The God of the Upside Down: Weaponizing Faith to Starve the Poor and Steal Our Rights

This isn't about policy; it's about power. A cabinet secretary's casual suggestion to replace deported farm-workers with able-bodied Medicaid recipients is a chilling glimpse into a heartless agenda.  This isn't just incompetence; it's cruelty dressed up as a solution.  They expect the poor to pick up the slack created by their own inhumane policies.  It's a sick joke, and it's a blatant disregard for human dignity.

But it's not just about cheap labor. It's about dismantling the social safety net, brick by brick.  Christian nationalists are using their influence to exploit loopholes and undermine the Johnson Amendment. They're trying to transform churches into political action committees, blurring the lines between faith and fascism.  

Pastor Ralph Drollinger, the so-called spiritual advisor to Congress, is preaching a gospel of poverty as punishment.  His twisted interpretation of scripture justifies starving the poor to line the pockets of the wealthy. 

And who benefits from this? The rich, of course.  Tax cuts for the wealthy are their holy grail, even if it means sacrificing the vulnerable to the altar of greed.  They're betting that you'll be too distracted by culture wars to notice them looting the treasury.  They're selling you a snake oil solution to a problem they created.  Don't fall for it.  This isn't about economics; it's about a systematic dismantling of compassion and justice.  It's time to fight back before it's too late.

Full Show Notes and Links Used

Chapters

• 1:00 Medicaid Slave Labor
• 10:20 Johnson Amendment: a paper tiger
• 18:47 Pastor Ralph Drollinger: Weaponizing Faith to Starve the Poor

Transcript

[0:04] Did a cabinet secretary really suggest people on Medicaid work in the fields to replace deported migrant farm workers?

[0:12] The Johnson Amendment is not worth the paper it's written on, but Christian nationalists still hate it. And did you know our elected lawmakers have been attending weekly Bible studies that teach us God doesn't want our government to help the poor?

[0:27] Music.

[0:33] I'm Doug Berger. And this is Secular Left.

[0:47] Music.

[1:00] As we've all discovered in the less than six months since President Trump took office, the people that he hires to do their jobs, the day-to-day jobs, the agency heads and cabinet secretaries, are idiots. They're morons. They don't know what the hell they're doing. And that's, of course, that's all by design, because the number one priority for anybody that works in the Donald Trump White House is to be subservient to Donald Trump or one of his minions like Steve Miller or whoever.

[1:41] Anyway so you know it's getting it's getting hard to watch the news as we go on because these people are such idiots and then there was another one the uh agricultural secretary brook brook rollins uh gave a uh press conference or was part of a press conference in washington dc uh the other day. I think it was on Tuesday, July the 8th. And she was asked about mass deportations and amnesties within the farming industry. One of the areas has not been hit very hard yet is the agricultural industry that uses a lot of migrant workers, both documented and undocumented, to pick berries and nuts and vegetables, those kinds of commodities that machines can't do because they'll damage them, and then they'll look weird, and then they can't sell them. So they have to be picked by hand, and that's when they use farm workers.

[2:52] So she was asked about mass deportations and amnesties in the farming industry. And so I want you to hear, I can describe what she says, but you really need to hear it.

[3:06] You actually need to hear her say this. So I'm going to play this clip and it's real brief and then I'll talk about it. There's been a lot of noise in the last few days and a lot of questions about where the president stands and his vision for farm labor. The first thing I'll say is the president has been unequivocal that there will be no amnesty. And I think that's very, very important. I and the rest of our cabinet certainly support that, effectuate that and make sure that happens every single day. The second thing to your question about mass deportations, the president and I have spoken about that once or twice. And he has always been of the mindset that at the end of the day, the promise to America to ensure that we have a 100 percent American workforce stands, but we must be strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportation so as not to compromise our food supply. Ultimately, the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure. And then also, when you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America, but we just have to make sure we're not compromising today, especially in the context of everything we're thinking about right now. So no amnesty under any circumstances. Mass deportations continue, but in a strategic and intentional way as we move our workforce toward more automation and toward a 100 percent American workforce.

[4:31] So obviously she is the agricultural secretary. She does not know how the agricultural system works in the United States.

[4:40] The stuff that has been automated has already been automated. They even have self-driving tractors now that operate by GPS. Seeding and weeding is also done by automation. Not necessarily in the mom-and-pop farms, but in the corporate farms.

