Was I In A Cult? - Teen Mania: "I Clean Sh*t For God"

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

By high school, church wasn't just Shannon McElroy's faith, it was her community and her future. She was going to be a Christian counselor. Then her youth group took her to something called "Acquire the Fire": a massive Christian youth conference that was part rock concert, part revival, and for Shannon, one hell of a spiritual high. Before long, she'd be leaving college to join Teen Mania's Honor Academy. A year-long "internship" in rural Texas that promised purpose, ministry, and a chance to change the world. All she had to do was pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of working for them... for free.  All she had to do was pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of working for them... for free. As you can imagine, what Shannon thought she'd signed up for was not exactly what she got. Like the retreat where they simulated a prison and made her do wall sits. For Jesus. And that was just one of their so-called "Life Transforming Events." Now, to be fair, they did transform her. Just not the way it said in the brochure. Twenty-five years later, Shannon, now a professor, therapist and social worker, still finds herself untangling from what one very intense year at Teen Mania instilled in her. __________ FOLLOW SHANNONWebsite → mendedbeing.com Instagram → @mendedbeingcounselingllc Facebook → Mended Being   More Teen Mania stories → Recovering Alumni FOLLOW USInstagram → @wasiinacult TikTok → @wasiinacult SUPPORT THE SHOWJoin our Patreon! Ad-free episodes, bonus content, behind-the-scenes conversations, and our forever gratitude. HAVE A CULTY STORY?Email us → [e-mail] SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Quince makes elevated everyday essentials at 50-80% less than similar brands! Free shipping and 365-day returns → quince.com/cult Babbel teaches the words and phrases you'd actually use in real conversations, in bite-sized lessons. Up to 60% off → babbel.com/WASIINACULT Zenni makes stylish prescription glasses and sunglasses, starting under $30. 15% off your first order plus free shipping on US orders over $65 → zenni.com/podcast, code: PODCAST15

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lipson or its affiliates. Guest accounts or personal recollections shared from their own perspectives. References to specific individuals, organizations, or groups are presented as commentary, opinion, and personal experience and should not be interpreted as definitive statement of fact. This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. So there wasn't anything physically keeping me there. What was keeping me there was the fear that if I left, if I turned away from or was dismissed from the experience, that I would have failed, you know,

the pressure that was put on us to be this thing that we could never reach. And if you didn't strive for that, then you failed. and you were disappointment not only to humans but also to God. Welcome back to our little show. Our show is Was I in a Cult? I'm Tyler Meason. And I'm Liz Ayakuzi. And today's episode is for our favorite second podcast, Girls Gone Bible, the duo that graced our feed for a couple weeks.

We don't know they snuck into our feed somehow. and we got wonderful responses from our listeners regarding it. They love Jesus. They do. And this week we got even funnier. Oh, no. What happened? This week's you might also like is called YGolf.

Oh, it's a good question, actually. And our listeners once again came in strong in the comment section. So looking forward to my new favorite hobby, reading the Bible while golfing. I'm so confused by these recent you may also like suggestions, but they are cracking me up. Just a bunch of Bible reading golfers over here. I love it.

In a cult. I always knew the only way so many people could like golf is if it were a cult. It all makes sense now. I laughed at Spotify last week, but then remembered grown men voluntarily waking up at 4 a.m., dressed identically in spending thousands of dollars chasing a tiny white ball around. Continue, Spotify. Oh my God, they nailed it.

Why golf? Because the leader says I must. Right. Liz, which categories did you include? Golf is debatably a cult, though, so, hmm? Yeah. This is my favorite. Girls Gone Bible has left the chat.

They'll be back. They'll find their way back somehow. There are two things in this world I can't live without, and that's golf and God so happy I converted. We got them. We got two of them. Now we just have to collect their tithing and their green fees. At this point, Spotify

is fucking with Liz and Tyler. I agree. I agree. I agree. They're tormenting us. First they make us pull off our music and then they throw random things, neither of which we like. Last week devoted to God, this week devoted to golf.

Spotify said cult is a spectrum. I mean, at least one of them you get out, get some sunshine maybe. Oh, M.G. I almost joined Girls Gone Bible. Thanks for clearing that up. I almost joined a cult. And then I could have called you guys to see if I actually did join a cult and we could do a whole podcast on it. You should totally leave that up. That's pretty good. Oh, once again, we love our listeners. Thank you for being clever. Thank you for listening and thank you for sending quirky little messages to us for all to read.

Rob just joined us. As you know, Rob comes in every once in a while. He is the guy in the basement who keeps this whole thing running on a treadmill. Literally on a treadmill, he powers the whole thing. It's like an okay go video down here. I'm dancing and bopping around between the different treadmills. I'm out and outer space sometimes. Did they go to space?

Were they one of those people? Yeah, they went to space. Yeah, that's great. They blew up things. They do things in reverse. I interviewed them. They're in my movie, one of my movies. I was going to say, I don't remember them, like, tearing up the sunset marquee, but...

No, they were in my film, I Want My MTV. Available now on Spotify, Amazon, Apple. We should get in today's show, I think. Yeah, let's do it. Let's give the listeners what they came for, which is a remarkable golf story about golfing with Jesus. Welcome to the show, Shannon. Very nice to have you. I was going to say, I appreciate the opportunity.

So I am Shannon McClory. I live in Alabama. I am a full-time professor as well as the therapist and also a former cult member. And yes, one time in Shannon's youth, she was part of a group that many listeners, especially our astute cult knowledgeable listeners might know well. That is teen mania. I know that this has gotten some press lately. However, what's been presented while factual and true is not always the real stuff.

There was an MSNBC documentary that was done called Mind Over Mania. Mind Over Mania really focused on one of the events within the Honor Academy. Shiny Happy People Season 2. Focused on Acquire the Fire, which was the youth conferences put on by Teen Mania. and how those events, as well as some of the Honor Academy, led to some of this evangelical movement as it relates to the United States and our Christian nationalism. And so there's not really been a focus solely on what I call, you know,

the behind the scenes every day living and breathing at the Honor Academy. And so that is what you will get today. Without having to pay for streaming fees. Yeah, so I grew up in a military family. We moved around quite a bit when I was a kid. My mom would take me to church every once in a while. Spent most of my early childhood in Southern California. And when we moved to Alabama, there was very much a culture shock.

Alabama being in the Bible Belt church on every corner. And so there was more of a pressure to try to fit in. Yes, about 73% of Alabamans, Alabamians, Alabama-type, Alabamaans. Alabamaites. Alabamians. Alabamites identify as Christian with a full 43% claiming evangelical Protestant, and that's double the national average. So Alabama is not only in the Bible Belt, it's perhaps the whole buckle. Yes.

So the term Bible belts, Liz. Oh, please. I'm dying for this fact. Were you? No. Good. So the term Bible Belt was coined in 19. 1924 by famed author H. L. Mencken. Now, how famed? Because I've never heard of him.

