Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 846 | Hillsong, Steven Furtick & the Dangers of 'Designer' Pastors | Guest: Ben Kirby (PreachersNSneakers)

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Today we're joined by Ben Kirby, founder of Instagram account @PreachersNSneakers and author of "PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities," to discuss the state of the church when it comes to wealth and prosperity and how we elevate pastors to the role of celebrity. The PreachersNSneakers account posts photos of celebrity pastors, such as Steven Furtick and Mike Todd, wearing extremely expensive clothes and sneakers and leaves the questions up to us: Should we be glorifying this type of wealth when it comes to the role of pastor, and does this help or hurt prospective believers interested in the church? We discuss the relationships that have formed from this account, with some pastors engaging in good-hearted discussions with Ben about their clothing choices and others responding with more vitriol. We also discuss the two recent Hillsong documentaries that highlight the rise and fall of celebrity pastor Carl Lentz. Then we explain the seriousness of the pastoral calling and explain why many pastors who tend to show off their wealth also preach a toxic prosperity gospel with shallow and vapid messaging. --- Timecodes: (01:24) PreachersNSneakers (07:16) What is the point of the posts? (10:20) Why do some pastors wear expensive clothes? (23:07) Did you form relationships with pastors? (30:21) Do these clothes attract people to church? (34:20) Hillsong documentaries (42:45) Prosperity gospel & shallow messaging (52:20) PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — get $30 OFF your box today at GoodRanchers.com – make sure to use code 'ALLIE' when you subscribe. You'll also lock in your price for two full years with a subscription to Good Ranchers! My Patriot Supply — prepare yourself for anything with long-term emergency food storage. Get your new, lower-price 4-Week Emergency Food Kit at PrepareWithAllie.com. Seven Weeks Coffee — get your organically farmed and pesticide-free coffee at sevenweekscoffee.com and let your coffee serve a greater purpose. Use the promo code 'ALLIE' to save 10% off your order. Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE”. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 786 | Mike Todd’s Blasphemous Easter Service https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-786-mike-todds-blasphemous-easter-service/id1359249098?i=1000608480872 Ep 551 | My Take on Pastor Mike Todd’s Spit Take https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-551-my-take-on-pastor-mike-todds-spit-take/id1359249098?i=1000548398419 Ep 528 | What Progressive Christianity & Prosperity Gospel Get Wrong About Jesus | Guest: Costi Hinn https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/ep-528-what-progressive-christianity-prosperity-gospel/id1359249098?i=1000542874144 Ep 257 | Leaving the Prosperity Gospel Behind and the Deconversion of Christians | Guest: Costi Hinn https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-257-leaving-the-prosperity-gospel-behind/id1359249098?i=1000476404583 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

You can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Ben Kirby runs the popular Instagram account, Preachers and Sneakers, and he posts exactly what it sounds like. He posts pictures of preachers and very, very expensive sneakers and other clothing items. But it's not a critique of fashion. it's not even just necessarily a critique of how much these pastors are spending on their clothes. It is a commentary on how we elevate pastors to a place of celebrity and importance

and how some of these pastors preach a health and wealth gospel that, paired with the clothing items that they are displaying on stage, can not only foster covetousness, but also present a false hope, a false gospel to the people who are listening to them and watching them. And so we're talking about all of this today in studio. And then we are also going to talk a little bit about the Hillsong documentary that came out in May that centered on the story of celebrity pastor Carl Lentz and his scandal. Very interesting conversation that I know you guys are going to like.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com. Code Allie. Ben, thanks so much for. taking the time to join Relatable. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Okay, tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do. Loaded question, but I

guess most notably am the founder of the Instagram account Preachers and Sneakers. I'm also a dad. I used to be a Marine. I guess technically still am a Marine, depending on who you ask. And currently I sell software at a technically a startup and just trying to figure out how to be a and navigate the complicated waters of the internet, much like you do. So I'm excited to be here and talk with you. Tell us about Preachers and Sneakers. I know you've done several interviews over the years, but I don't know if my audience has heard all of those interviews.

So some people might not even know what Preachers and Sneakers is. Sure. On the surface, it sounds ridiculous. And in a lot of ways, it is ridiculous. But four years ago, I just noticed that there was a whole subculture of pastors, preachers, worship leaders that were wearing extremely expensive or rare or valuable sneakers, streetwear, belts, jackets, that kind of thing. And I had the idea to basically take their own photos, superimpose the price tag of their clothing right next to it and make a funny caption.

And that's essentially the premise of it. And without doing much effort, just posting like that, the account was super viral. It turned into much more than it really should have probably been. And that was four years ago. And it had a lot of different stages and seasons. But the premise of it is just commentary around kind of the Western way we do church, our obsession with celebrities, fame, wealth, that kind of thing. Okay.

Let's put up some of the pictures just so people get an idea of. Let's put up the one of Mike Todd. So we've talked about Mike Todd several times for different reasons, not because of his shoes, more because of his content. But so he's got a picture. This is like a screenshot that you would put up on your page. And then he's wearing these yellow Nikes for $1,500. And then you've got Stephen Ferdick, another one that doesn't necessarily surprise me, $965 for his Nikes. This is one of the first pictures I posted.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, he was the church that caught my attention at the very beginning was Elevation Church. And their worship leader Mac was wearing some easies. And then I found out who Stephen Verdick was. And these are a very rare pair of Jordan ones called Shattered Backboards. They're very rare, very sought after. And they're probably worth double, if not triple what they are in that picture.

