Speaker 1: Welcome to an all glasses version of nonprofits. And today
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about a bunch of high
Speaker 1: school kids that got illusioned into a good trick and
Speaker 1: AJ is going to take us there. So, AJ, what
Speaker 1: do you got for us?
Speaker 2: Have you ever clicked on an innocent link and then
Speaker 2: poof suddenly and you find yourself on someone's only fans.
Speaker 2: It's called bait and switch, and this is what Brian Drake,
Speaker 2: a Christian illusionist, is doing across South Carolina public schools
Speaker 2: in order to recruit teenagers that he can later convert
Speaker 2: to Christianity. Now, the Freedom from Religion Foundation attempted to
Speaker 2: stop one of the latest public school magic shows by
Speaker 2: Drake without success. These events are absolutely a triple bait
Speaker 2: and switch. Okay, So first, the teens attend a fun
Speaker 2: magic show at the school, where they're invited to an
Speaker 2: after school event a nearby church. And at this nighttime
Speaker 2: magic show, suddenly they introduced the main guest, the Lord
Speaker 2: and Savior Jesus. Now by sharing the gospel at this
Speaker 2: second event, they're then invited into Drake's main show, Ground Zero,
Speaker 2: which is a nonprofit that focuses on getting teenagers into
Speaker 2: a relationship with Jesus. Now, if this sounds really really
Speaker 2: quepy to you, it's because it is. This story is
Speaker 2: from The Friendly Eighties by Herman Metta on November fifth,
Speaker 2: twenty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, before we go anywhere, kudos to him
Speaker 1: at Matta for bringing his stories to the forefront. He's
Speaker 1: always bringing up really good stories like this. It seems
Speaker 1: like every week we're picking one of his The deal
Speaker 1: on a non profit, So kudos to him because he's
Speaker 1: the author doing a lot of good work. Cindy, do
Speaker 1: you think Drake is able to claim the moral high
Speaker 1: ground after his behavior?
Speaker 3: No? No, it's to me, every time I hear a
Speaker 3: Christian talk, and it's been like this for a few years,
Speaker 3: the first word that popping pops into my mind is hypocrite,
Speaker 3: all of them, because Christians are constantly claiming that they
Speaker 3: have the moral high ground, Like you know, how many
Speaker 3: times have you heard you can have morals without God?
Speaker 3: So yeah, they claim that every time, but the second
Speaker 3: it's no longer convenient, then the Belgium to the ends
Speaker 3: justify the means paradigm. So because yeah, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: it's it's going to be what they will say internally,
Speaker 3: if there's any criticism or any voice saying that, yeah,
Speaker 3: we shouldn't be doing that. Yeah, laying for Jesus is
Speaker 3: not a real scene and and all that. You know,
Speaker 3: you've heard that a lot as well.
Speaker 1: The ends justifies the means, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's it's just hypocrisy to the
Speaker 3: highest level. Yeah, we we didn't know what was what
Speaker 3: the show was going to be about. We didn't know,
Speaker 3: even though f fr F sence as an email, but yeah,
Speaker 3: we didn't really know. It's just yeah, hypocrisy. Yeah. On
Speaker 3: a different notes, I just wanted to say that I
Speaker 3: hope f fr F is heavily recruiting right now because
Speaker 3: I predict that they're going to have dozens, if not
Speaker 3: hundreds of cases like this throughout the US in the
Speaker 3: near future. They're doing incredible work right now and have
Speaker 3: been for for years, but I think the next few
Speaker 3: years are going to be on the next level. So
Speaker 3: consider supporting them if you can. But more important, more importantly,
Speaker 3: be safe everyone, because a bumpy ride.
Speaker 1: It's already been a bumpy rider. I think we've already
Speaker 1: done at least one story that was similar to this,
Speaker 1: with the high school kids being bussed to a to
Speaker 1: a ministry basically, John, do you think the school authorities
Speaker 1: knowingly turned a blind eye to Drake and his Christian message.
Speaker 4: I would say they definitely are. They definitely knew, and
Speaker 4: they definitely are hiding it. The schools there already have
Speaker 4: an awful lot of religion, and it's something that since
Speaker 4: I did live there at one point, they are. There's
Speaker 4: a church on every corner. It's always Southern Baptist. I
Speaker 4: saw I think one Lutheran some once and it was
Speaker 4: kind of like, you know, unusual. But so it's like
Speaker 4: these people have Christianity as a mindset and a way
Speaker 4: of life there. They don't they don't always say what
Speaker 4: they're thinking, but they usually do, and it's usually some
Speaker 4: sort of moral superiority thing about being Christian, and you know,
Speaker 4: and it's just like it's kind of really really creepy there.