He's famed essayist. You don't keep up with 1920s essayists. You know, a hundred years after he wrote something, we're still talking about it. Hence, H.L. Mankin. Nonetheless, he coined the phrase Bible Belt. But it's not the only belt that keeps up America's proverbial pants. there have been a number coins since then there is the Rust Belt the Sun Belt the Corn Belt the Dairy Belt the Wheat the Snow Belt

the Jello belt the Borch Belt the Gun Belt the Tool Belt the Leather Belt and the Conveyor Belt What about the I don't give a fuck about any of the belts belt That's the belt you live in Liz Just the belt that's right around you as we speak

By the way I just said the tool belt The Leather Belt and the conveyor belt I just made those up You thought that was funny. There was no official America's conveyor belt. The jello belt? Is that real? Yeah, that's a real thing.

Now, the jello belt. It does. The jello belt. Does it really? It does. It's basically just another name for what they call the Mormon Corridor. Oh, wow. Look.

It's a corridor and a belt. That's what they call it after you give birth to 18 kids. The Mormon Corridor. Anyway, sorry. Nope. That was well earned. Yes, the Mormon corridor. Poor Tyler's just trying to get his facts out.

He really wants his facts. The Mormon corridor, which is the heavily Latter-day Saint cultural region centered around Utah and expanding into eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, northern Arizona, and parts of Nevada. Does it also touch the I don't give a fuck state? It doesn't, Liz. That's where you live.

Does it border that same? It doesn't. It doesn't. Nope. Trust me. I'm going to get more hate for bashing your facts than you are forgiving them. Then bring them on. People are like, Liz, I like Tyler's facts.

You leave him alone. Yeah. You leave him alone. Do you want to know why? It's called Jello? Because Mormons love Jello. Mormons love Jello. Jello. I mean, everybody loves jello, right? There's always room for jello. But Mormons,

Mormons consume twice as much jello as the rest of America. Why? I mean, when you have 18 kids, as Rob just said, you have to feed them. It's easy. It's simple. You know, they don't drink, so they like their sweets. But yeah, they eat a lot of jello. And potatoes, funeral potatoes. Basically, Jello for the living, funeral potatoes for the dead. Explain to us what funeral potatoes are again. I know it's delicious, right? Oh, it's delicious, right? Oh, it's potatoes scalloped, a lot of cream, a lot of cheese.

I mean, when Mormons have funerals, Mormons are kind of boring people, by the way. They have boring funerals, which are meant to be kind of boring, but they have boring weddings, boring church. But when they, when someone dies, usually they have a bunch of people bring food, people from the ward, you know, and the women will all cook food. And yes, I am saying women because it's predominantly a misogynistic society. And one of the favorites is funeral potatoes. Big scallop potatoes and a cooking juice. How did you avoid becoming a misogynist, Tyler? Quiet, Liz. When you're supposed to talk, I'll ask for it, okay?

Sister Ayacuzi. All right. So now you know a lot about belts. Angelou. And you can unbuckle both. And so church again became that social aspect of, I had no idea what denominations even were when we first started attending church. The church I attended had a really big use group, and we were always doing something. I have two siblings, both of them are younger, but they were involved in the church. But my parents really didn't attend church very much. I was heavily involved.

That's where my identity was wrapped up, being this Christian, being this person who loved and worshipped God. And I truly embraced the idea that he was all knowing, all powerful, and all good. And that my job and my mission in life was to also do good in his name. And my trajectory in high school was actually to become a Christian counselor. She did mention that a lot of church for her growing up was about the community of it all, which I found interesting, as many people have said this about their church experience growing up. Yes, they have. Many people go to church for many reasons, one of which is community. It's hard to overstate how important community is to us humans. Studies have shown that having a regular community improves health and happiness. And then cults just take advantage of that. Isn't that true?

One major study of nearly 309,000 people, nearly. Facts are facts, Liz. We've got to be exact about it. How about over 300,000 people? Right. How about roughly 300,000 people instead of nearly 309,000. One major study of nearly 309,000 people with an average age of about 64, found that Those with strong social relationships had 50% greater odds of survival during the study period.

So what they did is every seven years they would check on these individuals. And they found that those who had strong social relationships and community lived longer than those who stayed isolated. So look, the finding does speak directly to older adults, but the larger point is kind of universal. Community doesn't just give us a sense of belonging. it quite literally can keep us alive longer. Of course, we're not saying go join the church or a cult to do that, but we could all use a bit more community in the world. Especially now, I think.

True. So go to your bingo hall. So when I was up high school, as I mentioned, our youth group was doing stuff all the time. And Acquire the Fire was coming to Nashville, which is about two hours away from where we live. and our use group was going. What was the big draw for you guys?

I know at that time Ron Luce was hitting the Christian TV circuits, if you will. He has always been on TV and the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Ron Luce, of course, being the leader of this whole thing. So Ron Luce was a typical person for a long time. And then in the late 80s, he eventually found God. and became really passionate about wanting to spread the word. He and his wife went to Oral Roberts University, and that's in Tulsa. Go Golden Eagles, the Oral Roberts University Golden Eagles.

Oral Roberts? Anyway. Roberts Oral. No, no, no, no. An anal Roberts. Men get more ice. and more immature as they age. They make it more isolated than immature as they age.

I'm sorry, I'm still laughing about anal ruffers. And that's where they decided to start this ministry, and it just grew. He has had international acclaim, if you will, in the Christian evangelical movement. Teen Mania started when Ron Luce and his wife, Katie Luce, decided that they wanted to, reach a generation of youth for God.

This is sounding eerily familiar to something we heard just about a week ago. Or the week prior. Or the week prior. Or the week prior. And then we skipped a week, but the week prior to that. And so it started as quick little church events and then later grew bigger and bigger to more and more youth conferences. Bigger and bigger is correct. Founded in 1986, Teen Mania says its arena events reached more than 3 million young people, partnered with approximately 100,000 churches, and sent missionaries to more than 69 countries.

It was more than 69 countries. So was it 70? You're right. That's a little silly. That's a little silly. And as the youth conferences got bigger and bigger, they had to have a group of people that were willing to put these on. And they wanted to extend that even further than just this weekend-long retreat kind of conference. As it

grew, it grew into not just a choir to fire in the Honor Academy, but there was Global Expeditions, which was their ministry or missions trips arm. And then summer camps, extreme summer camps, which were held on the campus. at Team Mania.

And so all of the interns of the Honor Academy ran all of those different arms. So Shannon and her youth group get on the church bus and make their way down to Nashville, Tennessee to attend the weekend conference of Acquire the Fire. Acquire the Fire.

Sorry, every time I say it, I feel like I need to feel it in my bones. Give me one, Tyler. Give me one. Acquire the fire. Acquire the fire, no longer. Quire the fire. Acquire, fire.