Okay. So your Nikes, they cost, what, around 1,000, 2,000 similar to that? Yeah, that's all I wear. Now, my wife got me these. I think they're outlet. So I feel pretty secure it. Okay. Okay.

I want to put up the Judas Smith one. Judas Smith is a pastor in Washington, right? And $3,600 for this Gucci jacket. Wow. Gucci commands quite the price tag. And Judah's got definitely a wardrobe. He was kind enough to actually do an interview with me for my book. And so I really appreciated his willingness to come and chop it up with me.

Okay. That's something that I want to talk to you about that I think is an interesting development of your account. But first I want to know, how do you find these items? Yeah, when you're a couple of years ago, I was much more into the like sneaker subculture. And so once you're kind of like, there's a sneaker subculture. Oh, yeah. It's, it's massive. It's a, I don't know, five billion dollar industry. A lot of different ways. There's sneaker Twitter. There's sneaker Reddit. There's sneaker con. There's complex con. There's a lot of com. So it's just different kinds of sneakers that are cool. people collect shoes. Yeah. So, okay. Absolutely. So yeah, I've probably going a few steps

forward. There is this massive community around, they call them sneaker heads. And the way I got into it was there's actually the ability to kind of arbitrage where you can, if you get lucky enough to buy one of these rare pairs of sneakers, you can sell it on the resale market like Stock X, which is what a lot of my photos come from and make a profit. And so before any of this, happened. I was at SMU getting my MBA and I was trying to make ends meet. And so I was buying and selling sneakers every once in a while. And so once you're in that culture, there's some things that are very recognizable. So if you see like Mike Todd's photo, he's wearing those yellow Air Force Ones. The unique thing about those is that it's a collaboration with this brand called off-white,

super limited, very exclusive, impossible to find on the retail market. And so if you're lucky enough to get a pair of those, people will resell them for thousands and thousands. I mean, these kids will literally pay thousands of dollars to wear one of these pairs of Jordans. And so I just find them from a marketplace like StockX or Goat, which is kind of a secondary market where you see like the real-time market values of what people are willing to pay. And then the designer stuff sometimes, like you can recognize a Louis Vuitton logo from just about anywhere. And so it takes just a, I mean, I can make these posts in probably a minute.

And so people think I'm doing all this research. And it's really just like, oh, I recognize that's an off white pair of Georgia. Screens screenshot this, screenshot this, splice it together and post it. So you did have some prior knowledge that kind of made this a little easier for you. Like I wouldn't know where to look for. And that's what that and along with like growing up in Christianity, being a Christian, having those two things kind of converge made it the timing and the luck on top of it. Yeah. Made it to where I was, I guess the guy that I don't, depending on who you ask, God selected for this to happen. Yeah. So you talked about how you would notice that a lot of these

pastors were wearing these really expensive items and that you think it says something. It's kind of a commentary on how we elevate pastors at particular churches to a place of celebrity. So what do you mean by that? Like what is your point when you're posting these? Yeah. At first, I don't know if I had a point. Like I was, it was interesting. It was interesting. It caused some type of feeling where it's like this feels weird or feels gross. Something feels weird. Yeah. And I, I couldn't pinpoint it and I'm not I'm not saying it was necessarily rational, but I wasn't unique. Like a lot of people when they see posts like this, it evokes something in them. Yeah.

And so it's taken me many years to kind of get down to what that actually is. And so to answer your question, I think the, this modern celebrity, church culture idea cares a lot about entertainment, aesthetics being. attractive and catchy, all things that just are not true components of what it means to be a Christian or what the calling is of being an actual pastor. And so the sneakers are a very surface level thing and come to find out there's much deeper things there. Most notably like, hey, what is what do modern churches actually care about? Like do you actually care about shepherding the souls of the people that go to your church? Or are you just trying to build a brand for yourself? Are you trying to sell books, sell tickets to conferences? And so that's what the account

kind of evoked in a lot of people and what I tried to drive the conversation towards. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos.

If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Do you think that someone like Mike Todd, obviously you don't know all the motivations of their heart, so I'm not asking you to speak. speak to that. But since you described people who know exactly what kind of shoes those are, how expensive they are, how coveted they are, do you think that they wear these items to make a point? Because it's not just an expensive shoe. There may be expensive shoes that people see and they don't

know that they're expensive because they're not eye-catching. But things with the brand name of Gucci, things that you know are kind of rare collector's items when it comes to shoes, do you think that they wear those because they're showing, look, there is kind of a separation between us because I have access to this stuff that you may not. Yeah, it's, yeah, I'm very quick to say that I am not an authority on what, like on everyone's situation. It's like you said, it's impossible for me to know the motive of people's hearts. But at a macro level, there is this component of churches wanting their pastors to look successful, to be attractive, to be something to strive for. And so I'm confident many of them want to display this idea that this whole transaction between God and his

most loyal followers that like, hey, if you tithe, if you have faith, if you sow a seed or whatever, you're going to be blessed with financial prosperity, platform prosperity, that kind of thing. Each person has their own nuanced situation. But if you look at it from more macro level, There is some type of theme where these very popular churches do care about displaying a successful type image. And we're actually getting that from their words. It's not just from their shoes. It's from the sermons that Stephen Ferdick and Mike Todd and others like that preach, that it is prosperity or prosperity light kind of gospel, that they actually say those things. So it's not like we're just saying, hey, you have one expensive pair of shoes.

