While The Rest Of Us Die 2x7

1. A nation supposedly founded on

2. the separation of church and state.

3. We break and divide every demonic confederacy against the

4. election, against America, against that who you have

5. declared to be in the White House.

6. It's outlined right in the Constitution.

7. I don't care what you think about fraudulent, sleepy Joe.

8. He's a sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel.

9. But that separation is vanishing

10. in new and dangerous ways.

11. We have a responsibility to preserve the foundations,

12. and they are religion and morality.

13. And we have to preserve them in public life.

14. What was once a simple money grab by

15. a few unscrupulous charlatans...

16. Whatever you do right now, don't you stop tithing.

17. I just need more! I just need more!

18. has become a coordinated accumulation of wealth

19. and political power...

20. Preachers began basing their sermons around

21. economic and political matters.

22. Backed by guns and ammunition...

23. We need to stock up, team up and train up

24. like we've never done before.

25. To reshape the country.

26. God, country, constitution,

27. second amendment and homeschooling.

28. I think it is fair to use the 'F' word: "fascism."

29. It's a radical movement, that thinks the only votes

30. that are legitimate are those that support them.

31. Fight for Trump!

32. While those who still believe in that separation of

33. church and state... be damned.

34. God bless, America.

35. For over 70 years, our leaders have told us one thing

36. under the bright lights...

37. The protection of the lives and property of Americans

38. is the responsibility of all public officials.

39. I care, we're trying.

40. We have it so well under control.

41. Help is here and we will not stop working for you.

42. But for decades, America's shadow government and its

43. powerful friends have spent trillions of dollars on an

44. agenda that serves their interests, not ours.

45. You guys paid for all this.

46. So, when the shit really hits the fan, we're on our own.

47. This is not science fiction.

48. This is reality in America right now.

49. The truth is, the rich and powerful will do

50. whatever it takes to save themselves...

51. While The Rest of Us Die.

52. You only have to open your eyes to witness how the teachings of

53. Jesus Christ have inspired millions to help their fellow

54. Americans, both materially and spiritually.

55. Our Goal is to serve the community and,

56. we just praise the Lord for all the opportunity he's giving us.

57. But in this nation first founded by persecuted Christians,

58. members of that same faith have used their beliefs

59. to justify the persecution of others.

60. It's right there in the founding documents of

61. one of America's largest churches.

62. If you go back, they're defending slavery on biblical

63. grounds and they're calling the ownership of other human beings

64. as part of their sacred rights and privileges.

65. That actually provides a moral frame and actually

66. fuel to the fire that leads to the, to the secession

67. of the southern states.

68. The endorsement of slavery by many prominent churches

69. helped create an enormous wealth gap.

70. Families that owned human beings were, on average,

71. 14 times richer than families that did not.

72. The social and economic impact on the African American

73. descendants of slaves would continue

74. generation after generation.

75. But in 1954, the Supreme Court issues a ruling that

76. many hope will begin to shrink the gap.

77. 2, 4, 6, 8! We don't want to integrate!

78. Brown vs. Board of Education begins

79. desegregating schools across the country,

80. opening the doors to better funded,

81. once whites-only public schools to Black students.

82. In the South, the ruling is seen as a direct threat

83. to the racist power structure.

84. Education cannot thrive in a climate such as what would

85. result from the mixture of races in a public school.

86. I have said in every county in Mississippi that no school in

87. our state will be integrated while I am your governor.

88. In response, southern white elites band together to form

89. what are known as "white citizens councils".

90. The mission: block any form of advancement of Blacks...

91. by any means necessary.

92. White citizens councils were made up of some of the south's

93. most prominent politicians, judges, police,

94. and religious leaders.

95. Some are members of the historic Southern

96. Baptist Church whose preachings helped justify

97. this racist ideology in the south for more than a century.

98. I believe that we stand on the verge of a historic moment!

99. The most famous southern Baptist preacher

100. is Billy Graham.

101. I have no power to forgive anybody.

102. I have no power to change anybody.

103. A national celebrity who fills stadiums with devotees hanging

104. on his every word. An even larger audience

105. watches him on TV at home.

106. There will come a day when men's hearts are

107. literally going to fail them because of fear!

108. In the early 60s, another religious leader

109. is also garnering a mass following.

110. One day right down in Alabama little Black boys and

111. Black girls will be able to join hands with little

112. white boys and white girls, as sisters and brothers.