I'm going to need to work on it during the break. Okay. It was like nothing I'd ever attended before. Part rock concert, part fireworks, power techniques, part drama, part church, all wrapped into this weekend long experience. All of the up-and-coming Christian music artists were attending Acquire the Fire and we're performing in the choir of the fire. And it's all about God the entire weekend.

And you're just in this room, you're listening to music. Everybody's like, God is the best. Yeah, except the room is a stadium, the Rhyman Auditorium in Nashville. It is a big conference center, and it is filled. There are thousands of people my age there. It's the same emotional high you get from going to your favorite rock concert. We're talking about all the music I listen to, in high school with a Christian message to it and the feeling you get from the music,

the intensity, and the lights and being in this room with thousands of other people that are also enjoying it. It's addicting. So Ron Luce believed popular culture was fighting for control of teenagers and that Christianity needed to compete using the same production values and emotional intensity. I did look up some of the bands that she told me were there and they are Just great. And I want to play them, but I don't think we can. Yeah. Spotify might block us. They might just block us. So no. But teenagers weren't merely encouraged to believe. They were asked to become warriors and world changers and an army. Register those words as we get further along. That they were reclaiming America for Christianity.

Right. This is what cults like to do. Create a common enemy. It's like cult talk for identity fusion. You make the group's mission your entire identity. And all of a sudden, you're willing to sacrifice a whole lot more for the mission. And after this exhilarating weekend, a world changer Shannon was. Or at least that's what the weekend's indoctrination event led her to believe. I came home and I don't know if I actually destroyed all of my secular music or if I just like go away in a closet somewhere because they were really trying to push to get

rid of secular music. And so we purchased the Acquire the Fire CD and I would try to emulate that myself. Like let me listen to the worship music from the CD and see if I get that same high. And it was chasing that high, that emotional, spiritual high that I'd never experienced before until Acquire the Fire. And so yeah, so the next year when Acquire the Fire came back around, is when I really started digging into TeamMania a little bit more and learning more about the Honor Academy itself. I mean, it started with a video that they would play on the big screens, you know, essentially talking about the ministry team.

All of the people that were on the stage of the Choir of the Fire, the worship team, the dramas that were put on, the people behind the cameras at the Enquirer the Fires, the ones that were talking to the youth to get them, to go on global expeditions. Those were the ministry team. And I was super excited about that because I loved to sing. I love to act. You know, those were things that I enjoyed doing as a teenager in my youth group. And so absolutely I want to do this on a grander scale. I've always loved traveling. And that was something that I really wanted to do. And why not travel the world?

Sing, dance, act, whatever, while simultaneously doing all of this for Jesus at the same time. And I wanted to be a part of that. And I felt that the way to be a part of that was to join what I thought was the Honor Academy, which was the ministry team that puts on the Acquire the Fire. Acquire the Fire! Sorry. Sorry, I'll stop. No, you won't. Rob, give me your best. Give me your best. Feel it in your bones. Acquire the fire! That's pretty good. Now you're a senior in high school? Now, were you planning to go to college? Like, what was the plan?

So I actually did go to college for a year. I was already accepted into the local university, University of Alabama and Huntsville. Go Chargers. Amen. No, that's not part of the church, Liz. I'm filling the fire, Tyler. She's acquired it. Acquired it.

And while I was in college for a year, we attended another Acquire the Fire. Got to see everything again and be excited in that. And I was like, you know, college is great. However, I wasn't doing anything that God wanted me to do, or that's what I felt at that time. So I submitted an application, and of course they had to pray about it, you know, and determine whether I was a good fit for the program or not. And then, of course, that was a good fit. Oh, hey, look, another fun cult tactic to get you to think that you're special and you're chosen

and that you get to sit at the cool kids' table. Hey, guys, our cult's the best. Like, what's the plan now? So the plan was to take a year off of college and go move to the middle of nowhere, Texas, and pay my way through the Honor Academy. My parents were not happy about that because they wanted me to keep going to school, or they had a lot of questions and concerns, because why do I have to go and pay to work somewhere?

And so they weren't happy about all of that, and then the concern of what exactly is it you're going to pay for? Good question. Yes. It is a great question, and I am very, very sad I did not listen to my parents. I really truly felt like God was calling me to go to the Honor Academy and that I was going to come back and I was going to know 100% what my purpose was, and I was going to change the world. I thought it was what God was calling me to do, and even if that meant disobeying my parents or making them disappointed.

We will be right back after Tyler, Acquia some... fire. Where does one acquire fire? You just got to acquire it. You acquire it and then you feel the fire that you've acquired. I will try to acquire the fire. Acquire the fire, Tyler. And we're back. We're now both Tyler and myself have acquired the fire. I feel it in my bones, Liz. It feels good. Give it to me. Acquire the fire. I just don't know if I've acquired it as much as I should. You're still working on acquiring it. You require the fire. I put it on a layaway plan.

I'm putting down payments every month. Eventually, I, eventually that fire I shall acquire. But yeah. So speaking of Acquire the fire, over the years, it has claimed that more than 7,000 young people reportedly participated in the Honor Academy, which is just to throw out a random. It's about double the amount of people that compete in the Winter Olympics.

Not the summer ones. That's a lot more, isn't it? Yeah. I would guess. Well, congratulations, Ron. You just hosted the Evangelical Olympics. Should we call it that. Sure.

Except that instead of gold medals, you are handed medals of trauma that you wear around your neck for a long time. Aren't cults the best? Hey, kids. Join a cult. Get trauma. For free. Oh, wait. No, it's never free.

Never mind. So how much was it? At that time, it was $450 a month. That was supposed to cover room and board. In exchange for that, I would be working for some amount of time. They didn't really tell us how long or how many hours a day or anything, but I would be working for the ministry. In exchange for that, I would be working for them.

Right, exactly. In exchange for that $450 a month, I was honored to. have the experience of being able to work for them. For free. We've reached a new level on this show. Usually it's just free labor. This is paid free labor. Paid free labor. Wow, Teen Mania. You done did it. The kicker was that before we stepped foot on campus, we were supposed to have, I believe it was three months of our time there paid for in advance. And then we had to stay ahead, at least two months ahead the entire time we were there. If we ever fell below two months, then we were required to go home on our own dime,

fundraise in order to come back. How did you make money, first of all, to afford this? So Teen Mania gave us a fundraising kind of booklet. A lot of it was really just begging church members, you know, talking to church members. Just cross as many boundaries as you can. Right. Just don't take. No, make people's eyes bleed until they hand you money.

Lose all your friends and neighbors in the process, but God will save you in the end. One of the ways they encouraged us was to get eggs. If you give me X amount of dollars, anywhere from $1, $10, $100, whatever amount of money you want to give me, I will let you crack this egg over my head. And so, yeah, so I had lots of eggs cracked on my head. How many eggs? I have no idea. Over a dozen.