Speaker 4: So I am sure that these school boards, which are
Speaker 4: probably totally full of evangelical Christians, are going to turn
Speaker 4: a blind eye to everything this guy does, regardless of
Speaker 4: what it is, and so to get people into to
Speaker 4: accept their religion. So I don't think that's ever going
Speaker 4: to be a You would think that lying in deceit
Speaker 4: would be in anathema to Christian uh, to these Christian
Speaker 4: bullshit peddlers. But in that particular state, it's kind of rampant.
Speaker 4: Everybody's a freaking preacher there. But everything is legal to
Speaker 4: convert everybody to a racist, anti human religion that condones
Speaker 4: and encourages abuse of marginalized computer communities. It's just it
Speaker 4: is sickening. They give their own children lifelong trauma through
Speaker 4: their belief system. This is if this, this is enough
Speaker 4: to get you sick to your stomach, and but I'm
Speaker 4: all puked out. I can't. I can't get emotion about
Speaker 4: this anymore. It is overwhelmingly evil. And he even admits
Speaker 4: he's lying to the school district will not do anything
Speaker 4: because he gives them plausible deniability. Unfortunately FRFF took that
Speaker 4: from him for the future because they told him what
Speaker 4: this guy was doing, so they can't claim they don't
Speaker 4: know anymore, but they will so, you know, it's sort
Speaker 4: of like your little kid, he wants some candy. That's
Speaker 4: real creepy, dude. You know. I'm just kind of like
Speaker 4: his deflection away from real harm being done to people
Speaker 4: is just amazing.
Speaker 1: AJ It seemed like, Drake went to the high school
Speaker 1: with a particular idea of what he was doing there.
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't go there just to do an
Speaker 1: illusion an illusion show. Would you agree to that? And
Speaker 1: what do you think that his real motivation.
Speaker 4: Was for going there?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Drake and his wife had no intention of performing
Speaker 2: a magic show and an illusion show just to entertain
Speaker 2: or to even somewhat educate these teenagers. The ultimate goal
Speaker 2: was to evangelize them, to proselytize there. He posted on
Speaker 2: his own social media saying that we always want to
Speaker 2: point the students to a nighttime event where we can
Speaker 2: share the gospel with them. We never want to do
Speaker 2: just the show. We wouldn't travel with our girls if
Speaker 2: it was just about performing and entertaining. So, I mean,
Speaker 2: he also clarified and on his social media as well,
Speaker 2: that they have a passion for reaching communities through their schools. Like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't get any more loud and clear than that.
Speaker 2: He is publicly letting everybody know that his original intention
Speaker 2: was to get these kids from the school to the church.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, he didn't make any he didn't
Speaker 1: make any bones about it. That's what I am here
Speaker 1: to do this and this alone and do it while
Speaker 1: I'm entertaining the kids so they get a good feeling
Speaker 1: about coming. I think is part of the deal too.
Speaker 1: I did so much it is kind of disgusting. I
Speaker 1: did check out his website. He does have his own website,
Speaker 1: And I gotta make a comment on a couple of
Speaker 1: things that were said there. Brian and Carla Drake have
Speaker 1: performed for hundreds of thousands of people over the past
Speaker 1: ten years. They have witnessed the amazing grace of God
Speaker 1: firsthand as thousands of people at their show have surrendered
Speaker 1: their lives to follow Jesus. Now I'm reading this and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, well, they admit that they had hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people, but they only they were only able
Speaker 1: to convert a thousand, So they don't seem very effective.
Speaker 1: If they're only reaching one in one hundred people, they
Speaker 1: got a lot more work to do. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was also interesting that the last part of that
Speaker 1: sentence that these people have surrendered their lives to follow
Speaker 1: Jesus is just directly coming out and saying that you
Speaker 1: cannot be in charge of your own life. If you
Speaker 1: want to follow Jesus, you have to give up your
Speaker 1: life and to Jesus you no longer have your own life.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a pretty interesting thing, Cindy. Do
Speaker 1: you think if there was one message that you got
Speaker 1: you can give about this story, what would it be?
Speaker 3: Don't trust religious people? Uh No, it's I know, we
Speaker 3: we can't generalize like this because there are genuine and
Speaker 3: honest Christian and Muslim and but it feels like every
Speaker 3: time a religious person has power, they tend to use
Speaker 3: it in order to impose their religion to other people.
