Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to this week's first episode of
Speaker 1: the Nonprofits. In kind of a Weird Flex, Kelvin coberis
Speaker 1: pastor for New Life Christian Church International. Excuse me a
Speaker 1: New Life Church International of Plant City, Florida, chose an
Speaker 1: anecdote about an alleged recent donation of ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to drive home the message of a recent sermon. In
Speaker 1: a video posted to Twitter on June fifth by right
Speaker 1: Wing Watch, Colberts dramatically recounted a story of a vague
Speaker 1: unnamed man asking the pastor for his wiring instructions and
Speaker 1: then casually dropping ten bands in his personal account a
Speaker 1: few days later. Beautifully, Even among Christians, the pastor's actions
Speaker 1: have been ill received, with some leaving comments such as
Speaker 1: good look at the Pearly Gates pastor, and another referring
Speaker 1: to it as disgraceful. This story is from the Bin
Speaker 1: News by the Black Information Network on June twenty third,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty fifth. So I have there's a little more
Speaker 1: I want to add, but I want to hear from
Speaker 1: you guys. First, John by Calvin's own admission, that will
Speaker 1: kind of get into it. He received this donation. I'm
Speaker 1: going to call it a gift because it went to him,
Speaker 1: not to his church, So I think calling it a
Speaker 1: donation is a bit generous, charitable, you could say. But
Speaker 1: he received this for as an incentive for supporting Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: for you know, speaking that way in his sermons. So
Speaker 1: definitionally it's it's a violation of the Johnson Amendment. So
Speaker 1: color me cynical here, But are we surprised by any
Speaker 1: part of this? And do you think we even should
Speaker 1: expect Colberts to face any consequences or is this just
Speaker 1: another case of pastors going to past.
Speaker 2: Well, in my not, so it strikes me, let's just
Speaker 2: put it this way. It strikes me as normal for
Speaker 2: the religious grifters in the world, who who want to
Speaker 2: be on the take for whatever they can get from anybody.
Speaker 2: If a thin man guy, some mysterious figure, it sounds
Speaker 2: like he's trying to hide where he really got it from. Actually,
Speaker 2: well I don't know who gave it to me. But
Speaker 2: you know, people don't throw ten grand at somebody without
Speaker 2: at least having a receipt, you know, So it's like,
Speaker 2: what the hell? This thing sounds shady from the beginning,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't surprise me at all, And will he
Speaker 2: have to you know, cough up the money or something,
Speaker 2: if you know, is the I R S going to
Speaker 2: hit him? They're a five oh one c four religious organization,
Speaker 2: so no, they don't even have to show their books
Speaker 2: to anybody. The only thing we know about it is
Speaker 2: that he said so. So it's like there's no, there's
Speaker 2: not going to be no repercussions to him, at least
Speaker 2: not at the moment. Maybe in the future there'll be
Speaker 2: laws passed against this source yet political contributions to churches
Speaker 2: to keep doing political things, which is illegal. You know,
Speaker 2: we don't know, but hopefully if there's a h in
Speaker 2: the future, when there's some actual rational people in office,
Speaker 2: we'll get something on that or to that effect. The
Speaker 2: IRS right now is powerless because they defunded them and
Speaker 2: they are trying to make sure that they don't do
Speaker 2: things like audit the billionaires who cheat on their taxes regularly.
Speaker 2: So there we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be I was thinking the same thing.
Speaker 1: There's a chance that, like, you know, is this going
Speaker 1: to stop in the future. Maybe, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we recently within the past couple of months on the
Speaker 1: nonprofits covered there's somewhere where there's a discussion about removing
Speaker 1: the restrictions on charitable organizations from participating in, you know,
Speaker 1: political activities to a certain degree. So not only would
Speaker 1: this not be enforced more, but they would be removing it,
Speaker 1: and this would just start taking place legally more because
Speaker 1: like they're already doing this anyway, so let's yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're not punishing them for it, so let's just remove
Speaker 1: the restriction. It's kind of how we interviewed that. But
Speaker 1: you said that it seems kind of fishy, and I agree.
