Kyle, Adam, and Jarret at The Babylon Bee are back at it again tackling the news of the week and laughing as the world goes full clown. Pastor Brian Holland also stops by to talk about how following Jesus is SIMPLE. The Bee guys talk about what's in the news this week like the Stephen Crowder situation, Biden celebrating Muslim culture being woven into America's founding, and how Community Notes on Twitter seem to actually be fact checking people now with real facts. AI is making videos now and they are terrifying, Elon Musk commented on The Onion's jokes, and the Writers Guild of America is on strike! Check out Pastor Brian's new book SIMPLE: https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Brian-Holland/dp/B0BW3GJM5B This episode is brought to you by our wonderful sponsors who you should absolutely check out: Allegiance Gold: http://protectwithbee.com PublicSq on Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/publicsq/id1573823343 PublicSq on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.publicsq.app&hl=en_US&gl=US&showAllReviews=true&pli=1 Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/thebabylonbee BetterHelp Online Therapy: http://betterhelp.com/babylonbee In the full-length ad-free podcast, Kyle, Adam, and Jarret talk about Klaus Teuber creating Catan and get nostalgic about commercial jingles for old games and toys.
We talk about the most popular conspiracy theories, or should we say the real news that will come out six months from now.
You've heard of Chat GPT, but have you heard of AI generated video?
It's fun and terrifying.
The Riders Guild is going on strike.
Now we'll come up with Stephen Colbert's next hilarious vaccine dance.
Following Jesus is simple.
Local pastor Brian Holland is here to break it down in just 14 complicated steps.
All this and more on the Babylon Bee Podcast.
Welcome to the Babylon Bee podcast, everyone.
I'm Kyle Mann, the editor-in-chief of the Babylon Bee, and I'm hanging out with Adam Jenser and Jarrett LeMaster.
They probably have titles too, but I don't remember what they are.
Yeah, that's right.
I'm not sure what they're either.
So you guys talked to Brian Holland about his new book, Simple?
We did.
I did not.
Oh, well, it says Adam.
I spoke.
Jared and Adam.
Did I talk to him?
This is Jared and Adam.
I think maybe.
Was I there?
We did.
Yeah.
Okay.
I can't remember.
It was a really memorable interview.
Maybe it was just Jared.
It was just you, wasn't it?
No, it wasn't.
It was me.
Well, we'll find out.
And Emma was.
Was it the pastor who was here?
He was the bald pet.
The big bald pastor.
I might have talked to him.
I don't remember what his book was.
It was a while.
This is embarrassing.
Dude, this was a long time ago.
It really was.
It was a lot.
It was a great idea.
But the Venn diagram of people that we got on the podcast and people I know is those circles don't touch at all.
I know Brian.
I know Brian very well.
I guess I did talk to him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I did now that I think about it.
This is awesome.
I just love this.
Well, I got to travel to the frozen tundra of Montana this weekend.
Beautiful.
There was a last minute.
I loved it.
There was a last-minute speech I had to give.
Somebody dropped out, Graham Allen from Turning Point USA.
Wow, okay.
They had adopted a kid and they got the call.
They had to go pick up the kid.
So it was like last minute.
We need a story.
Your kid's in.
Yeah.
Your kid's here.
We'll hold him till Tuesday, then we send him back to the distributor.
He's done.
Your order is ready for pickup.
I had to go get him.
So I got to fly out there and it was like whirlwind.
It was one of those trips where you're there for less time than you're traveling.
So I landed in Missoula, drove two hours to Helena.
Oh, nice.
Then gave the speech, fell asleep for four hours, jumped on a plane in Helena back to back to LAX, which I spent more time driving to LAX and trying to get parked and all that than I did in the air.
Wow.
Montana's great.
I went out there for a fly fishing expedition a few years ago.
And it was flies?
No.
We were fishing for flies.
I had that misconception well into my teenage years.
No, it was the Squaw River and it hadn't been accessible to the white man.
You were the first for claimed it.
No, literally.
For like 100 years.
Okay.
And so it was on the reservation.
They just opened it up to Americans to come on.