you must be a prosperity preacher and not believe in the true gospel. It's paired with what they say. It's paired with the cheering sections. It's paired with the celebrity status. I mean, I think all of us would be shocked if someone like Paul Washer or, you know, I don't know, John Piper came out in shoes like this. That wouldn't necessarily make them a prosperity preacher,

but everyone would say, that's weird. Yeah, exactly. And there's a component of like modesty and humility that would, we expect of pastors and preachers that subscribe to like the biblical definition of what a pastor and preacher is called to. And to your point, it is this new wave of prosperity teaching where it's like, hey, God's going to give you your breakthrough. God's going to give you your blessing. You just need to be prepared for it. You need to trust God and name the thing that you want. And there's just so much out, like if your theology is based on that, the moment that you get cancer or lose a baby or something,

your entire theology erodes. And that's what a lot of these ministries are based on. And it just feels like a dangerous game to play, especially with people's eternities at stake. And it's not that there's anything wrong. Like one of these examples at Bethel, I guess it was Jen Johnson. She's wearing her Gucci belt, which is $450. It's not like there's anything immoral about the Gucci belt. There may not even be anything immoral in spinning $450. If you are stewarding your money, well. That's something that you want. You buy it. It's responsible. There's something immodest about it. It's okay. But I do also think about, okay, people know what that belt is. They know what the brand is. They know what it represents. They know how much it is. I do wonder if it makes it difficult for people who

struggle with covetousness, people who struggle with their financial position, whether they're rich or poor, people who struggle with comparison, like in the same way that we would say we don't want to put a stumbling block in front of men by dressing immodestly. I do wonder if these kind of things tempt people to covetousness and do create a stumbling block. I would think that if the point of being a pastor is shepherding, pointing people to Christ, pointing people to God's glory, then we would want to do everything that we possibly can to don't ourselves with humility and to make it so that you don't look at me. Now, if someone is, you know, attractive or dressing in a nice way, there's only so much you can do. But I think making choices that purposely cause people to focus on a brand or the

expense of it, I don't know. I think a pastor is called to try to shepherd the hearts and the souls of their congregations a little better than that, even if you're not responsible for everyone's thoughts. Yeah. And it seems like it's born in wisdom to at least consider how your image, the message that your image sends when you're on a stage with all eyes on you or like on the social media stage with millions of eyes on you again like you don't want to be controlled by the opinions of others and you can't like influence the insecurities of every person that follows you but i've talked to plenty of pastors that could probably buy a BMW but they'll buy a GMC even though the price is probably the same but brands communicate something whether it's fair or not

And if nothing else, you're probably going to get less snarky questions about your suburban than you are, your BMW. And this is no different. Where if you're a pastor for any amount of time, you understand what it feels like to be criticized and critiqued. And also, like, if you just pass all that off as just hate, then that feels unwise or it seems unwise. And I even watched before our conversation, I watched a clip of you being interviewed, talking about being criticized and being critiqued. And I resonated with a lot that you said because you and I probably both receive a ton of like heated criticism, oftentimes not fair or like not born in like actual truth. And you said like I need to, this is paraphrasing, but it helps to have people around me that can speak into whether the criticism is valid or not. Right.

And that can either help you filter out all the nonsense that people are going to say to you on the internet or say like, hey, actually you do care a lot about. you. But you do care a lot about people thinking you're funny or the thing that you said was impactful, that kind of thing. And it seems like many pastors that are kind of the husband and wife duo at the top without an elder board or whatever don't have that because they continue to kind of just... They're each other's accountability. That's right. And... Which doesn't really work because, I mean, you can hold your spouse accountable, but you also love your spouse and you see your spouse differently and you're going to be like, babe, no, all the haters are wrong. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. But the role of a pastor and the amount of power and influence you have is so significant. And it's just shocking to me that these guys aren't like deathly afraid of that where like they wouldn't put extra controls to make sure like, hey, guys, am I coming off as arrogant? Hey, am I causing people with financial troubles to stumble? hey, is this in bad taste that I'm wearing a Gucci belt when I know for a fact that tithing is down and people are struggling in a recession, whatever? It's just shocking to me that more don't do that. And that's one of the reasons I keep doing this is because it's still prevalent and it's still like a lot of churches get massive congregations from this model of being attractive and catchy and obsessed with money.

celebrity and it's just like all right dude good luck like the hopefully you do it better than all the other people that have failed with these same type of allures like money and fame access that kind of thing yeah it's kind of like the meat sacrifice to idols principle that it is not a sin for or as paul articulated like it wasn't a sin for christians to eat meat sacrificed to idols because we're not bound by, you know, the legalistic measures of old. Old Testament law. But if eating the meat sacrifice to idols causes your brother to stumble, then eating the meat sacrifice to idols is not being done in love. So it's not really, at least to me, and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong, it's not really about what they have or always about what they wear. It's not about that

everyone has to be in poverty. No one can have money. No one can have, no one can spend money. You can never have nice things or care about fashion. It's about are we communicating, especially from a pastor's position, are we communicating love to the utmost? Are we communicating humility to the utmost? Are we outdoing one another in showing honor? Are we doing absolutely everything we can in how we dress, in how we speak, to point to the glory of God rather than to the glory of ourselves. That's right. That would be my issue because I could see people saying, you're being so legalistic. Like what's wrong with spending money? You're being so judgmental. I'm sure that's a critique that you have gotten. Yeah, all the time. And I am secure in the fact

that I've never really like commented on that hard stance. Like I've exhausted myself to try to be gracious on both sides because it is kind of the annoying. online answer is it's so nuanced in but when you get down to it and the thing that I've crystallized it to is like the moment you're not pointing everything towards God as a shepherder of souls then it's a distraction and you should probably reevaluate it so like if your clothing your speech the way you run your church service or whatever the moment it distracts away from the creator of the universe that's an issue and you should do something about pointing it back to Jesus So whether that's like humbling yourself, dressing plainly, or changing the way your church

deploys finances, it all seems worth spending time on. And that's what I hope people ask of their own churches. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I forgot to put up the most egregious one, the craziest one, John Gray, with his red shoes. And I kind of want to hear a little bit just about this. I know we're kind of going back.