Speaker 3: I don't see that in most of Europe except a
Speaker 3: few exceptions. But it's it's clear in in many parts
Speaker 3: of the world, uh the US, many countries, in in
Speaker 3: in South America, in in Africa, in Asia, and it's
Speaker 3: it's it's it's everywhere, and and it's it's hard to
Speaker 3: fight this all the time. Uh and and again, as
Speaker 3: uh ages said, said Emmane Meadow does know you you
Speaker 3: said that, Kelly. Sorry. He does a really great job
Speaker 3: looking around the internet and bringing us those stories.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and we need more people like this because there
Speaker 3: are a lot of stories like this on on on
Speaker 3: the website where we found this article, I found another
Speaker 3: one that was interesting and talked about one missionary uh
Speaker 3: that was sent to work with orphanages, and they had
Speaker 3: some some some interesting insights. This article is pretty interesting,
Speaker 3: so go to their website and and read a little
Speaker 3: bit of what they say. It will give you an
Speaker 3: insight on on how how they think. But other than that, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's just uh stay out of school, uh stay
Speaker 3: out of public office and and uh church separation of
Speaker 3: church and states.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, John, you know, there was this big bait
Speaker 1: and switch and I I don't know that you could
Speaker 1: call that. I mean, we've all kind of said it
Speaker 1: was the wrong thing to do. But what do you
Speaker 1: think is the ultimate lesson that high schoolers are getting
Speaker 1: from the from this baden switch technique.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the ones that uh that ballford are
Speaker 4: getting no lesson from it. The ones who watch it
Speaker 4: happening and go and then that's not right. They're the
Speaker 4: ones who are learning that uh, Christianity is a bunch
Speaker 4: of bullshit, that they're lying about everything, you know, and
Speaker 4: they're trying to make them think the world is broken
Speaker 4: and that they're broken and they need the church to
Speaker 4: fix them, they need their relationship with Jesus to fix them,
Speaker 4: and that's not going to fix anything. It never has.
Speaker 4: And you know, for thousands of years, rulers have used
Speaker 4: religion in order to enslave and keep the working people
Speaker 4: working for them because they'll get their reward in the
Speaker 4: next life. And that is one of the biggest griffs
Speaker 4: that's ever been placed on any public from for the
Speaker 4: last five or six thousand years, maybe longer. And this
Speaker 4: is just because they need the poor to work for
Speaker 4: free or to work for very low wages so they
Speaker 4: can acquire wealth in such large quantities and as long
Speaker 4: as they believe they will be better off the next life,
Speaker 4: just sacrifice everything to fill in the blank, and you
Speaker 4: will be saved from the shit world that we have
Speaker 4: created for you. You know, you know they're the ones
Speaker 4: who made it that way, and then now they're going
Speaker 4: to save you from it. That is just such an
Speaker 4: obvious rift, you know, it's it's it's really sad. And
Speaker 4: we see parallels to that today pretty much.
Speaker 1: Now Drake has his own organization too, called Ground zero AJ.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a little bit of information about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the third part of you know, the
Speaker 2: whole we part and switch where they get them from
Speaker 2: the school all the way to Ground zero. That's the
Speaker 2: main goal. And so Ground zero is like a religious
Speaker 2: ministry and they promote cultivating the lives of teenagers through
Speaker 2: faith or as we like to call it, indoctrination. Now,
Speaker 2: there are website claims that they use high quality current events, entertainment,
Speaker 2: and experiences to cuture the attention of teenagers and impact them.
Speaker 2: For christ, I think this is really really creepy because
Speaker 2: they are using things that they know these teenagers are
Speaker 2: interested in in order to get them hooked into the
Speaker 2: whole religious aspect of it. Now, their website also has
Speaker 2: part of it that's labeled Biblical positions and all this
Speaker 2: shows you where they proudly sure that their pro life
Speaker 2: is loaded with purity culture ideologies like abstinence before marriage,
Speaker 2: you know, extremely homophobic messaging, and it's all stated clearly
Speaker 2: along with their proper Bible verse that defense, that position,
Speaker 2: and that they're using to indoctrinate and teach all of
Speaker 2: these ideals to these teenagers that come to their gown
Speaker 2: zero organization. It's really I find the highly problematic.
