Speaker 1: Lad with.
Speaker 2: Levin k left behind a decorated military career in the
Speaker 2: Black Ops to live a simple life working construction. But
Speaker 2: when his boss's daughter, who was like family to him,
Speaker 2: is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her
Speaker 2: home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he
Speaker 2: could have imagined. So sets the stage for the new
Speaker 2: movie A working Man starring Jason Statham, now in theaters.
Speaker 3: You should have put to the left and be dead.
Speaker 3: Oh you dead, you'd be dead.
Speaker 4: From the director of The Beekeeper, a nineteen year old
Speaker 4: cost Kidnam.
Speaker 3: She's a good kid. She's a great kid. She's like
Speaker 3: family to me. Come went back to five and this
Speaker 3: is you have a.
Speaker 1: Trafficking I'm gonna find a better go for long? How
Speaker 1: do they get to work? To work?
Speaker 4: So it cuts you around out? Good luck, get the work.
Speaker 4: Jason statho oh that is not good work.
Speaker 3: Doing, uncle.
Speaker 1: People whose mommy dressesn't funny.
Speaker 2: Work?
Speaker 3: Look at those bricks. You're a working man. That's right.
Speaker 2: Let's play and i'd so please to be joined by
Speaker 2: its writer and director, David Ayir.
Speaker 3: David a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for
Speaker 3: coming on tonight.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: David, You, along with Sylvester Stallone, wrote A working Man,
Speaker 2: and given that, I've seen The beat Keeper also with
Speaker 2: Jason Statham, I've also seen Suicide Squad that you directed.
Speaker 2: I've seen Training Day Squat The Fast and Furious that
Speaker 2: you wrote. I say all that to say, you know
Speaker 2: a little something about action movies and what works. What
Speaker 2: are some of the rules that you swear by in
Speaker 2: making a good action movie.
Speaker 5: I think it's also having a lot of heart in it.
Speaker 5: It's having great characters, you know, so that when the
Speaker 5: action kicks off, we care about who's doing it and
Speaker 5: why it's happening. And in this case, you know, Jason's
Speaker 5: really the king of the genre. I mean, he's his
Speaker 5: own action genre. And just giving him the opportunity to
Speaker 5: show up as an actor and really have some love
Speaker 5: on screen and really give him a righteous mission, I
Speaker 5: think is what sets this film apart.
Speaker 2: In watching A working Man, and you kind of hinted
Speaker 2: at it right there, I'm reminded of this rapport that
Speaker 2: you have with Jason Stathan, but also Michael Penia. What
Speaker 2: is it that you like about working with them individually
Speaker 2: or even collectively.
Speaker 5: You know if Jason it's this is a guy that
Speaker 5: does his own stunts. This is a guy that has
Speaker 5: an encyclopedic knowledge of action. He's been doing this a
Speaker 5: long time and he's really good at it. And the
Speaker 5: thing that I've learned is just how good of an
Speaker 5: actor he is and how much heart and soul he has.
Speaker 5: And it was a great thing to team him up
Speaker 5: with such a strong actor like Michael Penya, who is
Speaker 5: just an incredible actor, really strong. He can take a
Speaker 5: room over, take the scene over, and he just grounds everything.
Speaker 5: So anytime I can put actors like that together, you know,
Speaker 5: you can see the result.
Speaker 3: Jenny's missing, What do you mean miss it?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: Friends? On fri Saturday, we were worried, so we called
Speaker 3: the cops. And then that's on the.
Speaker 6: She had a piano.
Speaker 3: Side on something like we invited half our family.
Speaker 2: My cousin Donor is a police captain in Philly, and
Speaker 2: she says, they don't work these cases.
Speaker 3: They take a report and forget about it. Can you
Speaker 3: help us?
Speaker 1: Like and keeps you sut running swool, No help us
Speaker 1: find Jack?
Speaker 3: My dad was green Bray. I can see you guys
Speaker 3: coming a mile away. You want bad guys you bought
Speaker 3: the planes, you get those bad guys?
Speaker 4: How much different person?