$5,611. So do you think John Gray spent, this is a pastor, spent this much money on these shoes? Do you think he was given the shoes? I'm pretty confident he didn't. These are Yeezys, right? Yeah, these are, for those that aren't in the sneaker world, those are called Yeezy Red Octobers. And before Yeezy or before Kanye had to deal with Adidas, he did a small amount of

run or a small run of shoes with Nike. That's what those are. The Nike Air Yeezys. And the all red color way is called. Red October, these were super limited, impossible to find, unworn. And these are probably triple the price now. This was four years ago. I think he did, there's so much here, but I think he did some kind of reality show or a TV show and the crew gave him some of these air easies or something. I think that's the story on it. He definitely knows what they are. And he definitely knows how much they're worth.

And that was the time that I think he was still like preaching at Joel Osteen's church. So, yeah, I don't think they're super worried about that. Yeah. But yeah, he's got not only the Red October's, but he's got some of the other pairs as well that I posted about. Okay. How do you, how have you developed a relationship with some of the people that you're criticizing? You mentioned Judith Smith. You've been able to develop friendships and support on both sides of this from the celebrity Christian world and then from the other side.

So how have you done that? I pride myself on being able to relate to a lot of different types of people. One of my favorite things to do is meet new people. Typically, people will show up to my account and assume intent by what I'm doing and will just assume that I'm trying to dissolve Christianity or attack certain pastors. And that's an interesting thing you learn about people on the Internet. is like the moment you just raise a question about their idolized preacher or pastor, it's immediately interpreted as an attack. And so often these guys would reach out to me in DMs or on the phone or

whatever and we would have like a real conversation and they would realize that, hey, I'm not a troll and I'm a regular idiot dude that's just like noticed a thing. He's funny and has kind of put his own spin on some cultural commentary. And so some were very open to having a conversation like Carlins and I had several conversations, Judah and I eventually had a really good interview conversation. Others were very, just sent me one-sided messages, long paragraphs of basically yelling on DMs because I was maybe causing people to call them wolf and sheep's clothing, that kind of stuff. And so it was varying degrees of both sides of reactions to it. So I've made a point, and it's been exhausting to some level to not just be a troll and throw a grenade into the internet and watch everything burn.

I've tried to be understanding and open to these very niche situations, like specifically all the guys that kind of attached themselves to Justin Bieber, I got to know several of them. And that's like Carl Lent. Carl Lynch, it was Judah. Chad Veach. Okay. Rich Wilkerson, Jr. Rich Wilkerson, yeah. They're all kind of in the same West Coast.

Yeah. And so people that aren't in that world could never dream of just going to a department store with Justin Bieber and Bieber being like, hey, take whatever you want, dude. Yeah. I appreciate you guys. But that's the stuff that's happening. Yeah. And so it brings up all these other kind of issues around like, all right, so are you

getting famed by proximity? And are you using that to further your own brand and your own church? that kind of stuff. So that's a lot of the different scenarios that have come up that I've learned about through the account. And so it's very nuanced. And the ones who engaged with you who weren't just like berating you because I have gotten the same thing.

If I've criticized Stephen Ferdick or something like that for the content of what he's saying, oh, I've gotten very, very intense emails and messages and things like that. Yes, definitely. but the ones who have actually tried to understand where you're coming from, these pastors who have reached out to you, do you feel like they're just trying to save face and preempt you from posting about them again? Or do you feel like they're really trying to understand why you're doing what you're doing? Sure.

Some definitely were trying to manipulate me from stopping posting. Hey, I got these pair of shoes. They're not even opened yet, dude. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I'm trying to be careful. Yeah. Some definitely try to manipulate me to stop, like being friendly, trying to kind of like meet me where I was at and understand. And some of that worked at the time because I was not a public figure. I was not equipped to have like a viral account. I didn't know what was going on. People were having all these heated conversations about what I was posting. And so I was sensitive to that. And when one of these pastors actually turns into a real person, and reaches out to me, like, I was very overly sensitive to that and probably did stop posting about them if they had a conversation with me and were trying to understand. I lost my train of

thought. That's okay. Yeah, that's interesting that they would even take the time to reach out, especially when you were like a smaller account. And so they did actually care about some of the things that you were saying. Now, did you have the opportunity to be like, this is why I'm doing this? Did any of them say, wow, you're right. Yeah. So I'm like, so I had some conversations with Judith Smith and I, people can argue about his theology or whatever. But I at least appreciated him willing to like straight up meet with me and he even acknowledged some things like, hey, some of this is valid. Like I appreciate the check and balance of that because we can get very high on ourselves.

That kind of thing because of the attention and the power and the money that you get. So I really appreciated that. Some still to this day would maybe make comments in the comment section but not reach out directly. The who's Bill Johnson's son at Bethel? I don't know. I don't know that all of the Bethel infrastructure. Yeah, I can't remember his name either. But he messaged me really angry after the Hill Song documentary basically saying he lost all respect for me.

