The Sean McDowell Show - Why Mike Winger Started Exposing Bad Christian Leaders

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Today I have on apologist Mike Winger to explain why he pivoted his channel toward investigating abuse and false teaching in the church especially in settings where prophecy is practiced without accountability. He traces how “cover-up culture” forms, why some leaders stay silent, and how non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), intimidation,and platform protection can compound harm. He also lays out a biblical blueprint for dealing with credible accusations (1 Tim. 5:19–20) that protects the innocent, warns the flock, and seeks real reform not mobs or witch hunts. *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day? The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy Daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store,

download it today. Life Audio. Mike, you have radically shifted the focus of your YouTube channel to talk about abuse in the church and false teaching. Why? Because I realized how bad it was, which I didn't actually know before. I went down a rabbit hole. I started investigating one guy named Sean Bowles, who was a fake prophet and he caused a lot of harm in different people's lives. and in trying to just verify information, just check facts,

make sure I got everything right before I shared anything publicly to warn people about him, I found it was so much bigger and so much worse than I realized. And generational, going back generations, in particular in the charismatic church. This is not a comment on charismatic theology. There's a problem within many charismatic churches. I think actually the majority of charismatics, when they see the videos I'm doing,

they're going to be right on board going, yes, Let's have reform here. We won't stand for this. We didn't know that it was this bad either. But it's so bad. And it goes back. You can look at guys like Mike Bickle, who world famous now for being a predator in ministry, shameful. But it's his entire cohort.

You go back in time. And you've got Bob Jones, who they were called the Kansas City prophets back in like the early 90s, late 80s. That's the nickname they had for them. When they joined up with John Wimber and Vineyard and all that and had huge impact. worldwide in England, other places as well. But his group, Augustina Kala and Paul Kane and Bob Jones, all of them abusers, all of them using prophecy to abuse and manipulate people. You know, Bob Jones got pulled from ministry because he told two women to take their clothes off so he could touch him and that they would receive a Sarah anointing from God if they did it.

After he was caught, a letter goes out to the public with him repenting. It was fake. He didn't really repent. In private, he's telling people, and I can back all this stuff with the proof. In private, he's telling people, I'm more anointed now than ever before. His buddy, his partner in crime at the time, Mike Bickle, who calls out Bob Jones looking like he's trying to hold accountability, but he's doing that and worse to women even at that time and ongoing for decades afterwards. Paul Kane would target a young man who had same-sex attraction, bring him in as his assistant, and then he would start breaking down the barriers so he could manipulate them into sexual activity

and he was this was not secret it's crazy I've got a transcript I haven't even shared this publicly yet I have a transcript of Chuck Smith having an interaction with Paul Kane where Chuck is telling him that he knows that he's faking prophecy

and that he thinks he's gay and Paul Kane is ripping into Chuck Smith now Paul Kane recorded secretly recorded his conversations Wow. It's weird. It's like a soap opera, this stuff. It's so interesting. But I don't like it for the tasty tidbits of gossip at all.

Sure. When you realize how many leaders knew about it, knew about different aspects of it, some of it some of it didn't. But when they find out, the typical thing is what I call cover-up culture. So what they'll do is they just distance themselves from the guy that got busted. They don't warn the people. They don't call them out, like scripture says. We do have actually a blueprint in the Bible on this.

And the Bible's not ashamed to call out people for their sins. They get exposed. You know, Judas, it wasn't a secret. It was written about for the world to know. It was a tragic thing. It was a terrible thing. But he stands in as a warning to all. First Timothy 5, 19, and 20, it tells us, if there's an elder, you know, who's got

accusations against him, don't receive it unless you've got two or three witnesses. And that's just meant to say, make sure it's a true accusation. And if it rises to the level of, you know, you're actually, disqualified or even dangerous towards others, rebuke them in the presence of all. It says, nobody does this. Or hardly anybody does this. And so it wasn't happening with so many of these situations.

Instead, it took social media for the stuff to get exposed. And basically, I just want to help create a culture of accountability in the church, proper healthy accountability, not witch hunts and pitchforks and mobs, but just proper accountability. There's lots of accusations against leaders that are false. We should ignore those. We should disregard those. We should protect those leaders. But when they're legitimate, true, and especially when the guy's a predator, you have to go public on that kind of stuff.

So did you say the first name was Todd Bowles that you went down? Sean Bowles. Okay, Sean Bowles. What did you see and why did you start going down that rabbit trail? Like, why then and why that guy? All right. Well, you might get in a little trouble for even having me here to talk about this stuff. All right.

But we'll see what happens. Okay. So Sean Bowles was considered maybe the most reliable and prolific profit of the Bethel Circle charismatic movement. Most trusted friend, Bill Johnson called him. He is, however, behind the scenes, he is, I can't share certain details yet. You don't need to. So it's worse than what I'll say. But it's going to come out.

I just need to do it the right way. But he's a problematic person behind the scenes, to put it in my little. And this is known by leadership. For instance, Bethel leadership knows, right? He's also faking prophecy. So he researches people. He looks on your Facebook profile. And then he tells you things about you.

Got it. Based on that. So he'll tell you, like, I'm seeing a dog named Toto or something like that. And that's my dog. you just lost your mother, he'll leverage people's loss of loved ones, their inability to have kids, or maybe they're engaged. In one case, a woman who went public and good for her, her name's Jubilee, she went public on this, and she talked about how Sean prophesied that her and her boyfriend should get married. And he told a boyfriend, God's giving you a Jubilee.

And the truth is that he had just looked them up on social media, talked to people, got info about her. So they get married, and then he was very abusive to her and almost killed her. strangulation abuse. Goodness. So this is heavy stuff. I'm just, this is what I discovered, right? The thing is,

that would not have happened if the leaders who knew Sean was faking it would have called it out. Another guy, who's a friend of mine, he gave up the retirement, spent all kinds of money, caused all kinds of marriage problems,

because he thought he had a vision for what God wanted him to do that Sean Bowles told him was from God. He lied to him. He looked up research data on them, found them on Facebook, still to this day Sean denies that any of this is true

he's still going he still has his content online still to this day we don't get public condemnations from the leaders in the charismatic movement who know that he's guilty it's and I've got more evidence than I've shared online so far there's more I'll share I've proof that major leaders knew

that Sean was doing these things that he was a sexual deviant and that he was faking prophecy and they didn't warn the people that blew me away but I started realizing that people were scared they didn't want to the people who weren't in leadership are scared because they're worried about getting sued they're worried about getting lawsuits there's threats of lawsuits from everybody and I learned about church NDAs and how they're being used in these movements to silence people and terrify people and

oppress people many witnesses who've come to me won't go public because they have an NDA I've got witnesses who would like to share and warn the church about guys like Todd White, and there is such an incredible circle of fear around this man, Todd White. I don't understand it more than any of the other leaders I've looked into. Todd White, circle of fear around this guy. People are afraid to go public. They're afraid to put their necks on the line. They're afraid to be associated with me as I share these details because they think I'm just, I'm the leper now. Because what you have to do is demonize me to ignore the evidence and the testimonies and the witnesses. Which is sign number one that somebody's not responding

and attacking the messenger. Yeah. For sure. So I'm getting too into the wheeze, but here's the big picture. I look at Sean Bowles. I find out it's way worse than I even thought. I find out leaders knew about it, didn't deal with it. Then I find out all the other people these leaders knew about and haven't done anything

about. Then I talked to other victims who were like, I went to the leaders. I asked them for help. And then they just turned me away. Or somebody who experiences some kind of abuse in a church and a pastor goes up and says, don't call the police. And they're going to try and cover it up. trying to hide it instead of trying to bring justice to the victims.

It's a type of elitism where these people get the stuff done that we care about. You know, we have revival culture. We want to push this forward. If we expose that like our main profit, one of our top prophets is a fraud, it's going to hurt our movement, which to me, that's carnal motivation. Because we cannot have any Christian movements that are based on lies. Like that's the fruit of that's going to be nasty. down the road. What it does is it raises

up others. So you've got guys like Sean Bowles and Bob Hartley. There's another one. Fake profit, sexual deviant, sexually pushing himself on women using prophecy to do it. Bob Jones did it. Paul Kane did it. Augustinacalla. Mike Bickle. I mean, how many more do we

do we know? I just did a video on Steve Coco in Panama in Costa Rica and Central America, South America, in several countries down there. I could give you a list of names as long as arm on these guys. It's crazy how widespread it is and that's what blew me away. Okay. So Senate goes, Mike, you're a YouTuber. You're looking for content. You've done some controversial stuff in the past. Here's a lane for you to go into. What would you say to that?

