[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm one of these Jews who study evangelicals.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's always really interesting for me when I go into those spaces because I go in as a researcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I say, I am here as a researcher, but it is always that they try to convert me because they, because they're convinced I'm going to help.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a job.

[SPEAKER_02]: They are very sincerely think I'm going to help.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Ghosties!

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Meg here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm going to share with you a conversation that I had a few months back with Dr.

Mara Einstein.

[SPEAKER_00]: She is a professor of media studies and author of the new book CouldWinkt, how religious cults political extremists in the media are hijacking America.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dr.

Einstein has spent years setting how belief and persuasion intersect with marketing and advertising.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her earlier book, Brands of Faith, examined how religion became a product to be marketed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hood Winged takes it even further, showing how cult strategies, political extremism and media systems work together to manipulate and mobilize people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our conversation really focuses in on white Christian nationalism and how it uses marketing to shame and coerce how campaigns like he gets us serve as a soft entry point and how all of this is a part of a much larger effort to consolidate political power and control.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before becoming a professor she worked in advertising in television like MTV and NBC.

[SPEAKER_00]: So she brings both the insider and scholarly lens to how persuasion in this marketing way really works.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about why these strategies are effective.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dangers they pose and what it means for anyone who values democracy in human rights.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is more than about ads.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about the machinery of influence.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's my conversation with Dr.

Mara Einstein.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I came to know about you just from social media.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the algorithm stuck us together, probably because we had had a conversation on the podcast, gosh, two-ish years ago when the heat gets us.

[SPEAKER_00]: campaign first launched and as women who came out of Christianity and were raised in the culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: For us, seeing just kind of like, I don't know, I guess the fulfillment of the prophecy, if that's a thing I can say that we were kind of told when we were younger was going to happen, like this is a Christian nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We will take this nation back for God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It will, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: Because I have a background in marketing, not as extensive and beautiful as yours.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was like a flash moment where you start to, once you see it, you can't unsee it, that they have now either hired or there are people who know and understand marketing in a different way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the church has kind of ever been presented before, at least in my experiences with the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, this is such a blatant outward, we're the cool guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've got all the answers, you know, we're going to show up and save the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that the promises that they're making have no basis in reality, but it's the idea that they have solved the save, the need for a [SPEAKER_00]: And I, I just, I go back and forth with the question, I guess, and this is where I am so excited to hear what you have to say about this because for me, it kind of lands back into like, how did they get hoodwinked if I can use the title of your book, how did, how did this happen?

[SPEAKER_00]: How did it, because I was always taught like, be in the world, but not of the world, but now it's this idea like, [SPEAKER_00]: that we just are going to take over everything and no one else matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now that they've got the government behind them, we're seeing it happen in real time, instead of just in theory.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's go back and deconstruct that he gets us campaign a little bit before we start moving forward.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, destruction of the United States.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that he gets us campaign.

[SPEAKER_02]: individual ads.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually like a three-year campaign billion dollars behind it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's not some small thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's also not just the ads.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you go to their website and you start digging, it's also connected to the alpha course.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so for people who may or may not know what the alpha course is, it's a 10-week course, evangelical course, where you sit and have dinner with the same [SPEAKER_02]: and they put on DVDs and you watch this information about Christianity.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's presented as this idea of there are no stupid questions when you go to these dinners and you start to create community with the people who are there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And some of the people who are there are people who just feel like they want sort of a refresher course, like they didn't get enough teaching as when they were in Sunday school and other people are there because they're new Christians, they're born again and they want to learn all of this kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, so I went to a couple of Alpha courses and studied that a lot for an older book of mine called Brands of Faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm one of these Jews who study evangelicals.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's always really interesting for me when I go into those spaces because I go in as a researcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I say, I am here as a researcher, but it is always that they try to convert me because they, because they're convinced I'm going to help.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a job, that's a job, you know?

[SPEAKER_02]: They are very sincerely think I'm going to help, and they want to convert me, because they think they're doing something good.

[SPEAKER_02]: really fault them for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, I say, thank you very much, but I'm just here as a researcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: So in terms of he gets us so there's the alpha course is one part of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: The other part of this is barna research and barna research is a research company for churches and evangelical institutions and there was.

[SPEAKER_02]: a whole series of classes that were given in conjunction with the he gets us campaign for people who were ministers of churches and who were looking to find ways to more strongly evangelize to sort of get over.