I was like, okay. I didn't know that I had. had it. Right. And so it's, it's just interesting the varying levels of you're catching people on a bad day or it touched a sensitivity point. Yeah. But because of the heated response consistently for like four years straight, that's what keeps me doing it, even though it's uncomfortable because it's like, okay, clearly this is touching something here. If it was just preachers wearing sneakers and people were laughing, no one would care. But it's touching all these other sensitivities that keep getting uncovered and these guys keep in it up in the news. And so that. continues to make my account grow. That's interesting. That's interesting that you, how you describe that, that it's kind of like it's scratching something that kind of needs to be open. You don't realize that you're pressing on a bruise or whatever just by posting about

the material items that people are owning. With like the factual market values. Yeah. And that's it. And you don't really even add that much commentary to them. And so if it was really no big deal to these people, then why would you even have a reaction? Like, if someone posted my outfit right now and posted, you know, how much it was,

it wouldn't bother me. Right. You know, it wouldn't, like, okay, that's fun. That's how much exorbitantly higher these, the values are of these outfits than so much, so many other options you could wear. Again, like in and of itself, probably not immoral to wear a designer piece of clothing, but mixed with having a huge platform, mixed with having influence over thousands of people out from a stage and the kind of the budgetary considerations that come with megachurches,

it makes it a little more complex. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because I think people wear these things because they're expensive, as we already said, because they stand out. Like you can have a million different black belts that may or may not be expensive. There's only one kind of belt with the G on the front. You can wear all kinds of different shoes and shirts. And so there is, I think, a sense of I'm communicating something.

thing to you. Now, I'm going to hurt some women's feelings out there when I talk about the Golden Goose shoes, which are, you know, $600, which I personally think, now, related gals, I don't want you to get upset with me. I personally think they're ugly. Just in general, I don't care if they're $20. Yes, or $2,000. Okay, Warren is one thing. Straight up ugly. It's another thing. I think that they're ugly. But I do think, just like a lot of things, I'm not condemning the hearts and souls of people who wear golden goose shoes. But I don't think that they're worn because they're cute. There are a lot of cuter shoes out there.

I think that they communicate something. That's right. And so it's interesting to me that I think that a lot of these pastors, they obviously want to communicate something. They're on stage. They're wearing this. So they want you to know that it's important and expensive. But I guess they don't want you to know how important and expensive they are.

It's when you post how important and expensive that it is, that all of a sudden, it's embarrassing, which is strange. I don't know why it crosses that line. It wakes people up a bit because most that aren't into sneakers or fashion just never need to think about what a pair of shoes is worth. And I think that's part of why the account originally went viral because many churchgoers just thought their pastor was trying to look hip and they were cool with that. But then when you say, hey, do you know these shoes are worth 12?

Like they could sell these shoes right now and make $1,200. That stirs something within many rational people because if, Faced with the- Struggling people in church. Yeah, faced with the option of, hey, you could either have $1,200 or you could wear this pair of shoes, which would you choose? I think most irrational people would be like, dude, give me $1,200. Yeah, I got to fix my car.

That's right. Yeah. Now, in fairness, or I don't know if it's fairness, but at least I get, some do claim the aesthetic as a reason why they're able to attract a demographic that maybe wouldn't be attracted to church in the past from the stuffy pews. who's, again, not my feeling. It's like a pretty thin God if you think God can't influence people based off of the aesthetic. I would say that's the problem.

I would say that is the problem. That's not even like, to me, one side of the argument or like good pushback. I would say, no, that's the problem. Is that your yeasies or what is attracting you to church instead of. And then now your faith or your theology is based on some amount of alignment with this church brand or this organization. And like we saw with Hillsong and many other churches, the moment that church fails you, now your theology is completely eroded. And now you're left as someone that's church hurt and now you're pissed at all types of Christians and faith leaders, that kind of thing. And so, yeah, it seems like a dangerous game to do the attractional model based off of aesthetic or entertainment.

So let's talk about you mentioned the Hillsong documentary. There's two Hill song documentaries. One from last year, one from this year. You are included, right? In at least one of the documentaries. And why was that? Why were you included? I saw, I don't know if I ever told anybody this, but I saw that they had, the New York Post was involved with it or something and they had made an announcement about it.

And I messaged them saying like, hey, I saw the announcement. If you need help or commentary or whatever, I'd be happy to help. And within minutes, I think they responded and said, yeah, let me connect you to the producer. And so I got, this was the Discovery Plus documentary. And so I got to know the producer, Dan Johnstone, and they were kind enough to include me in it. And I watched a clip with the gal at Daily Wire, Megan Basham, yeah. And she said some nice things about my part of it. And I was proud of what they kept in from my interview because a lot of it was people that were hurt by Hillsong or hurt by just the concept of church in and of itself.

but they allowed me to be provide a less, I don't know, biased commentary about, hey, here's why people do like Hill's song. Here's why they grew so much. Here's why they're influencers over church culture now. So there are varying opinions about the documentary in its entirety, but I was grateful that they let me kind of do my thing instead of like framing it in a different way.

Yeah. I'm interested to hear what you think about the most recent documentary and what it says about church. how the secular world approaches church. And then Carl Lynch specifically and kind of how he is portrayed. All we have for the clip is the trailer for the one that came out in May. So let me play that to give people an idea of what we're talking about. Carl is the celebrity pastor.