Okay. Well, first off, I'll just say this. Do you know that's true or are you just assuming something negative about me and you have no evidence of any kind? It's a great question. So because these research projects take so long, it slowed down my content production. I'm making less videos. So this year, I'm doing fewer videos because they take forever. The video I did on Steve Coco took months, and it will get far fewer views, I suspect, than other videos I could make. If I did a video on Is the Rapture Biblical, that would go viral. I'm not doing that.

Instead, I'm spending way more time on a video that's going to get far less views. On top of that, all these cover-up culture videos I'm doing are not monetized. so there's no money being made off of them. And this is not because that's wrong to monetize it when you're making Christian content, because I think it's a smart thing. I think Christians should monetize their videos. I agree. It makes YouTube think that you guys are important for the platform.

And we want them to like that. This is to me a strategy for free speech. I want them to go, hey, Christians are making us money. Let's just use the filthy lucre to stay in the platform. But in all these videos, zero money is coming in. Zero. So the Steve Coco video, my top white video, I think. is like a million views, zero coming in.

Only so that I can look people in the face and go, you can see I'm not doing this for money. These things are costing me money. My ministry is paying for attorneys so that all the people who are coming forward can consult with an attorney to find out what they might get in trouble for. Can they navigate their NDA properly? So we're paying for counseling for people,

who are doing counseling, who've just been through the ringer and they need to recover from basically cult-like experiences they've had. we're taking care of it. We just sent pepper spray to a couple of victims who are potentially in danger of someone I've exposed. So for those who say that, I just want to say, you're getting caught up in like reactionary culture

where you don't really know what's going on. So it's fine for you to go, I don't really know what's going on there. That's fine. You don't have to be picking aside on the issues. You don't understand. But if you want to dig into the issues, actually watch some of the videos.

and know this. There's no benefit coming my way that I'm aware of. There's, I don't even, even the money that does come in from YouTube doesn't go to my pocket. It goes to the ministry. And per our policy,

it can't affect my wage. Like it, if we had a billion dollars in YouTube at revenue, I would not get a raise. It doesn't affect that. So this is, this is just, I'm doing it out of conviction.

I've lost some supporters, which we're fine. I'm not, this is not an appeal for support to anybody. We're fine. My ministry is still above our surplus, You don't mean YouTubers. You mean financial supporters have pulled from...

Yeah, we've lost some financial support. And I don't care. It's not... Don't go to my website and donate, please. Because that would just prove... That would just be used to prove them true. And I much more care about the reputation of my ministry than I do about any of that stuff. Well, I'll say it because you're here making it clear that you don't want to, but support his ministry and help him do what he's doing.

And you're not here for that. You didn't ask me to say that. You're doing fine. Yeah, you're fine. Okay, so you said it's really bad and worse that you thought. Yeah. How bad is it? And maybe paint, there's layers to this.

There's like financial, they're sexual, there's spiritual abuse. Like, how bad is this? For those of us that have seen some of your videos, I've studied some of spiritual abuse, have been involved in different ways, not remotely to this level. What are you seeing that maybe the rest of us aren't seen? Well, I'm going to show it. I'm showing it through the videos we're doing. The big video I did with Elijah Stevens where we talked about Sean Bowles. I think if you typed Elijah Stevens into YouTube and Mike Winger, you'd probably find it. But that big video goes into a lot of detail. And that's why it's such a long video. And it's difficult to watch. But it shows emails back and forth. It shows that there's knowledge amongst church leadership that this guy is doing these things. And they're deliberately choosing to hold that information. back from people going, is this guy lying to me? This is a big deal.

My life is depending upon this prophecy I got from Sean Bowles. And there's not the revelation of what they actually know. But then public facing, Bethel did this, public facing, they wrote a letter making it look like they told everybody on their team and everybody who needed to know when they really didn't. They really didn't. So it's dishonesty. But how big is it?

I don't even know the answer to that question. what is the truth about some of these actors, some of these individuals? I don't know. I don't know because I only have pieces of information I pull together. I try to be careful not to go beyond the data. But man, I don't know how bad it is. I will say this. It's especially bad in the charismatic church.

Now there's abuse. We've heard about SBC stuff that came out through the years. We've heard about other situations and those things are real. But it's especially bad in the charismatic church. and it's because of the theology of prophecy. Okay, so I'm going to talk about this. I'm not here saying that God doesn't speak today. I'm saying that the particular theology of, or I should say orthopraxy,

the way that prophecy is practiced lacks accountability, and because of that, bad actors who use prophecy to manipulate people thrive in the charismatic church right now. It's so very bad. And we're seeing this over and over again. Steve Coco was an example guy just exposed in Panama. Yeah. And the surrounding countries.

He tells a young woman, 19-year-old girl, God's calling you to missions. God told me, he's calling you to missions. Okay, so then you have to become... Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor. A fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith.

Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. I'm part of my ministry so you can do missions. She's like, wow, I'm thrilled. He's in his mid-40s, right? Yeah, imagine being a young person being told that, like how much you feel like, well, God's anointing on me, given that theology.

And he's the evangelist on stage. He's the guy everybody looks at and goes, wow, that guy's so godly. He's so spirit-filled, and he tells you, God's calling you. So you get involved. All right, so you get involved. Then you go, and you're part of his thing, and then he starts telling you other things. Like, God's calling you to assist me in a very special way, personally. Oh, okay, I'll do that.

Oh, I think God's calling you to be my wife. Oh, okay. I mean, if that's what God wants, yes, well, but I have to test you out and train you to be the proper wife. And then the abuse and the sexual stuff begins. And when you can do that in the name of God, people's guard goes down when they're in an environment that not only believes in prophecy, but lacks accountability for prophecy. The Bible has accountability.

You're to test those things. You call it out when you have to. You address it. But that's not good for revival culture, for the momentum that they want to have where they bring people forward. You know, Bethel put Sean Bowles on stage at a Zusa revival event with stadium of people. And then millions of people, I think, watching online and presented him as a great prophet. He then on stage proceeded. We now reasonably know,

proceeded to use his social media knowledge. He's literally got his smart device on stage. He's reading the notes he took when he was browsing people's social media. So he goes, there's a guy, so-and-so, something about, you're going to be a missionary out in this place or that place. He did all this. Since that event, there's been no attempt to reach that number of people and say, hey, guys, you can't trust him.

That's unacceptable. Like to me, it's not a small issue. This is to me a very big issue. So we want proper accountability. I don't want to throw people out of the body of Christ. It's not what I'm trying to do here. I want to create proper accountability by, it won't be me that creates it. It's me that's just going to shine a spotlight on it.

And I think that the people will do it themselves. Charismatics will be like, we're not, we didn't know. We just didn't know. I think of a story my friend told me once. He was a symbol as God. and he was at his church and this woman came who was known to be a prophetess. So she went around the room and she was prophesying to different people.

And she came up to a guy. And if I remember correctly, I may get the couple details wrong. I think it was a black guy holding a white baby. And she goes up to the guy and she says, God's going to bless you one day you will be a father too and you will have children of your own. That was his baby. Right?

He has a white wife and, you know, So this one came out more white. And so this is, but this is what got me. And this was like, just probably 25 years ago or something this happened. But what got me when he told me the story was he was devastated because nobody said anything. In the room, it got kind of awkward, but nobody said a word. The pastor did not say a word. She continued to go around the room prophesying to people for the rest of the time there.

And nobody ever publicly said a word. work. And I thought, what kind of culture do you create where everybody instinctively knows don't do accountability here? And that has to shift, you know, because people are getting hurt. Because there was somebody else she prophesied to and told them something about business. And then they invested their whole life savings in some big business thing because they thought God was calling them to do it. These people, they ruin people's lives. They get a kick out of it. It drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. But we, but we. We need accountability, and it's especially bad because of the prophetic element that's in these circles.

