Latest / Spiritual Hot Sauce / “Surviving Armageddon Culture with Satire: Stuart Delony on Snarky Faith and The Tribulation Survival Guide – Ep#29”

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“Surviving Armageddon Culture with Satire: Stuart Delony on Snarky Faith and The Tribulation Survival Guide – Ep#29” · Spiritual Hot Sauce

• 0:00
  Chris Jones: Today we're switching it up.
• 0:01
  Chris Jones: I'm going to have a conversation with Stuart Deloney, host of the podcast Snarky Faith, and author of the Tribulation Survival Guide: How to Survive When Everything Else Is Dead, a satirical look at the teachings that create the perpetual fear of Armageddon.
• 0:18
  Chris Jones: Welcome.
• 0:19
  Chris Jones: I'm Chris Jones, and this is Spiritual Hot Sauce.
• 0:26
  Chris Jones: Stuart, welcome to the sauce.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for having me here, Chris.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to get into this hot sauce love and faith.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, are you a man that likes hot sauce?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are you are you a spicy connoisseur?
• 0:40
  Chris Jones: I I do.
• 0:41
  Chris Jones: I love hot sauce because that's how it came about.
• 0:44
  Chris Jones: I was trying to figure out how to come up with a name for the podcast that kind of represented what I do, which is it's kind of a weird space, but it opens up a lot of different ideas.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:54
  Chris Jones: And I was trying to come up with something that encompassed that.
• 0:58
  Chris Jones: And I was eating dinner at the time and I looked down and I seen hot sauce.
• 1:02
  Chris Jones: And I said, spiritual hot sauce made sense.
• 1:05
  Chris Jones: So I went running with it.
• 1:06
  Chris Jones: So it just all kind of came together.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Love it, love it.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know if this is gonna be like hot ones where we have to be eating things at the same time.
• 1:13
  Chris Jones: We don't have to eat nothing hot, but you know, some of the things we discuss may be considered hot topics and they might be a little spicy for some.
• 1:22
  Chris Jones: That's the whole concept of this podcast.
• 1:25
  Chris Jones: So I know you've but you're not too far off the mark of what I do.
• 1:29
  Chris Jones: You're snarky faith, and man, you got a funny podcast, but you get into some pretty deep subjects over there.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I will say I am a I'm a I'm a hot sauce connoisseur as well.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we're gonna be able to do that.
• 1:40
  Chris Jones: So tell me your favorite hot sauces.
• 1:42
  Chris Jones: Just give me your top three.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just telling you how bad we are.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my wife and I actually had to figure this out.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We order apparently cayenne in bulk.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was like in like five pounds in bulk containers.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then we were going, like, how often are we ordering this?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, oh my gosh, we're we're ordering 10 pounds of cayenne a year.
• 2:01
  Chris Jones: You may have a problem.
• 2:02
  Chris Jones: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: We do have a problem.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I do like hot food.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I do like hot food.
• 2:05
  Chris Jones: Yeah, me too.
• 2:06
  Chris Jones: Me too.
• 2:06
  Chris Jones: So you know, let's let's get it, let's talk a little bit about you and your background, because you used to be an evangelical pastor.
• 2:13
  Chris Jones: And do you still have any kind of pastoral duties?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've I'm I'm dutyless as a pastor now, which is probably why I'm happy.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, no, I yeah, I've background you're asking, like I have was raised generally conservative Southern Baptist with some sprinklings of uh Pentecostalism and charismatic in in my background as well, too, with that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But so but yeah, I went through the gambit, was pastor, been a missionary, a church planter, done all of that kind of stuff, and kind of went through the whole cycle of what it was to be in church ministry and figured that.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: How long was you a pastor?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I about 20 years.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So between like youth pastor, pastor pastor, all these other whatever the names are for.
• 2:57
  Chris Jones: I got you.
• 2:57
  Chris Jones: So what triggered you to go into a deconstruction?