Speaker 2: Now, since you mentioned Jason Statham and how he does
Speaker 2: his own stunts, how does an idea for an action scene,
Speaker 2: be it in A Working Man or any other movie?
Speaker 2: For you completely that sophisticated fight choreography? How does it
Speaker 2: go from the page to the Do you just leave
Speaker 2: the section blank and say, okay, insert Jason fight choreography
Speaker 2: or is it more sophisticated?
Speaker 3: What type of direction do you give?
Speaker 5: You know, you try and create kind of the atmosphere
Speaker 5: and tone in the script itself, but then it always
Speaker 5: takes on a life of its own. And I don't
Speaker 5: think people understand how much work goes into these things.
Speaker 5: You know, the stunt team gets together early on in
Speaker 5: the process before you shoot, and they'll just experiment and
Speaker 5: they'll videotape it, and they'll cut things together, and you
Speaker 5: go and you watch and you give notes, and everybody
Speaker 5: has ideas and you know, maybe we can throw a
Speaker 5: bag of cement at this guy. Why don't we throw
Speaker 5: a bucket of nails? So everyone's kind of adding to it,
Speaker 5: and then once you're on set, that's where it really
Speaker 5: comes to life. And that's where the challenge is because
Speaker 5: it's it's hard. You know, you shoot this stuff over days.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of punches, a lot of repeats, and
Speaker 5: there's Jason in the middle of it doing everything.
Speaker 2: Anyone who's seen your work or knows your work knows
Speaker 2: that there's going to be a lot of action, as
Speaker 2: I talked about, Anyone who's seen ad Jason state Atham's
Speaker 2: work knows that there's a lot of action.
Speaker 3: But a working man.
Speaker 2: Although it is definitely an action movie, tell me if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, I would say it's equally about family. Not
Speaker 2: to say that it's a family movie, but the theme
Speaker 2: of family is ever present, is it not.
Speaker 5: That's exactly it.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: Jason is this you know, troubled guy with the past
Speaker 5: who gets adopted by this loving family that takes him
Speaker 5: in and gives him opportunity and helps him rebuild himself.
Speaker 5: And we love them for that. So when it comes
Speaker 5: his turn to help them, we're really rooting for that
Speaker 5: to happen. We're really rooting for him to bring their
Speaker 5: daughter back, you know, who is like his daughter. And
Speaker 5: even the bad guys have their families and their relationships
Speaker 5: and their history and their rules and their traditions, and
Speaker 5: I think that's just part of the human side of things.
Speaker 5: And when you can bring that to a film and
Speaker 5: have some incredible action, I think you're going to get
Speaker 5: a really satisfying experience for the audience.
Speaker 3: Doile action, no doubt.
Speaker 2: And there was a lot of heartfelt moments in the
Speaker 2: movie which actually surprised me. But was there anything which
Speaker 2: surprised you either in the writing, creation or the filming
Speaker 2: of the movie which you said, well, I thought I
Speaker 2: had what idea going in, but now it's something else.
Speaker 5: I would say. It's Ariana Reeves, who plays Jenny, the
Speaker 5: girl that gets kidnapped. I always saw Jenny as a fighter,
Speaker 5: as someone that could fight back, but Ariana brought this
Speaker 5: level of humor and presence in spirit to the role
Speaker 5: that I wasn't expecting, and by the end of it,
Speaker 5: you almost believe that she could rescue Jason.
Speaker 2: How do you know when you are screen testing actors
Speaker 2: beyond those you've worked with that someone has that special
Speaker 2: quality or can deliver a particular scene in your mind,
Speaker 2: or they're just reading some sides. But how do you
Speaker 2: know you have the right actor or actress?
Speaker 5: You know it's it's something you know when you see it,
Speaker 5: I really feel. And it's one of the toughest parts
Speaker 5: of the process is casting, because there's all these incredible
Speaker 5: people and they really put their heart and soul in it,
Speaker 5: and you have to narrow it down to a few
Speaker 5: choices and then ultimately one choice. But it's every role
Speaker 5: requires this own special thing and sometimes you don't know
Speaker 5: what that is until you actually see it and you go, Okay,
Speaker 5: there it is. That's the person. And that's what happened
Speaker 5: with Adriana.