Speaker 1: I think he made it up. The details they feel
Speaker 1: to me like they kind of just like they manifested
Speaker 1: in a way like that they're just right to convince
Speaker 1: you that it really happened. The man like he talks
Speaker 1: about being in the Rose Garden, which maybe it's a
Speaker 1: place that his congregation's familiar with.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but didn't Trump dig up the rose Garden
Speaker 2: in the White House? Didn't they?
Speaker 1: Possibly? I'm not familiar, but he was. He was talking
Speaker 1: about having been at the White House, so maybe maybe
Speaker 1: that is, you know, what he's.
Speaker 2: Talking about part of the White House lawn. So I'm
Speaker 2: thank Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I probably should have put that together,
Speaker 1: ask for his wiring instructions he gave him to him,
Speaker 1: and then the pastor even offers like for no reason,
Speaker 1: like how much money he thought the guy might send him,
Speaker 1: which means that either he was like fixated on this amount,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a strange thing for someone who's
Speaker 1: receiving a donation genuinely, or he's he's making it up
Speaker 1: and he's including that detail just to intensify the impact
Speaker 1: of like the true donation. But Damien, we haven't given
Speaker 1: you a chance yet, so just kind of like generally
Speaker 1: and vaguely, I guess, and you know what, what's your
Speaker 1: sort of take on this? How did how did this
Speaker 1: Leand for you.
Speaker 3: Well, look for me, I think the biggest thing to
Speaker 3: me is ask the question how far has Christianity come
Speaker 3: from its roots? Because if you read the Pauline epistles,
Speaker 3: you will see that Paul basically boasts about how poor
Speaker 3: he is and that he has to support himself in
Speaker 3: order to continue the ministry, to support the true And
Speaker 3: I know we're all irreligious here, but I think there's
Speaker 3: something to be said about those churches that you know,
Speaker 3: run on the smell of an oily rag. I think
Speaker 3: I've used this line before, because you know, they're the
Speaker 3: ones who are doing it for the genuine love of it,
Speaker 3: whereas there's just something really weird about American Christianity, where
Speaker 3: Christianity is in so much a movement as it is
Speaker 3: a business. And so I'm looking, I'm looking at this,
Speaker 3: and I saw the video of the pastor like talking
Speaker 3: about it, and like he has got the big building,
Speaker 3: he's got the nice, nice suit, and he's well, you know,
Speaker 3: made up, and you know it looks very slick and professional.
Speaker 3: But he is one among many. You know, you can
Speaker 3: name like a dozen pastors who have this really high
Speaker 3: profile image and are about riches and about how much
Speaker 3: money they're getting. You know, you can say Joel Osting,
Speaker 3: Kenneth Copeland, krefflow Dollar.
Speaker 2: This is a Florida man, Florida man. It's a little
Speaker 2: different from me.
Speaker 3: So so I think what Jonathan mentioned about this possibly
Speaker 3: being a violation of the five oh one CE regulations
Speaker 3: about about donations being made. But then the problem is
Speaker 3: is that unless assuming this is real, this actually happened,
Speaker 3: the fact that it went to him rather than the
Speaker 3: church is a bit of a you know, a bit
Speaker 3: of a workaround. And so the fact that this so,
Speaker 3: the fact that this money went to him, how much
Speaker 3: how much of that ten k will his congregation? See?
Speaker 3: What will he do with that ten k? Will he
Speaker 3: support you know, like homeless people will support domestic violence victims?
Speaker 3: Will he you know, help a single mother? And yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: this is my This is my thing. This is if
Speaker 3: this were I suppose like a more genuine social Christianity,
Speaker 3: you know, that ten k would be use for charitable
Speaker 3: purposes to help the congregation rather than to gain interest
Speaker 3: in this guy's big fat bank account.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the things that makes it a
Speaker 2: little fishy is since the whole story smells like weak
Speaker 2: old fish the the you know, the whole story. Did
Speaker 2: he just griff or did he just skim this off
Speaker 2: the top of this great congregation? And needing an explanation
Speaker 2: for the deposit in his account? You know, who knows
Speaker 2: what their internal auditing is, but you know, probably not
Speaker 2: very strong, I would think, or.
Speaker 3: It's interesting by him or his family, and so any
Speaker 3: internal orders will just whitewash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is interesting. I didn't think about my time.