113. I have a dream today.

114. After the march on Washington in August of 1963,

115. Billy Graham was asked to comment on the march.

116. He said: "It will only be in heaven that little Black

117. children will walk hand in hand with little white children".

118. And so, in Graham's theology, these are things that

119. we couldn't hope for on this earth because

120. the problem was too big to be solved.

121. And that is the way that white evangelicals thought about

122. social action and political action in the 1960s.

123. They should be praying. They should not be marching.

124. They should not be engaged in civil disobedience.

125. Don't ever say it's a white man's religion,

126. or a Black man's religion. It's a world religion!

127. The battle for civil rights, led by the Reverend

128. Martin Luther King Jr. and other Black ministers,

129. is largely waged from the pulpits.

130. But few southern white evangelical leaders

131. join the fight.

132. It is very hard for people to call Billy Graham a racist.

133. But the fact of the matter is, Billy Graham,

134. like many white male evangelicals of his day,

135. felt that white men should be in power before other people.

136. When you read people like James Baldwin or Martin Luther King,

137. they're just mystified at why white Christian churches

138. aren't standing up on the side of civil rights.

139. King openly calls on his white, religious counterparts to act.

140. Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham jail

141. is just dripping with this.

142. He's writing that letter as he's sitting in jail for

143. demonstrating for civil rights to the so-called moderate

144. leaders in Birmingham. And he says:

145. "Who are these white Christians, sitting safely behind their

146. anesthetizing stained - glass windows"?

147. Many southern pastors were affiliated with

148. segregated religious schools.

149. People like Bob Jones and, he went so far as to call

150. segregation "God's established order".

151. Like churches and other religious organizations,

152. these private, mostly whites only schools

153. were exempt from paying federal taxes.

154. But many Americans begin to publicly question why.

155. One of the key issues was concern that racially

156. segregated academies, religious schools would

157. have their tax privileges taken away from them.

158. The Internal Revenue Service proposed to make

159. private schools prove that they are not practicing

160. racial discrimination or lose their tax-exempt status.

161. So, all these pastors, you know, they got together.

162. They were really concerned, and they felt like they had

163. a right to segregate people by skin color, but also,

164. to receive tax exemptions.

165. But by the 1970s,

166. America is becoming a more inclusive country.

167. Overt racists find themselves shunned.

168. Their beliefs mocked by mainstream culture.

169. I think that, I mean, if God had meant us to be together,

170. he'd have put us together. But look what he done.

171. He put you over in Africa.

172. He put the rest of us in all white countries.

173. So, in the summer of 1979,

174. at a hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia,

175. a group of influential religious and conservative leaders,

176. including Jerry Falwell, Paul Weyrich and

177. former Nixon aide, Howard Phillips,

178. meet in secret to strategize on how white evangelicals could

179. protect their agenda against the rising tide of inclusion.

180. They knew the "stop the tax and segregation" wasn't

181. really gonna be a very appealing rallying cry for

182. this new movement that they wanted to ignite.

183. They sort of went down a laundry list of issues that

184. they thought might sort of ignite a hyper-conservative

185. counter-revolution. When they got to abortion,

186. it was almost like a light bulb went off.

187. And they were like, huh, that could work.

188. This is like around 6 years after

189. Roe v. Wade was passed.

190. The majority in cases from Texas and Georgia said that the

191. decision to end the pregnancy during the first three months

192. belongs to the woman and her doctor, not the government.

193. When Roe versus Wade was passed,

194. most Protestant Republicans supported it.

195. The Southern Baptist Convention had passed resolutions in

196. 1971 and 1974, affirming liberalization of abortion law.

197. Ronald Reagan passed the most liberal abortion law in 1967.

198. It's like really amazing to think about that now.

199. They used the abortion issue to sort of unite that new movement.

200. What single issue could say more about society's values

201. than the degree of respect shown for human life at its

202. most vulnerable, human life still unborn.

203. Your membership and belonging really hinges on that issue.

204. But it's really, it's a modern creation.

205. And it was created for political purposes.

206. Under Reagan, the Republican Party,

207. historically concerned with tax cuts for the wealthy and

208. corporations, uses the right to life as political camouflage.

209. And soon, the GOP solidifies the working class

210. white parishioners of evangelical leaders

211. as its new loyal base.

212. Four more years! Four more years!

213. And so, over time, these pro-choice voices

214. were purged from the Republican Party.

215. What we see today is almost a new religion,

216. a pro-life religion.