It was a couple of dozen eggs. So how much money did you raise? Nowhere near enough for the year. I had enough to start attending, but towards the end of my time at the Otter Academy, it ended up being my mom that was paying for the Honor Academy. So you arrive in Garden Valley, right? Garden Valley, Texas. So the closest mid-sized city would be Tyler, Texas.

Oh, Tyler, Texas. You're just so happy right now, aren't you, Tyler? Anytime I get to hear someone say my name in a pleasant tone, I'm happy. So yes, Tyler, Texas, population nearly 112,000. Just over. It was named for John Tyler, our nation's 10th president. Great name. Shit president, apparently.

In a 2024 survey of 154 presidential scholars based, on many questions and criteria, John Tyler finished 37th out of 45. Who is at the bottom? Do you want to know? Mm-hmm. Go ahead and guess. Uh, does it include current?

Yes. It wasn't Trump. It was Trump. It was. Based upon 154 presidential scholars, including many of them Republicans, the Republicans alone voted him the 41st worst president out of 45, but with the others, it went right to the basement.

Donald J. Trump is, according to a 2024 survey of 154 presidential scholars, he is the worst president of the bunch. Who is number 10? I don't know them all. Who is number one? I think it's G.W. George Washington. Maybe Abe. Maybe honest Abe. So not Bush.

No. I would dare say he's just a few stories above 45. So yeah, there you go. Write us in if you don't like it. It's not up to me. I didn't decide what it is. I don't care. Don't kill messengers over here.

Don't kill the stats guy. Yeah. If you were to do a presidential polling of us three, it would probably be about the same. So that being said, President Tyler I'm not named after him nor am I named after the town of Tyler, Texas.

In fact, that was named after baseball star Ty Cobb. So there. There's your love of baseball. Well, the residents of Tyler, Texas are known as Tylerites. Tyritos and Torrios. Tyler's peanut butter cups. So middle of nowhere. The campus used to belong to last day's ministries, which was Keith Green, who used to be

in the 70s, 80s, a big time Christian hippie-ish kind of person. It was his compound. He actually died on the back of that property. So it's a big way over 40 acres of land. There are four buildings that are the dorms and then several other buildings that are for the land. the ministry. So like a former cult compound, basically. Yes, a former cult compound turned into a new called compound. Perfect. At least for keeping it true to form. Okay, so to describe our rooms, think of a standard college dorm room. So it's pretty small. Our bunk beds were stacked three high, and there are six of us in a room. I was excited because I was finally there, but really confused because I thought I was joining the ministry team.

And the first week there is Gauntlet week. When you say you're thinking of joining the minister team, what was that to you at the time that you thought that was going to be? That was traveling the world, putting on a choir of the fires. And that's what I thought I was signing up for. And that is not what happened. Not anywhere close to it. I knew that the first week was going to be intense,

but I didn't know exactly what we were going to be doing that week. into like out there. So we would wake up and immediately go to corporate exercise. And corporate exercise was the entire ministry would be there doing exercise in the early morning. We'd do that for about an hour. And then we would be sent back to our dorms to get ready, shower, all of those things, which we had two bathrooms on our dorm hall. And so, you know, females, we take a little bit of time to get ready. We would then go either to a class at some sort of class session or we would do some sort of like low ropes, team builder type activity, eat lunch. And then after lunch, go right back to whatever it was. And then in the evening we would have some sort of worship session and training with either Romloose or one of the leaders of the Honor Academy.

And then we would go to bed. And then we would be expected to wake up the next morning and have a quiet time. and started all over again for the first week. And after like day one, what was going on in your mind? It was a lot. I was not at that time a morning person at all. And that was difficult for me because I can't function and definitely can't read and definitely don't want to be praying at 6 a.m.

And then I was overweight and to go and have to do corporate exercise, you know, jumping jacks and push-ups and sit-ups and all those things. But then we'd be expected to run a mile. or two with the group. Everything was spiritualized. Dave Haas would be, you know, up there quoting scripture the entire time. His favorite scripture, and I don't remember where it's found in the Bible, was I beat my body and make it my slave.

And that was, you know, kind of his mindset of boost yourself as hard as you can. Dave Has was the director of the Honor Academy from 1995 to 2012 and at one point, the executive VP of Teen Mania. So did the shame start right away for you? It did. It started that first week. Here I am with all these people who are doing these things that I'm not able to physically do

and just the immediate feeling shame. And then of course I'm in this spiritual environment, so everything is spiritual. And no, this environment did not leave room for downtime nor personal time. Because as we know by now, downtime is

very threatening to a cult. because, God forbid, you may have an independent thought in that downtime and that thought could lead to you thinking critically. And you may realize, wait, what the fuck am I actually doing here and why and then leave? So no downtime in Teen Mania, but they did have something called mandatory quiet time to be done strictly upon rising. So quiet time was supposed to be your time with God. whether that was praying, reading the Bible, doing some sort of devotional it was supposed to be, your quiet time with God. At first, I just started doing them at night. And my core advisor actually called me out.

And even when I would explain the reasons why I would do them in the evenings, she would really, really encourage me that, no, they need to be in the mornings. Initially, if it was just a, you know, we checked this box that said you didn't do things the way you were supposed to or didn't do them, how you were supposed to. What was the repercussions of not doing things? They could actually dismiss you from the Honor Academy altogether. Or there was a hierarchy of consequences so you could be forced to go in front of the Honor Council. And so it was this fear of being kicked out of the Honor Academy altogether. Don't kick me out of something I have to pay for and work for for free.

Right. Right. Please don't. So after the first week, we actually start doing our ministry placements. And so there was a variety of things that you could be asked to do. We had maintenance, so our lawn and maintenance people were all interns. We had kitchen staff that were all interns. We also had people that were responsible for cleaning the campus, you know, janitorial kind of staff.

Janitors for Jesus. I cleaned shit for God. Yeah, could that be the title of this episode? I cleaned shit for God. Might be a stretch. Maybe. How do they decide who those where? the low ropes courses and their spiritual gifts assessments and all of that and the interviews

were all a part of them making that decision on where you would be placed for your internship, ministry placement. And of course, I was selected to be a part of the ATF, the acquire the fire call team and essentially call youth pastors all day and recruit people to come to the Honor Academy. We had a goal every day of how many youth pastors we were supposed to get committed to going to whatever event we were promoting. And if our team didn't meet our goal, then the undertone was always, well, you must not be praying hard enough or you must not be right with God. So they called it this fancy ministry internship, blah, da-da.

It was basically like, we just got a bunch of free recruiters. Yes. To recruit the shit out of Teen Mania and grow this cult. To run the entire ministry. Now, it should be said that Teen Mania wasn't some shoestring youth ministry run out of the back of a van. At its height, more numbers, it was bringing in more than $35 million a year, more than. Ron Liu said it generated roughly $350 million over its lifetime. I really need to start a cult.