[SPEAKER_02]: evangelizing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's really funny because there was just doing work about multi-level marketing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it makes me think about this, people who are good at multi-level marketing are just good salespeople.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so the same thing is true for being an evangelist.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you are a really good salesperson, you will be able to sell the faith to people.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're not, [SPEAKER_02]: But what's tied in to being part of an evangelical institution, is that you're going to do it whether you're good at it or not.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that makes people so uncomfortable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's uncomfortable for the person being pitched.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's uncomfortable for the person who's doing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got people at Barna who are working with these pastors who are telling them to [SPEAKER_02]: tie back into the alpha course.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's one part of this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other part of this is an organization called GLO-O.

[SPEAKER_02]: And GLO is a, for lack of a better time, data marketing, data collection company for religious institutions.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it is backed by, we are not surprised, the Koch brothers.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so what is happening in terms [SPEAKER_02]: He gets us to barna to glue, is that when pastors then go to the classes with barna, they are tall to get their congregations to fill out a survey and the information from that survey.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, are you getting, okay, are you getting the dots?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's sent to glue and then glue then uses that information.

[SPEAKER_02]: to geniuses that target to target people.

[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a wonderful documentary that I always tell people to watch.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's called People You May Know.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it is about how there's this connection among the Republican Party.

[SPEAKER_02]: evangelical churches and companies like glue and other church marketing companies who then use the data to get people to vote or not to vote.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it works the same way as if people remember Cambridge Analytica.

[SPEAKER_02]: So with the Cambridge Analytica, Cambridge Analytica was a data marketing company that was in England that we've got people to vote for Brexit.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then after they voted for Brexit people were like wait a minute, we don't want to break off from the EU while they already did.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the same thing happened in terms of the information that they used to get Donald Trump elected the first time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what they did is they tapped into, they weren't so worried about, are you gay or you straight?

[SPEAKER_02]: Are you married or what religion you are?

[SPEAKER_02]: All that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were looking for people who had certain sensibilities.

[SPEAKER_02]: And things that they could attack them, you don't find ways to sort of push the needle with them to get them to vote or not vote.

[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things that they did was that in battleground states like Michigan, they found that they could target black voters with anti-Hillary messages.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not so much as they would go out and vote for Trump, but that they wouldn't go out and vote for Hillary.

[SPEAKER_02]: and that was one of the ways that he was able to win the first time, the first time around.

[SPEAKER_02]: So in this documentary, people you may know, they talk about Cambridge Analytica and the people who were involved with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then they show the very intricate ways that Christian marketing companies and data companies are using the same kind of information.

[SPEAKER_02]: to get people to vote or not to vote.

[SPEAKER_02]: And these churches that have very small churches are connected to, you know, these, these Republican databases and what they do.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is, again, this is how cults work.

[SPEAKER_02]: You find people who are vulnerable.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I people who are vulnerable, [SPEAKER_02]: religious organizations, and then they find out all of the data from companies like glue about who you are, how you vote it, how you think, what your propensity is are.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then if you are somebody who is likely to vote the way they want you to vote, they will get you to talk to everybody else and get everybody to buy in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you're not, they will try to get you not to vote.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the way all of this stuff is used.

[SPEAKER_00]: She layers of just, I mean, not just propaganda, but the control.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that in the church environment, control is just the key factor, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: To keeping people there and also fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so to hear you talk about not just getting people to vote by false information or [SPEAKER_00]: You know, other propaganda that is just going to sway them, but actually stopping people from voting and getting them to gosh, just it takes me back, it takes me back to when I was a really solid Christian and I learned so much about marketing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I had this moment where I said, you know, if I was terrible, I could sell so much shit to Christians because I think once you realize what it is and how to do it and where to how to speak to the fears and how to speak to family values, all these dog whistles that we have been hearing, you know, I've been hearing my whole life since I was born and to think that it's a way that they can sway.

[SPEAKER_00]: whole groups of people, not just individuals but whole groups of people by this type of manipulation is so far removed from what I thought church was therefore and the experience of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you're also talking about they're kind of doing this like small group home group.

[SPEAKER_00]: kind of church planting that we saw back in the 70s and 80s where it starts small.

[SPEAKER_00]: It starts with your neighbors.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just about building a small community and yet there is no central leadership except for whoever your main pastor is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what we've seen in so many of these even jellical churches is that there is no higher authority.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no board that they have to, you know, there's boards that they can control but not that they have to be swayed by.

[SPEAKER_00]: that wherever the congregation is going, that pastor gets to be their co-leader, and that's a not a popular thing to say about pastors and churches, but it's the reality of what I've experienced growing up, and it's also just what we're seeing now happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: all around us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I'm always very want to be very straightforward with organizations that I interview because I always say that I'm not looking to tear you down because religious organizations when an academic walks in, it's automatically where Marxists and where and I religion and where all those other things so obviously they don't want us to come in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And my response says always like no, I want to understand who you are and how you think so I can understand, you know, you know, how this is marketed and and all of those sorts of things and so before I say what I'm going to say I want to say there are religious organizations that.

