lease at this strip mall in watuga uh let is let us go on another uh ad break do you know who won't shriek at gay people and call on the government to kill them hope hopefully these these these ads hopefully i mean not for another couple of years yeah well that's why i said hopefully welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturnal tales from the shadows presented by iheart and sonora an anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so let's talk a bit more about this church's ideology and this network that it's associated with, because it is actually kind of interesting. So, Steadfast Baptist Church is part of Steven Anderson's church network called the New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement, which I'm just going to call the New IFB because those are way too many words. And they claim it's not like a denomination, but rather a revival of what the old independent fundamentalist Baptist movement once represented, unquote. The new IFB churches, just like the old IFB churches, use the King James Bible exclusively. And the old IFB

movement was founded in the 40s and was trying to reclaim the fundamentalism of the 1920s. And so we're just, we're going back from the 2020s to the 1920s, uh, in terms of their social views times the flat circle. Uh, so I'm going to, I'm going to quit a little bit from the ADL, which of course is very hit and miss as an organization, but they did, but they, they did, uh, they, they, they do have an, they do have a decent article on the new IFB churches, because this is like specifically the thing they focus on is this sort of anti-Semitism. So, anyway, quote, the new IFB ideology promotes the anti-Semitic notion that Jews today are imposters who are not the true Jews described in the Bible, which, by the way, is awfully close to Christian identity. I mean, that is essentially just christian identity it is it's very very similar i think the new ifb stuff is slightly different it comes at it from a slightly different direction it's like the difference between episcopals and catholics but they reach a very similar conclusion like i don't think they believe that christians are like the true jews and they don't

talk about like aryans and stuff and they're not doing british israelism but they exactly judaism is the synagogue of satan but it's like well some of them do use the term the synagogue of satan yeah i'm aware but like you know they hate judaism because as a religion it it's made up of Jews who do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. So therefore, they are not truly descendants of Israel, right? They come at it from more of that direction, but it is still extremely close to Christian identity. Like, it is just a tiny hop of a pond. They kiss in cousins, for sure. Yeah, no, they are absolutely in the

same networks because they are preaching very similar ideology um back to the back back to the adl quote they often claim that jews today worship satan and that the star of david represents the devil uh the new ifb doctrine promotes the notion of an antichrist whom they claim will be jewish in their sermons, various new IFB pastors often openly state that they hate Judaism as a religion. And in addition to criticizing Judaism, many new IFB pastors also promote anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power and control over sectors like finance, news, media, and journalism. New IFB pastors have also promoted Holocaust denial. In 2015, Pastor Steven Anderson presented a number of false claims

in a video specifically addressing the so-called, quote, Holocaust hoax, unquote, saying, the numbers don't add up, the facts don't add up. Anderson alleged that, quote, some Jews were among the many the many quote casualties on both sides well all lives did matter but he blamed those deaths on starvation and poor conditions claiming that quote just because people were rounded up and put in forced labor camps does not mean that they were systemically exterminated or cremated to the tune of six

million unquote unlike many in the evangelical movement the new ifb churches are staunchly that they were systemically exterminated or cremated to the tune of six million, unquote. Unlike many in the evangelical movement, the new IFB churches are staunchly anti-Zionist and anti-Israel. They decry Zionism as, quote, Jew worship, unquote, and view the traditional support for Israel among evangelical Christians as a result of Jewish deception in support of the Antichrist. Oh, but they have a ton of opinions about the sinking of the USS Liberty. In line with their broader anti-Semitic views of Judaism as a false and evil religion, the modern nation of Israel

is regularly characterized as wicked and a fraud, unquote. And they do not dislike Israel because Israel commits genocide against Palestinian people. Because as we've stated, they're very pro-genocide as a concept. Yeah, and to be honest,

probably pretty pro-genocide of the Palestinian people. Just not that way. Yeah, so that's a little write-up on what this network of churches believes. Everyone you heard talk inside the sodomite deception trailer

is part of this network of churches um they're all across the south some of their some of them are in like california arizona idaho oh oklahoma texas you know lots of other southern states and if you want to carry out a sodomite deception tape your drugs to your junk When you drive through Texas So Thankfully churches like these Are not standing unopposed Specifically in the Dallas-Fort Worth area There's been a number of protests