[5:03] There's one automation to pick almonds in California. They have this machine that shakes the tree vigorously, and then they're able to then scoop up the nuts that fall to the ground. But a lot of the things that get produced in the farm has to have farm labor to produce it. There is no easy way to automate that, or they would have done it already. You know, these farmers, they don't want to use cheap labor because that's still money that they're spending. They don't want to spend the money on the labor, especially they don't want to pay a living wage. You know, people are complaining about food prices now. But if Brooke Rollins' plan goes to fruition and actually takes place, food prices are just going to go through the roof. And I'll tell you why. One is all these farmers having to buy automation equipment. You know, they're not going to get any discounts.

[6:12] A tractor that's used in combine operations that pick corn, those tractors cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for one tractor. And then even smaller tractors that maybe are for smaller fields, they can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 for a tractor. They're not cheap.

[6:41] And so when she makes the comment about the Medicaid people, able-bodied Medicaid people working in the fields, well, she knows that that can't happen because it's in the Constitution. You cannot force somebody to work against their will. So that means that they would have to pay them money. And you think the farmers don't want to pay the crappy wages to undocumented immigrants. They're definitely not going to want to pay the full price for an American doing that job, because that American is going to demand a full living wage. The faster that they get in the fields, the faster you're going to hear union. And there's already a farm workers union. And they're going to demand health care. They're going to demand a living wage. You know, that's why farmers use undocumented people, because they can exploit them. They are not going to, even if they're supposedly Medicaid, people on Medicaid, they're not going to put up with it. They're not going to be exploited, you know, because they're not going to get, they don't have the threat of getting kicked out of the country. Even all this talk about them saying they're getting rid of birthright citizenship. You know, most Americans know that they're not going to get thrown out of the country if they refuse to work in the farm fields.

[8:09] And a majority, 90% of the people on Medicaid are not able-bodied. They're either children, disabled, or they're elderly and disabled. Because that's what it's for. It's for the people that fall through the cracks for other social safety net issues. That's why they have Medicaid. And so this whole idea, and this is just crappy, conservative thinking that they automatically assume that if you're on Medicaid, that you're gaming the system, that you're committing fraud. If you can stand up and you can walk and talk, you can work. And that's bullcrap because some people have disabilities that aren't readily visible. You could have a heart condition where you can't work because you'll have a heart attack and die.

[9:05] Or you might have mental issues. And that's what these people don't realize. And they just make this shit up and they talk about 100% American workforce. They are never going to get 100% American workforce if what they want to pay is slave wages to undocumented workers. They're just never going to do it. But I wanted to play that clip because I heard about it. Somebody had passed it on to me. And I did not believe that a cabinet secretary in the United States government said something stupid like that. And there's your proof.

[9:47] But that's par for the course for this administration. They don't know what they're doing. The people that are in charge are reality TV stars, Fox commentators. They have no business being in government and trying to control the government because, again, they have no idea what they're doing. For more information about any of the topics covered in this episode, check out our show notes at secularleft.us.

[10:20] One of the long-time battles in the war and separation of church and state, waged by the right-wingers, the Christian zealots, is over the Johnson Amendment. And for those that are not familiar, the Johnson Amendment is part of the IRS tax code governing 5013C charities. These are the groups that get tax exemptions. Churches and religious groups are under that. And one of the stipulations for getting a tax exemption from the IRS is that a 5013C recognized group is not allowed to endorse candidates or intervene in political campaigns. Now, naturally, that seems reasonable, right? You get a tax exemption from the federal government, then you should not use that in order to influence government.

[11:21] I am part of a 5013C group, and one of the things that we do is we do issue campaigning.

[11:32] We can talk about and lobby for issues, particular issues. There are still dollar amounts, or not dollar amounts, but percentages of resources that we're allowed to give to that. So our group can't, let's say, do voter right campaign 90% of the time, because then we would run afoul of the Johnson Amendment. Now, what some of these right-wing Christian nationalist groups want to do away with, they want to do away with it so that they can endorse candidates and launder campaign contributions through churches so they'll be tax deductible. It's obviously that's what they want to do. And they make a First Amendment claim that is violating the free speech, the pastor's free speech. And back when President Obama was in office, they did a number over several years called Pulpit Freedom Sundays, where some pastors, some evangelical pastors would actually violate the Johnson Amendment and report themselves to the IRS in order to create a case that would go to a court so that they get to Supreme Court to overturn that part of the tax. code. Of course, the problem was that the Johnson Amendment has not been enforced in decades.