[SPEAKER_02]: do do good works.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are religious organizations that do heal people and create community and legitimate community and all of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But there's also an awful lot of churches that take advantage of people and you know, I, you know, like I said, I've been looking at the intersection between religion and marketing for [SPEAKER_02]: 30, 30 years.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so when I look at something like Rick Warren or like Joel Ostein, you're talking about people who are incredibly slick and have become sort of the North Star for what a local pastor's supposed to be.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can't just have people sitting and pews reading from a book and singing a couple of hymns.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's got to be the [SPEAKER_02]: it's a product.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a service.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is in competition with every other sort of leisure activity that people have an option to interact with.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm so interested in to get off my barcle launcher on Sunday morning and go to my local church, it's [SPEAKER_02]: better be worth my time and energy in order to be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's got to draw you in.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's got to keep your attention.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has to do all the same things that CrossFit would do or watching football.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like you've got to compete with everything else in the same way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting then how that leads us into the heat gets us.

[SPEAKER_00]: campaign for me because he gets his campaign is so Jesus is an American.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thread that I feel throughout is just it's reinforcing the blue-eyed blondish brown hair white Jesus in this way that's just like, no, America is America's the one that God is looking after watching where the chosen ones, where the ones who [SPEAKER_00]: are going to usher in the end times like we're going to see the results of all this labor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that was my kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just said, isn't that a bad thing?

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want that.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I say we, I'm talking.

[SPEAKER_00]: about them for yes, I don't want the entire time.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's that was my childhood of fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, my question is more just like, where do we combat that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like how is it possible when I've been fed that American exceptionalism and American Christian nationalism is what is true and then now I'm like, [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it wasn't true, but they told us it was true.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now they're really, I mean, they're selling it to us as if it's always been true.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that there's somehow it's been taken away from Christians and Christians are still in that position of being martyrs right now when they are in the most powerful places in the country and are destroying so many other people groups way of life and yet they're still the martyr.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was really interested.

[SPEAKER_02]: Something that I heard yesterday was the first time I ever heard it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was that seven out of nine of the Supreme Court justices are Catholic, not being at Jalgo Christian Catholic.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's a pretty odd phenomenon in an event.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we haven't had a evangelical Christian as a president.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have not.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had Catholic presidents, which if you are a guardian Jalgo.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jimmy Carter was a Jalgo.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, so it's like having having somebody in a position of power who for me Christians didn't believe that Catholics were Christians when I was Right up it was not right there were all right same with Mormonism except you know you get somebody who's a Catholic or a Mormon in a position of power and all of a sudden They were Christian enough [SPEAKER_00]: But so it's interesting that the absorbing of other religions into evangelical Christianity obviously it works for them when they want it to, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But then they can still be martyrs and a small group of people when it also serves them.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's two things parts to this question, and one is the American exceptionalism, and I'm going to quote the study wrong, but there have been studies that have been done asking American students like how high up they thought they were.

[SPEAKER_02]: and how good they were in different things like math and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they always think that they're number one and they're usually like number 13.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we're not the best in the world at all of this stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we think we are because we have always been told that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But there was a great TikTok that I saw recently.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the person said, it's time for us to have a Santa Claus moment about the Democrats.

[SPEAKER_02]: the Santa Claus doesn't exist.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think you know I feel the same way about American exceptionalism.

[SPEAKER_02]: We need to have the Santa Claus moment and I think we're finally beginning to have that that we are not special in comparison to everybody else in the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in terms of Christianity and Christian nationalism, you know, is talking a lot about project 2025 and I was thinking this morning about the videos and I think it's almost time to take a look at those again.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think people have forgotten about them.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was a whole series of videos when 2025 was first being talked about which were the actual training videos that they were telling people how they were supposed to go out and talk about project 2025.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they were scary.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were really scary.

[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of it has to do with just [SPEAKER_02]: automatic assumption that because you are a certain kind of person, that you are somehow better than everybody else in the rest of the world, you know, I guess because, I guess because I'm from New York, I guess also because I was raised Jewish [SPEAKER_02]: are what we are taught is we are supposed to leave the world in a better place than it was when we got here.

[SPEAKER_02]: None of this second coming, none of this life will be better after we die because we don't really believe in it, heaven and hell.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's about doing the best that you can while you're here.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's really outside my personal understanding to even think the way that you were talking about about how you were raised.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's just so outside of my world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I find that disturbing for one because being raised that way as a child and being raised this way in church and in school and in the home, [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just that white Christian people were the best.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was you are one chosen, but you must maintain that level of perfection and that level of that role, that position that you were going to be in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet I think it's also a chain.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and you'll know this better than I do.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's changed in the last 10 to 20 years in terms of the life thinking.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I remember interviewing someone who had grown up in the as an evangelical.