Speaker 1: Yeah I do too, I really do too. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I really want to stress here is
Speaker 1: I don't want to take away from the ACA, because
Speaker 1: the ACA does a lot of wonderful work. They've built
Speaker 1: a wonderful community. They're out there doing things. But I
Speaker 1: think if after you support the ACA, if you've got
Speaker 1: a couple of bucks left over, send it to the
Speaker 1: Freedom From Religion Foundation, because they really are out there
Speaker 1: on the front lines of this battlefield. I mean, you
Speaker 1: Cindy mentioned it that it that's it's a hard fight,
Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes it gets a little disheartening. And
Speaker 1: yet these guys are out there every single day. They
Speaker 1: got lawyers out there actually fighting these things that we're
Speaker 1: bitching about here on this show. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: if you've got a couple of bucks left over after
Speaker 1: you've supported the ACA, please please support the f R
Speaker 1: the f fr F. I this this story really really
Speaker 1: really got to me. I really don't like seeing kids
Speaker 1: taking advantage of like this, and I think it's sent
Speaker 1: the wrong message that here, Hey, you know, it's all
Speaker 1: right to lie. It's all right to lie as long
Speaker 1: as they as long as the ends justifies the means.
Speaker 1: And I've never been a believer in that. Now, what
Speaker 1: I'd like to do is ask the panel, maybe is
Speaker 1: our last question and bring it around to everybody. Do
Speaker 1: you think that the lesson that was being taught here
Speaker 1: was a good lesson? And if you were a high
Speaker 1: school or what would you take out of it? And
Speaker 1: let's start with aj because she's right next to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I do not find that to be a
Speaker 2: positive message at all. You know, I think that Drake
Speaker 2: wanted to share a message with teenagers that said, yeah,
Speaker 2: we live in a beat up, broken wall and you know,
Speaker 2: here's why. And then he's clearly about to teach him
Speaker 2: the typical question doctrine that ensures that you can't ever
Speaker 2: be good enough and that's why you need Jesus, like
Speaker 2: you are weak, and he wants to know that scenes,
Speaker 2: rather than choices, are what make this wold such a
Speaker 2: horrible place. And then you know, suddenly you can go
Speaker 2: poof be saved whenever you let Jesus into your heart
Speaker 2: and your minds and your body. And it's just creepy.
Speaker 2: It's just creeping. That's the message I get out of it.
Speaker 1: Well, they want they want weak people. They're telling you
Speaker 1: they want you to surrender. They want weak people, Right, John,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4: I really think that the whole doctrine of the world
Speaker 4: is a broken place. Yeah, you guys made it that way.
Speaker 4: You had two thousand years to screw this place up
Speaker 4: and your religious bullshit, and you have. And so you
Speaker 4: make something screwed up enough to where people you can
Speaker 4: use it as an argument for them to join your group,
Speaker 4: you know, and then you tell them that they're broken
Speaker 4: and that they need to, you know, stay in the
Speaker 4: place so that they can get unbroken. But they're not
Speaker 4: going to get unbroken here on earth. They're going to
Speaker 4: get unbroken sometimes else after they died, so they get
Speaker 4: the entire lifetime of these people draining them of their
Speaker 4: their wealth and their blood until they die, and then
Speaker 4: they're supposed to get a non existent reward. Right. This
Speaker 4: is just brutal. You know, we know, we know that
Speaker 4: there's not going to be anything after you die. People,
Speaker 4: you're not broken. If you feel broken, go to a
Speaker 4: legitimate therapist and work on it. These churches do nothing
Speaker 4: for you. Faith does nothing for you. It's just a
Speaker 4: bunch of lies to cover up and put lipstick on
Speaker 4: that pig. Okay, you're not broken. Don't let them tell
Speaker 4: you you're broken, because you're not. You're a human being. You
Speaker 4: have fought failings, but that doesn't mean you're broken. That
Speaker 4: just means you're human and you're operating like all the
Speaker 4: other humans, which means you're not broken, okay.
Speaker 1: Or yes, they were all either that or just all broken. Cindy,
Speaker 1: what are your final thoughts?
Speaker 3: You know, I've been saying for for four years that
Speaker 3: if we stop teaching religion before the age of eighteen,
Speaker 3: religions will disappear in a couple decades. I know this
Speaker 3: is not realistic because people will always want to side
Speaker 3: what they teach their children at home, and and and
Speaker 3: and that's fair. But in this time where where so
Speaker 3: much bad information on purpose or by accident is shared
Speaker 3: and and and found on the internet and with people
Speaker 3: around you, I think we need to start thinking as
Speaker 3: as a society of how we can value the truth first,
Speaker 3: and then how we can fight all this disinformation and misinformation.
Speaker 3: And that includes religion. So yeah, that's my my my
Speaker 3: last word. It's just we need to have this talks
Speaker 3: as a society.
Speaker 2: And I say this all the time. Teach science before religion.
Speaker 1: I agree. As a scientist, I'm all for that. And
Speaker 1: you know, you can buy all kinds of really cool
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