217. The evangelical movement's elites are now kingmakers

218. delivering state and presidential elections to the

219. politicians willing to protect their new religious benefactors.

220. Thank you and God bless you!

221. And just as the 60s saw church leaders playing a

222. transformative role on both sides of the social upheavals,

223. the so-called "Greed Decade" of the 1980s will see a new style

224. of Christian preacher transform the relationship some

225. Christian Americans have with their church.

226. - The blessing has landed.

227. So, I'm just telling you what I believe God told me to tell you.

228. You don't like it, talk to the boss!

229. Evangelicals take to the airwaves

230. to deliver a new gospel.

231. I just need more!

232. And it will deliver unto them a new kind of political strength.

233. You can't defeat me! You cannot defeat a child of God!

234. Say it like you mean it.

235. We've all seen the gospel as preached on television...

236. You may gain some material things,

237. but what if you lose with God? He controls the universe!

238. Joel Osteen has a $10 million mansion,

239. practically across the street from his $3 million mansion.

240. Jesse Duplantis, in 2018,

241. asked his followers to buy him a $50 million jet.

242. You know, I've owned three different jets in my life.

243. And I use them and just burning them up

244. for the Lord Jesus Christ.

245. Kenneth Copeland and his partner, Gloria,

246. are worth upwards of $700 million,

247. and use their private jets to go to

248. big game ranches and ski resorts.

249. This is a preaching machine.

250. Wealthy televangelists flaunting their possessions,

251. as a sign of God's bountifulness, is not new.

252. You actually have televangelists at this point,

253. who are competing with one another over who can live

254. the most glamorous lifestyles.

255. But these modern-day, ultra - rich TV preachers aren't

256. just interested in acquiring more and more money...

257. You understand what I'm saying?

258. Whatever you do right now, don't you stop tithing.

259. They are also interested in the political influence

260. that money can buy.

261. There has always been tithing: giving money to your church

262. or temple to help others less fortunate.

263. But in the 1980s, as cable television delivered

264. hundreds of channels into people's homes,

265. it created an opportunity for a new kind of church.

266. From coast to coast, live via satellite...

267. it's time to praise the lord!

268. For these evangelicals of the airwaves,

269. tithing was something you did to help yourself.

270. What you give to God, God returns to you a hundred-fold.

271. A believer in prosperity gospel means that God

272. essentially is a glorified piñata.

273. And if you strike at heaven long enough,

274. riches and wealth will come tumbling down.

275. It dovetails with the ethos of the 1980s,

276. and the ways in which media put out a lifestyle.

277. So, if we think about television shows like Dynasty...

278. If the champagne is too burned for your taste,

279. Miss. Devereaux, don't drink it.

280. The caviar, I trust, is not burned.

281. I really wouldn't know. This is Osetrova,

282. and I prefer Petrossian beluga.

283. That had a connection, believe it or not,

284. to the ways in which Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker,

285. were living, with air-conditioned dog houses.

286. And all of this promoted a lifestyle of God and wealth.

287. If all the demons in hell and all the bureaucrats in the world

288. could stop me from building when I go to heaven,

289. he'd let me work on mansions.

290. If that pastor is driving around in a Rolls-Royce and

291. flying a private jet, his wealth is a sign of

292. how much God wants you to be rich.

293. This is pretty transparently a con.

294. You can't defeat me. You cannot defeat a child of God!

295. Congregants of prosperity ministries were told to give to

296. God, but to send their money to the preacher's address.

297. Failure to give enough was seemingly the only sin

298. for which you'd be punished.

299. What keeps people in the pews in prosperity gospel churches

300. is a sick downward spiral.

301. You think if you give more, then you're gonna get more.

302. If you don't get more, you're chastised by your pastor to

303. give more because you aren't giving enough.

304. And so, for many people,

305. they don't know how to break out of that cycle.

306. If you're wealthy, you're one of God's chosen.

307. If you're poor, you're part of the sinful masses.

308. It's a message viewers at home would hear again and again.

309. You need to make a vow of faith of $1000.

310. "Oh, Bob, couldn't you say 25?" No!

311. I don't understand why, but there's something happens

312. at a level... where people step into faith and give

313. $1000 that don't happen at other levels.

314. You're going to have a breakthrough...

315. through this $273 seed.

316. By the 1990's, the most egregious of the cable TV

317. prosperity ministers had been brought down for

318. preying on their parishioners.

319. Swaggart is stepping down from his powerful TV ministry while

320. the Assembly of God Church investigates him for having

321. an affair with a prostitute.