[13:00] The last major time that it was enforced was against Bob Jones University back in the 70s, I think it was, when they had policies of their university that discriminated against African-Americans. And they lost their tax exemption. And then there's been off and on cases that have never been resolved. I know for a fact that during a recent state election, I reported a local church near me because they were having a campaign event for a candidate, and I never even got a response back from the IRS.

[13:44] Now, the IRS claims that they just don't have enough people to do that, and the priority is less. Their priority at the time, not so much now, their priority at the time was white-collar crimes and tax evasions and things like that. But churches violating the Johnson Amendment was low on the totem pole, so they were trying to balance their resources. Of course, they had also, during—they got in trouble for going after conservative groups and either slow rolling or delaying their tax exemptions because of the concern for domestic terrorism. And they got a lot of backlash. I think that might have been at the end of Obama's term. And so they backed off going after conservative groups.

[14:40] And so that's the thing, you know, the groups that I follow, like Americans United and American Human Association, they came out with these statements recently about the Johnson Amendment. And the reason why was that in a court filing, in a lawsuit, the current IRS, the Trump IRS, said that they said it was okay for pastors to tell their parishioners who to vote for as long as they did it as a sermon or in their usual communications, the church communications.

[15:20] And now if that was all that we had to worry about I don't see a problem with it that sounds like a reasonable carve out, because there are some free speech claims that kind of are valid in that regard, I don't think that the government should tell a pastor what he can and can't say, obviously just like they shouldn't tell anybody else what to say.

[15:49] But the problem that I see is the coordination. You're going to have these right-wing, mostly Republicans, are going to be partnering with these megachurches, and they're going to launder huge amounts of money to particular candidates. They're going to endorse particular candidates. And it's just going to make the church or people associated with that church just all nice and oily and sticky for getting involved with that stuff. And so I think it's bad for the churches. The other thing that's bad about it, about this carve-out that the IRS recently did, was that it only affects churches. It does not carry over to all 5013C groups. See, the Johnson Amendment applied to all 5013C groups. And churches now have a carve-out. Now, the reason why that is also a problem, besides laundering huge amounts of money through a church, is the churches are not required to report anything to the IRS.

[17:02] My group, we have to file a 990 every year. That goes into details who our contributors were, where the money went, how we spent the money, etc. Churches are not required to do that. In fact, that is one of the things. And also, churches automatically become tax-exempt. As soon as they incorporate as a church, they are automatically tax-exempt, according to the IRS. Other 5013C groups, we have to apply and pay several hundred dollars, and the process takes several months or even years to complete. So it's highly unfair that these pastors and preachers and ministers can get the tax exemption and endorse candidates, and the rest of us cannot. That is where it's unfair. I think if you're going to have a rule, you either enforce it or you get rid of it completely. And the right has tried to get rid of it for many years. And now it's possibly going to happen this time that they're actually going to be able to get rid of it.

[18:19] Hello, this is Doug, host of Secular Left, reminding you that I like to be validated. If you like this podcast and want to thank me, feel free to buy me a coffee. Go to buymeacoffee.com slash secularleft and donate some cash to help make this a better show and validate me as a person. You'll feel better in the morning.

[18:47] If you are a regular listener to this podcast, and if you are, thank you very much. Or if you're kind of familiar with a passing familiarity with the content that I do here, you know that I've been talking about Christian nationalism and the violations of separation of church and state that we see going on all the time. And one of the things that I am very much opposed to is enacting public policy and laws based on the Bible or religious thinking. I'm always the one that public policy and laws should be based on rational data, rational reasons for doing so, where you are hurting the least amount of people and helping the most amount of people. I don't believe in punishing people who are struggling.

[19:46] Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress, which has dominated, or at least a majority of Republicans.

[19:55] Passed President Trump's tax cuts, which in order to pay for them, they are cutting Medicaid and food stamps and environmental stuff and a whole host of other social justice issues. Priorities they are cutting in order to give people with the least amount to lose tax cuts.

[20:22] Now, I don't need to go into an economic discussion about this.

[20:27] There's been studies done over the last 50 years that show that no tax cut bill passed in Congress has ever generated jobs or revenue. There is no trickle down when you start cutting the social safety net. In fact, you just make people worse off, which means they are more of a burden on society. So I'm not going to talk about the economics of it, because that's just pretty obvious. But what I am going to do is I want to talk to you about a person who has the ear of many top Republicans in the Congress and in the White House. His name is Pastor Ralph Drollinger. He is the founder and leader of Capital Ministries, C-A-P-I-T-O-L. So it's like the U.S. Capitol. And what he provides, the service that he provides, are Bible study classes for congresspeople, senators.