[SPEAKER_02]: But she was sort of walk the walk evangelical.

[SPEAKER_02]: She wasn't, you know, and what we've seen more recently is this kind of idea of Jesus is my wingman.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, because I believe in Jesus, I'm better, I can do everything, I can, you know, I'm the best person in the world, you know, all of that kinds of things, but it's not about actually doing anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just because he's my dude, and I remember interviewing this one person who had grown up as an evangelical.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she said that that makes her crazy.

[SPEAKER_02]: She said it makes her absolutely crazy because when she was growing up, it wasn't ever about, you know, Jesus is my guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, yes, you know, you pray to Jesus and whatever.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's about making sure you do the things that Jesus did.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the real disconnect that we're seeing now.

[SPEAKER_02]: So interested, you know, you know, saying that you're connected to Jesus but not doing anything that he talked about [SPEAKER_02]: feeding the hungry and housing people and clothing them and making them part of your community and welcoming them to your table.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're not doing that, then you're not doing the work of Christianity and that's the part that's the disconnect for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a power play, I think, now, and it didn't use to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the idea that I used to walk around with was I have, it's like [SPEAKER_00]: And you have found this amazing thing and it's just so good that you have to share it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a joyful, it was like a bubbling over of love for other people that you were saying you didn't want anybody to go to hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there was this kind of like...

[SPEAKER_00]: passion about seeing somebody who was considered lost and knowing that you had a solution because you could introduce them to a savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing you were going to do that, but that you were only going to be a vessel that God could use and that you were open to that and it was a very, for me, it was a very like loving feeling.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very, you know, I was very concerned for people that [SPEAKER_00]: I never let anyone in the sinner's prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a good salesman.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just never succeeded in that, but what I did succeed to do was to show people compassion and to show people kindness and to help and to serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what I was raised to do was to actually be a servant.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, maybe as a woman that was like extra for me, but it was [SPEAKER_00]: was that spirit in me that I think has over time has gotten so disgusted with the perversion of what you've just described as Jesus is my wingman.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got my back no matter what.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's scary because then you get into things like abuses of power and it's like, well, I got Jesus as my wingman.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, as long as I have the Bible in my hand and I say that, you know, I have a direct, this is the other thing that Christians have, a direct line to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to go through a priest.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to go, you get to go straight to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And with that comes this authority, [SPEAKER_00]: that when when somebody is seeking power, that authority is just a blanket approval for anything they say or do because they've got Jesus right here by their side.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think the other thing that has happened post COVID is, I mean, there's a natural tendency for us to want to have community and we didn't have that during, during lockdown.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we are in at the point where we are going out and doing things though with the way that we did before COVID.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're still very isolated.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's an epidemic of loneliness that's going on in the United States and probably around the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so whenever somebody shows us, there's a possibility of connecting to a group of people.

[SPEAKER_02]: people have more of a tendency to jump on that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's the kind of thing that, you know, that's why people got involved with Q and on.

[SPEAKER_02]: And mega is that here they were, again, taught me on people are looking groups are looking for vulnerable people.

[SPEAKER_02]: They find the vulnerable people.

[SPEAKER_02]: They say, oh, you're really wonderful.

[SPEAKER_02]: and then, you know, come join us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden, they see the interact with all these other people who say, oh, yeah, you're really great.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the problem is, especially in that isolated time and now, because of how much time people spend in social media spaces, as you don't interact with somebody who tells you, no, that's not, that's not really how it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we only become surrounded by people who will tell us that what we're doing is the right thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: the leaders and Jesus and all of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it made me think of Joel Osteen because if you've ever gone to, and I don't know if you've had, but if you've ever gone to see him preach, it's hard not to get swept up in a room of thousands of other people.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And feeling like, oh, well, you know, one because it's really good at what he does.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: But also that you're surrounded by all of these other people who think who also think that what he's doing [SPEAKER_02]: And so you want to be part of that crowd, you want to be part of that group, you want to be connected to that kind of community and it's and then he takes you down to the bookstore to buy his book.

[SPEAKER_00]: genius.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the genius of marketing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I always fail.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or I've always like, here's a bunch of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then let's all just hang out and have a good meal.

[SPEAKER_00]: And but I, you know, there's, if you don't have the call to action, if you don't have the pitch at the very end, if you don't pass around the tithing plates.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't talk about the ways that everyone has, you know, I know you're going to have all these temptations.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to go on to the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have your whole week, but like let this place be your anchor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when money is tied to salvation and tied to goodness, I remember being a college student.