Speaker 2: He is David Ayer, writer and director for the new
Speaker 2: movie A Working Man starring Jason Statham, now in theaters. David,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on tonight and I
Speaker 2: can't wait for everyone else to see it as well.
Speaker 3: It's a good one.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 7: You're listening too later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 7: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: And this next story, I'm quite sure is probably gonna
Speaker 2: piss you off. This next story is probably going to
Speaker 2: reaffirm a lot of stereotypes and some of our dislikes,
Speaker 2: if you will, of churches today in America. It's going
Speaker 2: to remind us some of the problems of the many
Speaker 2: problems I guess with religion. In fact, this is going
Speaker 2: to be part of my final thought tonight, So I'm
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 3: Give you a little bit of a preview here. Marvin Sap.
Speaker 2: You may have heard of him, you may not have
Speaker 2: heard of him, but he's a megachurch pastor. He's also
Speaker 2: a very very popular gospel artist. He's worth maybe four
Speaker 2: to five million dollars. He has a church well respected
Speaker 2: in those fields.
Speaker 3: Give you a point of reference.
Speaker 2: There is an undated clip which is circulating online, and
Speaker 2: I have a feeling it's relatively recently from what I
Speaker 2: could discern. And in this clip, he is demanding that
Speaker 2: anyone who is watching his service, streaming it online, and
Speaker 2: anyone who is in the actual physical church, they must
Speaker 2: donate at least twenty dollars to reach a goal of
Speaker 2: forty thousand dollars before he will let anyone leave who's
Speaker 2: in the physical church. Quote, close the doors. We're all
Speaker 2: going to leave together. Y'all ain't going to go no
Speaker 2: place but to the restaurant. Talking about going out to
Speaker 2: brunch after service. There's a thousand of you tonight, and
Speaker 2: those that are watching it's one thousand that's watching online.
Speaker 3: This is a small seed.
Speaker 2: If I get one thousand online to give this, If
Speaker 2: I get one thousand in the sanctuary to give this,
Speaker 2: that's forty thousand dollars tonight. I'm challenging each of you
Speaker 2: all down here to give a twenty dollars seed. Now,
Speaker 2: everyone up here, we've all sewed and seated. But I
Speaker 2: need everyone up here to sow one hundred dollars because
Speaker 2: it costs to sit up here. And he was talking
Speaker 2: about the people who were in the pulpit alongside of him,
Speaker 2: other preachers and clergy church staff.
Speaker 3: So put your twenty dollars away. That twenty wasn't for you.
Speaker 2: He continued, requesting that the offerings be walked to the
Speaker 2: front so he could see the massive effort. I can't
Speaker 2: speak to this in all churches, but what is common
Speaker 2: in the Black Church tradition is you walk and you
Speaker 2: hand your offering. You're a cheerful giver, and you walk
Speaker 2: and you're paraded around the whole church for everyone to
Speaker 2: see that you're actually quote unquote giving your tithes and offerings.
Speaker 2: All I know is this is not an uncommon phenomenon,
Speaker 2: and I can give you many examples, maybe not this extreme,
Speaker 2: but very close to it, where you would have preachers
Speaker 2: ministers who refused to end their sermon or end the
Speaker 2: service without getting a certain dollar amount. And mind you,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people in church. All they
Speaker 2: have left is their faith. They are there because they're
Speaker 2: going through something. They need a word, as it said,
Speaker 2: they need some sort of reassurance, some sort of message
Speaker 2: which speaks to them personally and can help them individually.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've never been to church, but
Speaker 2: there are many times where I would go to church
Speaker 2: and you would think that that message on that day
Speaker 2: was meant particularly for me because it spoke to something
Speaker 2: that was going on in my life and I was encouraged.
Speaker 3: Because of it.
Speaker 2: There is a purpose for a service, especially when you're
Speaker 2: talking about someone who's a newbie in Christ, someone who
Speaker 2: may have just been born again, and they're looking for guidance.
Speaker 2: And that's why, and I say this unfortunately, that's why
Speaker 2: many times people will look at the minister as the
Speaker 2: conduit between that person and God.