Speaker 1: I was like, like, we kind of tend to agree
Speaker 1: that it seems like he made it up, but that's
Speaker 1: not super unheard of. Like pastors always seem to have
Speaker 1: a person that provides them with an anecdote from some
Speaker 1: time in their life that just happens to fit exactly
Speaker 1: what their message is. And in this case, for for
Speaker 1: Kevin Goberis, in this sermon, it was give me money,
Speaker 1: Me plus money equals good. But I think they're like
Speaker 1: some other possibilities for like like uh, making up something
Speaker 1: like this that I thought is like he's because he's
Speaker 1: he's a person of color and because of who he
Speaker 1: supports politically, it's becoming increasingly unpopular for people going to
Speaker 1: hold that view. So I thought like perhaps as like
Speaker 1: I say, hey, like you know, I started doing this
Speaker 1: and good things started happening to me, So this is
Speaker 1: what God wants me to do. And like that's part
Speaker 1: of the second one, like, hey, church, this is what
Speaker 1: God wants me to do. So if you're supporting me,
Speaker 1: you're supporting what God wants. And like the fact that
Speaker 1: he's asking for more money during this this you know,
Speaker 1: uh sermon is not doing him any favors to convince
Speaker 1: me that he just received this this large donation and
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like he's hurting for money in the
Speaker 1: first place, like you mentioned earlier about his his his
Speaker 1: his settings during in the video. Yeah, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we kind of all it seem to be on
Speaker 1: the same page about that. I like the point you made, Damien.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I had to remember which one of you
Speaker 1: said it about, Like who where where the money went to? Right,
Speaker 1: because you said it didn't go to his church, it
Speaker 1: went to him, So does that change the legality of it?
Speaker 1: But what I think is what my concerns about the
Speaker 1: legality essentially is not that he received the money because
Speaker 1: churches run on donations. That and a person can donate
Speaker 1: to a church because they like that message regardless of
Speaker 1: what the message is. But it is the message that
Speaker 1: he is using his platform for, whether he is receiving
Speaker 1: the money or the church is receiving it, I think
Speaker 1: is more of a I don't want to say non
Speaker 1: issue necessarily, but as far as legally, I think it
Speaker 1: hinges more on what he's using his platform form for.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's well, there was a line that he says,
Speaker 3: I should have went this way a long time ago,
Speaker 3: and to me, that says it's not about the principle
Speaker 3: of supporting Trump, but the rewards that he can get
Speaker 3: personally for doing so. That that's me kind of says,
Speaker 3: says everything I need to know you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. He doesn't even necessarily maybe it may
Speaker 1: not even be that what he's saying reflects what he
Speaker 1: believes personally. He's more interested in the personal gain from
Speaker 1: saying that he believes it. Do you think that is
Speaker 1: that kind of accurate to what you mean?
Speaker 2: I believe that. Yeah, sure, they don't believe saying, well,
Speaker 2: they don't believe what they're saying. These are grifters. They
Speaker 2: use religion as a as a cash cow. They're not.
Speaker 2: They have nothing to do with believing anything other than
Speaker 2: I'm getting rich off of this. And you know, all
Speaker 2: I have to do is not break character, and they will.
Speaker 2: You know, they will pay me their money and a
Speaker 2: lot of it, just for saying that I'm speaking to God.
Speaker 2: So pay me. You know. They're liberal paying him to
Speaker 2: be him, which is like to act, to be an
Speaker 2: actor and fool them into thinking that he's actually a
Speaker 2: religious or other blessed person, which is kind of like
Speaker 2: okay for us, it's kind of like it's obvious that
Speaker 2: this is just a ploy. It's just another another just
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 3: Jonathan the name Kreflo Dollar. You may or may not
Speaker 3: have heard of him. He is a African American pastor
Speaker 3: of a megachurch and he he once said in a
Speaker 3: sermon that I know he said this jokingly, but I
Speaker 3: think it does reveal something that you know, he said
Speaker 3: in a sermon that he wishes there were like barriers
Speaker 3: out the front of the church that as you walked in,
Speaker 3: it checked how much money you donated, and if you
Speaker 3: hadn't donated like these these big machines would come come
Speaker 3: up and take you away. I thought, that's that may
Speaker 3: not be exactly what he said. You say something along
Speaker 3: those lines that indicated that you know, if you hadn't given,
Speaker 3: if you hadn't given enough, then you will be dealt
Speaker 3: with in some harsh method. All that so that's interesting.