[SPEAKER_00]: I recently found a little notebook that I had and it had my budget in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in the budget was my type.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I was making in a month, it was $1,200.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was giving my church $150.

[SPEAKER_00]: out of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was spending like $20 for gas.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I had a budget of $50 for food.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the kind of math that put Christ first, except that's not what it did at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It never never did.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the part for me where I think like all of my what I'm trying to find.

[SPEAKER_00]: all of my commitment.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not to anything that wasn't earthly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the opposite of what I thought it was.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so imagine this in terms of the Mormon church, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So here of all of these people who've been tithing the Mormon church and find out that that money has all been going to financial institutions to make the church richer and not doing all the things that they were supposed to be doing in terms of making the world a better place.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they know that missions don't work.

[SPEAKER_02]: The missions aren't the missions don't work and they know missions don't work and they know it's not about bringing people to the faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's about testing the faith of the people [SPEAKER_00]: That's what those missions are for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say that louder for the people in the back.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I did missions work.

[SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely, we have an episode of the podcast called Traveling the World on God's time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's about short-term missions and just about the ways that I personally participated.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I'd never let anyone to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm part of that statistic.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did do a lot of good work.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did a lot of manual labor, we did a lot of, you know, digging of trenches and washing of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we actually, that's the part I appreciated about it that at least we weren't just on vacation.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was like a working trip.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it is it was just also about.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many places have you been?

[SPEAKER_00]: What kinds of cultures have you experienced?

[SPEAKER_00]: And really going in as a group of predominantly white kids?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I went with youth with a mission, which is a global organization of Christian evangelicalism.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in [SPEAKER_00]: There were kids from all over the world that I traveled with.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was the best part of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: For me, it was really my personal experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what a lot of missions come down to.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like, what was your personal experience?

[SPEAKER_00]: What did I get out of it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not what impact did I make?

[SPEAKER_00]: Was it positive?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we know we made impact.

[SPEAKER_02]: know that what sells people on people of faith is seeing you live the life, seeing you how you live your life, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you live your life in a certain way, and people think, you know, not the prosperity gospel stuff, you know, not that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, that you live your life in a certain way that is, you know, that is caring, that is giving, that is thinking about someone other than yourself.

[SPEAKER_02]: about making the world a better place.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what sells people on wanting to join a particular phase.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not nothing on doors for two years and saying, yeah, come join us and people are like, for what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm interested to in this conversation about post-COVID life because it's something that I think as a researcher, you're probably very tuned in with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're gonna get up.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna leave the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna go to a new place.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna see people we haven't seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to be out in the world and we're going to be okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then I think if you're a Christian or if you're somebody who was locked away in the God is protecting me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be totally safe through all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then you go out into the world and you're like wait a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: there are still people who are non-binary that exist.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there are still trans people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait, you're telling me that racism is still real.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're bombarded with life, with just the regular things in life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I understand this desire to want to go escape again, to go find a cave, to go find what you consider to be a safe space.

[SPEAKER_00]: to go to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm personally concerned that churches, especially with in the shift with the he gets us campaign and now knowing too that they're doing this in a small home group setting and that it's starting as a like grass roots in your local neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_00]: get people to come to your home, which we know the end result is they have one goal, right, to to just be in charge of everything and do United States and to truly make it a Christian nation.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're doing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're doing it through smaller churches.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that they're doing it through church planting so much, unless they're doing it through the Alpha Course, or the Alpha Course, I think is primarily being used by [SPEAKER_02]: churches, but it's definitely small churches.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like these mega churches that are doing this kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's my concern is like with a mega church, they've sorted it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've got their marketing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like they've got their multimedia, like extravagant.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've got their speakers, their people who are going to keep them in their seats.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've got their worship leaders who are, I mean, frankly, [SPEAKER_00]: rock stars, you know, they're on their own.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're having their own like amazing shows every week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's exciting.

[SPEAKER_00]: You get to, you get to see people who won.

[SPEAKER_00]: You consider safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: You get to kind of go out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You feel good about yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a way for you to kind of like solidify that you're a good person.

[SPEAKER_00]: But where I get concerned is the idea that reaching people.

[SPEAKER_00]: through their television, not through a 700 club, not with like TVN, but just in a commercial.

[SPEAKER_00]: that feels so real and true to like the American experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, and then they're just like, this is Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, this is the guy that we're telling you to come be friends with.

[SPEAKER_02]: And people in people where excuse me, hoodwinked by those ads.

[SPEAKER_02]: They wore this.

[SPEAKER_02]: They, yes, they really thought, oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, there was a large group of people who said, why are they spending all this money on ads on the Super Bowl?