[21:37] Cabinet members, agency heads. And he performs them regularly. And so he did a Bible study where basically the title of the study guide was God's Design for a Societal Safety Net.

[22:00] And Pastor Drollinger took it upon himself to teach to the senators, because what I'm going to talk about is the Bible class that he gave for senators, that God opposes government helping the poor.

[22:20] And so I know some of my more liberal people, liberal Christians, people with more liberal religious beliefs will be gobsmacked about that. And so basically what it is, is there's a study guide called God's Design for a Societal Safety Net. And in it, he says, in the study, the rich and the poor, I touched on God's design for a societal safety net as it pertains to how to best help the poor. In doing so, under the point in the outline, I reference this study and what follows, which is more biblically in-depth treatment of the subject. And then he goes on to suggest several, well, actually the count is seven, seven New Testament passages regarding the construction of a societal safety net. And I'm sure you'll be surprised to know that government is not involved in any of this.

[23:22] And so he just starts spouting out. Now, the first thing I want, you know, I'm reading this study guide. I am an atheist.

[23:30] I've had some Bible, not training, but, you know, I used to be religious. I used to go to church. I used to read the Bible. I don't do any of that now. But I think I still have more of an idea about the Bible than this guy does, and he's a pastor. because they're using it to manipulate the government. And when you use the religion to manipulate the government, you're violating the separation of church and state. And especially if you're being a hypocrite because you're lying about it.

[24:02] So he starts out in the very beginning, he says, a caveat is in order before plunging into the following passages that serve to inform us regarding the mind of God on this matter. It is important to approach this discussion only through the lens of the New Testament, because God has clearly separated the institution of civil government from any and all sacerdotal responsibilities in the time in which we live, per the clear instruction of Jesus in Matthew 22, 21. Such was not the case with the Old Testament. This is a critical distinction to make since many liberal theologians who are pro-government entitlement programs use the Old Testament as the proof text. Well, Pastor Dollinger is wrong, according to a consensus of biblical scholars. And so, basically, he states that the New Testament doesn't require government to help the poor, and the Old Testament does, but they can be ignored.

[25:05] And like I said, the biblical consensus is that neither point is true. The Bible does call for helping the poor and also calls to obedience to the government, which Reverend Pastor Dollinger kind of oversteps.

[25:26] And so what is the pastor's agenda? Well, basically, it's the old standby conservative politicians look that the government should not be helping the poor. And they have a herical order of God's societal safety net. Number one, the meeting of one's own needs. That means personal responsibility. Number two, the institution of the family. That means if you need help, your family should help you. Number three, the institution of marriage, which means that you should be married and your spouse will help you. And then finally, the catch-all at the end, if all those fall through, is the church. And this is just standard conservative political rhetoric that you should help yourself. You shouldn't be dependent on the government. The government shouldn't help you. Your family should help you. And then if not, then the church.

[26:36] And then the problem with that is that the reason why we have many of our societal safety nets, for example, Social Security, is because there was not any infrastructure to help people who were struggling before the 1930s. Because you were expected to help yourself or have your family help you, or if not, then the church or some other charity. And that was breaking down. One of the impetuses of creating Social Security back in the 1930s was how bad the Depression was for elderly people who had no families. They were basically living in shack. They weren't able to work. They might have had disabilities, health issues. And many of them died because they had no help.

[27:35] And people thought, you know, we should use some tax dollars and put together a program and at least give these people money to basically live so that they can be on their own. And we know that they're going to get healthy, they're going to take care of their health, and they're going to be able to eat and hopefully live in a decent place. The same with Medicare. That's why Medicare was created, so that people, particularly elderly people and the disabled, could get help that wasn't provided for in the community. You know, the community has limited resources, okay? Think of it, this is how I explain it to some people sometimes, is that think of the federal government as, let's say, Kroger's. And think of your community as mom and pop stores.

[28:35] Now, the reason why some place like Kroger or Walmart or any of those other large grocery stores can provide the selection that they do for the price that they do is because they're able to purchase in bulk. They have the resources to do that. Mom and Pop store has trouble competing against some place like Kroger because they're not able to get those economies of scale is what they call it. So what the federal government does is in providing the social safety net is it's an economy of scale so that you can spend a few billion dollars and help hundreds of millions, you know, hundreds of people, millions of people. I know in Ohio, if the Medicaid cuts take place, roughly 500,000 people probably will lose their health insurance. and that is to give Jeff Bezos of Amazon a tax cut. You know, he's one of the richest men in the world and he needs a tax cut when he hasn't been paying his fair share of taxes anyway.