Carl is so charming. People idolize him. There is a sense that pastors can be hot. He was so special. It was cool. Carl is this mega superstar. And then he just disappeared. You do not want to be in this chair.

I cannot stress it enough. I had some major lies. He said, I have been unfaithful. Carl was fired by this leader, Brian Houston. But there was something larger happening at this church. People were putting things together. Brian's unravelings was bound to happen. They were protecting something.

What are they protecting? So I thought it was interesting. This whole, I mean, the documentary was interesting. I thought it was interesting how Carl Lynch's arc was portrayed for those who don't know, obviously, as you just saw, Mega Pastor, Hillsong, NYC, very famous, huge social media following. I'm sure I cringed when that girl said passers can be hot. But I think that probably was some of his reputation.

At least he was able to kind of build this brand and aesthetic that people were attracted to. during 2020 after George Floyd, he was like a big voice for BLM, which was really interesting. And then it was shortly after that, that it came out that he was having an ongoing affair with a woman that he had met. He's still married. As far as I know, like his family is still together. But I thought it was interesting how in this documentary about some of the problems with Hillsong, he is almost seen as like the redemption of it. Or he is almost seen as like a savior in some way. He almost kind of looks like Jesus with the long hair and stuff.

Yeah. Strange. They did a really good job of the production of that. Like clearly. Yeah. And it's an interesting one because, yeah, I think people are starting to think that Carl was maybe more of a scapegoat for the larger Hillsong Empire where maybe he got the majority of the wrath that maybe should have been directed at. Brian Houston. I'm not, I, I'm not saying that it should have or shouldn't. I'm just saying that's what I think people are starting to interpret that as. And I think Carl works at Mike Todd's

church now, transformation church. I think he goes there. I wasn't, I saw them like kind of go back and forth or something about like that he's not on staff there. Yeah, or like a consultant or something. I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine they're living in Oklahoma. Yeah, it's a tough move from NYC to Florida and Malibu to Tulsa. But maybe that's what they're looking for. And admittedly, having two kids now, I spend a lot less time on the internet and trying to like dig into every single one of these situations now. I got pretty like burnt out on the whole bickering back and forth about it. But yeah, I think Carl's point in that documentary was that Brian Houston might have been the problem. And Carl had to experience maybe all or they tried to make him experience the majority of the wrath when.

Maybe Brian Houston should have been held more accountable. Although Brian Houston's like resigned and I don't know. That family cannot seem to stay out of headlines. That church can't seem to stay out of headlines. Yeah, Hillsong was accused of laundering money, of covering up a bunch of different things. And obviously I can't speak to the veracity of every allegation. And there are a lot of different churches that deal with allegations. But it's kind of like the bigger you are, the harder you fall.

That's right. That's right. is a huge international entity. They've made some, like, produce some bangers when it comes to music. And so I think we can acknowledge that. But I do think it's very difficult, not just for these particular people, but for all of us. When you get close to power, when you get a lot of influence, when you get Justin Bieber being

like, or the Kardashians being like, you're my pal, you're my friend, you're my confidant, I think you can so easily convince yourself that whatever you're doing, no matter maybe how compromising it is, is for the greater good of sharing the gospel with more people or sharing the gospel with a particular celebrity. You convince yourself, well, God has placed me in this high position, in this high place, and this closeness to this celebrity, either as a reward or as a special privilege. And so I have to be so careful about how I present myself, the things I say. And I think it's just really easy for all of us, when we get close to power, and money in access and privilege to start compromising in the name of the greater good. And it does

seem like that's what happens with a lot of these celebrity pastors, which any of us could fall prey to. Right. And you and I have probably experienced it to some degree. Like it feels good to have a large platform. It feels good for people to give you pets on the back or say that you're insightful or funny or you change their life or your book changed their life, that kind of thing. Yeah. And it's just shocking to me that these guys and gals think they can do it differently or think that like without controls, they'll just be able to handle it fine. Their church will grow infinitely. Their following and brand will grow infinitely without any recourse. It's like, dude, good luck. Like, good luck, man. Like maybe it will all go well for you. But it is just so well documented that money, power, fame can

really pollute you without you even knowing it and without having anybody to speak into your life about it. And so it just seems really dangerous. Or at least it's a dangerous game to play as somebody who's charged with furthering the kingdom, shepherding people's souls, the most important calling you could ever have. Yeah. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Not money itself, not shoes themselves, but the idolatry that our hearts just so quickly go to that all of us are guilty of. We are just so quick and so hasty to worship idols that I think that it's, it behooves us to protect ourselves from that and how we spend our money, but also again, as a shepherd of a flock to protect other people from that kind of idolatry and covetousness. And that's,

I think, kind of the troubling part of this. And it's not just these celebrity pastors. It's also people like Kenneth Copeland. I mean, he's probably like the guy that people think of. And I saw a clip of him the other day, you know, basically conflating our own abilities with God's power and God's favor. And I don't know. It really is a serious thing. It's serious beyond just sneakers. We're talking about people's hearts and souls. And again, we're talking about the content of what these people are preaching, not just what they're wearing on their body. But it's those two. things together that I think jeopardize, you know, the sincerity of faith for a lot of people who think that they're trusting in God, but really they're just seeking after stuff. That's right,

or an experience or a feeling at a almost unimaginable scale where, you know, these old school prosperity preachers would have to go do their tent rallies or whatever. That's a certain scale, but some have millions and millions of followers, get tens of thousands of people at their conferences preaching some of those things. And that's dangerous. And it's tough to watch. And also it feels like it's not going away and that people are people that attend their churches are going to continue giving and kind of furthering this. Like the market demands, the market demand drives the supply. And so if there weren't people that wanted this very specific feel good, experience message that God is going to ultimately give you what you want.