Speaker 3: But then it turned out that police had been called
Speaker 3: to his home because of domestic violence allegations against his children.
Speaker 3: I thought, well, yeah, it's just you know, like you
Speaker 3: have this you play this character on stage, but then
Speaker 3: you know, if you're harming your children back home, then
Speaker 3: you know where your shiny suit as much as you want.
Speaker 3: But you know, if you're abusing your children, right, then
Speaker 3: it's what's it worth, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And with the attempt to make it seem like
Speaker 1: by by being by having access to the church, I
Speaker 1: am more virtuous. I have, you know, the money to
Speaker 1: donate to the church, I'm more virtuous. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: superior morally or ethically or whatever it maybe. And then
Speaker 1: with with you know, a dark a secret or a
Speaker 1: skeletons in the closet, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some children is seen everywhere in the churches, all
Speaker 2: of them, you know. So they do that because it's
Speaker 2: a trusted positions and they have power over the kids
Speaker 2: and their parents, so they can keep themselves out of
Speaker 2: trouble by doing nasty things to children.
Speaker 3: I raise one, if I can raise one line that
Speaker 3: he said in the video as well, and this is
Speaker 3: where where he says the next day he hadn't sent
Speaker 3: anything the past, continued, adding he initially thought the man
Speaker 3: had a little lying spirit and forgot what he told me.
Speaker 3: And to me, that brought back some bad memories because
Speaker 3: I spent years in a church that believed in the
Speaker 3: demons that would influence what you do or what you
Speaker 3: forgot or you know what you didn't do, and all
Speaker 3: this all this kind of stuff, and like, for example,
Speaker 3: if you were an attractive young woman, you know, you
Speaker 3: were essentially accused of having a spirit of Jezebel trying
Speaker 3: to lead men astray and things like that. And so
Speaker 3: it's just interesting that, you know, I said, like you
Speaker 3: might be doing this as part of the grift, Like sure,
Speaker 3: we can recontribute to that, or even if he genuinely
Speaker 3: believes it, the fact that there are grown adults that
Speaker 3: believe that spiritual entities, you know, cause people to lie
Speaker 3: to passes about spending money, that's like.
Speaker 1: Really, and it also implies like that that would be
Speaker 1: considered chaos from the perspective of like a demon, which
Speaker 1: is allegedly eternal and like immortal, like that just like
Speaker 1: telling a lie to a pastor is chaotic enough to
Speaker 1: qualify as demonic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there you go.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's John that Yeah, it sounded like you
Speaker 1: you had more you want to add a little bit
Speaker 1: of go go ahead, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, if I can remember what I was thinking at
Speaker 2: the time, I was just thinking that, you know, one
Speaker 2: other thing about some of these pastors I'm quite sure
Speaker 2: actually believe somewhere and what they're doing. In other words,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are pastors out there who are sincere.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying all pastors are like this guy, but
Speaker 2: this guy's words alone condemned to that. You know, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of pastors out there, I'm sure who
Speaker 2: really think they're not causing any harm even though they are.
Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, how how do you how
Speaker 2: do you get people to understand that your religion is
Speaker 2: not supposed to be used as a weapon against other people.
Speaker 2: And that's that's where I get a little bit off
Speaker 2: kilter with this stuff, is because uh, you know, there
Speaker 2: they've weaponized their religion to the point where, first off,
Speaker 2: it's a huge grift they're not supposed to They're supposed
Speaker 2: to have taken vows of poverty, you know, back in
Speaker 2: the day, you know where there were you know, even
Speaker 2: the monks, you know though they used to they ended
Speaker 2: up making tons of money on their beer and their
Speaker 2: wine that they grew and made. But they you know,
Speaker 2: they were supposed to be in vows of poverty, you know,
Speaker 2: which means that they made a lot of money, but
Speaker 2: it all went to the bishop and all the brothers
Speaker 2: are sitting down there working in the fields. So it's like,
Speaker 2: I don't get this. This has been one big grift
Speaker 2: for about seventeen hundred years. You would think that, you know,
Speaker 2: after the first part. You know, Christianity became popular because
Speaker 2: it was the community. The Christian communities were like, had
Speaker 2: all the social niceties, all the nice social safety nets.