[29:44] So that's why it's better for the government to provide charity than it is for to depend on the community because of that economy of scale. You know, I know that they don't do it today, but when I was a kid, we were on public assistance. My family's on public assistance. And one of the things that the government provided was government cheese.

[30:13] And they also provided government peanut butter and honey. I think honey was another one and dried milk. And basically, these were commodities that the government purchased from farmers to subsidize the farmers because their prices were tanking at the time. And they would buy up this product to raise the prices and give the farmers a better income. Then they would transfer these commodities to states and local food banks and welfare offices to distribute to people.

[30:51] So we would show up, I think when I was a kid, we used to go to the Salvation Army in Finley and have to stand in line and we had to prove that we were poor. We had to show our, how much we were making, or I think they even had, some people had a card. And then they would give us a block of cheese, five pounds of cheese and dried milk and honey and anything else that they had. And they would do this for everybody. Now, that's the economy of scale. A local community could not do that. If you check some of these churches where they have food banks, this is food that's being donated. That means their parishioners are buying it, and then they're taking it and donating it to the church. So they're limited. There's only a limited number of parishioners that could do that. A federal government could supply that food bank with a semi-truck. Anyway, I kind of went off on a little tangent there, but what I was trying to do was talk about this Pastor Dollinger in D.C., and he does this thing.

[32:03] Well, this guy on Substack, his name is Jonathan Larson, did a whole article about it. I encourage you, I've got the link to it in the show notes. And the title for his article is Tuesday's Senate Bible Lesson, God Opposes Government Helping the Poor. And it details this study guide. You can download it. And then he also goes and counters a lot of the stuff that this guy says. And a lot of it is stuff that's been refuted for years.

[32:41] The main thing where he talked about that Drollinger's proof that God created man to work, Drollinger writes in his June 27th guide, quote, The biblical pattern is for a person to work hard. Genesis 2.15 states the concept that hard work has always been his intent for those whom he created in his image. Then the Lord took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. This verse shares God's original design for man. God wants him to be responsible for cultivating and keeping or maintaining the earth. Now, you could take that and say, interpret it to mean for environmental support. To taking care of environmental concerns. But in a video earlier this month, Drollinger said that when it's environmental concerns, then it's no longer humanity's job. Like God's really not in charge of the environment and we have to do that for him. So basically, Jonathan Larson points out how hypocritical these religious extremists can be is they cherry pick Bible verses that prove their point. Then when you say, well, if you interpret it this way, it means this, then they say, no, that's not true. They just dismiss it.

[34:04] So what I wanted to do is I wanted to play a clip. This isn't from this study thing, but it is Drollinger talking about what he teaches these political people. It says it's from the Right Wing Watch from back in March. It says Pastor Ralph Drollinger is leading Right Wing Bible studies on Capitol Hill. And in this clip, he talks about, I think it's four categories of the devil. I think he's talking about that he's railing against when he does these Bible studies. And I want you to take particular note of the first category that he mentions. So here's the clip. Oh, and I should also inform you that it may include dehumanizing rhetoric, calls for discrimination or violence, misinformation, or other harmful language. It's basically bigoted language. and it is not our words. It is Pastor Ralph Drollinger and I have a link to the video in the show notes. But I just want to warn you, you might want to skip over if you don't want to hear him talking because this is just wild. And then we'll come back. I'll be teaching this study to the Senate members on Tuesday morning. I have about 15 Senate members in our Bible study. And then on Wednesday morning, I'll be teaching it to the White House cabinet.

[35:31] Our first study back, we had 14 cabinet members and 10 different governors zooming in for that Bible study. And then on Thursday morning, I teach the house member Bible study. So this is what they can download is what are the schemes of the devil. And I can think of four broad categories. One of the schemes of the devil is in a broad sense under the category one of four of secular humanism. And that would include the battle for same-sex marriage, homosexuality.

[36:01] Gender neutrality, abortion, the women's lib movement, the new woke morality. These are all secular, humanistic, I'll say cauterized consciences approach to what's right and wrong in culture, which goes against what we know from Romans 1 in our own unaffected conscience that God gives us. And then the second category would be false religions. Another scheme of the devil is not just secular humanism, but false religions, like a work-based Christianity, where certain, we'll call them churches, quote-unquote, teach that it's not just by faith alone and Christ alone, by his grace alone. You have to add your own personal works in order to be saved. Well, once you get into that, you're running cross-grain to what Paul said to the church at Galatia, which was affected by the Judaizers who were preaching Christ plus Old Testament. 10 commandments type stuff in order to be saved. And then Paul reasons in Galatians that the law has only been a tutor from the start to lead us to Christ. It shows us our bankruptcy. It was never intended to save us. Another false religion would be Islam, where you've got to give your life for God's approval.