Colts, I figured out one thing. Make way more money than podcasts about cults do. Probably less work too. Yeah. And the Honor Academy, though, had a very ingenious revenue model. Oh, did they ever? You just get hundreds of good-hearted, well-intentioned teenagers who just want to serve God and get them to think that joining this, quote, Academy, which I don't know about you, but don't you feel like the word Academy is doing a lot of heavy lifting here? Yeah. You hear Academy, you think education, you think faculty, you think training, you don't think pay us, that. thousands of dollars so you can mow our lawn. We should call this, what should we call this place? We need to rename it.

We can rename it to Dishonor Academy of Financial Manipulation and Unpaid Manual, menial Labor. It's a little long. I think we could just go dishonor financial fuckery school. DFFS. Home of the Fighting Jesus, Janitors. What's the mascot? A plunger.

Yeah, the fighting plungers. We plunge not just shit, but bad thoughts from your brain. Look, for two years of my life serving a Mormon mission, I paid. I saved up my money and my parents paid so that I could recruit for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So I'm guilty of it. You know, my father, a good man, a really good man, but he was Mormon. One day I called him and I said, Dad, what's going on? What are you doing?

and goes, oh, I'm just going to clean the church. Like, what do you mean you're going to clean the church? He goes, well, the church needs clean and got to go clean the church. And I said, Dad, the Mormon church is a multi-billion dollar industry. They have more money than Disney. And Disney owns ESPN. I said, do you think that the people who watch ESPN go clean the toilets of ESPN? Also, by the way, Dad, you're giving them 10% of your money so that you can go clean the bathrooms.

of the church. And he said, well, you know, it's just what you do. He said, damn. Pretty simple man, my old man, but good, good guy. Sure could vacuum a floor. Could scrub a church toilet. Anyways, it's not just teen mania. Right. It's not.

Just get these teens believe the best way to serve God is to pay them. $450 a month and you get the privilege. privilege of cleaning their shit. You sure do, and you also can cook the food. You can take out the trash. You can do all the labor required to keep the dishonorry, fuckery school running. All in the name of the Lord. Amen.

Yeah, so then life became waking up and going and calling youth pastors and talking to youth pastors. And in between that, like in the middle of the day, we'd have a class called character development. but day-to-day typical, it would be get up, quiet time, exercise, go to work, go to class, and then start it all over again the next day. And so that became life. So when did it go beyond like the exploitation of your labor? Because that's what basically you've described up till now. Once a month, we would have life transforming events. There would be a weekend dedicated to an LTE that we would do, whether it was ESOL or the prayer retreat or a fasting retreat. We also had a retreat called World Awareness.

World Awareness, I imagine that's just geography class, correct? It's a little bit weirder than that. Essentially, we cosplay as either missionaries or as a foreign tribe, my group were missionaries. And so we went through the process of going into an unreached people's group and having to minister to them and learn the language. But the country we went to was a closed country and doesn't allow for evangelicalism. And so we had to experience that. Okay, not just to be sure I'm downloading what's being sent. They had a retreat where they would pretend to be evangelical missionaries in a pretend foreign country that didn't allow

for them to pretend to perform their mission, and then they would evangelize anyway in this pretend country, and they would reap the pretend consequences for said actions. You got it. Correct. I got it. Okay. We went to jail at one point in time during that retreat because we were ministering,

and so we had to experience the physical torture of doing wall sits for 20, minutes or, you know, being required to do pushups. And, you know, just all to simulate what we, what would happen if we were to go into another country and try to minister to a country that doesn't allow any sort of evangelical Christians to come in and minister to them. Equals waltzits for 20 minutes? I think, I think we did wall sits because they couldn't actually shoot us. Let's torture you the way you would be tortured.

This is why I continue to question the word, academy. We'll be right back. You know, not to brag. Oh, don't do that. Mr. Tyler. No, it's unbecoming. During the break, during the break, I did a little research.

Guess what? There are 15 places in America named Elizabeth. 15. Okay. This is in reference to the Tyler, Texas moment. Yeah, 15 and only, wait. What? Fuck you.

Wait, well, I don't get it. There are 16 places. his name Tyler. You beat me by one shitty little Tyler. The people have spoken, Liz. The Tyler's win. Oh, wait. Oh, wait.

Not really. My Elizabeths are actual cities. Elizabeth, New Jersey, has over 100,000 people. A bunch of your Tyler's are just like little hamlets and unincorporated communities. Half of them are basically like a mailbox and a goat barn. Tyler Washington literally lost its post office. in 1974. If you live there,

you don't even get your mail sent to your own zip code. That's how we like it. That's how we like it. I'm sure there's a good Tyler out there, Liz. Let me look.

I will wait. Tyler, Missouri. It's incredibly small. There's nothing there. There's a church. There's no one even lives there. Basically, nope. There's no post office.

It closed in 1954. What there is, though, and this is true, if you want to get your male, you have to go to the town next to it, which is just a mile or so away. And it's Cooter, Missouri. So right next to Tyler, Missouri is Cooter, Missouri. So basically what you're saying is when Tyler rejects you, go to go to Cooter. Go to Cooters. It's right next door. Cooter, Missouri. You're basically, you're basically the, uh, the transition from men to women. Uh, Tyler

to me and now I date Cooters. Go to Cooter. Yep. So there you go. So I might win on quantity, but you win on quality. If you are from any town named Elizabeth or any town named Tyler or Cooter,

drop us a note. Back to Shannon. So here is Shannon at Dishonor Financial Fuckery School, taking us to their mandatory prep class It's Misogyny 101, which Tyler passed with fun colors in Mormon land. You failed misogyny, right, Tyler? You failed it. I didn't do well. I eked by. I remember very clearly Ron Luce was talking in one of our classes, and he was, I don't remember the exact topic, but he essentially said something to be a threat of, no husband wants to come home to their wife, wearing, you know, sweatpants and a t-shirt after they've worked all.

day, right? That what a man wants to come home to his wife looking cute and wearing makeup and that sort of thing. The whole idea basically being, we're all supposed to be housewives and when our husbands come home, we're supposed to be ready to, you know, have sex. Like what stuck with me and what has been the hardest for me to get over, even though it's been 25 years, is some of those teachings, right? So this idea that as a woman, as a wife, my role is to be there at my husband's win. Like I said, it's been 25 years, and it's gotten less and less as time has gone on, and as I've gone through therapy and learned and so forth,

but it's impacted every relationship I've had since, including my marriage and how I interact with my husband. And this is coming from a very established woman, okay? She's a professor, a therapist, has a master's degree for Christ's sake. this subtle conditioning that Ron Luce, Ron Lusr. Nice one. Instilled in her 25 years ago still pulls at her. Ron Luser and Dave Hacks.

So in shiny happy people and in the earlier documentary Mind Over Mania, a big focus was on one particular Honor Academy retreat called Esol, ESOL. E-S-O-A-L. And we haven't made it. enough jokes about cults and their acronyms, but unfortunately we don't have enough time on this particular show, but ESOL was one of them. And when I spoke to Shannon before our interview, she specifically asked that we not make ESOL the entire story because it is the most, I guess, sensational part that everybody covers.