Speaker 3: And then you.
Speaker 2: Learn more about the Bible and then you don't need
Speaker 2: that type of intercessor you don't need someone in between
Speaker 2: as a go between. And I always make the distinction
Speaker 2: between faith and religion. This is an example of why
Speaker 2: people hate religion. There are two churches here.
Speaker 3: In the south Land that I no longer go to.
Speaker 6: One the is a relative relatively large church, almost megachurch status.
Speaker 6: The pastor is related to a globally renowned singer, very
Speaker 6: very avant garde singer.
Speaker 3: And you're really narrowing it down now, you know that, right?
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 6: And this pastor proceeded to have on the last occasion
Speaker 6: that I went to his church.
Speaker 3: Uh, he proceeded to have and.
Speaker 6: Hour long offering hour long, meaning for one hour, he
Speaker 6: proceeded to be rate the congregation for an offering you.
Speaker 2: Mean, like from the beginning of my interview with David
Speaker 2: Ayre to the end.
Speaker 3: Of the show.
Speaker 6: Yes, an entire hour of asking yes, including asking for offerings.
Speaker 6: The second was a church that found its home from
Speaker 6: a large auditorium to actually moving up to the forum.
Speaker 6: And and that pastor who made that move and took
Speaker 6: over the form was not in that day, but this
Speaker 6: was a special occasion and the special guest pastor proceeded
Speaker 6: to tell us.
Speaker 3: That nothing was going to happen, nothing was going to happen.
Speaker 6: We were not going to get a word, we were
Speaker 6: not going to hear from the Nothing was gonna happen
Speaker 6: until we had all donated enough to I believe, if
Speaker 6: I'm not mistaken, reached a similar amount there. And there
Speaker 6: was a lot of superstars in that congregation. There were
Speaker 6: a lot of well known athletes at Justices, all sitting
Speaker 6: in the front row who all got that VIP parking
Speaker 6: and VIP escort up to the front so they could
Speaker 6: get in and out. And it was a real to
Speaker 6: do to be at this church at the Forum. And yeah,
Speaker 6: and we sat there that night because it was a
Speaker 6: nighttime service. I believe it was the Christmas Eve service.
Speaker 6: It costs a lot to even go to get tickets
Speaker 6: to go, so we.
Speaker 3: Paid a lot.
Speaker 2: You had to pay for the tickets, Yes, and then
Speaker 2: you had to give a tithe and offering to the
Speaker 2: satisfaction of the guest speaker.
Speaker 6: Yes, it was enough to make me say, oh, hell
Speaker 6: to the nah, we are not coming back here.
Speaker 3: You got something against a shakedown now, and then I
Speaker 3: don't see what the problem. That's what.
Speaker 2: Well put it this way, And we're talking about these
Speaker 2: tax exempt organizations which are doing more for themselves than
Speaker 2: they are in the community. And I'm not saying all churches.
Speaker 2: I've seen some small what they call storefront churches do
Speaker 2: a lot in the community. But these megachurches and these
Speaker 2: mega pastors oftentimes are not punching their weight. You see
Speaker 2: the enrichment of the pastor. You see it in they're clothed,
Speaker 2: their cars sometimes.
Speaker 3: Jets, and you see.
Speaker 2: Well, let me back up now, a lot of churches
Speaker 2: are preaching and teaching what it's called the prosperity gospel,
Speaker 2: where if you donate more money, you will receive more
Speaker 2: money in your life. You know, it's not about salvation.
Speaker 2: It's about getting more money and the way that you
Speaker 2: can live better or live life more abundantly, as the
Speaker 2: verse goes, is you donate more. Now, there are Bible
Speaker 2: verses which speak to tithes and offerings.
Speaker 3: It's Malachi three to eight. I'm doing this off the
Speaker 3: top of my head.