And so the trout there are the smallest one I caught was like 22 inches.
It was massive.
And we were on these jet boats.
It was like the best experience ever.
I highly recommend it if you guys are fishermen.
Well, I just fly fish from the jet boat.
I always picture fly fishers with the waders like standing standing in the water.
Yeah, you do.
Well, you can do that too, but really there's like a little brace, like something you'd stand on at the head of the boat, at the very top of the boat.
I don't know what you call that in a boat.
The prow.
The prow.
And anyway, so you stand there.
Where the naked mermaid is.
They stand.
The carving.
Yeah, you become the naked woman.
And then you stand there and you just go, like, it's amazing.
They go all over this massive river.
And I'm telling you.
I have a funny story about a naked mermaid on a pro.
Do you really?
Yeah.
We were at a restaurant called the Brigantine in San Diego, and it has one of those on the ceiling, like a big ship suspended and a naked mermaid hanging off the prow.
And there was these salespeople that were trying to impress us to start selling us their valves or pipes or whatever.
And this guy was just being the classic crass salesman.
And he's just loudly shouting in the restaurant: like, how much do you want to bet?
I could climb up there and stick a $20 bill in her boobs.
And it's like me and Dan and like some Christian guys.
And we're just like, uh-huh.
Okay.
They didn't get the account.
So funny.
That's not the flex you think it is.
Did he do it?
Did he try to do it?
He didn't do it.
We should have to do it.
You really should do that.
Yeah.
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Anyway, Montana was beautiful and the people were cool.
And they're dealing with their stuff right now with this Zoe Zephyr.
Zephyr?
That's it.
The man thinks he's a woman.
That's right.
I guess what they were really upset about, and I hadn't seen this in the headlines, but the thing that he said that got him censored on the floor of the State Assembly or whatever is that he said, when you Republicans pray and fold your hands, like there, you I hope you look down and see blood, you know.
And they were like, that's inappropriate.
Get out of here.
So they just made the headline, like, well, when he said that there was blood on their hands, they threw him out.
That's that's not inappropriate.
But it was, he was like connecting it to their religion.
And so they were very offended, but obviously.
Yeah.
That's inappropriate.
And he seems like a real piece of work if you watch some of the rants and stuff that he's doing.
Sam, I haven't watched much yet.
I saw a picture.
Well, doesn't he think he's a woman?
Yeah.
Right.
So that's, you know.
Well, yes, but that's the line you crossed.
Agreed.
But they always, the left always seems to have to hitch their wagon to anything.
Like any crazy person, no matter what, like Dylan Mulvania said.
Yeah, the crazier, the better.
The crazier, the better.
They're forced to celebrate it because they've made that the litmus test or whatever.
That's true.
Well, everyone, if you like these talks about Montana and fly fishing, you can hit like, subscribe, and hit the little bell to keep up with all our podcasts on YouTube and Rumble and find our Babylon Bee podcast page on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
And we want you to become a paying subscriber to the Babylon Bee to get the ad-free full-length podcast.
There's also bloopers and outtakes, and Jarrett breaks on every other take on the shoots.
And nobody can act opposite Travis without breaking.
It's impossible.
It's impossible to do.
So yeah, if you want to check out some of that behind-the-scenes stuff, become a subscriber.
Go to BabylonB.com/slash plans and use the new code podcast to get 20% off.
And that tells people that people are listening to the podcast.
So do that.
Let's do it.
You could also use the link and the code podcast, and we'll have a link there on the screen to get 10% off anything in the Babylon Bee story, including the shirt, the very shirt that Jarrett is wearing.
That says a Caucasian jack.
100% less offensive language.
You can still support your snacks.
We will send you this exact one if you order a small.
No, no, this is not a small.
Okay, what is that?
This is a medium.
Medium.
Okay.
But I find myself in between medium and large.
I don't know if you're in the middle of the morning.
That's where I am.
I'm in between small and medium.
I would rather wear kind of something a little tighter than something really loose.
So I don't know.
I have the problem because my gut is still not down.
Mine too.
So the mediums show the gut, but they show the arms more.