If you just have faith, sacrifice, give, sow a seed, that kind of thing, they wouldn't have an audience. But instead, they're growing massive audiences. And unfortunately, it's like a pretty risky message. Yeah. And it's shocking that they don't acknowledge that more. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, a commonality that I see in most of their, like, at least their social media clips, I can't say that I spend a lot of time listening to their full sermons. But I think it's fair to say what they post themselves.

on social media can be analyzed. That's right. And they all seem to start from the same premise that I see in the secular world. And this really goes beyond the things that they wear. But the premise is that our biggest problem as humans, their congregation's biggest problem is that they don't think highly enough of themselves, that you don't love yourself enough, that you don't think good enough thoughts about yourself, that you think that God is mad at you, which may be true for some people.

I do not think that that is our overwhelming problem as a nation, as a society, really is just human beings. I think our overwhelming problem is probably that we love ourselves too much. But you see them always starting from that assumption that the message that you need to hear is only that God wants you to be happy. It's only that God thinks you're great. It's only that God is your biggest cheerleader. And so it's easy to see how from that assumption the rest of your theology would flow into this kind of prosperity gospel. and more and more stuff and accolades and things like that. If you think that the big problem that needs to be solved in your heart is that you don't

think enough good thoughts about yourself and that you think God is too mad, then of course you're going to do everything that you can to just make you happy, and you're going to mistake that for real sanctification. That's right. And the focus on self, and if you did spend any time listening to their sermons, it would be pretty similar to the clips they post on Instagram where often it is focused on you, you, you, you, you, you, like all the messages. You are due a breakthrough.

You are going to be blessed. You just have to be ready for your blessing. And if you talk to anyone that's got life-threatening cancer or has experienced any type of hardship in their life, that fades away so quickly, that idea that, like, like, all right, no, God's, God's going to do this for me. He's like, he doesn't have to do anything for you. Yeah. And it is a very, to your point, dangerous assumption that life is about you, you, you, you, and God is ultimately about you, you, you, yeah. So yeah, that, it's tough to watch. I hope people are awakened to that and do some diligence on their own around, all right, what does

the Bible actually say and what is following Jesus actually mean? I think they'll be shocked and they probably have to wrestle with some things that they hadn't wrestled with, but ultimately they'll be better for it. I think the prosperity gospel is so burdensome in the same way that like so-called progressive Christianity is that it really puts like a heavy yoke on your neck and a really heavy burden on your back. Because if I look at my life and my life is hard and I didn't get a raise and I, you know, am not married or I'm not having kids and I tie that to God's favor.

And I tie that to God's approval of me, God's love for me or the measure of my own. faith, I'm going to be constantly discouraged. Yep. Whereas if you tie God's favor and his approval and his acceptance to Christ and his sacrifice, which never ever changes, it doesn't waver, it doesn't go up or down, it's not undulating like the things in our life or how we feel about ourselves, then that's freeing. That's right. Then no matter what circumstance you're in, there's always a reason to rejoice.

But if God's approval is tied to the things you have, well, then there's always a reason to be disappointed. There's always a reason to be scared that maybe you're not doing enough because you don't have as much as Stephen Ferdy. That's right. Because if you really were doing the right things, you would have the same sneakers that he had. And I know maybe that sounds ridiculous for some people. I don't think it really is. I don't think it's far from unfortunately how a lot of people have been taught to think about their faith. And the logic just doesn't hold up. Like if that was true, some of these churches would just be filled with wealthy, healthy people with massive platforms and beautiful jaw lines. And it's just never been the case. It never will be the case. And so,

yeah, it erodes pretty quickly. Yeah. I don't know if you, are you friends with Kostihan? Uh-huh. Yeah, he was on my podcast. Okay. And I think I'm maybe I was on his. It's been a while, but yes, I'm a big fan. That celebrity podcast life is hard. So you just can't even, can't even keep up. I'm just kidding. No, I was not flexing on anybody, but Kosti is a friend. I haven't talked to him in a while, but I respect him. Yeah, he's great. And an interesting background, too. Like, If anybody's an authority on that whole world, it's definitely him. Yes, yes, definitely. Because Benny Hen, as a lot of people know, the famous health and wealth, televangelist,

Kosti, I had a couple episodes with him. People can go listen to. But that was his life growing up in the nice cars. He was catching people, like falling back, getting healed, that kind of thing. Yeah. And Justin Peters. You know who Justin Peters is. I know the name.

I'm a, I mean, he's a preacher. He's a Bible team. and he suffers from a physical disability. He can't walk. He's in a wheelchair. I forget exactly what it is. He speaks a lot against the prosperity gospel. And he went to one of these, I don't know, rally revival services.

Healing services. Yes. And I can't remember if it was Benny Hen or another one of these guys. And so, you know, people get in line and to go up there and to get healed and to like speak in tongues and all of these things. It's a big show of it. while Justin Peters gets in line. I mean, he knows that this stuff is not real. He gets in line. He's like, okay, you know, I'm ready to be healed. Either I'm getting healed or I'm going to confirm.