Speaker 2: If somebody got beaten almost to death, they would heal him,
Speaker 2: you know, they would give him medical care. They if
Speaker 2: he lost his job, they would find him another one.
Speaker 2: Or the social connections were strong, and Christians took care
Speaker 2: of Christians and they didn't need the government to be
Speaker 2: involved in that. But of course, when you're in a
Speaker 2: very violent era of humanity, one of the things that
Speaker 2: happens is that all the people aren't Christians, don't have
Speaker 2: this backup, right, So how do you get this backup?
Speaker 2: You become a Christian. And so the movement grew because
Speaker 2: the Mitherians weren't doing that, and the other religious people
Speaker 2: weren't doing that. But the Christians were communal, and they
Speaker 2: say they had a little bit of a leg up
Speaker 2: on that. But once you've got institutionalized, it went the hell,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's just you know, they got rid
Speaker 2: of the Gnostics and the aurex and that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: the heresies.
Speaker 3: And this is why I asked Jonathan, how far has
Speaker 3: Christianity come from its roots to the point that it's
Speaker 3: now a business?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, somewhere around somewhere around the first third Crusades
Speaker 2: it became a business.
Speaker 3: Look, you could possibly argue even earlier than that. But
Speaker 3: as I said, this is why I point out in
Speaker 3: the Pauline epistles, Paul boss about about his poverty, and
Speaker 3: I have no doubt that even throughout even since, even
Speaker 3: during the first First Crusades, you know, there were people
Speaker 3: who genuinely believed in it as a social movement to
Speaker 3: be doing good, regardless of the financial reward. But it's
Speaker 3: just that with any enterprise, politics, religion, charity, like you
Speaker 3: name it, there'll be people who are in it for
Speaker 3: the money.
Speaker 2: Well, the Knights Templar are the ones who made mountains
Speaker 2: of money in the Holy Land because they would escort
Speaker 2: these Christian caravans into Jerusalem, so that they there were
Speaker 2: so many bandits and things along the way, but they
Speaker 2: wouldn't mess with a bunch of fully armored knights on
Speaker 2: It was a little different when you just had a
Speaker 2: knife and you were going to go, you know, a
Speaker 2: cost of pilgrim. But when those pilgrims are, you know,
Speaker 2: surrounded by knights, not a good idea. But they made
Speaker 2: their their fortunes that way and went back to Europe
Speaker 2: and bought huge tracts of land, and and the Church
Speaker 2: got jealous of them, and then the King of France
Speaker 2: owed them so much money that he decided he was
Speaker 2: They both decided, well, we can get rid of the
Speaker 2: whole order. You know, we'll just call them heretics, and
Speaker 2: we'll make up all bunch of shit about them and
Speaker 2: burn them at the stake, you know, and then we'll
Speaker 2: just take all our money in their lands, which is
Speaker 2: pretty much what happened, except for the ones who escaped
Speaker 2: to Portugal. Well story, that was awesome, cool, But this
Speaker 2: isn't the history show.
Speaker 1: The this is. This is.
Speaker 3: The history of religion. Is quite interesting just seeing how
Speaker 3: Christianity has morphed over the years. And look, I just wonder,
Speaker 3: in like one hundred and five hundred thousand years time,
Speaker 3: what will Christianity be and what will how will Christians
Speaker 3: then look back on the business, business fication what we
Speaker 3: would all, yeah, of American.
Speaker 2: Christian But that's and you really mentioned that.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned that at the beginning, Damien, and it
Speaker 1: was one of the things that kind of stuck my
Speaker 1: miny a little about how Christianity, especially in America is
Speaker 1: a business, or in the US, I should say, is
Speaker 1: a business. But I think I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: true of almost anything in the US anymore. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, even the US itself is kind of just
Speaker 1: leaning towards running more like a business. But where there
Speaker 1: are people who want to think, there are you know,
Speaker 1: people who are are willing to sallet. And uh, with
Speaker 1: that being said, we have a merch store at tiny
Speaker 1: dot c c slash merch a c A, so don't
Speaker 1: forget to check that out and click