So talk to me a little about what makes spiritual abuse so damaging. And you and I talked briefly about a book, Michael Kruger's book, Bully Pulpit, was the first one that put this on my radar, where it's one thing horrible to abuse somebody emotionally, abuse somebody physically, abuse somebody sexually. We interviewed Rachel Denhollander, who was one of the gymnasts who called out, I think Nassar, who it was, the doctor who's abusing gymnasts. And when we interviewed her, she's like, if I remember correctly, behind war, like sexual abuse is like the second level of like PTSD. But there's something, it's horrible to be sexually abused by somebody. But to be abused by somebody who's in spiritual authority. It's hard to say makes it worse because it's so bad, but there's an added layer of just you were doing this in the name of God that is like I can't even think of a word for how wicked that is. So talk to you about kind of what you're seeing and what the spiritual level does on top of the abuse these people are experiencing.

Really, those people are the best people to talk about it. And when I've interviewed like Elijah Stevens, he talks about this, you know. But it's hard to discuss. But you could just put it this way for those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That is the most important thing in your life. And when the abuse touches that, that's indescribable what that's like. That's indescribable what that's like. For someone to the same person who prayed with you to lead you to Christ,

to find out that they've been lying to you in the name of God, what does that do to your faith? And for many people, it results in a major loss of faith or at least this permanent uncertainty about their beliefs because of what they lied to me. I felt whether we think this is healthy or not, we feel secure in our relationship with God sometimes because we know somebody else who's secure in their relationship. That's so true. That's true.

And for those people that were our anchors to spiritually stab us, that's devastating. there's a lot of people who then lose trust in the in the in the in the church as a whole and then they just go adrift and that breaks my heart you know we we need healthy churches we need and obviously every church is going to have issues and you're going to have times where you're like man i'm really not i don't approve of that i don't like that but we do need to be part of the church this is like how christ designed us Ephesians is so clear about this like we're joined and knit together and we receive health spiritual health by what every joint supplies you know so I need to be plugged in and involved, but a lot of people who go through this, they're just, they're over it. You know, when they see a pastor teaching, they now have like this lens over it that is that person that hurt me, that person that abused me in the name of God. And it just can really, I can really hurt it, man, can really make it bad. I think that's a component we haven't talked about enough in the church, what that spiritual abuse does. I'm not sure if I'm exegetically here with him on this, but Dennis Prager years ago, I hear him talking about. about like taking the Lord's name in vain, third commandment, is claiming to be speaking for God

and then doing harm in the name of God. And I thought, I don't know if I fully adopt that exegetically, but it put me on the radar of like how serious engrave it is to claim to be a prophet for God, to speak for God, and intentionally do wicked things. Like you and I as apologist could separate that intellectually, but experientially and emotionally, that's impossible. I think it's impossible to do that. Now, talk to me a little.

I know you're not here to make this point, but like what is this cost and done to you? Does this keep you up at night? Are you getting personal criticism because of this? Like, tell me how, what this has cost you and how you process it. Well, I mean, so on a personal level, their criticisms come and go and it's not,

sometimes that'll get to me, every once in a while. Usually I'm fine. Re-comments and stuff and I'll be like, usually I've got thick skin. But some days I'll be like, I should not read comments. It's not good for me. I hear you, by the way. Yeah. But mostly that's not that big of a deal for the most part. It's a little bit, it's a little hard to just be dealing with victims a lot.

It's just. You mean emotionally? Emotionally. It's hard. That's fair. And what I don't want to do is act like I'm the victim because I'm not. I'm literally just hearing their stories. and just hearing their stories over and over again

is, you know, it can tear you down a little bit. It makes you sad, makes you upset, makes you angry to make sure I'm not going to sin in my anger, you know, because of it. And I also don't want those who were victims to feel as though they are powerless because actually have a lot of power to direct and guide their own thoughts, their own lives moving forward, and they're not just, I am just whatever they did to me. That's not true.

But hearing the stories and, you know, going through it with them, it's frustrating. It's really frustrating. It doesn't feel healthy. But it does grow maturity, I think, in discernment. If you watch even one of the videos I've done where I've got victims on screen. I have, yeah. The thing is, I believe that what will happen is if you ever encounter a situation where something like that's happening,

you're way more likely to recognize it because you'll go, oh, I know what this looks like. Okay, so let's talk about that. That was actually going to be my next question is how we can better identify these kinds of abuse. For me, just because I partnered with ministries like RZIM in the past, I've written forward for books, I spoke in events, I've platformed people, have been roped into certain areas of abuse. And I'd like to think that I can see things that I wouldn't have been to past. But a lot of that comes from just looking back going, you know what, that flag was there if I was just paying more attention to it. So without having to go through, certainly what

you've gone through or what I've gone through which doesn't compare to that what are some red flags that people should at least say that gives me pause okay um people disappear from your church and you don't know why that's a red flag nothing wrong with just calling them up saying hey how you doing if you feel a sense in your heart like they left and I don't know why um or that person was part of our staff or part of our ministry and suddenly they're just gone and no one's talking about it and it feels weird and you feel like I shouldn't say anything or ask anything like you just have this weird cultural feeling that you shouldn't do those things call them up how are you doing what happened now maybe they're going to lie to you're just going to believe everything everybody says you can't do that but

but it's okay because otherwise we have no no protection um because what I find is with abusive leaders they have high turnaround rates and they always try to ostracize the people who leave this is like a typical thing. It's a pattern of behavior. That's interesting. Yeah. And yeah, try to separate them, you know, spread rumors about them. I talked to one person who was at Michael Culeanos' church. And I'm going to

name names because I don't care. Okay, let me come back to this story. I was going to ask you that. Why do you name names? For clicks, most of them. I knew it was coming full circle. Because they're ongoing These are ongoing situations that need to be addressed. And like in the case of St. Michael Culeanos, people have tried to confront him and tried to talk to him

and then received threats and things like this. And so I think it's important to help those who don't have a voice, but should be defended. I'd rather be handled locally. What I'm saying is the local church is being mobilized against people instead of helping them. And so if we shine a light on it, then the people in that very congregation are going to demand proper accountability.

At least that's, I have a lot of faith in Christians. Okay. So we're going to come back to the story. Sure. But part of it is like it'd be easier to be vague. It'd be easier to be general. But when you call specific names out, it seems to me that's going to give other people some courage to go, wow, Mike's got a big YouTube channel. He's paying attention to this.

He's criticized it. That's got to be a piece of why you're doing it so other people will come forward and have the courage to address it. True or not? No, I think that is true. And I'm hoping I don't inspire people to have courage to just gossip and slug. lander and throw accusations at people because that's that comes with any kind of exposure or accountability that happens to and I'm opposed to that but if we don't call out the names like nothing will change.

Otherwise I'm just giving an anecdote. There was a guy. He did a thing. And yet he's still doing it right now and I won't, I won't say his name. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to be invited to things. There's, there's been fallout, you know. I told you before we this interview, I was like, are you sure? You did.

You want to do this? Because there's going to be some fallout. You told me that. It used to be, if I called up just about anybody, because of the reach I have online, I would get a call back right away. I would just be like, hey, you know, can we chat right away? Not anymore. Really? Because people are nervous and it's an uncomfortable thing.

So I hope I'm doing it right. I'm trying to do my best. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes as I'm going through here. But I think that this is necessary. So, yeah, if we don't call out names, nothing will change. If I made a video about Benny Hinn and wouldn't mention his name, it just wouldn't make a difference, I don't think. I don't think it would do anything.

Okay, so you mentioned names in the fellow you were making, I was asking you how do we recognize abuse? And you said when somebody disappears, and you were starting to tell stories. So reputation damage about the person who left can also be a sign. And so Michael Culeanos, I spoke to two witnesses who confirmed that, he lied about them after they left, said that they had medical diseases, both of them, different diseases.

I won't mention the specific ones, but they had medical diseases and did this to the staff because they were well known and respected. And he was, I think, just trying to create a divide, a distance. What he wants, and what a lot of these leaders want is a sense that if you abandon this ministry or come against this ministry, God will get you. And so that's, so in other words, you hear. slander against people after they've left, then that's a red flag.

There's other red flags. So let's focus on that one for second. So somebody disappears, they're gone on staff or not without any explanation. There's a decent chance, at least calm up. Maybe things are fine and they just moved on. But if there's an awkwardness there or like,

wait a minute, that person served here and all of a sudden nothing and they're gone, it could be that they were forced to sign an NBA, NDA and they were paid off. It could be that rumors are spread, powers being held over them, like at least call that... Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day.