• 3:01
  Chris Jones: I'm so was yours a hard deconstruction, or was it more of an evolution or just a change of path and direction, change of scenery?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably an evolution because I've always been a person that took like the words of Jesus very seriously and and was always just curious, like if in my mind, if this is real, like um, you know, if if as a kid, when you're telling it's like this is real, I'm like, okay, let's treat this real.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And my mind tends to kind of be more logical than spiritual a lot of times too.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it would be it would like my curiosity was always wanting to learn, learn more.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you also begin to learn very quickly on they don't like questions in a lot of circles.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even from a young kid on, they did not like those types of questions, even though I don't think I was being I was just doing it generally out of curiosity, not really trying to pick apart arguments.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, you that starts off as a kid.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it it progresses into ministry where you start asking more and more questions.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of questions did you have as a kid?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would have questions like even as a kid.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I remember like talking to my dad, who was always he was like chairman of deacons.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So he was always like had us had me in church all the time.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, what about folks that you know didn't hear the gospel?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where are they going to heaven?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are they going to hell?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even asking questions eventually of like, does hell even make sense?
• 4:14
  Chris Jones: Yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Those kind of questions as well.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I was asking that as a kid.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was, I would be too afraid of a kid to ask my dad, like, maybe hell's not real.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that.
• 4:22
  Chris Jones: I'm just curious, as you're going through this, the doubt that you're having these internal questions as you called it evolving.
• 4:30
  Chris Jones: Was there some internal turmoil going on as you're also supposed to be leading a flock?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think there were definitely moments.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times it was with me, it was being in situations where I was challenging the power dynamics of like churches I was at, to where I'm a youth pastor, find myself as a youth pastor at a large church on the West Coast, and find myself weak weekly having to defend the right for certain kids to be in our youth group to like the to the leadership.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so it starts really making you question.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of kids are we talking about?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, like the kids that the dirty-mouth kids, the kids that are like street kids, kids that are rough around the edges, non-churchy kids?
• 5:06
  Chris Jones: Gotcha.
• 5:06
  Chris Jones: Gotcha.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: The type of kids that actually, if we're talking about like let's, let's, let's, let's evangelize back in these days.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: These are the kind of people we would want to be bringing in, and they did not like it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 5:18
  Chris Jones: What was your situation in dealing with when you became like a senior pastor outside of youth pastor?
• 5:24
  Chris Jones: And then you're over these flocks.
• 5:25
  Chris Jones: I'm assuming you're part of an organization.
• 5:28
  Chris Jones: Did you have some conflict in that?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: When well, when I actually became what you a senior pastor, when I had finally made it to the ranks, I'd finally arrived.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: This was a thing that I actually never really wanted.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: This was an odd thing because I had I'd uh I'd been a youth pastor for several years.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd done missionary work and was in the process of going through seminary.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I did seminary later or midway into my like uh career.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And seminary was great at ruining me for ministry.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it for it.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it was around this time where I was like, I was realizing I was working for an evangelistic organization, and I was like, I'm asking questions that they don't like that me asking because it's simply just let's get them to pray the prayer, let's get checked the box and move on.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start asking questions of like wider, like, hey, what are we inviting them into?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is this whole thing that we're actually trying to bring them into?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: What is this kingdom of God question?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I began to realize, you know, working for that organization, after a while, you're like, okay, I'm not trying to help here.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm being more of a pain in the ass to them.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, meaning like they have a mission and I am not part of it ideologically right now.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided to I decided to to leave.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And around the same time, I was finishing up seminary, and a friend of mine sends all of my info to another denomination that I didn't even know about, my resume and stuff.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Since I had been a what was the denomination that she was leaving?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like Churches of God General Conference, which is a small denomination, more uh East Coast oriented.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they end up calling me up because my friend had submitted my info.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, what was the denomination you were leaving at that point?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had been in, I was just working for a an evangelistic organization at this point.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd done I'd done, if you're asking for the whole thing, had been like Southern Baptist.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then I did Foursquare for a little bit, which is a little Pentecostalish.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then went into a strictly evangelistic organization where we're support-based missionaries, raising money in communities, doing all that jazz.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I'm I'm at a point where I guess what had happened, this organization reaches out to me.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, We want you, we think you're interesting.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to plant a church.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, you don't.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do this.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do any of this.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But anytime you start telling folks that are used that have people, I guess, chasing them to be to be pastors, when you tell them no, it somehow makes you instantly more sexy.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And because I was like, no, no, no, I don't want this.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, thank you.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that I'd raise money for several years being a missionary made me even sexier to folks, like, oh, you can raise money.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we were on the West Coast, and I just told them I was like, all right, if you guys want to do this, I'm gonna do this different.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be kind of my way, and it's not gonna look like anything that you guys understand.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: That brought us West Coast to East back to the East Coast.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm originally from the East Coast, and we did church plan that really didn't look like a church.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we met in a bar.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: We would have conversations about spirituality and faith, but in open sense.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we attracted atheists, we attracted folks from all sorts of different faiths.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we did that for a number of years, almost up until COVID.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a heck of a shift there.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh Yeah, it is because I I think throughout my my time in ministry, you begin to see issues with the hierarchies um and power dynamics and structures.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was like, if I'm gonna do this real, I want this to be flat.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no hierarchy did this.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want it just to be people community oriented, not involving money either.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was something very, very different that lasted for a good season, right right up until COVID.