This is a large, but they show the arms nicer.
But the large kind of hides this part of the physique, but it also hides the gut.
Yeah, the large sometimes makes you look fatter.
It's a catch 220 pounds.
Then even if you can see your gut.
Like the large actually, I don't know.
It's just, it's weird.
It's true.
So you're boxier.
Yeah.
It's the boxy look or the tight look.
But at the tight look, I feel like I have to go the whole time.
I'm doing that right now.
That's what I thought, baby.
Well, guys, we're going to keep the good vibes going with Love Mail.
Someone named Seth Hale left a comment on a recent Michael Malice interview, which if you missed, you need to check out.
Michael Malice is awesome.
And he talks about the fall of the Soviet Union and taking the white pill.
There's a white pill now?
There's a white pill.
What is the white pill?
There's a red pill and a black pill.
I think the white pill is like hope.
Like it's based, but there's optimism.
So you're not just pessimistic about that.
Because I think that's black pill.
What's the blue pill?
The blue pill is like go back to sleep.
The blue pill is when you're just, yeah, you're not awake.
You're not awake.
You go back into the major fall.
You go back into that farm where they make the babies.
Yeah.
And they use them as the energy source for all that.
Do they make babies or do they just put the babies in the pods and the pods?
And they just grow up in there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess they do put the babies.
You never get out of the pod.
You're an amniotic fluid.
Well, let's see what Seth said.
So he said, I'm not very far into the interview, but I'm incredibly interested in this book more than a lot of Michael's others.
It seems he's pointing to something similar to Tolkien's idea of you catastrophe, which is to say the nature of the gospel.
Probably inadvertent, but it is the pattern of the gospel.
A sudden turn from bad to good.
Everything looks dark and bleak and cold and depraved, but here is hope and goodness and glory.
It's the story that God loves to tell more than any other, it seems.
You can see it everywhere.
Oh, it's interesting.
It's really great.
Yeah, I haven't watched the Michael Malice interview yet, but I think I'm convinced to check it out.
I'm going to take the white pill.
Take the white pill, everybody.
You can get it for 10% off by using code Podcast in our store.
Turkester.
The pill, not the book.
Yeah, that's right.
All right.
What's in the news this week?
Steven Crowder blasted his wife during a divorce proceedings on his show.
His wife's family released a video where apparently Steven Crowder is smoking a cigar while verbally abusing his very, very pregnant wife.
Have you guys seen this clip?
I did.
I didn't watch it.
I watched it.
I watched some of it.
I watched kind of like the part that they just clipped out that short exchange.
I don't know if there was like a wider context.
My favorite part of this, though, is that when Dan originally wrote the notes, he wrote David Crowder instead of Stephen Crowder, who is a Christian recording artist.
And I was very confused for a while while we're talking about it.
Yeah, he's the worship guy.
So just to be clear, David Crowder, as far as we know, hasn't been smoking a cigar and abusing his pregnant wife.
No, not David Crowder, Steven Crowder.
Let's get our facts straight.
He said stuff like, you need to perform your wifely duties and not leave the house with their one car because I guess they have one car.
He's a millionaire.
I don't understand why they only have one car, but he wouldn't let her leave the house.
And then she was.
Is it a Maybach or something?
It may be like, maybe.
He put it all in one car.
McLaren.
Yeah, so, but he ends up kind of telling her not to leave.
And then he tells her to put gloves on when she's feeding the dog and that she won't obey him.
So a lot of this is like he's angry at her because she won't obey him.
And so it's a weird, it's a weird thing as we watch it.
But anyway, we kind of think that the car thing is a control tactic, you know?
You get this, you get one car, even though you have enough money to buy anything else.
Told her he didn't love her in that video.
Talks a lot about discipline and respect.
He kind of goes off on some strange, like, do you respect men?
How do you respect men?
He kind of has this weird thing.
I stopped watching Steven Crowder videos after the first one.
I was like, I don't know.
Be a worthy.
Right.
This is funny than his other ones.
I doubt that.
Yeah.
It's about the same.
I don't want to say that.