But to her, it doesn't tell you the complete story. No, not at all. But we did talk about it because, well, you're about to hear why people talk about it. Esol, just tell us what it is. So Esol is emotionally stretching opportunity of a lifetime. Yeah, there it is. Sorry, emotional stretching opportunity of a lifetime. Esol, why?

It doesn't make sense. Look, I can understand why they made it an acronym because nobody should say, what are we doing this week? Emotional stretching opportunity of a lifetime. So that's it. Continue. You didn't know what time it would start.

You were told that you would get notification as to when it would start. You were expected to wear really dingy, dirty clothing. because you knew you were going to get dirty, and you had to have a headlamp. We were put into teams, and it was set up to be just like Navy Seals Hell Week. The way they described it was it's going to be very, very physical,

but then eventually it's going to get to a point where you are no longer physically going to be able to do the things that they're going to be asking you to do, and that God will then emotionally stretch you to the point, that you need to be stretched to. All of the graduate interns were our drill sergeants, and there was also a big bell. And at any point in time, we were told that we could ring out of the event.

If it was too hard, too difficult, we didn't want to do it anymore, or whatever, we could ring out. And you would be considered a failure if you rung out of the event at any time. but we did things like there would be a big tree that was cut down, and our team of 10 people would be expected to pick up said tree and walk it so many feet over. There was one event where we were given food, we thought was food, but it would be chocolate that was melted in diapers or eat like Vienna sausages. And once we finished eating, whatever they put in front of us,

we then had to go to the top of the hill and roll down the hill and then run back up the hill and roll back down. And the purpose was we had to continue this exercise until we vomited. You were also given some Bible verses you were required to memorize for the event. Those were verses that at any point in time the drill sergeants would ask us to recite the verse. And if you messed it up, you had to do push-ups or some sort of physical activity. During my easel that weekend, my team was in what was considered the back 40 acres of campus, and we were running through this very rocky terrain in the middle of the night with just our headlamps as we are being targeted and hit with paintballs.

And as we're doing this and running, I actually fell and sprained my ankle pretty badly. I could barely walk, and I called for a graduate intern and said, I need to go to the ER. Like, I can't walk on this. And I was encouraged multiple times by the graduate intern. Let's pray about it. Let's put our hands on it and, you know, heal it. And we did all of that, and it didn't get any better.

They took me to the cafeteria. And a graduate intern looked at my ankle and it was swelling. They again wanted to pray over it to heal it, whatever. And I had to continue to push the no, I need to go to the ER. they finally relented and allowed me to go to the ER. The ER doc looked at it and basically told me that had I injured it any further, I would have torn a ligament. And so for the next two, three weeks, I had crutches that I had to use up and down the campus.

But when I got back from the ER, they told me that I could resume ESOL if I wanted to. Well, thank you so much for that kind offer. You know, I figured out what ESOL actually stands for. And it's extremely stupid, obedient-ass loyalists. So, esols. Not to be confused with assholes. That's what ESOLs is. What a bunch of ESOLs.

Take your ESOL. Next time I want to swear in front of my son, I'm just going to be like, you ESOL! Shut up your ESOL. Take your emotionally stretching opportunity of a lifetime. cram it up your ESOL. Thankfully, ESOL was pretty much almost over. The last part of ESOL was after we had been exhausted physically,

sleep deprived, and so forth. They had everybody in the auditorium, and it was really warm in the auditorium. The lights were all pretty much turned down, and they had lullaby-type music playing, and they required you to stay awake the entire time. If you were nodding off, it was the same as you ringing the bell. And so I did the last two, three hours of the event in that auditorium. And so I got my ESOL patch.

But it's sold as this amazing feat, right? Like, you are better than yourself. But ironically, it's doing the opposite. It's basically saying, you're not good enough. you're never going to hit the level. You always have to fight harder. So all of these life transforming events, basically they're all designed to break you down physically in some way. And then when you're in that space, all your normal defenses drop, right? Because now you're in survival mode in a way, right? You're in fight or flight. And so in fight or flight, you can't think critically. You can only act.

And so skepticism is the first thing to go. It's an excellent tool to reprogram somebody. You know, you're just slowly like surrendering to this new way, right? But they're then filling that with God, right? And spirituality. So every month there was a retreat. Correct. So in September, that was our Pike's Peak trip.

There's this concept in the Bible, you know, about this mountaintop experience. you know, going up and having the spiritual mountain. And that's what it was designed to be, that Pikes Peak was not just a physical mountain that we were going to be piking up. It was also a spiritual mountain that we were trying to tackle. Pikes Peak, located in Central Colorado, rises exactly. Approximately.

Nope, exactly, 14,15 feet above sea level. Now, the standard route is approximately 13 miles each way, and it gains more than 7,400 vertical feet. Which is the equivalent, and I look this up, of about five Empire State buildings, if you stack them on top of each other. Yeah. Which is high. That's the only reason I brought that up because I just want you to have that visual.

Yeah. Uphill, 13 miles at altitude for hours. In fact, the entire trip usually takes about 12 to 15. hours. That's an emotionally stretching opportunity of a lifetime if you ask me. We start one morning hiking pike's peak. The halfway point, which is about six miles up, is what's called bar camp. A little bit before we got to bar camp, myself and a couple of other people started noticing that we weren't failing all that great. And there was another person in my group that actually had passed out once she got to bar camp. And so the medical

staff at Barcamp recommended that she be taken back down the hill because she couldn't go further. It was determined she had altitude sickness. I had somebody check me out and they said that the symptoms that I was having sounded a lot like altitude sickness as well. And they encouraged me not to continue up because the altitude will only get thinner and worse. And after crying about it and having friends and others that were with me, pray over me and try to convince me to go further. I made the decision not to go any further up the mountain and to only descend back down the mountain. At bar camp, the point Shannon began experiencing symptoms, she was already more than 10,000 feet up where the available oxygen pressure is

roughly 69% of what it is at sea level. And now remember, Shannon and her group are coming from Garden Valley, Texas, which last time I checked isn't really known for its mountains. And their elevation is only 450 feet above sea level. So medical guidelines advise travelers coming from low elevation like Garden Valley, Texas, to higher elevation like Pikes Peak. They advise that you should acclimatize gradually, avoid strenuous exercise for the first 48 hours, and never continue climbing when symptoms of altitude sickness appear. But instead of seeing this for exactly that, this of course became ripe fodder for Shannon's failed spirituality.