• 8:47
  Chris Jones: So, what was your experience like there?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was good and it was it was interesting.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I my since the denomination that was like our planting denomination wasn't really in town or around us because they were trying to move further into the south.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up having like, I had like a distant relationship with them, but I had a good relationship with folks in the community.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, it was just they had no idea the denomination didn't did not really fully understand what we were doing.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I'd been honest the entire time of saying, this isn't gonna look like anything.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have worship services, we don't do any of these things.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, no, the community was great.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we're still friends with with a ton of people, and we still do life with people from that community.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't organize and show up in a certain space anymore.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was wonderful.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: We got to know people that became like uncles and aunts to my children uh when they were younger, folks that we would just have in our house all the time, eating, breaking bread, doing life.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it was quite beautiful, but it was not it did not look like it.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Did it feel more real to you?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 9:46
  Chris Jones: More sincere, more genuine.
• 9:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still that dance of trying to make denominations happy at the same time that don't understand what you're doing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:53
  Chris Jones: So let me ask you this because I have a question, because I had recently had uh Jeremy Johnson on the podcast, and he was telling me that he felt a little hypocritical.
• 10:03
  Chris Jones: I don't know if he used those words, but it's kind of how he described it, because he said there was always an ulterior motive.
• 10:08
  Chris Jones: He's always constantly trying to convert people, and that was kind of his job, even though he didn't completely agree with everything of his organization and his denomination, but yet that was his job of what he had to do.
• 10:21
  Chris Jones: So when you were in that kind of uh in a setting of a bar and people, you're breaking bread with them and you're having these real conversations.
• 10:31
  Chris Jones: Did you have that sense of converting people or no?
• 10:34
  Chris Jones: You're just having these sincere moments.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I was over that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I think after working for an evangelistic organization, I'd kind of seen like the how how the sausage is made a bit, and about how like theologically and intellectually shallow a lot of that is.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I no, I didn't feel pressure at all.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted people to have community, I wanted people to have safe space just to be able to come and talk.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: With real questions and have doubt.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And for me to be able to like we would have for the first while we were doing this, we would have atheists, like militant ones that would come in to try to ruin what we were doing.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then they'd get frustrated with me because I'd be like, no, tell me more.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is fine.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Challenge what I'm saying.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's dialogue is what matters more here, and we can learn from each other and our shared experiences.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them kind of became folks that would hang out, and some of them would just leave and not come back.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't because of not being welcomed.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we were just, we were very open-handed in our approach to what community looked like.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was COVID that stopped this, correct?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: That stopped that whole thing.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was COVID.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I eventually, I mean, we could have kept doing this.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I eventually get get defrocked from the organization that I'm in, which is fun because you jump through hoops to have a lifetime of ordination.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then they can defrock you very quickly as well, too.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So have you ever thought about going back and starting that back up?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it sounded like it was genuine.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I right now, I guess my focus had really shifted to really how were my voice is best used.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like I've lent more into lean more into doing podcasting and the audience I can kind of affect that way.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in a lot of the writing I'm doing now as well, too, on a regular basis, it's kind of forced me to that space was more open-handed that we cultivated with open questions.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I really I wasn't preaching.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't pushing anything.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was the one that was bringing questions and facilitating.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was more dialogue.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, I think how like whatever my pastor identity now, it's more of just being a mouthpiece and calling out BS when I feel so do you consider yourself pastoral still or no?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Some pee- I struggle with that a little bit.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of just want to be a person.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I know some people do see me in certain roles and in certain capacities like that.