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on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. ...person and find out why it happened. That's one red flag. Yeah. If they disappear and you don't know why, that doesn't mean anything bad happened. Maybe they fell away.

So don't talk to somebody like, this person left. I'm sure some bad happened. That's the opposite of what you're saying. But that's a red flag. Could be anything, yeah. And it could be behind. Okay, good. Give me another one.

Another one is just elitism amongst the leaders and this can take lots of different forms but pride and elitism amongst the leaders is constant in every example I've seen. Every example I've seen of these kinds of situations. So how do you identify pride?

Like what do you look for? I just say look for the red flags of arrogance and pride and elitism treating people like they are tools. Some of these guys are very mobilizing. They're successful at mobilizing communities to do a lot of stuff, but it's partly because they have an abusive mindset where they don't care what it costs you to do the thing that they want.

And so then that translates when they become abusive, that translates into them doing that to you as well. It's just weird, man. Some of them are highly effective individuals in other areas. So it's part of the challenge that there's going to be a false humility that people are putting on screen. to make you think that they're humble. But when people say things and do things,

and it's a red pause of like, wow, there's an arrogance there. That's a red flag that there could be abuse behind it. Yeah. Or, you know, male leaders that are surrounding themselves with young pretty girls. That's a red flag. Feels like an obvious one,

but you're absolutely right. It's a red flag. Clearly, in some cases you've seen, that's gone without people calling attention to it. Right. So, okay. Right. I'm sure there's a bunch more if I had more time to think about it.

I feel like I'm going to fail to not mention more. Yeah, no, that's fine. There's plenty of red flags. I guess if people watch some of the exposures, you'll go, okay, you'll start to learn what these red flags are. Don't be overly suspicious, I'd say to people. Don't become like most pastors are not like this. I think the majority of pastors are doing a good job. They're working hard and they're there because of good reasons.

I still believe that. I just want to create accountability for, for this particular circle where it's just really bad. It seems to me a lot of red flags will come out when there's whistleblowers and people raise questions. Then they start to reveal their cards. Like I've seen quite a few times where somebody says, hey, there's abuse in this church. And the response is, don't you know when you post this online, you're harming the good

things that God is doing? I've seen that many times. And to me, I'm like, wait a minute. Rather than caring for the person who's hurt, you're concerned with the way it's perceived publicly. Now, I understand you don't want reputation damage, and who knows who that person is or what happened. But that seems to me a red flag. Yeah. What are some of the red flags when people start to speak up that you can then see and identify?

Can you think of any more on top of that maybe? Yeah. They get called Jezebel or they have the Spirit of Leviathan or your pastor suddenly gives a message about the accuser of the brethren. And all of a sudden, the gears are turning. Oh, man. You see that a lot?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, my goodness. I've been called the accuser of the brethren a bunch of times recently. By name? No, no, they won't say my name because then people will Google me. So they'll just be like,

YouTube videos, and it's the timing's like, yeah, you know. Everybody knows what that's about. So, yeah. It's Mike Schwinger instead of Mike Winger. The voice of the enemy. After my video on Todd White, which included many witnesses writing a letter they all agreed on and then be reading it.

There are multiple witnesses, their letter from inside his ministry. After that, he did a rant. He spoke right after the video came out, and he was talking about YouTubers, and the spirit of Antichrist is your anti-anointing. And the implication, of course, is that Todd's anointed, and those who oppose him are Antichrist. It's a total power play. It's clearly talking about me. Yeah.

But that sort of thing does happen. Usually they won't use names. But they'll use the pulpit itself to control people. Yeah. Okay. So what's the process like? I see you recently dropped a four-hour video, dropped longer videos. How much work and time goes behind that?

And what's the process to do your best of due diligence like I've talked to enough people? Yeah. These are witnesses I can trust. Walk us through that process. I don't know if I have like a policies I can share. So some of the things I look for is I'm just looking for truth. So easy to say. But so that means, you know, the biblical standards, multiple witnesses.

And I consider evidence to be a witness. So I think multiple witnesses includes. So if I had someone who goes, I saw that guy shoot so and so. And then I saw fingerprints on the gun that was used to shoot and they matched the guy. That's two witnesses. Two witnesses. Two witnesses. Fingerprints and a person.

Fair enough. So multiple witnesses are things like emails, voice messages. recordings, that sort of thing. Those are multiple witnesses as well. And I try to vet things. I've had times where victims have come to me, because I can't keep doing this forever. This is a season.

I want to get back. Honestly, I want to get back to teach in verse by verse. That's what I would like to do. Really? Oh, yeah. Hopefully by the end of the year. I just, honestly, I want to blast this thing, make it really loud so that people,

other people can take the ball and run with it and go, yeah, we're going to fix this. It's not Mike's going to fix this. So your heart and your passion teaching the Bible is really what motivates you. Like that just gets you way more excited. Oh, man, that's life-giving. Studying the scripture and teaching. That's life-giving to me.

This is life-taking to me this whole process. But what was I talking about? You know, I was afraid you were going to ask me that because I got, shoot. I was asking you the process and you're talking about multiple witnesses. Okay, so multiple witnesses. Obviously, I'm trying to test for truth in the testimony. people give. I had a witness that was going to come forward in a pretty significant situation I can't talk about yet publicly. And I became suspicious that he was misleading me. And the thing is, I do think

he was a real victim, but he was also trying to manipulate me with the things he was telling me. And so I just, I have to cut him off. I can't, I can't be part of that. I can't have that part of my thing. Anything like that would be used to undermine my whole project. And so we can't do that. But yeah, so looking for those types of things. the case of like say um uh a tough one was todd white again there's just a spirit of fear spiritually around todd white and people don't want to come forward uh publicly but they really want to come forward they want something to be done i can tell you how many people reached out after that video went up i just want you to know i know him i know i was part of that ministry and i think what you're

doing is really good keep going don't tell anyone i talk to you that's a common response same thing i've heard it from many times but i'm not done with Todd White. There's more coming soon on that, but that will be public, some people on the record. Anyway, I went public with a letter that nobody knew the witnesses except me. Now, the truth is that right now, Todd knows who they are, okay? And we knew that he would figure it out eventually. But it was anonymous witnesses.

So it's just, did I vet them properly? So I made sure that they really were who they said they were. I went through every bullet point they offered and asked for confirmation from multiple people. I'm on a call with, I won't say how many, but with a number of individuals, it was more than two or three. And we're confirming, like, did anybody else witness this?

Anybody else see that? Are you sure? And we're removing some stuff from the document because I don't think we can say that. We're changing some things. And then finally it went public. But that process was, I have, like I didn't show this in the video,

but I think I'm okay to say this now. have a two-hour recording of a staff meeting from Todd White's ministry where he's not present because he's, again, blown it really big, and he's taking a day off, basically, and then he's going to get back to it. And they're all agonizing over the fact that he has no accountability. These are his leaders. They're asking each other in the room, who is he accountable to? Who can tell him what to do? And they're like, we don't know. Nobody knows. People are literally crying, his own staff, crying and sobbing because of the lies he stole him and the abuse he's done in their lives. And then saying, but I can't tell anyone because it's the culture of honor.

This is like I'm listening to this going, yeah, I'll help these witnesses go forward. I'm trying to vet things through things like that. Like I need affirmations, confirmations. I've spoken to many people behind the scenes about Todd White that I can't publicly say. But the Todd White video was a really weird situation because I thought if I don't help them with this letter anonymously, nothing will happen with Todd White. But if I help him with this, I think it will start what needs to happen. And that's what's going to be the next video.

That's coming up. Okay, give me an example, one that has gone well in the sense that there's been a response. It's moved the ball forward. You're like, that's a good example of somebody maybe stepping down. Maybe somebody owned it or maybe there was just enough where they had, they got exposed. I don't have one yet. Okay. And the, let me, it's complicated, but I'll say this.

I think that within... So here's what I'm thinking. The old guard is not likely to change. I'm calling out things that not only they have been doing for many years, but their ministry is built on doing for years. And so for them to actually go, we're going to call out Sean Bowles the way he deserves. For them to say that,

the logical outflow of that is, and here's our list of other people we'd have to address. Because they know. They know way more than I know. They know it's a web. They know way more than I know. And I know enough to know that they know more than I know. And so it would be this, it would just, it would do a lot of damage to their, to their networks and maybe even to themselves personally.