Speaker 2: So if I get it wrong, sorry, Malachi three eight,
Speaker 2: And I know my pastor would always say it. You know,
Speaker 2: bring ye all the tie tithes to the storehouse, so
Speaker 2: there may be meet in my house. And now prove
Speaker 2: you herewith say at the Lord of hosts that I
Speaker 2: will not open up a window and pour and a
Speaker 2: blessing will pour out of it. In other words, the
Speaker 2: more money you give, the more that you're going to
Speaker 2: be blessed. And that has been bastardized. That's the word
Speaker 2: I mean bastardized to be the whole point of the Gospel,
Speaker 2: where the more you donate, the more that you will
Speaker 2: be blessed. And then that opens the door for the
Speaker 2: real shakedown to happen, where you have preachers just outright saying, well,
Speaker 2: you're going to hell if you don't donate or you know,
Speaker 2: tie or give a certain amount offering on this type
Speaker 2: of day.
Speaker 3: So it hurts my heart because as a person.
Speaker 2: Of faith, and I'm not sin less, you know, let's
Speaker 2: be clear, I'm a crack vessel and I fall short.
Speaker 2: It hurts my heart because I see the manipulation of
Speaker 2: the church and how it extends beyond just the church walls.
Speaker 2: We see it through use of the Bible in politics,
Speaker 2: we see it in many varied forms. We see it
Speaker 2: in the cover up of abuses in like the Catholic
Speaker 2: Church talk about all that. So I'm not gonna give
Speaker 2: it away now, But what I when I see this
Speaker 2: what Marvin Sapp was doing. It just hurts my heart
Speaker 2: because you're just taking advantage of people. You have a
Speaker 2: tax exempt organization and you're living, you personally have a
Speaker 2: personal net worth of some four to five million dollars,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna hold people hostage who may not have
Speaker 2: a pot to urinate in or a window in which
Speaker 2: to throw it out.
Speaker 3: Just like taught us. Look the.
Speaker 6: Church that we went to at the forum, the money
Speaker 6: that was being asked for was for specifically pastoral care,
Speaker 6: and it was prosperity peaching because we were we were
Speaker 6: told that by giving freely to take care of he
Speaker 6: who brings us the Word of God, we would then
Speaker 6: be blessed eternally even more so.
Speaker 3: And blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm way. You
Speaker 3: just told me you were not leaving here.
Speaker 6: You're not starting nothing until we give more money to
Speaker 6: the pastor.
Speaker 2: I got more on this. We gotta go to a break,
Speaker 2: but I have more to say on this.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: You got to be remembering stuff and thinking about stuff
Speaker 2: and getting mad about stuff all over again.
Speaker 7: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on Demand from
Speaker 7: KFI AM six.
Speaker 3: With mo Kelly on.
Speaker 2: AM six Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app and last segment,
Speaker 2: I was telling you about Marvin Sap who's a very
Speaker 2: influential famous not only make a church pasture, but also
Speaker 2: gospel artists. And there's a video going around where he
Speaker 2: was holding his own congregation. I will say hostage, maybe
Speaker 2: that's too strong a word, but he was shaking down
Speaker 2: his congregation, would not let them leave until they pointed
Speaker 2: up between the online streaming audience and also the end
Speaker 2: sanctuary audience forty thousand dollars on this random Sunday, and
Speaker 2: it got me thinking about my issues with the church
Speaker 2: over the years. Tawalla was telling his stories and I
Speaker 2: can't speak for all churches, but it's common within the
Speaker 2: historically Black church tradition. What I mean by that is
Speaker 2: there's Kojik, which is the Church of God in Christ.
Speaker 2: There's ame African Methodist Episcopal, there are others. There's a
Speaker 2: type of tradition in a way in which services run
Speaker 2: obviously Southern Baptists, and money usually is at the forefront
Speaker 2: of it, unfortunately, and it's manipulative, it's unkind, it's ungodly,
Speaker 2: and it goes on every single day, and I understand
Speaker 2: why it turns off people to religion, which is different
Speaker 2: from faith, and if you don't understand the difference, it
Speaker 2: can harm your faith as well. I know I can't
Speaker 2: speak for Tuala, but I know in the church as
Speaker 2: I've been in, there are things that the church would
Speaker 2: pay for. In other words, your tithes and offerings would
Speaker 2: go to the parsonage, which was where the pastor or
Speaker 2: preacher would live. In other words, they would have that
Speaker 2: an actual house that we would pay for, or there
Speaker 2: would be a housing allowance or a car alligance allowance,
Speaker 2: just like someone who worked at any other corporation. So
Speaker 2: for the most part, especially with the megachurches, all the
Speaker 2: personal needs of a pastor are already taken care of.