[37:23] Whether biblical Christianity is where God gives his life to you, Islam's just the opposite, and it's a rank religion that spreads itself by the sword. And then there's liberal Christianity, which isn't Christianity whatsoever, but it's the social gospelers who say, and they wear the same name on their shirt sleeve, this is one of Satan's schemes, but people who hold to a social gospel, theological liberalism, are not Christians whatsoever, but they'll come across like they are. But when you start examining their bibliology or any other doctrine of Scripture, you can see that it's contrary to what the Bible teaches. And then the third major category would be political ideologies, and we've already talked a little about that. There's political parties that will tie themselves to certain ideologies that are not tethered to Scripture. And so that's the scheme of the devil, is to empower political parties to promulgate political thought or political solutions that are contrary to scripture, which lead a culture to bankruptcy.

[38:35] So if you didn't skip over it, or maybe if you did skip over what he was talking about, as he notes, in the first category of the devil, it's secular humanism. And he talks about because we support same-sex marriage, he says homosexual rights. Well, it's LGBT rights, gender identity, and woke stuff.

[39:04] And so, and that's old. That's like from the 80s. This guy went to Bible school in the 80s. He He played professional basketball, believe it or not, for one season in 1980, and then he went to Bible school. So he's learning this 1980s version of secular humanism. I mean, we support all that stuff, but to call us out as being evil and work of the devil, that is so 1980s.

[39:37] Now, the other thing I wanted to point out about this is this Capitol Ministries just isn't in D.C. Of course not, because a lot of these extremists, they like to percolate through the country and through the world. On their website, they proudly proclaim that they have Bible studies in almost all of the state capitals in the United States. And I did look it up, and yes, they do have one in Ohio, down in Columbus. It's run by two pastors, and basically they get free reign into the statehouse to have these Bible studies. Yeah, the pastors that are leading the Bible studies in Ohio is Pastor Brian Hanson and Pastor Brian Solomon. Now, the interesting thing is this was founded, the ministry in Columbus was founded in 2016, and our good buddy, the Reverend Gary Click, wrote a very nice thank you to them that they feature on their website.

[40:49] And so he says, even though I'm a pastor, you know, sometimes I like to be fed, even though I should be feeding other people, whatever that means. I don't know whether, I don't, I, yeah, that's how these people talk. But the interesting note too, is they had a thing from back in May. Brian Solomon had a, a brain bleed and he ended up in the hospital and they had to perform surgery on him. But of course they kind of sugar coat that part of it. And they talk about how everybody prayed for him and that worked.

[41:30] So it's good. You know, I don't like to see people get hurt, but it's just interesting that that happened to him. And so, like I said, this capital ministry, they're pretty much in every state except for Michigan. Michigan hasn't had one yet. Massachusetts doesn't. New Jersey doesn't. And ironically, Kentucky or Tennessee does not. Huh. And we know why Utah doesn't, because that's run by the Mormons.

[42:00] But, yeah, it's just interesting that Kentucky and Tennessee does not have one. Huh. I wonder what that's about. Anyway, so I just wanted to talk about this and explain how this works, how these religious extremists work, and how they misinform and try to justify hurting people, especially struggling people that need the help. Because just think of it. who decides if somebody is lazy and won't work so they shouldn't eat? Because that's one of the Bible quotes that they say. The biblical people that I read that talked about it said that it could mean the idle rich because they don't work. And that's how that works. But most of these pastors, they just turn it around and ignore that interpretation. And that's all it is. The Bible is always open to interpretation. It was written by people over a millennia or a couple of millennias in different languages and different agendas and things like that. So they claim it's the word of God until you interpret it the way they don't like it, and then they say that you are getting it wrong. So I just wanted to point that out and keep an eye out for this Capital Ministries, and I'll keep an eye out for it, too.

[43:28] Thank you for listening to this episode. You can check out more information, including links to sources used, in our show notes on our website at secularleft.us. Secular Left is hosted, written, and produced by Doug Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content. Send us your comments, either using the contact form on the website, or by sending us a note at comments at secularleft.us. Our theme music is Dank and Nasty, composed using.

[44:11] Music.