And so they're not. But my thought is that it's the next generation. It's the young leaders who are watching this. Because you know when you're a young leader in a movement and you're not like at the top, you have a different perspective than the older guys. I sure. You really do. And you're the one who can sometimes see their flaws in ways they can't. that's what I'm counting on.

I'm counting on the next generation of leadership. They're going to be the ones that make changes. There's some guy in your church right now, and his lead pastor will not make these changes, and he's taking notes. And he's like, once I'm in there, we're going to create proper accountability because we will not tolerate predators in the church.

And that's going to be the thing. Now, whether or not the major leaders do what they're being asked to do, because we've asked, we've asked Chey Ann, and we asked Bill Johnson and Chris Valleton to public. publicly openly tell everybody what they know about Sean Bowles because they absolutely know. I believe they know.

I think they're culpable for it. If they don't know, there's some kind of hilarious deception going on in the mind of the leaders and they're not qualified to be leading people in these areas because they've got the evidence. They've got the witnesses. They've got the testimonies. And they've had it for years. But if they won't, the thing is by going public, by just going to social media, I bypass all the gatekeepers. and Sean Bowles' reach diminishes incredibly

because people are telling people, not just for me, for my video, but there's a lot of people trying to create accountability. It's certainly not just me. And their reach is diminishing. It's shrinking down. And in their comments, people are warning other people. Don't trust this guy.

Hey, look at this person's testimony about how he lied to them. And they're real testimonies. They're not just slander. So the reach thing is real. So right now, Mike Bickle, did you know this? Mike Bickle's trying to get back into ministry right now. I had no idea about that.

His sister went public, prophesied in the name of God that God was putting Mike back into ministry, slandered the witnesses and everybody who would come against them in a public video. This is happening right now. My understanding is he's leading a weekly Bible study right now. He should be in prison, but he's leading a weekly study. But here's the thing. people know. People are able to warn other people and tell other people.

I don't think he will ever have anything remotely like the influence he used to have. And if we can't stop these people, we can slow them down a lot, a whole lot. So that would be worth it to me. This might be hard to answer, but I'm curious from your best sense, do you think many of these people get into ministry with good intentions and then just don't have the character, the spiritual depth, and get sidetracked by this? or do you think a lot of these leaders specifically know and target, here's a way I can take advantage of people.

I want the power. I want the sex or whatever it is. Or is it just some combination of both? There's no one answer. So I'm finding that different leaders, it's a different story. Okay. So Mike Bickle is a calculating man. He likes, I think his thing, and this is, I've read a book written by one of his dear friends for many, many years.

who talks about like what happened with Bickle and stuff. And my best read on him is the same thing Bob Scott said about him, which was he longs for significance. That's his driving factors, I want to feel significant. So he's the in-time's apostle. People don't even know this about IHOP is that it's an in-times movement. And he is an in-times apostle. He wrote on a chariot with God, you know, and all this stuff.

It's all based on these prophecies that are mostly made up. But that's a video for another time. Sure. So I'll say. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search,

and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organized. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store. Growing your faith every day. Search for King James Bible Study, KJV, and download the app today. desire for significance. Then you have somebody else like Bob Jones, who was alongside Bickle. And I think Bob Jones,

he was kind of a weird guy. He was a really strange, kind of like fast talking, Arkansas kind of accent, you know? Kind of a strange guy. But when he came in and was introduced as Bob Jones, the prophet,

people flocked around him. And I think he, relationally, I think he really fed off that. And so he fed into it more and fed into it more because it allowed him to have that place

where people were around him and loving on him. I think it's that simple. I think he just liked the relational aspect of it. And then it turned into sexual perversion at some point. But they're different. They're different. Some guys, it's money and power.

Benihin, obviously, he's a money and power guy. Anybody who doesn't see that doesn't want to see it. Fair enough. You know, Kenneth Copeland, he's money power, for sure. But some of these guys, it's not money and power. It's this desire for relationships that are unbalanced relationships where people look at you like this hero amazing figure and then they can look past all your weird stuff

you've got going on. Or for others, I think it can be like a... There's a thrill, like an excitement that they have in telling you a prophetic thing and then you believe it. That's just, I think that they get a high off of it and they get addicted to it. And so they keep doing it more and more and more and more and more. And it becomes...

And then if it happens to get traction, then they... But they would do it if they were just alone in a living room with one person, they'd still do it. But if it happens to get traction and they get a million people, that's even more exciting for them. And so I spoke to one person who recently found out that a guy he thought was a prophet, was just a pathological liar. And he was devastated because he didn't know this for years.

He didn't know this. And he's going, I didn't know. It didn't even occur to me that somebody could lie that much. like that to my face like that. And once you're aware that it can happen, then you go, okay, we need to do what scripture says. Two or three prophets at the most speak. Let the others judge.

Test it all. And when people blow it, you don't go, well, good for you for trying. No, you spoke in God's name and you got it wrong. That's a really big deal. We need to stop what we're doing and address this. Now, maybe that will diminish the amount of prophecy in your movement to a small amount. But all that really is doing is it's diminishing the fake stuff and you're keeping the real.

That's a good thing. We don't need more prophecy. We need real prophecy. If it's going to happen at all, it needs to be real. And I'd rather have none than a big host of jumbly mess. And that's one thing that they've always said. They go, well, we accept the bad. They call it hamburger helper.

That was Mike Bickle's phrase for it. He goes, oh, well, yeah, to sure there's a lot of prophecies that aren't real. and a lot. I ignore most of the stuff people say to me prophetically. But it's like hamburger helper, because they're trying to create a culture of prophecy. And so they, if you want to create a culture of prophecy

and you don't actually have the Holy Spirit doing it, your only option is fake stuff. And so they create a culture that embraces the fake. Bethel encourages their students, their first year students. You have to get prophecy wrong multiple times or we will not allow you into the second year. Wow.

That's a, that's an actual policy. I've never heard that before. It's encouraged. It's encouraged. Wow. Bill Johnson sat at the table with his leaders when he took over his church. Unbelievable. And he said to the, and this is from his own mouth.

He sat at the table with his leaders and he was trying to create a prophetic culture. Right. So he sits down and he says, if Jesus was here in the room, what do you think he would say? And so they go around the room and they all give an answer. And anybody who knows the Lord and knows the word can give an answer. It's a good question. I can give it. Sure.

I think he would maybe say this. Then when they all finished, he goes, you know what you guys just did? You just prophesy. There's a doctrine they've got. Bill says that sometimes you're so in tune with God that you can actually lead him by prophetically proclaiming something

that he wasn't even proclaiming, but now he will. That's false prophecy. That's the definition of false prophecy. Because prophecy never comes to the instigation of man. And it comes when you're moved by the spirit. In his theology, you can be so spiritual that you can be the one moving the spirit.

Now, if you teach this to masses and millions of people around the world, you're going to have fake leaders get up. And you're going to have predatory leaders who have motivations like I want relationship issues. I want power. I just want attention. I just want to feel significant. And they're going to raise up. And as long as they say things that sound good and you have a really low threshold for testing prophecy, you will have a movement that is flooded with fake prophets, fake apostles, and false leaders.

who of course will end up using the church to feed their own carnal desires. It's, I hate to say all this. I'm blown away. But that is happening on a massive scale in the charismatic movement right now. And it's probably even worse in countries in Africa. In Africa, it's so bad. It is so bad. Benihin and Kenneth Copeland have terrorized that country with their examples and their teachings

and stuff like that. And then you get leaders like Bill Johnson who come in and appear to be very, this is the safe guy. He's the safe one, but he's not. It's not okay. So I'm hoping that they will have a real change in their prophetic culture.

I'm not telling them they can't believe in the gifts. I'm not a cessationist. I believe in the gifts. But you're not going to get, the revival culture you've got now is it raises up predators. Not on purpose. It just leaves them.

without any controls. So then, of course, they come in. So let me take that first time you described looking into that one case. How long ago was this, that it first was on your radar and you started going down the rabbit trail? Sean Bowles was like last year sometime. Oh, so this has really been a year because you did the Benny Hinn stuff before that. Yeah. So I've done things here and there a couple times.