Speaker 2: And almost every single church they had this thing called
Speaker 2: the building fund, where you would always have to set
Speaker 2: aside money, which is different from your tithes, which is
Speaker 2: supposed to be ten percent of your of your treasure,
Speaker 2: is different from your offerings because your offering is supposed
Speaker 2: to be over and above what you're giving from for
Speaker 2: your tithe. And then outside of your tithe and offering,
Speaker 2: you would have to set aside even more money for
Speaker 2: like the building fund, or you'd have to do this,
Speaker 2: or you're paying for that. It's always something in this
Speaker 2: every single week. But the funny thing is when the
Speaker 2: church wanted to do anything which wasn't for the benefit
Speaker 2: of the pastor, then the church would have to do
Speaker 2: something like a bake sale or a fish fry selling
Speaker 2: fish plates. I mean, it was always on the shoulders
Speaker 2: of the members to pay for everything for the pastor
Speaker 2: and everything for the church. And you're always behind the
Speaker 2: eight ball or some emergency it has got to be
Speaker 2: done today, or they're going to turn the lights out
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 3: And after a while, it's like you just burn people.
Speaker 2: Out, just you just you you run off people who
Speaker 2: are consistent titherers who do tie pay that ten percent
Speaker 2: every single week.
Speaker 3: And I was a tithe it for a long time,
Speaker 3: a long time.
Speaker 2: And then you you get just disenchanted and disappointed with it.
Speaker 6: The worst part is, and I think this is something
Speaker 6: that I can only speak on the Black church, but
Speaker 6: one thing that would always rub me the wrong way
Speaker 6: is how you would have a pastor, a superstar pastor
Speaker 6: in the city of Los Angeles. And I don't care
Speaker 6: if you're over on Crenshaw. I don't care where you are,
Speaker 6: but you look at the people, those of us who
Speaker 6: are coming, those of us who have maybe just that
Speaker 6: one suit or that one nice outfit to wear the church,
Speaker 6: and you look at and honestly, how little the congregation has,
Speaker 6: how little the people who are coming to receive a
Speaker 6: word and to be set right on their week coming ahead,
Speaker 6: get over what they're weak before had to offer and
Speaker 6: are looking to be lifted up. How little they have,
Speaker 6: and how much faith and how much love they have
Speaker 6: for you and your word and what you're supposed to
Speaker 6: be filling and imparting us with. And then to feel
Speaker 6: like the only way that we can get to that
Speaker 6: word is through breaking our own wilesce which most of
Speaker 6: the time we don't have. That is what leaves that
Speaker 6: sour taste in individual's minds.
Speaker 2: I know someone has been in a church like me
Speaker 2: and had the pastor say, you know that money in
Speaker 2: your pocket, that's God's money. God put that in your pocket.
Speaker 2: It's not yours, it's not yours to hold on to
Speaker 2: you were you there, what you're saying, It's time for
Speaker 2: you now to give it back to the Lord so
Speaker 2: it can so his work can be done.
Speaker 6: Who gave you that money in the first place. Who
Speaker 6: gave you the job to make the money that you're
Speaker 6: making in the first place? Somebody say, somebody say, who God?
Speaker 6: God gave you that money. God gave you that job.
Speaker 6: And if you want to make sure that you go
Speaker 6: to the next level, you're looking for a raise, you're
Speaker 6: looking for that promotion, Who's going to give it to you?
Speaker 3: Well, a God will a man rob God?
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: Look, it was every single week, every single week. So
Speaker 2: I understand what they call church hurt. I understand how
Speaker 2: people can become discontent with the whole idea of religion.
Speaker 2: I understand intellectually and from a faith perspective, how you
Speaker 2: just or put this way, how people become agnostic or
Speaker 2: become atheists because for me, I think they wrongly conflate
Speaker 2: religion with faith or that they've had religion damage their faith.