And the handlers move him out of the line and they say, no, you can't go out there. Because if someone presents a real malady to those kinds of people, they know that they can't be healed. And I think there's spiritual significance to that too. It's not just physical. You bring your real problems, your real burdens to someone who preaches the prosperity gospel, they've got no hope. for you. Yeah, that's unconscionable. Yeah. Yeah. That's so sad in so many ways. So sad. And people waste money on it. That's right. People watching the television, spend a ton of money. They continue to. Yeah. I mean, maybe that'll go away eventually. But these guys continue to fill seats and print money from those same healing practices. And it's pretty, it's pretty sad. It's like really not that different from like why we had the Protestant Reformation. Honestly, the indulgences.

Give us your indulgences. And then your loved ones will spring out of purgatory. Wow, human beings. They really don't change that much. Okay, tell me about your book. Preachers and Sneakers, Authenticity in an age of for-profit faith. I like that for-profit faith and want-to-be celebrity. So tell me about it.

So I wrote this when I was finishing my MBA. It came out the same week we had our son in 2021. So it's been a couple years. But the premise of it is based around questions, kind of like you and I have talked about, where it's way deeper than the preacher's literally wearing sneakers. It's about, is it appropriate to monetize church and buy real estate and sell merch and book conferences through the vessel of the nonprofit church model? It's about the appropriateness of having celebrity Christians and Christians that are celebrities. It also dives into how to you and I view how we post and the heart behind what we post on social media, whether or not we're driving people to envy through posting our vacation picks or our new car pick, that kind of thing. So it's based around questions.

Some people get frustrated because I don't give a ton of answers because I'm not the ultimate authority on what you should post and why you should post it. But I hope it gets people to ask hard questions of themselves, their churches, and ultimately take their faith seriously. So this is interesting, like in an age of Donald Trump, I say as someone who voted for Trump. But I can also see there's like a lot of wealth status celebrity worship among evangelicals when it comes to Trump and wanting, you know, access to power and things like that. So again, it's not just these like skin. Gene like big shirt wearing, you know, very strange combination to me. I've never fully gotten it. But it's not just those kind of celebrities because those kind of celebrities aren't necessarily, I don't see them vying for political power necessarily. I don't know if they're going to the

White House. Maybe it's because they would vote for Joe Biden and set of Donald Trump. Some do. Yeah, you see a lot of different, a lot of different kinds of Christians kind of struggle with it. So again, it's not just about the sneakers. It's a condition of many Christians' hearts. Yeah. That is a very valid point. And I wrote about the political side of it briefly, because I'm not an expert on politics, but you and I, same age or similar age, experienced the kind of the worship of Donald Trump and the kind of looking from the outside in, seeing like, okay, people are kind of freaking out about Trump being a savior of some kind. And so to your point, it's similar in that we're all looking for someone to.

or many of us are looking for someone to idolize and to seek answers from because humans are looking for answers a lot of the time. And yeah, that's not very different, especially kind of the conflation of the political, I'm losing the election cycles and how those kind of conflated with church services. And now basically saying, this is who we're voting for at this church. and kind of the issues that arise from that about like, hey, should they keep their nonprofit status? Should they be speaking about that at all from pulpits, that kind of thing? Right. Conversation for another time.

But yeah, we're all looking for, we all have our idols in some way. We should repent of that. But yeah, the human heart is very quick to look to the best looking, the best talking, the best sounding person. Yeah. And it's interesting that about Jesus, we read like in the prophecy about Jesus that there was nothing that really stood out about his appearance. And I think that there's something to be learned from that. Also, how did you get Joel McHale to write the introduction? Yeah, it, when the account

originally went viral, it attracted a lot of mainstream celebrities. So like, Joel McHale messaged me out of the blue saying that he basically loved the account. I struck up a relationship. He had my wife and I over to his house. We recorded a podcast together. So we stayed friends because He is a Christian. Oh, really? I didn't know that. I mean, I don't know much about him. Yeah.

Him and his family are Christians, but he's also a smart A about like he's very much a comedian. He's very much sarcastic. But we struck a relationship. We kind of, we wanted to have a mainstream celebrity to kind of poke at the theme of a Christians really love celebrities. And here's me being a hypocrite, having a really famous celebrity, write the foreword. He was very kind to do it.

and wrote a very funny forward. Yeah. And so I was just grateful that he did it. And that was a cool part of the experience where I got to also interact with celebrities. Are you friends of the Babylon B at all? We've never spoken. What? I don't know if they've reached out.

Well, that's, I can't remember. Crazy. I don't think they've probably spoken about it or they've made some content around it, but we've never. That should change. That would be a great partnership, at least for a podcast or something like that. I'd be happy to. Okay, so people can get your book wherever books are sold, and this all goes to your sneaker fund, right?

That's right. So this is helping you buy expensive clothes so you can quit preachers and sneakers and just That's right. Hopefully, no, it's to buy diapers and hopefully a meat subscription, which I just learned about from your podcast. What? You don't subscribe to Good Ranchers? Not yet.

Oh, okay. Promote code Allie, $30 off. I've been eating keto the last year. Well, there you go. neat subscription is very top of my list. But no, the, yeah, I'm looking for a bread subscription, but no one has,

or like a sponsor for a bread subscription and no one has been yet. So, as you know, the way books work is I've got to sell like tens of thousands of copies that I'm never probably going to sell to make any kind of money at all. It is.

Come on, relatable. Come through. You can buy the book. It's probably not going to benefit me at all if you think I'm a hypocrite. So buy it to read it. And if you like it, share it with somebody.

Or if you can't afford it, just message me. and I'll send you one. Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ben. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Thanks for having me.

I'm super grateful to be here. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they lead. even when it's unpopular.

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