And usually the reason was people have to be warned and I have a voice online that I'm responsible for. So I've done a couple things over time because I feel like, you know, Benihann, Todd White, like we're actually inhabiting the same space in a lot of ways. You know, I'm not like, I'm not going to someone's church to tell their congregants something. I'm actually addressing the online followers because they're also my followers as well. But this was, this was different. Yeah, the Sean Bulls thing, when I saw how bad it was, I find it about Bob Hartley. Can I tell you about Bob Hartley for two minutes? Please.

Yeah, dude, you can take more than two minutes. man. Bob Hartley goes back decades. He was like buddies with Mike Bickle and Bob Jones and all the Kansas City prophet guys. When Bob Jones fell, we'll call it fell, when he used prophecy, lied in the name of God to sexually assault women, and then was forced to step down because John Wimber was not going to stand for it.

I think Mike Bickle would have pushed under the rug if he had the option, but Wimber was not going to stand for it, which is also then when Wimber split. But this is all the drama that went on with that movement. I won't get into it. But he's there. Bob Hartley becomes Bob Jones as like right-hand guy. If you want to talk to Bob Jones, you go through Bob Hartley. He's good friends with Mike Bickle.

When Mike Bickle's allegations first came out, Bob Hartley goes on social media and threatens all the witnesses. I have the best lawyers. I have the best lawyers. He threatens them. He's threatened them privately. I've spoken to a couple people who receive threats from Bob Hartley, which is why I then put up a tweet or an ex-post. I wish I would just call it Twitter again

I know I still don't know what to call it it still feels like a tweet but I think I saw that one but keep going describe it well I just I just told him you know you're yeah I called him out this is the thing we have to shine light on it so I was like Bob you're you're publicly you're threatening these women I want to I'm threatening you I'm gonna we're gonna rally behind these women anything you did to intimidate them we're going to shine a light on it and tell everybody and I haven't heard of him doing more if he is I like to know about it but Bob Hartley

He's at Bethel at this point. For the past many years, he was over in that Bethel area. That's where he was focused up in California. And he's known to the house. They often call their church the house, to the house as a prophet to the people that are in that area. He invites people over to his house. I think it's called the Red House. He has lots of properties.

He's wealthy. And so he invites him to his Red House, and they come over there and he gives them prophecies. Well, we suddenly find out there's a lot more going on with Bob that we did. didn't know. And the reason we find out is because his son, a brave man named Jedediah, exposes his dad. But here's how it happened. First Jedediah goes to Bethel leadership and says, hey, Bethel leadership. My dad is faking prophecy. He's looking up people's names and he's sexually pushing himself on women. I think there's going to be a court case eventually if the women want to press charges. And he'll say things like, I've got a prophecy for you, come to my house to receive it, and then he pushes himself on them.

I've also got photos, bathroom photos he sent to women, messages he sent to them, like probably drunk messages, what it looks like he sent to them, where he's like, come over here, I just want to, you know, feel compassion. It's just icky stuff. Yeah. Icky stuff. Jeez. Maybe he's a little older. I don't know. So he goes out.

Nothing happens. He thinks they're going to make a difference in a change. Nothing happens. After nothing happens for far too long, he finally just goes public. And he just puts it on X. And he just has a big post where he's like, I just got to warn people. And he tells. Since then, he's done some podcast episodes, and he's helped expose even more.

And it's concerning stuff. It really is. Here's the thing. Bethel at some point put out like a little, don't go to Bob's, no explanation. They've never said, now what would you say if you were part of a church where you're like one of the top leaders and you find that one of the guys who you've put on stage as a prophet

has been lying to people in God's name and sexually pushing himself on women using prophecy to do it, what would you tell your people? Well, that depends on how much you care about truth and giving the gospel ultimately reigning versus holding on to power, right? That's entirely where their response to this is going to be – it's going to communicate and reveal what matters most to them. Right. And I don't think the leadership there realizes how much of a misstep they had here. What I would have told my people is anybody here who has ever received a professional. prophetic word from Bob, you need to rethink that.

That's a really important thing to tell people because they base their lives on these prophetic words. Now, if you're not part of a prophetic culture, you don't really think about that much. You know, you just think, oh, it's encouraging. But people actually do, like, life changes because of these things. People get married. As much as they go, we don't do marriage prophecies. They do.

They do. It happens all the time. So you warn them of that. And then you say, and there's allegations that are deeply concerning about sexual misconduct. So we're asking that people stay away from Bob. We're praying for him. We want to see him come to repentance and change.

We love him. But we also need to warn you guys because we put him on stage in front of you guys. So we have to balance that out. You know, nothing. That doesn't happen. Nothing like that happens. And you bring in an outside professional organization to examine what happened. Yes. And write a genuine, real, helpful report.

So you learn from it and don't make the mistake again. And then you reveal that to the public to show how seriously you're taking this abuse. That's kind of what you do. Yeah. I think that would be great. And I want to say, too, when I say all this, I am not, I don't have no hope for Bethel. I want them to change. I want them to grow and change and positively change.

They don't have to change in all the ways that I think they should change. I need to follow Mike's rules. I am trying to amplify the voices of their own people who have. have not had an avenue for justice from within their own ministry. And I'm doing that for other ministries as well for a little season because I think it will actually cause internal changes in these movements. Now, I know that's a complicated thing to say. I have theological disagreements with Bethel and other things like that.

But as a Christian, I want to have as much of a bridge building responses I can to everything. I really do want to see, hey, change. And if you do change, I will be applauding that. not over here condemning you forever because of the things that happened in the past. Like I want to see transformation and change and shifts happen there because I think that those things could be possible. And it's complicated. There's a lot of theological issues there.

Of course. There's a lot of other areas to disagree on. But at least when it comes to this one thing, I think creating prophetic accountability and leadership accountability, I think will cause a cascade of other positive effects in the ministry. Amen. So the reason I asked you when you started this is I was curious how much, how deep you've gone for how long. So, yes, you've been covering Benihin and Progressive Christian and other things that concern the church. But maybe one year this real deep dive. What has surprised you the most good or bad over the past year that you would not have seen coming when you started this?

That's a really tough question. what surprised me that's good is some people embedded in these movements and cultural things responding so positively and wanting change and championing it and going we will not stand for this like they don't I don't need Mike to make more videos

I'm going to be out here fighting the right fight and asking for accountability and even though it costs me even though it means I don't get invited to this event even though it means I lost a major supporter. I've seen some of that, and that's been really positive. And I've seen guys like the YouTube channel, the minor profits going forward. People putting their necks on the line. And so that's been really exciting, and I wasn't really expecting that.

I was just thinking of the people, but in some cases there's people who actually have a little bit more influence that are also stepping up and saying things. And I think that the rumblings are just starting. Really? Oh, I do. Tell me about that. Like, I know you're not a profit. You've made that clear. Right.

But what you see potentially coming. And by the way, I'm not either. I work at a non-profit organization. You're going to use that now. Maybe. Maybe. So I believe that over the course of time, these things build on each other. So someone watches a video of an exposure and then they think like, well, I don't know about that.

I have questions about that. I'm just going to another one, another one, more witnesses, more witnesses, their friends verify things that they didn't that they were like yeah we knew this i know one one guy was uh who was in todd white's circle i'll say um he when my video on todd white came out he had i i don't careful what i say but he had a young person with him uh who is very influenced by todd white and the person heard about oh my wingers made a video about todd white and then the kid was like do you want to watch it and he goes do you want to watch it right now so they watch it together and then the kid turns to the guy and says,

is that true? And the guy just looked at the kid and was like, pretty much, yeah. Wow. It's known. It's known. They know it. The leaders know it. But the people don't know it. That's the problem, right? So seeing more leaders get bold, that's been awesome.

Probably the most negative thing has just been how widespread this stuff goes. So, I mean, like William Branham, Smith Wigglesworth, it's name after name that have that are known that have these major major issues everybody's got problems everybody's got sin your pastor's a sinner still they still sin there's sins i still commit but it's different when you are lying in the name of god or abusing the people of god as a leader that's a different category to me i totally agree yeah now so let me ask you this most of the names you've

mentioned i don't recognize and i don't know yeah because you're not in the charismatic world i'm in the charismatic world. I've done some speaking there. Awesome. You know, God bless those opportunities, but I don't recognize most of these names. I wonder how many people watching this also. Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the daily, Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android.

Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Don't recognize most of those names. So maybe for a minute, let's step outside of the charismatic world. And if you can't comment on this, you can't. But how much do you suspect it's more widespread in the church as a whole, given what you've seen, you know, how the sausage is made, so to speak.

I don't, I wouldn't have a clue how to put a statistic on it and answer that question. I, um, I think that if people want, like, where would you, what would your guests be? Yeah. I'd say where you see a really arrogant leader, you have an abuser. It seems really consistent. they're on stage and they're full of pride. They think it's just spiritual faith or something else or bravery, which is good. We want bravery.

We want brave people in the pulpit. But if you see a guy who's full of pride, there's a good chance there's an abuser there. I haven't said that out loud yet or have been thought through it all that well, but I feel like that's what I've learned if I've learned something. And pride is probably the worst of sins. I mean, it's a fountain of so many other sins. it's so many of our sins they come back to pride it's like well if I hadn't had pride I wouldn't have done that

but um but yeah Jesus you know Jesus is parable about the the delay of the return of the bridegroom and they they sort of beating the servants you know it happens I think the majority of churches are good and and the truth is that even an abusive leader

they might actually be a great leader in any other ways. And so it's tough. People are complicated and it's a mixed bag. And so you have a leader who's really wonderful man of God and serves well. And he goes and preaches the gospel. People are getting saved. It's not like those aren't real salvations.

They're being disciple. They're growing in Christ. An example of this would be a guy named Steve Berger, who I interviewed T.C. Cannon, who talks about her story with that. And he went long after she was gone from the church. He went and he, from the pulpit, but slandered her and gossiped about her and made claims about her that were lies about who she stalks me and she's doing this and that.

She calls ahead to warn people so that I won't be able to speak at conferences and she doesn't do that. I know the one who did do that. It wasn't her. And so he's lied and I reached out to, now at the same time, T.C. would say, like, he disciples me. He tremendously benefited my life as a Christian. And he taught me how to read the word and study.

and no scripture. So this stuff is so messy and complicated, and it's hard to always do. It's not just good guy, bad guy. Sometimes it's like, you're a good guy and a bad guy. But that's the way people are. Anybody who's had an abusive family member, you could probably say,

for some of them, some of them are just bad guys, but sometimes I kind of miss them, but also can't get anywhere near them because they're dangerous to me. It's kind of weird. Part of me feel like, since this is a Mike Winger interview, I should get at least three or four hours out of this, Mike.

Maybe drag it out to 11 hours. I mean, I still don't know how you did an 11-hour video emotionally, cognitively. I don't have a clue. We won't go there, but I do have one more, at least one more question for you. We'll wrap this thing up. I want to know how you protect yourself. And let me frame that in a sense that you've got a platform. You talked about how being on stage, and we both know this.

Like, people look to you. There's some, it feels good. Like, people are laughing at my jokes. People are looking at me. You share something. People go, way to go, Mike. This is great. Like, there's so many things about having a platform that can lead astray.

And there's a book not long ago about like just celebrity pastors and the danger in this. How do you protect yourself, whether it's accountability, personal practices? What does that look like for you? I hope I do this well. It is unnatural the amount of attention I have on me. It's amazing to have a ministry that can reach so many people. That's amazing. But the amount of attention I get on myself is unnatural.

I don't think we're wired for it. You're not wired for this many people knowing your name. You're not wired for this many people having opinions about you. Or for meeting strangers who are like thrilled just to even see you. Or other ones who hate you. We're not really wired for that. It's a very unnatural relationship thing. So what do I do?

When I went to, so we're at a church, Grace E.V. Free and LaMorada, great church. Wonderful church. I went to multiple of the elders. A ton of profs here at Bayonne Talbot go there. Yeah, that's true. Like, it's kind of one of the top. I'm not the smartest guy in the room in that church, that's for sure. But I went to the leaders, multiple of the elders, and just let them know, like, I'm, I want you to know, like, I'm not, here as a celebrity.

I'm here as a congregation member, a member of the church, I submit to you if you have things you want to talk to me about, see something I post or do that you feel is a problem, you can tell me. I don't want my church doesn't control my channel or try to control my ministry, but when it comes to accountability, that's part of what they're there for. So I've gone to them and I've asked for that. I try to act like a normal person and not a celebrity at church and with the people I interact with. And wherever I go, I just try to act like a normal person. It's just little things.

Like people will walk up to me and they'll say hi and they're excited to see me and they often forget to say their name. Does that happen to you? You know what? Yes, that's interesting. I don't know that I've given that a ton of thought. For some reason it stood out to me and I make a point of going, what's your name? Because I think how creepy for me to be like receiving them coming to me, talking to me, telling me about this and that. I don't even know their name.

Like that just feels like I'm mistreating people to not get your name. And then I forget everybody's names anyways. At least I walked through that. But I don't know. Your wife always keeps you humble because she's not impressed by any of that stuff. That's a fact. So that's good. That's a fact.

And I just don't think, I just, this is going to sound like it's fake to somebody, but I don't think that highly of my subscriber account. I just don't. When I first started, I was thinking, if I ever reached 20,000 subscribers, I would be so thrilled. I would feel like this was, this was, this was. all worth it. Like you had that number in your mind, 20,000. It was in my mind. It's so funny you remember that specific number. You know, we just recently passed 900K on, on YouTube, and then it's also on Instagram and TikTok and other platforms. But, um, a podcast and all that. But,

uh, I just, I think that I'm doing the same thing a lot of other godly men are doing. I just, by God's grace, happen to have a wider reach for it. But I, I, I for, you know, I did ministry for years in the local church. And I would be, it's been 12 hours, 15 hours preparing a Bible study for 13 kids. And I was content doing that. And I would be content doing that again. So I don't need, I don't need YouTube and I don't need social media and I don't need the reach. I want to be faithful with it, but I don't need it. And I think that that's really healthy to be able to say that. I love that. I have my thoughts on that, which would lead us astray about teaching high school for years. I had a student in my class, he asked me, he goes, Mr. McDowell, what do I have to do to get a C-minus in

your class? Because that's what he needed for his, I think his driver's license. He didn't mean it as an insult, but inside, I'm like, okay, here's basically the minimal you need to do. I used to be that guy who would come in and speak, but then when I was teaching high school, we'd do a retreat, we'd have speakers come in, and then I'd hear the students talk about it and process it. I'm like, Oh, this is very, very different. I didn't plan it that way, but like students in high school, they didn't give a rip. Like you just said your wife's not impressed. Like my students are never like, wow, you wrote a book.

Tell me about it. Not once. Like, wow, you spoke in an audience. They didn't care. Like, do you show up? It's class interesting. Did you give me a good grade? Did you come to my sport and event?

And so part of my encouragement for people is like slow down with the platform. And it really concerns me today with how. quickly somebody can build a big platform on social media. So we've seen this deconstruction phenomena and deconversion. I wonder five, 10, 20 years when you have a generation of people thrown that platform, that's a whole other conversation. But I also grew up with a dad who had a big platform. And we were recognized restaurants everywhere we went.

My entire life, that was the case. And so I've never really thought, if I, I can just be recognized and have a big platform, that's going to make me happy. Right. I can tell you I haven't been tempted by that because I've seen the price and the sacrifice my dad made because he really believes it. And so just my encouraging people is like, slow down, get accountability like you. I've got a lot of accountability here at Talbot.

I step out of line and I will get emails and calls from the dean top down as they should. I submit to my church as well. Like just it's so important. I know I'm preaching here for a minute, but it's good. It's really important for you and I who have platforms in different ways just to tell people, you think that's going to make you happy. It's not. Be faithful.

Do what God has called you to. And there's just so much more joy that comes from that and get your character and accountability in line first. Or whether you enter this with good and. intentions are not, you're going to end up hurting somebody in the long haul. All right. I'll stop preaching because this is about you. Honestly, I think that that's such, I think that's really, really good and important because the poll of trying to get a footprint on social media is so widespread now.

Oh, it's just. We have to think views, subscribers, accolades, attention is not inherently valuable. That's really, I think, important. they're not inherently valuable. Their value depends upon other things that are more important. And so like, what am I getting views on? Well, this is just a goofy little video people are laughing at. That's not bad, but it's not like, wow, what a big deal.