[SPEAKER_02]: when they should be using this money to feed the poor and yeah, that sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we got sort of both sides of both sides of the equation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think though that I don't think that there was this huge backlash that I would have expected from the Christian community of saying wait a minute, you know, there was this like, what a great idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: They did it during the Super Bowl.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were so smart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good for them spending all that money, you know, thank you for getting Jesus' face out there and like his message and, you know, it's exactly what we need.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got a fight in the same way that, you know, the woke left is fighting.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got to do it in the media and we got to take over all seven.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's from an Anthony perspective, but it was a really bizarre because it wasn't just, if it had just been the Super Bowl, that would have been one thing, right, because the Super Bowl reaches.

[SPEAKER_02]: equally men and women.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was specifically targeted to sporting events.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it wasn't just a Super Bowl.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was also NCAA basketball, March Madness, which is where it started.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was also basketball, yeah, regular basketball.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was also the world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: So every time there was a very male-focused event, that's when this was being presented.

[SPEAKER_02]: Which in and of itself is really weird, [SPEAKER_02]: Churches are filled with women who then drag their husbands, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go say yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: or their significant others and not the other way around.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so when they talked about who they were trying to reach, you know, when they were talking in the press about who they were trying to reach, and you looked at the media that they bought, it didn't line up.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what I kept thinking about when I saw that was, who were they really trying to talk to with this?

[SPEAKER_02]: They were just trying to make a big splash, and the other part of it is, [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: So why aren't why are you promoting Jesus?

[SPEAKER_02]: What is it that you're actually trying to sell here?

[SPEAKER_02]: And the the tagline of he gets us what does that mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and if the tagline is he gets us meaning he understands [SPEAKER_02]: Because remember, the first ads that they started with were these sort of black and white ads, with this heavy kind of pumping music, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: That really showing dark, very goody, very dark, black lives matter, obviously immigrants, all of this kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: The ads that didn't show, but they also had available on their website, where the ones that were able to things like anti-abortion.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I didn't realize that they were actually promoting, yes, beliefs, like I really, okay, so if you go to, if you go to the website or you go, I think it's, you can go to the website, but you can also go to the YouTube page, okay, and there's a full series of ads.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's, there's only like three or four of them that they've promoted heavily on like broadcast television, but there's a whole other series of them that get into specific belief.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is interesting you as you're pointing out that they are promoting Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, what's the call to action there?

[SPEAKER_02]: Go to go to their website.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they want you to come to our website.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a like, we want you to come to us specifically.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also that just that I don't the one that always stuck with me was the like Jesus never asked for a raise line.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't have the he gets us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't remember that one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just it just it got me really angry for working people like [SPEAKER_00]: What the?

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I was like, oh, now I understand the propaganda.

[SPEAKER_00]: Literally the propaganda was it's cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus gets us things suck like everything's terrible, but also don't do anything about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be, I mean, they totally cut off Jesus' balls too in these acts.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like don't be a rabble rouser.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ask for your raise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't go in and like [SPEAKER_00]: Like, Jesus is, I'm against everything, like, world view that I feel like he was like, no to the government, no to the Pharisees, no to, you know, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he really kind of did this, like, guys, we're just all people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, my thoughts of Jesus now change dramatically and to just like, so can I ask you what was the thing that broke it for you?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because they talk about, you know, they talk about terms of cults and I've heard somebody talk about this in terms of Mormonism too.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if something's bothering you, you put it on the shelf, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this doesn't make sense to me, put it on the shelf.

[SPEAKER_02]: This doesn't make sense to put it on the shelf.

[SPEAKER_02]: It gets to the point where so many of those things start to build up eventually the shelf breaks.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what was what was the shelf breaking moment for you?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really tough one.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I've had so many experiences where I did the, you know, oh, that's just humans behaving in a way.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not God, that's not Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the big thing for me that broke was when [SPEAKER_00]: I had, I don't even remember how it happened, but I had this, this switch in my brain that was like, what if hell doesn't exist.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, it was the lack of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a moment for me where, I mean, it really had, I think to do when I had a kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: being pregnant and having a child I was my kids about to turn 15.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for me it was the idea that he's going to come into this world and be a sinner and be condemned to hell and that it was my job to ensure that I indoctrinate him in the same ways and really it was about the indoctrination that I realized was it was about creating fear in a child.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that just didn't feel right to me as a mother, you know, I just, and it was really, it was a moment where I was like, I can't reconcile teaching my kid the same things because I don't, I don't see him as depraved and sinful and already on his way to hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know who this person is.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, [SPEAKER_00]: And that also led me to like parent in such a different way and so I didn't leave because of me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really left because I didn't want my kid to have the same, like negative self view.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, didn't want him to go through life thinking that he was a terrible horrible, you know, no good deserve to go to hell person.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I know, I feel like that changed [UNKNOWN]: You [SPEAKER_00]: you know, and I realized I must have been such a relief.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think a relief in the sense of it was like a freedom that I felt not having to be controlled in my own thoughts.