At the church's old location Which resulted in them getting evicted And protests at their new location I'm going to play some audio From protests that have taken Place over the course of the past few weeks. We're here to protest Dead Past Baptist Church, which is a registered hate group here in Texas on splcenter.org. We protested them in Hearst for nine

months. We found them here, and so we are back every Wednesday and every Sunday. I am a mom of a kid from the LGBTQ community and I am not gonna stand for you wishing death upon my kid just because of who he is and who he is. It's extremely exhausting, but at the same time it's very reassuring. Because we get nothing but support from the people on the street that drive by and give us plenty of honks and waves. And it's just so much love and support from the people that live in the community here as well as that's my city. So it's very personal. And I've noticed that we've gotten a lot of new people come out here because this is their city and it's personal. So that's that's pretty good to hear that there's actually people standing standing up to say, hey, these guys suck in person.

There probably should be more people going in person. The church is obviously facing a lot of confrontations online and stuff. They're facing a lot of online pushback. But once you bring that into the real world, it definitely, it's a totally different thing in terms of how they're being viewed. I mean, in some ways, you know, they enjoy being persecuted, right? They enjoy the notion of Christian persecution. But also, it's great to have, you know, people waving pride flags outside their little church every Sunday. The church still has an active Instagram page,

and it still has a Twitter account, but their actual tweets do keep getting taken down for hate speech. A week ago, YouTube striked Steadfast's main channel where they post videos and sermons. As they weren't able to use their main channel, on Facebook they began promoting their second YouTube channel as a platform to stream their murderous anti-gay hate sermons during Pride Month. And a few days after I posted about that on Twitter, their secondary YouTube got completely banned. And then after a few days, their Facebook page was also taken down. So they do have a shrinking online presence.

There's this other clip from the Sodomite Deception trailer that I think really gives you a peek into the minds of these folks who are pushing this sort of stuff. And you can even see this same sentiment in the rise of white nationalism and white supremacy this past decade. My question is, why are we embracing all this change as Christians? Did the Bible change? Did the Bible radically change 10 years ago? My King James Bible hasn't changed a word since it was translated in 1611, period. So why in the world is everything changing? It's not from God, that's for sure. You know what's coming from? The working of Satan. He's deceiving people thinking all of it's normal now. So our challenge as people who are, you know, anti-fascists, people who stand against, you know,

are anti-racist, push back against this type of anti-queer organizing, our challenge is to keep the change coming and to push back against these freaks trying to hold on to the 20th century right the the fear of change and the fear of the future is driving their you know desire to return to the past the train of like social progress was moving forward over the course of the past 20 years and they're scared and they're trying to stop it and move it backwards. And it's up to us to make that as hard as possible. But yeah, that is my stuff on Steadfast Church. I'm now going to open up the floor to anyone. Robert, Chris, what do you guys think of all of the stuff we just heard about the past 30 minutes well one of the keys is you want to use tape that has a good level of adhesion but isn't going to actually damage your skin

really yeah like scotch tape what are we what are we doing here scotch tape will do okay you really want to avoid duct tape but something like painter's tape generally isn't going to have the adhesion that you need um it's going to be a little bit unpleasant anytime you're taking tape off of. And I do recommend actually putting it like more in the taint area or the inner thigh. You're going to have a better, better experience. You might want to shave that inner thigh if you're not somebody who does

normally, just so that you have a better time getting your drugs free, but you know, crotch it. That's always been my motto. Just crotch it. Again, great, great, great great great texas insight coming coming out of robert evans here no i mean like okay so seriously the the fact that there's been resistance to these folks in the street um and that it's been significant that they've like

not just people showing up to yell at them and protest them in the moment but people you know working to get them kicked out of their locations and stuff. That's really good. And that's, that's honestly more the Texas that I have known than, or at least it's as much of the Texas that I've known as like the shitty things that this says about Texas. Yeah.

First protest I ever went to was against a church like this, who you've probably heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, when they showed up to protest at the Holocaust Museum. Oh, boy. And it was like, like a whole hundreds of people showed up to like, and there were like six of those fuckers. So, I mean, the problem with Texas has been that um there aren't a lot of awesome people in texas it's that folks like this these who who really want to use the mechanisms of the state to carry out a genocide have a lot of friends in high places and many of those folks spent decades ensuring that it's basically impossible for anybody else to win election.