322. I have sinned against you, my lord.

323. Their fall from grace was a wakeup call to other,

324. more mainstream preachers to seek salvation not just

325. from God, but protection against the laws of man

326. from elected officials.

327. Historians write about the Regan administration,

328. what do you want them to say?

329. I guess maybe just that I helped perpetuate

330. this great American dream.

331. In the new century,

332. prosperity ministries made a comeback on TV.

333. One of my chandeliers costs more than most people's house.

334. I got more than 22 chandeliers in the house.

335. But media reports raised questions about whether these

336. preachers were paying their fair share to the government.

337. All of it is tax exempt, but should it be?

338. In 2007, prosperity gospel preachers were investigated by

339. a senate judiciary committee led by a Republican,

340. Chuck Grassley.

341. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa sent letters to six well-known

342. TV churches across the country, requesting financial records

343. on compensation, expenses and amenities,

344. including use of fancy cars and private jets that would

345. violate non-profit status under the tax code.

346. Investigators are digging into whether ministry resources are

347. being diverted into an array of for-profit companies.

348. They thought, "Are these pastors taking advantage of

349. their status just to enrich themselves"?

350. Creflo Dollar, one of the prosperity preachers named by

351. Grassley's committee, defended his church.

352. I just believe that the people that make an investment into

353. the ministry should be the primary ones that we respond to

354. and that we open our books up and we're transparent to,

355. versus the watchdog people.

356. And there was such an outcry, at the time,

357. against these pastors getting investigated at all.

358. He has the right to have what he has.

359. This is America.

360. You are able to drive what you want to drive,

361. live where you want to live.

362. The committee pulled back, and they said, "Well,

363. we encourage these pastors to, you know, self-reform".

364. Grassley had given the ministries a month

365. to respond to the committee's questions.

366. His requests were all but ignored,

367. but some in the media continued to press the issue.

368. How much did you pay for Tyler Perry's

369. gulf stream jet, for example?

370. Well, for example, that's really none of your business, but...

371. Isn't it the business of your donors?

372. I think what's troubling is, not just that they're taking

373. advantage of their followers, but they're taking advantage of

374. the rest of us through their public subsidies

375. and tax exemptions.

376. In exchange for their lucrative tax-exempt status,

377. religious institutions are supposedly constrained by

378. The Johnson Amendment, which prohibits non-profit

379. organizations from endorsing partisan political candidates.

380. But as the wealth of these churches grew,

381. their leaders saw the value in using some of their

382. parishioner-supplied wealth to exercise the political power

383. needed to protect themselves.

384. They're not just having these sort of tax-exempt entities and

385. lack of transparency for a means of amassing these fortunes,

386. but also engaging in partisan politics at the same time.

387. Prosperity Gospel is now talking about elections

388. as a matter of demonic influence.

389. Democrats winning is a matter of satanic influence.

390. You can hear it in the televised sermons.

391. We break and divide every demonic confederacy against

392. the election, against America, against that who you have

393. declared to be in the White House.

394. The media said Joe Biden's president.

395. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!

396. Using all the powers of that con, that money con,

397. to now put into play as a power con.

398. But could this power of the pulpit provide

399. religious leaders protection from even

400. the darkest allegations?

401. Ask the Catholic Church.

402. You may not like who I am, as much as you like

403. who you think I am.

404. During John F. Kennedy's

405. run for the presidency in 1960...

406. many believed his Catholic faith would make him unelectable.

407. Anti-Catholicism was widespread,

408. forcing the candidate to face it head on.

409. The question is whether I think that if I were elected

410. president, I would be divided between

411. two loyalties - my church and my state.

412. Let me just say that I would not.

413. Kennedy was able to overcome worries about him

414. being a puppet of Rome.

415. But in his home state of Massachusetts,

416. where nearly half the population identifies as Catholic,

417. the church exerted exactly the kind of political influence

418. Kennedy denied existed.

419. For decades, the Catholic leadership could act with near

420. impunity, with little to fear from elected officials.

421. When it comes to holding power to account,

422. the Boston Globe's Michael Rezendes knew there was

423. no greater power in the city than the one

424. wielded by the Catholic church.

425. The city of Boston was the most Catholic city

426. in the United States. And also,

427. Boston was really a collection of Catholic ethnic,

428. blue-collar people, who really revered the Catholic Church.

429. The legislature responded to the Catholic Church

430. whenever it wanted something.