And so I felt like I was not able to defeat the spiritual mountain. And I felt like yet again that I was a failure and that I was not good enough. And not just that I was not good enough for the world, but that I was just that I was failing God. what we had always been taught at the Honor Academy and all of our dorms had a name and the name of each dorm was the name of another Christian martyr a missionary who had literally been martyred at some point in time doing the work of God and so that was it was that sort of environment of

I didn't give all until I gave literally my entire life and so when I didn't give it all I felt felt like a failure. Now, Shannon's feeling of failure of constantly not doing good enough, it wasn't just what she felt. This was the way the entire dishonor school was set up. And there was a very good culty reason for that. There was another hurdle. There was another challenge. There was another level that I had to get things. If it was exercise, everything, not enough people recruited to acquire the fire, not a long enough quiet time. Quiet time wasn't at the right time in the day.

Not because, you know, I'm human and 6 a.m. And thinking is not something I can do, but because you're just not, you're not dedicated enough. You're not devoted enough. But then it's also their version of spiritual perfection and how it's supposed to look and feel. And of course it's set up for failure because that's the only way they can get people to stay, right?

They're not getting people to stay by giving them anything. They're getting people to stay by taking away from people. And that's terrible. That's the way it was designed. I don't think that was the intention initially, but that's what it became, is this whole, you were never going to be good enough. And because you're never going to be good enough, you need to stay and you need to keep doing these, right? Like you were supposed to graduate.

However, before you got to that point, they pushed the second year graduate internships, which was the actual ministry team or the core advisors. Yeah. And so I actually wanted to stay a second year. My parents were like, we're not paying for it. But also, I wasn't selected to stay a second year. And so yes, congratulations. You graduated. We had a whole graduation ceremony. It was wonderful. But at the same time, internally, it was, but I'm not good enough to stay a second year. Why didn't you get accepted until year two? I don't know.

So similar to Gauntling Week, year two, there was like a, it was a very secretive kind of week-long experience that you kind of had to identify which of the tracks you wanted to go on. And then they had prayed about it and they, you know, they said that I just wasn't a good fit. Nick God wasn't calling me to stay a second year or their word. when I don't get accepted to the second year ministry team, I made my piece with that and found a university that was close enough to home that I could come home whenever I wanted, but was a Christian university trying to live life and emulate life at the Honor Academy back at home. That same structure, the same routine that I had, the same intensity that was there, I tried very, very,

very hard to emulate that at home. And I never was able to do that. And she really means that in a literal way, not figuratively. She actually made her very own Sabre for Life book, which was the school's rule book. And then she tried to enforce it with people back home, but her attempts failed. And I found myself really struggling, even to interact with my friends that I had before I left. I didn't have anything in common with them any longer. I tried going to different churches that maybe had different types, styles of worship, all of those things. And I failed miserably emulating that. And so when I didn't have that spiritual high any longer, I started to flounder and didn't know what to do.

I didn't know who I was anymore. Yeah. So I am a senior in college in 2004. my mom, so to back up a little bit, when we were moving to Alabama, my mom was diagnosed with Wegener's granulotomyelotomyosis. At the time was a very rare disorder. They've done more research. Anyway, it's an autonomic disorder now. And then when I was in college, fall semester 2004, I came home for Thanksgiving. And usually my mom cooked Thanksgiving for all of us. That Thanksgiving, she was not doing well.

Shortly after that, I went back to school. I was preparing for finals, and I got a call for my dad, called me and said, you need to come home. We don't know if your mom's going to make it. And so I left all of my finals and came home. and my mom was in ICU, and then on December 16th, she finally passed away. So that was tough. My mom was the first person in my life that I was actually close to that had passed away.

I returned to school. Went to church. I talked to pastors. I tried everything that I knew to do, everything that Teen Mania had taught me to do, to power through and to get through this hurdle, and none of it seemed to be helping. On top of that, why does something like this happen? And why do I feel like in my deepest, darkest moment, I'm calling out to God and I'm hearing crickets?

And then she reaches back out to the cult, to Dave Has, who again was the COO of this whole deal, and the creator of Esol, by the way. And she reaches out looking for answers because the group claimed to have them all. Why did this happen? What do I do? And the response I got from him, while I don't think was meant to be cold or callous and was very much what he believed, just felt very generic and felt very flat and was like every other Christian response that I had heard from people before that, you know, that

you know, God's will is not ours and we don't understand. We're not meant to understand why things happen the way they do. And none of that was comforting to me. I mean, prior to this, whether it's true or whether I just wanted to believe it was true, like I felt some sort of comfort in praying. I felt like my words were being heard by something or someone. But when my mom passed away, the prayers and everything that I was doing, doing just felt like I was talking to a wall. And I didn't understand that because I felt like I was

doing everything that I was supposed to be doing. And here I am believing in this all good, all powerful, all knowing God. And I'm in this horrible time of my life where I'm lost and I'm calling out to him and asking him for help and he's nowhere to be found. And so at that point is where I started to disconnect and started to really look at, why do I believe this? And started questioning more and more about religion as a whole. And out of the blue, I think it was like 2008, 2009, somewhere around there. I get an email from recovering alumni at gmail.com. That they've had a number of stories of concerns that have happened at some point in time during the Honor Academy years.

And so I started looking at the website and started reading some of the stories and started realizing, okay, what I experienced was not normal. Recovering alumni is a website and support community started by former Honor Academy intern Mika Ringo. This is where former Teen Mania members could share stories about spiritual, emotional, and physical abuse they said they experienced while inside this organization. And they are the ones that first started talking about it being a cult. And when I started researching what a cult was and like cult mindsets and that sort of thing and started doing my research, I was like all of this makes sense. And it was like a light bulb moment of relief of there's finally a name to put to this experience. And so I found this community of people that all experienced different experiences. And we all just started talking and sharing stories initially with the idea of, hey, there were some really fucked up things that happened.

maybe we should tell the board of directors that some of these things happened and maybe they can correct them. And then as we did that, the board of directors were like, yeah, no, what you guys are saying is bullshit. And they doubled down on everything. And so then our purpose started changing. And it wasn't let's get them to change. It was more so, okay, no, this is a cult. And we're going to talk about it being a cult. And we're going to do whatever we can to get this shut down.

We started reaching out to, you know, magazines and people in news organization. Of course, ESOL was the thing that caught everybody's attention because it was probably the most physically abusive part of the experience. And then eventually, I think a combination of things happened. I think the world grew up and we realized that you don't need to go to some spiritual events for a year long to have a relationship with God. And then I think the press that they were receiving and the militaristic style of the acquire the fire, this battle that we're in, spiritual battle that the Shining Happy People documentary talked about. And so I think all of that led to bankruptcy. Okay. So by the early 2010s, Teen Mania was in severe financial trouble.

It had lost its Garden Valley campus after defaulting on the mortgage. It had canceled events and faced complaints at customers. and partner organizations had not been refunded. Compassion International. Whatever that is. Sounds like a cult, too. Yeah, I know. Actually sued Teen Mania for approximately $174,000.