• 12:35
  Chris Jones: Don't you think it's hard if you've been groomed to be that your whole life?
• 12:38
  Chris Jones: You can't just walk away from what you've been built to be.
• 12:41
  Chris Jones: It's kind of baked in the cake, isn't it?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It it it is, but it's part of the deconstruction cake, too.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is like I just I I don't necessarily like the baggage that comes with a lot of that, the title and the mantle and the authority of it.
• 12:53
  Chris Jones: Aaron Powell So what led you into podcasting and becoming the host of Snarky Faith?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It it all began, it was also part of the church planning process.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: This whole thing started off on we were on local radio for a number of years.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Before it was podcast, and it looked different.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was me trying to have similar conversations we are now a little bit, but it was I don't think I was free enough to be myself at that point as much.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're on local radio, you can't swear and do other things like that where I think when I have passionate conversations about stuff, I seriously don't mind swearing about it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it evolved from that, and then yeah.
• 13:28
  Chris Jones: All right.
• 13:29
  Chris Jones: The Tribulation Survival Guide.
• 13:31
  Chris Jones: What caused you to what well, what inspired you to write this book?
• 13:34
  Chris Jones: And it's a really good book.
• 13:36
  Chris Jones: That book, let me tell you.
• 13:37
  Chris Jones: Yeah, it is a quotable book in Greg, man.
• 13:41
  Chris Jones: Greg is funny.
• 13:42
  Chris Jones: But I gotta tell you that your book kind of pokes the bear a little bit.
• 13:48
  Chris Jones: It kind of raises some things in me.
• 13:51
  Chris Jones: If you've been through my experience and you go, oh, this seems familiar, but then you have a way of kind of diffusing that.
• 13:57
  Chris Jones: So it's almost like a safe way to go deal some of the trauma that comes from a fear-based faith.
• 14:03
  Chris Jones: Absolutely.
• 14:03
  Chris Jones: Open that up for me.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where what got me started on this?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Part of it, one lane of it was the idea of making fun of fear-based faith, because a lot of us have have had that baggage and that trauma, and I believe it's garbage.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I've kind of walked through all of this, it's just a control structure.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: But even furthermore, what one of the things that which is uh funny, I remember when I was going through my ordination ceremony or no process where they're you're like, you're before a board of people and they're asking you questions, and they'd asked me this question.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, well, is there any scripture you disagree with in the Bible?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're they're more of the inerrant crowd.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, Well, in my head, I'm going like, if they're really, if they really want me around, let's just let's play with let's play with this.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I was like, basically the entire book of Revelation I could do without.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then they were just why?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was one of those, and I explained it to them in a way that they couldn't argue with me.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I told them, I was like, I'm not talking about this theologically, I'm talking about this culturally.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is one book that I feel like has has distracted people from the ways of Jesus so profoundly.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it makes us like it makes us focused elsewhere instead of right right here and now.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: It makes us people that are just we it gives us permission to not care about where we're at.
• 15:12
  Chris Jones: Yeah.
• 15:13
  Chris Jones: Yeah.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and focuses us away from reality.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I was like, it's it's basically sci-fi and ex-files.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's there's been churches that have I I've talked to somebody about this too, and they'd said there was a there's a revelation Bible study class in this one church, someone was telling me, and they're like, and they it never ends.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like they continue, they never, they never talk about anything else in the in this Bible study, and it never ends.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean and that was part of the reason for writing it.
• 15:39
  Chris Jones: But that's a huge, huge point you just made.
• 15:41
  Chris Jones: I there's a loop that we get into.
• 15:43
  Chris Jones: And you can see it in deconstructionists too.
• 15:45
  Chris Jones: There's a lot of nomadic people out there, but they get caught in this perpetual state of hurt, and they almost take on the identity of a victim.