431. Or whenever it sought to block something.

432. Something the Globe's investigative team, Spotlight,

433. learned when it began looking into a lawsuit against

434. Father John Geoghan, a former Boston Priest who was suspected

435. of sexually abusing nearly 150 young boys over decades.

436. In a civil lawsuit, there is a process, known as discovery,

437. when both sides turn over the evidence that

438. they've accumulated, that they may use at trial.

439. But all of these documents were sealed by the court,

440. at the request of the Boston Archdiocese.

441. The head of the Archdiocese was one of the most powerful men

442. in Boston, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law,

443. was also a media savvy, charismatic figure.

444. You may not like who I am, as much as you

445. like who you think I am.

446. Cardinal Law was a very, very influential prelate.

447. Not only in the Archdiocese of Boston,

448. but all over the United States.

449. And he often hoped that he would become the first pope

450. from the United States of America.

451. Cardinal Law was friendly with the Reagan administration,

452. played a role in the fact that Ronald Reagan won

453. the state of Massachusetts twice.

454. Cardinal Law was especially close to

455. George Herbert Walker Bush. They had a friendship,

456. just really understood how to play politics.

457. Cardinal Law's imposing presence helped the church

458. remain off-limits to the city's investigative journalists.

459. But in 2001, a new editor at the Globe authorized the

460. Spotlight team to dig deeper into the

461. Father John Geoghan case.

462. So, the first thing we did, we just call all our sources

463. and asked them if they knew anything about

464. the issue of clergy sex abuse.

465. And pretty quickly, we came up with the notion that there was

466. more than one bad priest. That there were other John Geoghans.

467. But they needed more than a notion.

468. They needed proof. Enter Phil Saviano of

469. the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

470. For Saviano, it was personal.

471. I was...

472. sexually assaulted.

473. I don't know.

474. I remember 5 or 6 times, specifically.

475. Mostly when I was 12 years old.

476. The priest came to town on a new assignment.

477. And the fact that I lived in the neighborhood and that

478. I was the newspaper boy, put me in contact

479. with this priest quite a bit.

480. Saviano had spent years cataloguing his own story and

481. amassing evidence from other survivors.

482. Phil showed up in the Spotlight office.

483. And he had a box of material for us to read.

484. Several books, newspaper articles, magazine articles.

485. One of the things in his box was a disc,

486. And the disc contained expert testimony in a clergy sex abuse

487. case from Texas, estimated that only about half of

488. all practicing priests were celibate.

489. Of that number, 6% of priests were having sex with children.

490. Could the same be true of priests in Boston?

491. The answer came from the church's own documents.

492. The Boston Archdiocese, like many other diocese,

493. publish a annual directory of clergy.

494. So, you can look up a particular priest and

495. see where he's been assigned.

496. A lot of priests had assignments that...

497. we didn't really understand.

498. Like some priests were assigned to "emergency response".

499. Some were "sick leave". Some were "on loan".

500. And eventually, we got the notion that maybe these kind of

501. strange assignments were euphemisms for priests

502. who'd been accused of clergy sex abuse and

503. had been put on the shelf.

504. So, we came to understand that, "emergency response",

505. meant that a priest was confined to the rectory.

506. "Sick leave," often meant that a priest had been

507. assigned to a facility for abusive priests.

508. So, all of these euphemisms,

509. we decided to put them all together in one database.

510. If 6% of clergy were having sex with children,

511. 6% in the Boston Archdiocese would have translated

512. to 90 priests. And that, in fact,

513. was about the number that turned up in our database

514. after we'd been through the church directories.

515. They had a smoking gun. The pattern was clear.

516. Then, another breakthrough.

517. The Globe is successful in lifting the confidentiality

518. order on the church's sealed documents.

519. And the documents were released to the public,

520. showing that Cardinal Law, and his bishops,

521. all knew that John Geoghan was a serial pedophile and

522. had molested more than 150 children,

523. over 30 years in 6 different parishes.

524. We learned through the Spotlight investigation that

525. there are a number of cases that police knew about.

526. But they brought the cases to Cardinal Law,

527. and he convinced them not to tell anybody.

528. To keep it quiet.

529. It took Spotlight's tireless investigation to finally

530. overcome the church's power to protect its own.

531. Today, the thousands of documents once confidential

532. both illustrate and underlined the mistake and tragedy.

533. We kept writing stories.

534. We kept finding allegations against more abusive priests.

535. And finally, Cardinal Law resigned

536. on December 13th of 2002.