Approximately. For approximately $175,000, we could just say. Right, approximately. For just less than $175,000. Alleging that it had paid for promotional appearances at events that were subsequently canceled. Ooh, Team Mania, you in trouble. And in 2015, a Colorado court issued an arrest warrant after Luce failed to appear at a

related hearing. Luce said attorneys had advised him not to attend. Well, your attorneys aren't dumb, Luce, sir. Teen Mania entered chapter roughly seven, chapter seven bankruptcy, and closed in December 2015. Contemporary reporting placed its net worth at approximately negative. 5.2 million in the whole. Oh, fuck. Who's the spiritual failure now? Ron. Approximately. Approximately. Now, of course, Luce claimed the closure as the completion of the ministry's assignment, which is a considerably more biblical way of saying that the organization was

up Schitt's Creek without a paddle. And no more teenagers to clean the shit. Yeah. Who's cleaning your toilets now, Ronnie? The ministry's assignment is over. God wanted me to lose $5 million. And now I've done it. Yep.

Well, that's job's complete. Finish that one. Go to heaven. Who's cleaning your toilet? Boylets now, Ronnie. You are. Or actually probably your wife is sad. Because you're misogynist.

Right. Because she's probably doing it not in sweatpants and makeup, looking really good for you, Ronnie. And you were part of the group of people that helped take it down. Yeah. Were you asked to be on the documentary? I wasn't for a number of reasons. One, because I have always been behind the scenes. telling my story, not, like, I don't like hearing my own voice. Plus, I also didn't think my story

was important enough at that time. So I didn't think. More of the cult playing out. You know, because again, and you're right, I do it to myself. Like, I also, you know, the advocating for myself is still something that's hard for me to do. And even now, like, there are days when I don't feel like I am enough. Like, I have to perform for somebody and some way shape or form in the way that they want me to be enough. And I can't blame that wholly on TeamMania that came before that as well, but I think the bulk of where that came from is my experience at Teen Mania. 25 years I've been fighting, trying to change that belief that's now so ingrained

because of a year of my life. I have several tattoos, but a couple of years ago, I finally got a tattoo on my wrist as a reminder that says you are enough, because that's been ingrained in me and I've never felt enough for so many years. The way I describe my deconstruction to my student, it's like I'm, I was a teenager all over again, going through puberty and having that identity crisis all over again, because my entire identity was so wrapped up in not just teen media, but in religion as a whole. And I had to figure out who I was. And so there was a time during the that deconstruction time where I spent a lot of time going to the North Alabama Free Thought

Association, which is like the atheists here in North Alabama, and just immersing myself with everything related to atheism and so forth. And it was the exact opposite. Yes, even Alabama has atheists, although only about 3% of the population. In the number we referenced though earlier, about 73% of Alabama's identifying as Christian. Well, just 10 years ago, that number was 85%. So it's roughly going down 12% in the last 10 years. Approximately. Approximately.

Right? Like, it was, I went all in on God, and then I went all in on atheism because I was trying to figure it out, and then eventually got to a place where I don't need to be all in on either of them or any of them that I can be a good person. and live a good life and believe in humanity and believe that there is good in humanity without there being a God or without being fully against God. There is life after the cult.

There has been life and there will continue to be life after the cult. So, yeah, so I am working on my PhD. I will hopefully have my PhD by December of 27 in Social Work. I work full-time as a professor. I also own my own counseling business as a social worker, where I help others who've experienced, not necessarily religious trauma, just trauma in general. I've been married for, it'll be 11 years in October. My husband and I have been foster parents to several kids.

We currently have animals that we love and take care of and just trying to help out people. as much as we can, however we can. And like I said, now my purpose in life is no longer to serve a higher power, but more so just to help people in general and try to be a good person because we only have one life. And I want to have that one life mean something. So Teen Mania went bankrupt. But Ron Luce did not quit.

He has since reemerged with another youth ministry called Generation Next, which is also a stupid name, where he now coaches churches on how to attract and discipline teenagers. So apparently the next assignment from God was exactly like the previous one just with a new name, a new logo,

and a lot less bankruptcy paperwork to fill out. New sheep, same wolf. But Ron isn't the only one who kept going. Dave has, Haas, hacks, whatever, the man who ran the Honor Academy and actually created Esol, stupid name, and later became the executive vice president of Teen Mania,

while he left in 2012. And this was a few months after an outside audit recommended the cult stripping back Ron Luce's nearly unlimited authority and removing his wife from the board. Hmm. Well, no shocker there, neither happened, of course. And under Teen Mania's own bylaws,

removing Ron required a unanimous board vote. And of course, his wife was on the board. So that ain't ever going to happen. So within six months, everyone in that room was gone, except the losers. And today, well now he's the president and CEO of a place called Bethany Global University, located in Minnesota. There is no mascot, by the way. He trains young people for ministry and missions. And his years running the Honor Academy are listed right there in his professional bio, which I don't know. If I were him, I would maybe not put that on my resume. Maybe take it off. Yeah. Take it off. The press. Like, I don't know, maybe read the room, Dave, or a newspaper, one of the two. Can you explain this 12-year gap in your resume? What were you

doing during that period? Oh, I'm sorry, a quick search says you were running a cult. Okay. I was coming up with really cool words and acronyms, like emotional stretching organs as... What is it? I was torturing teenagers. So look, no shade if Bethany Global University in Minnesota is legit. But it just kind of sounds... Like another questionable academy? Yeah, I mean, look, a quick search, and I do get Bethany Global University,

and I hear that it's a, quote, accredited private Christian university in Bloomington slash Adina, Minnesota, focused exclusively on training and sending out global Christian missionaries. University. We see you, Dave. We see your resume.

Thank you, Shannon, for sharing your very, very worthy story with us. Yes, Shannon, thank you for your vulnerability, your courage to share. And thanks for doing what you do. I mean, just, Making the world a better place, right? Honestly, not just saying I'm going to make the world a better place, genuinely helping people so that people are better. Thank you.

We need more of that. It is interesting how many guests we have that come out actually fulfilling the mission of making the world a better place, just in a completely different way. Yeah. Our listeners are badass. Our guests are badass. You're badass, Liz. Rob, you're badass. Tyler, you're badass.

Oh, I just needed to hear it. Tyler, you and all of your little hamlets are badass, especially the unincorporated ones and the ones that are just a mountain because there is a Tyler, New Zealand, and it's just a mountain.

Yeah. So. But it's not next to Cooter. And I look forward to knowing what Spotify recommends for you all this week. Thank you everyone for listening. We appreciate it.

Join our Patreon because it does help us and you get ad free, which is nice. Folks, we appreciate you listening. We are going to take a little bit of a break. We might have a rerun, a re-airing, an honor of our last few episodes or some of our previous episodes. But we will be back. And Liz, you have some great stuff forthcoming. We've been doing amazing interviews, amazing, incredible stories that will blow your mind because they continue to blow my mind.

Yeah. So there you go. We have good guests. We have good guests and good stories. Was I a cult hosted, produced written by me, Tyler, Pikes Peak, Meesum. And Liz, uh, looser, Ie Cousie. And Rob? Thank God my name's not Ron.

Perra.