[SPEAKER_00]: It takes a hundred percent of your focus.

[SPEAKER_02]: Two thoughts that I have in terms of, I mean, when I think about it in terms of women and weight loss, you think about an industry that, you know, the weight loss of fitness industry is a hundred and [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so.

[SPEAKER_02]: you know, there's no other category that we accept that in.

[SPEAKER_02]: So why does this thing still exist?

[SPEAKER_02]: It exists to control people, primarily women, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And if we're so barely worried about what we look like and what the number is on the scale, then we aren't doing the things we should be doing and thinking about, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's the same sort of thing that's going on with the church.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think in terms of what we're [SPEAKER_02]: our government and our structures are unraveling.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we're beginning to see just how an exceptional we are also how angry we need to get and one of the ways that [SPEAKER_02]: I've been just starting to talk about it, but obviously haven't been strong enough and need to get a bit stronger.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is in terms of education?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is I don't think that people understand fully how the elimination of grants for the hard sciences impacts what goes on at universities.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so when the Trump administration is eliminating these grants, it's not just that the science is going on, it's not just not just just right that they're knocking, that we're not coming up with new vaccines or whatever it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: 25% of most of those grants go for overhead colleges.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so they maintain the labs.

[SPEAKER_02]: They are, you know, if a student has a work study, [SPEAKER_02]: situation.

[SPEAKER_02]: That pays for their work study.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you have this combination of the grants being pulled.

[SPEAKER_02]: They also have that combined with the money not being given to students in order to be able to pay to go to college, things like, [SPEAKER_02]: Pelgrance are expected to disappear.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you're talking about conceivably an entire generation.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know about your son, because he said, you know, he's 15.

[SPEAKER_02]: My daughter's 25, and it's not that long ago, I dealt with her being in high school and applying to colleges.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, their whole high school time is spent trying to sell them to colleges, which in and of itself has its own situation.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a chapter about that in Hood Wing II, but if you want to go to college, and you want to study the sciences, and you want to, or you want to go into the humanities, whatever it is, you should have the option to be able to do that, and what's happening right now is that there are large laws of the United States that are not going to be able to afford to do that, and the last research that I saw, 94% of high school students expect to be able to go to college.

[SPEAKER_02]: they think it's that it's something that they are supposed to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: I got news for you 94% of students who want to be able to go to college aren't going to be able to go to college.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where the parents need to be getting really mad, really mad.

[SPEAKER_02]: They should be, they should be marching on Washington.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you have a high school kid, you should be marching on Washington right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is it that we can do as parents?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're talking a lot this season on Holy Ghosting about resistance and the ways that we can not just sit and worry, you know, because I think, especially as white women in this country, it's one of our go-tos.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, I don't know what to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have the power.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to change it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm here to say, like, we do have the power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we can't change it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what is something that we can do to resist what's happening?

[SPEAKER_02]: One, don't listen to people who say the boycotts don't work.

[SPEAKER_02]: Boycotts work.

[SPEAKER_02]: They still work.

[SPEAKER_02]: They worked in the 70s.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're working now.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're seeing this with Target.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're seeing it with Tesla.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to see it with a bunch of other companies too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's important to point out that these are organized boycotts.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are not just a few people saying, oh, I'm not going to shop at Target anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there are people who are out there saying, this is the impact that this will make.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is about getting the information out there.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, boycotts boycotts boycotts Talk to talk to your the guidance counselors at your school and ask them um You know ask them what they're doing what they're recommending what they know so [SPEAKER_02]: get yourself educated about what's going on.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what's going on with FAFSA right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know that the site went down.

[SPEAKER_02]: A couple of weeks ago when people were applying, so that's an issue.

[SPEAKER_02]: People should be calling the colleges and universities.

[SPEAKER_02]: Call the administration.

[SPEAKER_02]: Don't call professors.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can't do anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can't do anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not the ones who are making the money.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not the ones who they're making the decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: Call the administrations of the colleges and say, how is my kid going to be able to afford to go to school?

[SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing in terms of protecting the grants?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because schools like Columbia, Columbia folded.

[SPEAKER_02]: Columbia folded for $400 million.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have a $15 billion dollar endowment.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have a $15 billion dollar endowment.

[SPEAKER_02]: That $400 million is a sneeze to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: They did not need to cave.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're student, you're a child, there's applying to these schools and wants to go to the schools, you should know what they'd mean.