537. In 2017, Cardinal Law died in Rome at the age of 86.

538. But the sex-abuse scandal that he came to symbolize

539. persists to this day.

540. The Catholic church in America alone has now paid something

541. like $4 billion to the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

542. This is a very deep problem within the Catholic church.

543. A problem the church saw a solution to in 2020.

544. Rezendes was reporting for the Associated Press when news of

545. the federal government's pandemic relief,

546. Paycheque Protection Program

547. was announced by President Trump.

548. I asked Congress to pass the Paycheque Protection Program,

549. giving small businesses emergency economic relief.

550. For many Catholic parishes, this program,

551. designed to help struggling businesses make payroll at the

552. height of the pandemic, was heaven sent.

553. We know that President Trump met with more than 600

554. Catholic officials in a teleconference situation.

555. And during this meeting, President Trump explained that

556. they were all gonna be eligible for the paycheck

557. protection program. And he also reminded everyone

558. that we were approaching an election.

559. And what we noted is that a lot of the dioceses that had made

560. big payments to survivors, in some cases dioceses that

561. had filed for bankruptcy, they were awarded

562. paycheck protection funds that allowed them to

563. essentially replenish their coffers.

564. This story and many other stories by many other reporters

565. really do reflect the enduring power of the Catholic church.

566. Someday, the Associated Press won't exist.

567. Someday, The Boston Globe won't exist.

568. But the Catholic church will endure.

569. Religious institutions have long wielded their political

570. influence through generally accepted democratic norms.

571. But some evangelical leaders have taken a decidedly

572. anti-democratic approach to gaining power.

573. How many of our Christians want everybody to vote?

574. I don't want everybody to vote.

575. At stake is the very soul of our nation.

576. Barrett is a devout Catholic who's taken conservative

577. stances on abortion, gun rights, and immigration.

578. The human rights campaign has called her a, quote,

579. "absolute threat to LGBTQ rights".

580. October 2020.

581. The Senate is set to debate the third Supreme Court Justice

582. President Trump will place on the court...

583. conversative Christian, Amy Comey Barrett.

584. Well, we're pleased today to welcome Judge Barrett.

585. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse takes the floor to expose the

586. dark forces he says are behind her nomination...

587. We look forward working with you, Republicans in the Senate.

588. and a larger plot to undermine democracy.

589. This is a conservative activist behind-the-scenes campaign to

590. remake the nation's courts,

591. and it's a $250 million dark money operation.

592. The Senator paints a grim picture of the state

593. of our union arguing a shadowy group of

594. conservatives are leveraging their wealth to

595. take over the courts and overturn popular

596. policies supported by the majority of Americans.

597. They want judges to rule to reverse Roe,

598. to reverse the Obamacare cases, and to reverse

599. Obergefell and take away gay marriage.

600. That is their stated objective and plan.

601. Why not take them at their word?

602. While Christians make up 65% of the US population,

603. only one in four Americans identify as evangelicals.

604. That's still a voting block of one hundred million strong.

605. And with 70% of those potential voters claiming to be

606. conservative, evangelicals have often been the deciders

607. in this country's elections.

608. When you accept Christ as the saviour,

609. it changes your heart, it changes your life.

610. using their power to endorse politicians that will protect

611. and promote a biblical worldview.

612. Our saviour died on his cross so your sins can be forgiven,

613. and he doesn't want you to be quiet about it.

614. He wants you to share the gospel.

615. And share it with everyone.

616. The right-wing Christian power elite and its donor base have

617. long dreamed of seeing the government adopt

618. its religious values as public policy.

619. The plan to make this dream a reality

620. first came together four decades ago.

621. August 1980 in Dallas, Texas, the biggies of conservatism

622. have come together to make speeches.

623. And Ronald Reagan is appearing in front of evangelicals.

624. This book'll teach you about your economy.

625. James Robison, a famous Dallas evangelist,

626. said to Reagan,

627. you should say this when you get up onstage.

628. Now, I know this is a non-partisan gathering,

629. and so I know that you can't endorse me,

630. but I only brought that up because I want you to know that

631. I endorse you and what you're doing.

632. And the crowd went wild.

633. So that married evangelicals to a potential presidential

634. candidate who looked out for their interests.

635. But getting evangelicals to vote for sympathetic candidates

636. is only the first part of their plan to reshape America.

637. The next speaker would reveal just how far

638. they are willing to go.