Outside of like, you know, local elections and cities and stuff, which often city governments in Texas, again, if you look at a lot of the reaction to Abbott's anti-trans bills and where we'll be sort of the actual resistance as Texas's anti-gay legislation gets more extreme is in cities like Dallas and Austin and Houston. And it's like local laws and local elected leaders as well as local activists who represent an awful lot of Texas. And don't have any real power in the levers of the state. power and the levers of the state, but do tend to stand up in a lot of cases like people did for some of these events in Dallas recently, put their bodies in between fascists and the people they're threatening. And I mean, the new IFB churches are definitely probably more extreme or explicit than most of your average Christian churches. But it is not uncommon to preach this general strain of homophobia, maybe turn down like one notch of the dial from the pulpit in the majority of churches, specifically in the South.

Yeah, you don't say we should be lining these people against a wall and killing them, but you say that, you know, this is not biblical. You know, we're supposed to live in a biblical society. And you say everything but that lasts like 10 or 15%. Yeah. It is not, like, this strain of homophobia has been there this entire time. has been there this this entire time um and people have feel like they have permission to say things now that they honestly wouldn't probably wouldn't have said as explicitly like five years ago um but there was there's always been people working to keep this thing within the culture

as as stuff was progressing socially there was people working to keep this type of bigotry still alive in large sectors of the American public. And a lot of those sectors are related to evangelical Christianity, and a lot of those sectors are related to the communities around church building. So, that's a big part in how Christian

fascism has been so effective basically the past decade, starting with the Tea Party, is that they've had people with vested interests, like keeping this stuff afloat. I mean, Libs of TikTok receives her funding from Seth Dillon, the guy who runs the Babylon Bee, which started as a Christian satire site. There's now Elon Musk's favorite place on the internet. Which is wild i mean but

yeah like like you know like i i remember reading the babylon b when i was like fucking 12 years old when i was like a christian kid like i it was just like like it used to be just a small niche christian site and now it grew into this you know big powerful force in modern conservatism it is directly funding Lips of TikTok, which is basically now just a gun that gets pointed at whatever targeted event that they want. So now it's like

this completely astroturf thing with all of this funding and people choosing what events to target. So it all goes back to this it all goes back to these types of churches and this type of rhetoric this type of rhetoric coming out of, you know, these few misinterpreted biblical passages.

It is weird how, like, I mean, when I was, you know, a teenager, when you talked about like Christian entertainment, Christian comedy,

Christian music, Christian media, you meant like the most boring milquetoast shit on the planet. Like, not that there wasn't toxic and hateful shit within being preached in churches, but like Christian media was like, was pretty hard to be offended at most of it. And now when you say that, like you immediately go to like,

oh yeah, somebody's trying to get gay people murdered. Yeah. Something else. Yeah. go to like oh yeah somebody's trying to get gay people murdered um yeah it's something else yeah there's been a large increase in the militancy of christian propaganda and posing you know stuff that used to be just very like very boring milk like milk toast and like still very like you know patriarchal heteronormative you know probably low-key white supremacist um is now yeah now lots of the propaganda is way more focused in this type of like militant christianity um and focused on you know all all of like the end times stuff's gotten so much more more of a thing um and just how it relates to like physical violence against currently living people anyway yeah that's the

that's the steadfast baptist church and the sodomite deception um brought to you by people out of dallas so yeah those are my those are my two episodes i mean we started first episode this week was part one last episode this week is part two so they're spread out but sandwiched it those are those are my two two episodes on uh the city of the homophobia and christian fascism inside the city of hate look if you want to help out find the the addresses of one of these churches now the next thing you're going to do is you're going to find a good torrent client and you're going to download a dvd rip of morbius there's a lot of them out there then you're going to do is you're going to find a good torrent client and you're going to download a DVD rip of Morbius. There's a lot of them out there.

Then you're going to burn that. You may need to buy a burner. A lot of people aren't going to have this equipment, but you're going to burn that onto a DVD. You could also put it on a flash drive if you really wanted. And then you're just going to start mailing those en masse to the church. If we get them enough copies of Morbius, I think we might be able to turn them around. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.