• 15:52
  Chris Jones: Yeah.
• 15:53
  Chris Jones: At the same time, within evangelical Christianity, there is this huge culture of perpetual Armageddon, perpetual fear.
• 16:02
  Chris Jones: How big is this out there?
• 16:04
  Chris Jones: Because I see it, and there's people making a good living, and that's all they talk about is this.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's, I mean, there's that whole like grifter side.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's yeah, and that's I mean, because I grew up around it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up, my my mom was the one watching Jim Baker and creating like being, she was part of the satanic panic like during the 80s, and it was teaching me to be afraid of everything.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: That somehow, like, like there was like the, oh no, like if you know there's danger out there or there's opportunity to sin out there, and it's and it and it totally just warps your sense of reality.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes it hard to be a human.
• 16:37
  Chris Jones: You know, I talked to somebody one time and they said, you know, and they were they were smart.
• 16:41
  Chris Jones: They said, you know what?
• 16:42
  Chris Jones: I never went on to to strive for a higher education because I was so convinced the rapture was coming tomorrow or next week.
• 16:50
  Chris Jones: Because of that, my whole life has been affected and impacted by, you know, my ability to earn, how I feel about myself.
• 16:58
  Chris Jones: But yeah, we were in a part of movement one time, and I seen this going on where they would put the buckets out, and these were buckets, to get the cash flow going on these offerings.
• 17:09
  Chris Jones: And if there wasn't enough that they weren't happy with, they would send them back out again.
• 17:14
  Chris Jones: And I remember being little and seeing food stamps come through, jewelry come through, and just people giving what they didn't have because these men of God were out there, you know, creating fear.
• 17:25
  Chris Jones: And if you don't give, that you're out of faith.
• 17:27
  Chris Jones: And somehow they made themselves like the offering plate of God rather than what the whole thing was set up to, and that's just go give to the hurting and the needy that needs to be taken care of.
• 17:37
  Chris Jones: But they usurped themselves in the middle of that.
• 17:40
  Chris Jones: So if you're giving to me, you're giving to God.
• 17:42
  Chris Jones: And because there's no way of checks and balances to pull things back in, it seems to just kind of run amok.
• 17:49
  Chris Jones: Absolutely.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, even in these circles, I mean, we've like in in in broader like Protestant, Protestant culture.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not splitting and having breaks uh between denominations and and churches breaking off and all that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's fairly common for us.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: But even in these circles, it's worse.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have some person that gets into a disagreement about authority or whatever, and they spin off.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And now we've got two different grifters.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I feel like it's it's it's like one of these things they just keep multiplying because there's people to dupe out there.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's culturally driven.
• 18:20
  Chris Jones: Like, yeah.
• 18:21
  Chris Jones: It's like it is accepted within certain circles for sure.
• 18:24
  Chris Jones: And in some circles, it's just terrible.
• 18:26
  Chris Jones: I mean, it's horrible.
• 18:28
  Chris Jones: But yet, you know, it's a great way to make a lot of money quickly if you're good at it.
• 18:32
  Chris Jones: It is.
• 18:33
  Chris Jones: So you decided after just deconstructing and starting this podcast, I'm gonna write this book.
• 18:39
  Chris Jones: Let's get into some more, some more depth of this.
• 18:42
  Chris Jones: Because it is funny, but it speaks to a lot of truth too.
• 18:45
  Chris Jones: This is it's very bureaucratic.
• 18:47
  Chris Jones: And you're like, Kevin is bureaucratic.
• 18:50
  Chris Jones: But it is, but it is it's very cleverly done.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it's it started as just me wanting to it I someone asked me this on a on a different podcast, and I hadn't thought of it this way.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how'd like I guess it started in layers?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So like some of it just started off as just really just a jokey thing.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then, but then I would kind of add layers to it and add layers to it and add layers to it, and then it kind of got more interesting.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd be like, okay, this is better if it actually reads more straight and not trying to be out overtly funny, which is, you know, hopefully good satire does.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so no, I I want I wanted this when I'm doing this.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted on one end, I wanted the slightest chance that someone's gonna read this and think it's real.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, for the people that some people that are really in this, I was that was one of my goals, but the rest of it was mainly just satire, and I wanted folks to be able to laugh.