639. The second thing that happens that very same day

640. is a speech by Paul Weyrich.

641. How many of our Christians have what I call the

642. goo-goo syndrome: good government?

643. They want everybody to vote.

644. I don't want everybody to vote.

645. "We don't want everyone to vote!"

646. Elections are not won by a majority of people.

647. They never have been from the beginning of our country,

648. and they are not now. As a matter of fact,

649. our leverage in the elections quite candidly

650. goes up as the voting populace goes down.

651. And this is something that has been part and parcel of

652. how evangelicals think about voting, too.

653. As long as they can get the votes out for candidates who

654. support their issues, then voting should not be extended

655. to people who won't vote the way that they want them to vote.

656. The views expressed more than 40 years ago on that stage in

657. Dallas would prove to be prophetic.

658. Today, a new agenda is being set by an elite group of

659. Christian power brokers that seeks to replace our secular

660. democracy with so-called Christian nationalism,

661. where Americans regardless of their faith

662. would be governed in accordance with the Christian bible.

663. It's an ideology that's being pushed by

664. a new brand of religious radicals.

665. I don't care what you think about fraudulent sleepy Joe.

666. He's a sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel.

667. He's of the left. He ain't no better than the Pope and

668. Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks and

669. the rest of that wicked crowd.

670. God is gonna bring the whole house down.

671. It's not just political theater.

672. Influential church leaders, highly funded think tanks,

673. and secretive religious organizations are trying to

674. transform the very fabric of American society.

675. Our society is inherently, irreducibly pluralist. So,

676. to assert that only members of a certain sort of elect group

677. should dominate all aspects of government and society...

678. is extraordinarily divisive and unfair.

679. One of the most effective groups quietly pushing a

680. religious agenda in Washington is a shadowy entity

681. known as The Family.

682. The Family is the oldest and still the most influential

683. Christian nationalist organization in Washington.

684. What it tries to do is to gather those whom it feels are

685. placed in power by God senators, congressmen,

686. military leaders, business leaders

687. tries to gather them into a biblical worldview,

688. exporting American power around the world.

689. From its inception, The Family has had a fondness for mixing

690. Christianity with authoritarian power.

691. Abraham Vereide, the founder of The Family in 1935,

692. he sees working people organizing to get better

693. working conditions and rights as a threat to his vision of

694. Christian unity and a Christian nation.

695. 1935, he's looking at German fascism and

696. saying that's the future.

697. After World War II, they would arrange for delegations of

698. US congressmen to travel to Germany so they could

699. get the sage advice of these former Nazis.

700. The idea that America could learn from Nazi Germany was

701. embraced by the Family's next leader: Doug Coe,

702. an elusive figure seen here in a rare piece of video.

703. Jesus said, "You have to put me before other people.

704. And you have to put me before yourself."

705. Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party.

706. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives

707. ahead of your own life, and ahead of other people.

708. Doug Coe, this long-time leader and adviser to every president,

709. Democratic or Republican, since Eisenhower.

710. And Time magazine, in fact, once named him

711. one of the most powerful religious leaders.

712. One of Coe's most enduring legacies is the Family's

713. annual event: The National Prayer Breakfast.

714. The President of the United States and the First Lady...

715. On its surface, it appears apolitical.

716. But what the public sees is far from the full story.

717. The National Prayer Breakfast in Washington happens

718. in February of every year. The president always speaks.

719. My special thanks to...

720. Bob Stomp and Doug Coe.

721. Doug Coe and all his associates, I'm grateful to you.

722. In fact, the Prayer Breakfast represents

723. a week-long lobbying festival.

724. It's about influence.

725. What is the end goal of all of these shadow campaigns

726. by the well-heeled religious elites?

727. And how would they reshape the country?

728. I think it is fair, at this stage, to...

729. to use the 'F' word: fascism. Christ has been displaced

730. by the world of the strongman figure.

731. You would certainly look at the loss of reproductive rights,

732. the loss of LGBTQ rights.

733. Men being in places of authority.

734. You would see white supremacy strengthened even more.

735. If you look at all the voter suppression bills now that

736. are being pushed and...

737. calling into question a fairly decided election.

738. Frankly, I don't want to use the word conservative.

739. It's a radical movement.

740. The president's saying new laws in more than 16 states

741. are part of a painful pattern aimed at denying minorities and

742. women the right to vote.

743. You can see the anti-democratic nature of the movement.

744. It's a movement that, for some,

745. has given way to visions of a coming apocalypse.