Speaker 3: I get it. It makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker 2: And the reason why we're talking about the Marvin Sap
Speaker 2: story and it's I try to let you know, we
Speaker 2: talk about big stories. This was covered even by tmz
Speaker 2: okay with no connection to Marvin's sapp. It's a huge
Speaker 2: story that you're going to hear more and more about it,
Speaker 2: if only because more times than not, people.
Speaker 3: Have a similar story to offer.
Speaker 2: And in the age of the Internet, it's less likely
Speaker 2: that people are going to be able to hide what
Speaker 2: they do in churches because people are going to expose them.
Speaker 2: And I say bravo, because that's not the word. That's
Speaker 2: not a part of what is actually in the word,
Speaker 2: or it's a part of becoming saved, as they say
Speaker 2: in the church. You know, it's it's a bastardization and
Speaker 2: it's unfortunate. Got my final thought, will we come back
Speaker 2: and we'll also talk to George Nori. Coast to Coast
Speaker 2: AMKFI AM six forty were live everywhere in the Arheartradio app.
Speaker 7: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 7: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: It's Later with Mokelly k if I AM six forty
Speaker 2: live everywhere the iHeartRadio app. Coming up in moments will
Speaker 2: be Coast to Coast AM with George Nori.
Speaker 3: But here's the good news. He joins me right now
Speaker 3: with the preview. What's up starting.
Speaker 5: I love joining you, Mo, It's fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. I always enjoyed talking to you.
Speaker 2: It's weird for me, if only because I have listened
Speaker 2: to you for so long, and I mean that in
Speaker 2: a very respectful way, and then get the opportunity to
Speaker 2: talk to you and joke with you.
Speaker 3: That's a real treat for me.
Speaker 5: Oh likewise, my friend, you're a good guy.
Speaker 6: On the show tonight, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 6: future of the world, and then later on there's a
Speaker 6: Japanese custom called the doomsday fish.
Speaker 5: Going to talk about that on Coast to Coast.
Speaker 3: All right, I'll be tuning in. I'll missure my friend
Speaker 3: and be well, hey, buddy, And before we.
Speaker 2: Get out of here, you know what my final word
Speaker 2: is going to be on And I'm going to try
Speaker 2: not to offend everybody listening. But I make no guarantees
Speaker 2: and I also make no apologies. Let me put it
Speaker 2: that way. And I've been thinking about this over the
Speaker 2: years in a general sense, but with the Marveln Sapps story,
Speaker 2: it kind of meant that I needed to talk about it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Faith and religion there are two different things. Religion has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with faith. Religion is about dogma. It's
Speaker 2: about rules. It's about dictating how you're supposed to live.
Speaker 2: Your life, how you worship. That's religion. Faith, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, is your personal relationship with Jesus or your God.
Speaker 2: It's your one on one conversation with the Almighty. It's
Speaker 2: very personal, but one definitely impacts the other. You can
Speaker 2: have a bad experience with the church or a minister,
Speaker 2: and I told you about some of mine, and Twalla
Speaker 2: told you about some of his. That bad experience can
Speaker 2: damage your faith, especially if you're a newbie in Christ.
Speaker 2: In other words, you're just in your religious experience learning
Speaker 2: about Christ. That's what it means to be a newbie.
Speaker 2: And betrayal by religion is not a new phenomenon. And yes,
Speaker 2: money is still the root of all evil. We've seen
Speaker 2: it with the Catholic Church and pri smalestation scandals. We've
Speaker 2: seen it with these megachurch pastors time and time again,
Speaker 2: from garden variety sex scandals to financial malfeasan scandals.
Speaker 3: It seems like.
Speaker 2: The bigger the church or profile of the pastor the
Speaker 2: bigger the sins. It's really no wonder why church attendance
Speaker 2: is at an all time low and atheism grows at
Speaker 2: almost a proportional rate.
Speaker 3: There's a connection there.
Speaker 2: Throw in politics, and you really have a cluster truck.