• 19:37
  Chris Jones: You think you accomplished that because even me, because I know we're done with this, and I'm reading, I go, man, this starts reading seriously.
• 19:43
  Chris Jones: He's bringing up all the points that I heard growing up.
• 19:46
  Chris Jones: So no, you nailed it deadpan all the way, but man, it's beautifully done.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been it's been fun marketing it because it's confused a hell of a lot of people, too.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I've had great conversations with folks that are like, no, what?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: What is this?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That yeah, this it conservatives and evangelicals.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's been, it's been, it's been fun arguing with them and comments on that.
• 20:06
  Chris Jones: It's fantastic.
• 20:07
  Chris Jones: Like I said, it's very quotable.
• 20:08
  Chris Jones: When I read the lake of fire is not a trash receptacle, I I busted out laughing in Pestilence before the familiar scent of incense mixed with essential oils.
• 20:19
  Chris Jones: I thought was hilarious.
• 20:21
  Chris Jones: How long has it taken to write this?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: It probably took me, it probably took me about collectively a year.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I started doing this because I was writing a different book, I have a different book that I needed to edit, and I put that off in order to start writing a new one.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was something that kind of just grew.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of just grew, and then layers came into it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started seeing like when I would talk to some of my friends and like a guy script I have about it, I'd I'd go, oh, oh, wait, some of these ideas are pulling out trauma.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, let's kind of lean in on that a little bit more and go redo stuff.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea was just simply that this is the book that you would need if you did you miss the uh you missed the rapture.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's the like, oh shit, you missed the rapture.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Here's okay, here's what life is like now.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's exactly what it's like, and it just pushes ridiculous stuff to its logical conclusions.
• 21:08
  Chris Jones: So anytime somebody with an evangelical background says, I'm writing a book, I wrote a book, I go, okay, well, let's look at it.
• 21:14
  Chris Jones: Because I don't know, something about modern evangelicals.
• 21:17
  Chris Jones: Part of your calling card is you got to have two books now before you even speak for the first time.
• 21:22
  Chris Jones: So, you know, when somebody comes with their book, you're okay, evangelical, I get it.
• 21:26
  Chris Jones: Everybody's writing a book.
• 21:27
  Chris Jones: But when I read your book, I was like, nah, this this is this is gold, man.
• 21:30
  Chris Jones: This is funny.
• 21:31
  Chris Jones: This is good stuff.
• 21:32
  Chris Jones: But at the same time, it taps you in those places, you know, directly, hits those nerves if you've been traumatized by this.
• 21:41
  Chris Jones: But at the same time, it has a humorous way of kind of diffusing it and allows you to look at it without prophetic math is bad.
• 21:50
  Chris Jones: You know, it kind of circles back to that.
• 21:53
  Chris Jones: It does.
• 21:53
  Chris Jones: Yep.
• 21:54
  Chris Jones: So did you intentionally mean it to be therapeutic for those people who've been through that or did That came out as you were riding it and you thought, you know what, I'm going to kind of push into that a little bit.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think it came out, yeah, a little bit in different stages.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like it wasn't my goal to be therapeutic at the beginning.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to be funny and to make fun of the systems that kind of piss me off growing up and how much I've seen it hurt people.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: But but I guess I began to see that like humor is like that kind of Trojan horse to kind of like slide in to get beyond the gate for people.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of lets their guard down a bit and they're able to go, oh my gosh, yes.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, I can laugh about this now.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And because I feel like laughing at some of this trauma, it's healing.
• 22:34
  Chris Jones: Oh, for sure.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: But but I wasn't, I wasn't thinking like this book is gonna heal you.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't my when I was doing it.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't and and this book is not, I will say this coming from an evangelical, it is not preaching a mindset or anything else to you.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is just yeah, yeah, at all.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's more of a cultural piece and and humor.
• 22:51
  Chris Jones: Anybody would enjoy this, but if you've been through this, it's gonna speak to you and you're gonna find it very humorous because you're gonna understand it, you're gonna see humor in it that you know some people may not.