746. It's nearly impossible to determine exactly how many

747. people have relocated to the region as part of this movement.

748. They're guarded by their very nature.

749. As a growing Christian army seeks to take over a small

750. corner of the US, what does it mean for the rest of us?

751. Far from the nation's capital, a new army of Christian

752. conservatives is assembling here in western Idaho

753. and across the northwest, arming themselves with

754. a new theological dogma.

755. And, according to local reports,

756. they're arming themselves with an increasingly lethal arsenal.

757. Gun and ammo manufacturers driven out of other states

758. by restrictive gun legislation.

759. There are now 180 in Idaho alone.

760. There's been a huge increase of

761. conservatives moving into Idaho.

762. We kind of consider ourselves the last of the Mohicans.

763. They call this newly imagined state the American Redoubt.

764. The American Redoubt consists of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho.

765. And then, eastern parts of the states of Washington and Oregon.

766. The term American Redoubt was coined by

767. James Wesley Rawles, in 2011.

768. Rawles is a former US intelligence officer

769. who went off the deep end.

770. And he started a popular survivalist blog

771. some years back.

772. Breaking news...

773. protesters are on the streets of Los Angeles

774. It isn't hard to find Rawles' apocalyptic rhetoric online.

775. When the big machine stops, and things fall apart...

776. it's gonna get very, very ugly

777. in the big cities and the suburbs.

778. And the only places with relative safety are gonna be

779. in lightly populated food-producing areas.

780. Rawles believes in a sort of Christian theocratic idea of

781. what the United States should be.

782. That modern liberal society is unstable.

783. That life in our decadent urban centers is going to fall apart.

784. And so, Rawles started telling people,

785. "Get yourself a whole bunch of guns and join with your fellow

786. patriots out here to be ready for the coming collapse".

787. It's a call to arms that has been heated by a growing number

788. of radical Christians from across the country.

789. The core of this movement is to help like-minded,

790. conservative Christians move to the Redoubt area.

791. Rawles is clearly showing that he expects a war.

792. He expects the American Redoubt

793. to have to defend itself with arms.

794. A group of professionals is helping train new arrivals.

795. Even providing them with homes that are ready-made

796. for riding out the apocalypse.

797. I've seen the underground homes,

798. the ones that people have, like, dug.

799. And or they've built on top of the ground,

800. but then buried the structure.

801. So, you can't see it from the road at all.

802. It's nearly impossible to determine exactly how many

803. people have relocated to the region as part of this movement.

804. They're guarded by their very nature.

805. A secessionist movement like the American Redoubt is born

806. out of a Christian nationalist ideology that seeks to

807. consolidate power for a small group of believers.

808. Everything that Americans have held near and dear for

809. generations, they are trying to systematically destroy.

810. To be self-reliant, and to be proficient with firearms.

811. That is your duty. That is your responsibility.

812. But this spiritual migration may only serve to destabilize

813. the foundations of the country, itself.

814. The end game of the American Redoubt

815. is the world's gonna end.

816. And people up here are gonna be, you know,

817. fighting Mad Max style battles in the hills.

818. I, honestly, think that some people want that to happen.

819. And the movement here is growing, or perhaps, mutating.

820. It was a packed house Saturday morning in Roseburg...

821. In May 2021, 5 Oregon counties voted to secede from their

822. state and join a newly imagined one they call "Greater Idaho".

823. They want to expand the state of Idaho.

824. Portland and Salem politicians just don't have

825. the same values anymore, that we do, here.

826. The message from these radicals is clear...

827. there's safety in numbers.

828. Apocalyptic ideology is incredibly effective because

829. it turns into something of a democratic kill switch.

830. and only by the grace of Jesus Christ are we awakened.

831. In which, when they don't win elections,

832. when they do not have control over governmental bodies,

833. they can claim that an apocalypse is nigh.

834. We're going to the capitol!

835. For some white evangelicals, January 6th was just another

836. moment in the ways in which they think that the government

837. should be put aside for a leader that they believe

838. should be the real president.

839. We have evangelicals right now who are being radicalized...

840. evangelicals who are some of the highest number of people

841. who believe that the pandemic was a scam. And their support

842. of guns, God, and babies has allowed them to

843. pardon themselves against many of the things that are

844. enshrined in law in America right now.

845. They are not the people who they believe themselves to be.

846. That is, the holders up of the soul of the nation.

847. Rather, they are the people who are

848. driving the nation's soul apart.

849. USA! USA!