[SPEAKER_02]: The administration of the university thinks and is going to act vis-a-vis what's going on in Washington, D.C.

[SPEAKER_02]: and how are they going to protect your kid?

[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen a lot of kids, I mean, young adults on college campuses who are using their voices, who are using their bodies, who are putting themselves in harm's way when it's tough.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really tough to see because I don't want to just say, oh, the kids are going to be all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I was a kid once.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was a kid who people were like, [SPEAKER_00]: It's a struggle and I think what we talked about with community and losing communities and not having other ways of having community school is one of them school this school place going and having that experience having you know other people your age around you.

[SPEAKER_00]: is an experience that is important and valuable.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also, it's important and valuable to learn from other people, from elders, from professors, from people that, you know, we have that to have traditionally been, I mean, kept behind a paywall, even.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's one of the things that I do love about TikTok, about social media is the ability to meet and hear from people [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's one of the reasons why I'm on TikTok is, you know, I get introduced to a whole new audience of people who aren't going to sit in my classes or may not see me speak in person or, you know, can't afford my books, but you can get them at the library.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that's why I go there and it's also been a really wonderful place to have conversations with people that I haven't been able to have in other spaces.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, in terms of of kids protesting or [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but in terms of students protesting, the students should be protesting too.

[SPEAKER_02]: And look, the protests that happen last year, I'm not going to talk about those, but I want to say that there is no reason why students can't be protesting for things that affect them in their lives right now in the spaces where they are.

[SPEAKER_02]: there's my dog.

[SPEAKER_02]: In the spaces where they are, this is affecting, this is affecting me affect the rest of their lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so they have a right to be able to say, and especially the price tags are not going down in terms of what college is.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is the college, especially people who are in college now, [SPEAKER_02]: is the college going to deliver on the things that they said they were going to deliver on because one of the other problems is, too, is that a lot of the schools are dependent on international students who pay full freight.

[SPEAKER_02]: Most of our students do not pay the entire price tag, but the international students do, and when those students disappear, then the price goes up.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so all of that is going to start to have impacts on what is going to mean, [SPEAKER_02]: is larger class sizes.

[SPEAKER_02]: It will mean that students may not be able to graduate in four years because the classes they need to graduate won't be able to be held.

[SPEAKER_02]: as many times as they need to be held in order to cover everybody off.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a very complex thing, but I think it's something that parents can really raise their voices about.

[SPEAKER_02]: They can raise their voices to their elected officials, especially if you're, if you're tired of this going to a state school, you can do it with your elected officials, you can do it with [SPEAKER_02]: your elected officials in Washington, you could do it with the administrations to the colleges.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's super important to get involved.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think is what you're saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to not be silent, to know that your voice does matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about this around voting, but it's important every single day to know that your voice matters and that each one of us can join.

[SPEAKER_00]: into communities that are already, we have leaders who are already showing us where to be, how to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just need to show us something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't start something new.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, but they're already, that's always the big thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody wants to know, no, I promise.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you take about 10 minutes, you'll find that there's somebody who's already got the organization on the ground.

[SPEAKER_02]: and you can just raise your hand and join and I'm not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: Find some close your pocketbook.

[SPEAKER_02]: Just close your pocketbook.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: The way that I love resisting is by keeping my money away from whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think being raised in a culture that says, you know, you can't be rich and you were supposed to give away all your money and now we're seeing that that's just not a Christian value anymore that being rich and hoarding things, you know, has a, has a whole different thing which we could get into a whole other conversation about, but, but the idea of getting involved of resisting now of speaking up of not just allowing.

[SPEAKER_00]: things to go on around you because, look, there are people making decisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can be part of those people making the decisions or we can be just experiencing it, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So you can tell that there's their feeling the pushback when a leastafonic was told not to try to be part of the UN that was a red red red red red red red district in upstate New York.

[SPEAKER_02]: And two weeks ago they would have said, yeah, she's going to close it and whoever replaces her, [SPEAKER_02]: When they said, I got the concern that a Democrat could win that district, you know that the resistance that is going on is working.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The resistance is working and we got to keep doing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: for sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Dr.

Einstein.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate you having this conversation today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please go get hoodwinked.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you can't afford it, get it at your local library, ask them to get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can also hear Dr.

Mara Einstein read this.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you like audible, go check it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, Dr.

Einstein.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that we meet again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Weather's great in the atmosphere out on the internet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I always say I'll see on the internet and I really appreciate you talking with me today.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Ghosting is supported by our patrons if you'd like to join us and become a ghosty, head over to patreon.com backslash Holy Ghosting, and there's even more ways to support the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rate, review, and share every episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Ghosting is the same team media production.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our producer is AP Weber.

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