• 23:02
  Chris Jones: But I think anybody would like it.
• 23:03
  Chris Jones: But like you, it's not preachy, it's not teachy.
• 23:06
  Chris Jones: It is just hilarious.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I like how you're mentioning that too.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's maybe it's reminding me of part of the process of even making it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think when I was about 80% done, I I sent it to my therapist to read it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 23:19
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted my therapist to read it, and and he told me he who is also my therapist also happens to be a bishop.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Weird connections to stuff, but yes.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he told me he's like, he told me he's like, my wife kept check coming to check in on me when I was reading the book because she thought something was wrong with me, because I was making a lot of noise.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was laughing.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, I I need to keep going.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: This this is the direct direction.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: So no, no, it's a laugh out loud book, it for sure is.
• 23:42
  Chris Jones: Yeah.
• 23:43
  Chris Jones: So what do you want to do with the book?
• 23:45
  Chris Jones: Where uh where are you wanting to take it now?
• 23:46
  Chris Jones: What do you want to do with this?
• 23:47
  Chris Jones: You just going out and you got a follow-up book?
• 23:50
  Chris Jones: I think you should do a follow-up to this.
• 23:51
  Chris Jones: You need to do a part two to this because it is that good.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, uh well, okay, fine, fine, fine.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is a a sequel kind of coming out already.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of, but it's not okay, this isn't the official sequel, but uh there is a coloring book that I there is.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is true.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: My publisher, my publisher is, yeah, it's I don't know it next month or two probably is when it's coming out, but it's I just took all of the not all of them, but most of the well-known verses from like about about the end times and about the tribulation from the Bible and m turned it to like a children's coloring book.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's you know, it's it's cute, but it's also kind of sinister at the same time.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's something to where like you'll have the verse very dark humorized.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very dark humor to where you know it's the you know uh the the lamb cut open broke open like one of the seals, and it's it's a cute lamb with a knife over a seal, like a literal seal, and other seals are like, oh no.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's yeah, so it's coloring books that's also for that as well, too.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I am I I there is a little bit of a real sequel that is rattling in my head as well.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
• 25:02
  Chris Jones: I think you should.
• 25:03
  Chris Jones: I think you should follow up on it because it is that good, and it is hilarious, man.
• 25:08
  Chris Jones: It's a laugh out loud thing.
• 25:09
  Chris Jones: So and are you're you're still going with the podcast, too, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Still cranking on snarky faith.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I still I write.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have a weekly column over at Pathios, too, that I write.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and I write also for the collective, which is another group of journalistic group that I write for.
• 25:25
  Chris Jones: Well, before I let you go, how do people connect with you and follow you in your world?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: My world?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you want to follow any bit of my world, the easiest way to do it is just look up Snarky Faith.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's easier to spell than both my first name and my last name to get it correctly.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really easy to find that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: That'll point you to where my writings are, where the book is, where my podcast.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all over socials.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to interact with folks if they want to come and call me a heretic.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Say, ask me questions.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard it all.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Stuart, this has been a lot of fun.
• 25:55
  Chris Jones: The book is The Tribulation Survival Guide: How to Stay Alive When Everything Else Is Dead.
• 26:01
  Chris Jones: I'll put links to the book in the episode itself.
• 26:04
  Chris Jones: Again, Stuart, man, this has been a lot of fun.
• 26:06
  Chris Jones: Thank you so much.
• 26:07
  Chris Jones: And we'll see you again next time.
• 26:08
  Chris Jones: Absolutely.
• 26:10
  Chris Jones: Thanks for joining me here on Spiritual Hot Sauce.
• 26:13
  Chris Jones: I'd love to hear from you.
• 26:14
  Chris Jones: So please reach out with questions, comments, andor concerns.
• 26:18
  Chris Jones: And don't forget to like, subscribe, and review us.
• 26:22
  Chris Jones: You can follow us on Facebook for updates and information.
• 26:26
  Chris Jones: And if you enjoy the flavor of the sauce, then please share it with others.
• 26:30
  Chris Jones: I would appreciate that.
• 26:31
  Chris Jones: We'll see you next time.