Speaker 2: America wants to turn itself into a theocracy and tell
Speaker 2: everyone how to live, even though this has never been
Speaker 2: a Christian nation. Oh oh, getting ready to step on
Speaker 2: toes never been a Christian nation. We may be a
Speaker 2: nation of mostly Christians, but never an actual Christian nation.
Speaker 2: There's no mention of Jesus Christ, and either the Declaration
Speaker 2: of Independence or the Constitution.
Speaker 3: I know for a fact I looked, it's not there.
Speaker 2: The phrase in God we trust was added to money
Speaker 2: and the Pledge of Allegiance in the nineteen fifties as
Speaker 2: a response to communism, not as a founding principle of
Speaker 2: the country. And never mind the fact that just mentioning
Speaker 2: the word God does it make something Christian. Hate to
Speaker 2: be pedantic and all biblical like, But the whole idea
Speaker 2: of Christianity has a Jesus requirement. Christianity requires that you
Speaker 2: confess with your mouth and believe with all your heart
Speaker 2: that Jesus is the Son of God, was crucified and
Speaker 2: rose on the third Day. That, in short, is what
Speaker 2: it means to be a Christian, not just mentioning the
Speaker 2: word God or reciting it as part of a pledge
Speaker 2: of allegiance. The New Testament is pretty pretty clear about that.
Speaker 2: But that's assuming that you've actually read the Bible and
Speaker 2: not just put Christian on your social media profile, and
Speaker 2: you're not using that to quote unquote virtue signal as
Speaker 2: to the other religions or the people who are of
Speaker 2: other religions that you don't like.
Speaker 3: But you don't have to take my word for it.
Speaker 3: Go ahead and read the Bible for yourself.
Speaker 2: My point, my main point tonight, is that religion has
Speaker 2: poisoned or has been poisoned, depending on how you look
Speaker 2: at it. Religion today is more a weapon and blunt
Speaker 2: object to bludgeon people to behave a certain way, hate
Speaker 2: certain people, justify books to be banned, and or dictate
Speaker 2: women's health decisions.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I'm going there.
Speaker 2: People use the Bible to cherry pick issues to manipulate
Speaker 2: other people's lives, not live their own lives. Being a
Speaker 2: Christian is about how you individually live, not how other
Speaker 2: people live or who other people marries.
Speaker 3: Actual Christians know this. They will call themselves pro.
Speaker 2: Life, yet are indifferent to what the Bible says about
Speaker 2: treating the stranger in your land, or how we should
Speaker 2: care for the poor and the needy. That's what I
Speaker 2: mean by cherry picking. I told you earlier this hour
Speaker 2: about a megachurch pastor and gospel music star Marvin Sap,
Speaker 2: worth more than four million dollars who refused to let
Speaker 2: people exit his church until the congregation ponied up forty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars collectively. A congregation who likely are all less
Speaker 2: wealthy than Sap, A congregation who can get shaken down
Speaker 2: or robbed any day of the week anywhere else, just
Speaker 2: weren't expecting to get robbed on Sunday in the House
Speaker 2: of the Lord forty thousand dollars for his tax exempt church.
Speaker 3: But Sap is closer to the rule than the exception.
Speaker 2: All we could talk about megachurch pastor Joel Oldstein, who
Speaker 2: had to be shamed into opening up his megachurch to
Speaker 2: flood victims during the twenty seventeen Hurricane Harvey, and had
Speaker 2: the dirty nerve to defend his decision to keep his
Speaker 2: church doors closed. Those are just some of the examples
Speaker 2: of religion, not faith. The problem in America, and here
Speaker 2: is the real takeaway. The problem in America is not
Speaker 2: that there aren't enough people calling themselves Christian. The problem
Speaker 2: in America is not that the Christianity hasn't been woven
Speaker 2: into the constitution. The problem is we've decided to use
Speaker 2: christian as a way to signal to others who we hate.
Speaker 2: For kf I am six forty, I'm o Kelly. KFI
Speaker 2: is literally the KFI of talk radio.
Speaker 3: K f II and the KOST HD two.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Orange County
Speaker 3: Live everywhere on the younger radio s