You've made a little spider that was cute and everybody shared it. It's not that big of a deal. It shouldn't feel like that big of a deal. I think the big deal is the impact we have in people's lives. And when you think about that, and that changes the way you behave online, it changes the kind of media content you'll create when you're thinking, like,

I want to have an impact on people's lives that is fruitful, that is helpful, that benefits them. And then if it does, and their lives are changed because of a video you made, a comment that you made, a short you made, where you interacted with some skeptic and then somebody saw it and they go, yeah, maybe there is a God.

When you measure that value... That's like humbling. It is humbling, isn't it? It somehow has the opposite effect of measuring the views. The views puffed me up, but when I measure the value in the person's life, I feel humble like I can't believe

I even got to be used for something like that. And it's just, it's much healthier. I look at the example, Jesus speaks to big crowds. Paul speaks to big crowds, and he had 12, and he had his three. Numbers are not bad. Sometimes I'm like, wow, a lot of people watch that video.

I share the gospel, that's positive. That's not bad. Right. But more numbers doesn't equal more. impact. That's the false equivalence. I mean, disciplining one person, talking with person, there's a qualitative, quantitative distinction that is lost. And I think even in the church, it's like we judge people by numbers and metrics and lose the individual person that's there. And the bigger my subscriber count, the more important I am. And frankly, the bigger my channel

has grown. And you mentioned this to me. It's the more people are like, oh, I want to use you to get something I want to accomplish. And I got to guard my heart doing that to anybody else. And also guard from other people, you know, doing that in reverse. And also not assuming somebody who wants to spend the show has that level of like, I don't want to judge somebody's heart. Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals

designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. But there's just, there's such, so much of this abuse that we've been talking about, I think it

starts with small areas and small compromises. Giving Satan a foothold. One of my all-time favorite interviews, Mike was with my dad after the, after the Ravi, just the Ravi scandal. I brought my dad. I'm like, do you want the question ahead of time? He's like, nope, I thought about this stuff. I'm like, okay. And he was just, I'm biased.

I'll fully own that. But I think he was, he was just brilliant. And you just saw that he had thought through. going to work in certain kinds of accountability with crew, which Crusade, I think, does really, really well financially. They do it morally. Like the Billy Graham rule, he built that in. And it starts with character and it just starts with the small things.

That's part of my encouragement for people watching. Like, we can talk about these horrible abuse things, and I hope you keep drawing attention to that. Lord bless you, Mike, like, man, alive. I'm not called to that, but part of the shows I want to draw attention. to it and support what you're doing and others are. But they didn't show up overnight and just get there. I guarantee it started with small theological compromises, started with character compromises.

That's why not letting the sun go down on our anger and not giving Satan a foothold. It's just absolutely vital. So in this show, last thing I'll say, and I have one last question for you. People watching can get upset that all the people are talking about, and they should. but there's time where we also look in the mirror and go, you know what, I can control us getting my life right and repentance and fixing things I've done. You know, that would be my encouragement for people watching.

Last words, thoughts, anything we didn't cover that you want to just get out there. Yeah, I don't know, just a lot of wisdom there. By the way, I love your relationship with your dad. I think it's exciting to me just to see it. That's really cool. He's my hero, Mike, honestly. Yeah, that's super cool.

He's human, but he's my hero. Yeah, that's super cool. But what you just said, so that one of the key verses for all the stuff I'm doing right now is, First Timothy 520, rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear. And when you just talked about turning that mirror on ourselves, that's actually the reason. That's actually, when you uncover this stuff and you address it publicly, it has a sanctifying effect on the church. There's a pastor who's just teetering on the edge and he sees this stuff. someone get exposed and he goes, that's going to be me. And then he runs to Jesus and he gets things right, you know.

So that is absolutely, you know, it's soul searching for me too to go, okay, I'm rethinking my own pastoral ministry in light of the possibility of any time I was overbearing or, or too fearful to stand up and do the right thing or something like that, you know. And it's healthy, it's healthy for me. It's a great word. And I hope that all, like, the last word I'll say is, I hope that all of the, guys that I'm exposing, repent, and receive restoration before God, and then I could hug them sometime, and they could be like, Mike, thank you. You helped me get called out, but I needed it.

Because what we want to do is keep that bridge open, that door open for people to be transformed, that it would be changed. And who we're calling out, we're like, we're calling you out so you can come over here. We're even kicking you out so you can come back and come back right. You know, that's what excommunication is all about, actually. It's come back right. That's right. And so that's the goal. That's the hope. I hope it's redemptive restorative.

It's ugly business, but it is biblical to do it. That is a mic drop moment, and we should end there, but I'm going to ask you one more question. I want to practically for people, what can they do next? Now, before you answer that, I'm guessing one of the reasons I got on YouTube is, one, David Wood made fun of me when we're on a trip into Israel. He's like, why aren't you on YouTube? And I was like, well, I blog.

He goes, Sean, 2006 called and wants their blog back. And I was like, ah, that, like, bugged me. Yeah. And then you and I had a conversation, I don't know, 2017, 2018 at a stand to reason event. And you were like, if you just had 10 hours a week. And I think if I remember, I think you had 130,000 subscribers. I just, that number stuck in my mind. I was like, that's unbelievable, which was awesome.

But you're like, if you just found 10 or 15 hours a week, that's all you had, I think. think you could reach people. I would not have done what I do without you pushing me to do that. That's awesome. Answering my text, my calls a few times long the way, you've really encouraged you for that. And of all the stuff I do, I probably get more positive fruit now through YouTube, books, speaking, anything in terms of numbers to bring it back to that. So just we'll qualify that. The reason I'm saying that is because I appreciate your influence on my life in that way, you're not going to say this. But when I ask the question, what should we do? I'm going to tell my subscribers, or those listening to the podcast, to subscribe and follow your ministry and to support

it. I think it's important. On top of that, I would encourage people to read the book by Michael Kruger. He's a friend. He's been on here before his book, Bully Pulpit. I think it's powerful. I think churches should get that book, go through it, talk about it, work through it. That'd be one of the first things I was doing if I was a pastor, what else can people do practically moving forward in light of how broken the church seems to be right now? Don't – one big encouragement is don't lose hope. The idea of despair – it shouldn't be in the Christian dictionary. We don't despair.

We just don't. Even in times where it would seem like we should, we don't. And don't spiral into this. And it can be especially hard when you are watching social media. And if you see, like someone watches my series, maybe for some people, it's not even healthy for you to watch this series. Like it's not benefiting you. Just stop. You know, the world's going to go on without you watching my series.

It's fine. But you watch these bad things over and over again, and it starts to become your mental story for that's everything that's happening in the church. And it's actually not true. Even in the midst of this, like these videos are putting out, I talked to one lady who is like, I don't think, I'm not really a Christian. I don't even know if I believe in God. After me and others put out some videos helping expose some of the people that she's been trying to expose unsuccessfully, she was telling me before that only atheists were helping the cause because the Christians that they reached out to just didn't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. I saw her post online that she's a Christian, but she's still figuring things out.

And I was so thrilled. It is restorative to expose these guys, to expose the issues in the church and say, hey, let's purify things. it is actually restorative. It's actually a kind of evangelism where someone goes, well, they're going to call themselves out. This isn't CNN calling out Christians. These are Christians going, we will not tolerate this. I think it makes it a safer place and it helps our reputation.

It doesn't hurt us. So I would encourage people with just realize that. Good things are happening and be hopeful. Man, Jesus is on the throne. That's a great word. He's on the throne right now. And he's working in the body of Christ in amazing ways. we're currently in what could be revival.

We'll see as time goes on. And great things are happening. And yet there's a time to purify and purge and deal with those things. And that is also healthy and good. I just want people to be optimistic and hopeful because I think that's the attitude we're supposed to try to have as Christians. Like deliberately try to have. We know that God works all things together for good to those who love him. Amen, brother.

And so there's a lot to be hopeful about. So don't get trapped in the spiral where you, mourn as those who have no hope. Amen to that. It's officially, officially the last thing I'm going to say. I'm an apologist, and I'm an evangelist. One of the biggest things that holds many people back from considering the gospel is the hypocrisy within the church.

Zos-Kinnis would say we've lost credibility because of it. What you're doing is for the sake of the gospel, trying to get credibility back for the sake of caring for victims, because that matters, but I think also healing certain people who've understandably emotionally been hurt by the church and won't consider it, when people repent and see Christians doing this, it's going to hopefully make my job even more fruitful. So keep it up, brother. Amen.

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