Well, the reason I didn't watch it is because I don't want to bash on his personal, like him and his wife, whatever.
No, I just thought he's having a very public, he's having a very public deterioration meltdown over this stuff.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, obviously we need to pray for him, pray for his wife.
Whenever the personal stuff comes out like this, it's like, I don't want to sit here and rubis in it in a gossipy way.
No, but obviously if he's representing Christ and he's and he's, you know, this stuff is going out there and his personal life isn't matching his public life, then that's terrible.
And hopefully there's people that have reached out to her and offered her the support that she needs.
And I mean, you know, we've all been in fights and said things we don't mean.
I mean, obviously not to this extent.
I know.
It's weird, though, because I think philosophically, I think dealing with it is okay for us because this is a representation of what the left or people that progressives would assume that conservatives do to their wives.
Like, I think they all kind of think that we're a bunch of patriarchal, like weird secret abusers.
Secret abusers.
So it's like, oh, see, like, this is proof that you guys are a bunch of people.
It definitely doesn't make conservatives look good.
No, well, and I think talking about what a real Christian marriage is.
He's a proclaimed Christian, right?
That's what I hear.
That's one of the reasons why I'm having a hard time because some of it is like this weird.
I've never followed him.
I just never liked that he was not funny and a fake discipline.
But I don't want to get involved in his personal life.
That's the real crisis.
That's what I take it shortly.
I just know marriage is like, marriage is a partnership.
It's not like what he's describing, this strange, weird abuse.
Yeah, but again, we don't know all the details.
I'm not trying to excuse what happened on this video.
I don't.
I just pray for him.
Hopefully there's some healing that happens in that because that is ugly and brutal.
And that can make you go crazy.
Yeah.
Well, in his life, I think success makes people go crazy too.
There's this part of his life.
He got crazy successful.
Just accept that we're trying to pray for him, Jared.
Do we know who got the car in the divorce?
They had just the one.
The wise judge said, I'm going to cut it down the middle.
Yes, and whoever loves the car more.
Scowder goes, fine.
No, you're fine.
You keep it.
You keep it.
This segment is brought to you by Dunkin Donuts.
Oh, the best donut shop anywhere.
Yeah.
I'm an East Coaster, so I love Dunkin' Donuts.
I do.
I like Dunkin Donuts.
It tastes kind of industrial to me, but I like it.
It's better than Starbucks.
It is.
For the coffee.
Oh, yeah.
See, I'm not a coffee drinker.
I like the donuts at Dunkin' Donuts, though.
Well, they don't have donuts at Starbucks, so they're by definition.
They have one.
I think they have one glazed option at Starbucks, yeah.
Like a VMware.
Oh, maybe they do.
Or like the old school, the old-fashioned.
Yeah, they do more like weird breakfast pastries, like a muffin.
Some are good.
Ham and Swiss croissant's good.
Banana bread is good.
I just got into their coffee.
Their cinnamon coffee cake is good at Starbucks.
But for donuts, Duncan's.
I'm a Starbucks egg bites man.
I am too.
The Duncan Munchkins, they're so good.
Oh, yeah, those are good.
We should look into that.
Little donut holes.
And Duncan just introduced egg bites as well.
Did they?
To compete with them.
How are their egg bites?
They're good.
Oh, okay.
They're on parser on par with Starbucks egg bites.
I had one at the Ontario airport recently.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're good.
Wasn't bad.
I like the Dunkin'.
They have a breakfast sandwich, a pepper bacon sandwich.
And they do those little bacon snacks.
Have you gotten those?
Or there's like eight pieces of the peppery sweet bacon?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That's we do that.
10% off in the Babylon Bee store with Code Podcast.
Is that true?
That's not taking up time.
That is not true.
Somebody's going to go into Dunkin' Donuts.
They're like, what's the Babylon Bee discount?
You know, we did it.
We did a joke very early on in the Bee's life about Family Christian stores like code Heresy for.
And we were getting emails from Family Christian was emailing us saying, where did you guys come up with this code?
And old ladies were going into the store trying to use it.
That's sweet.
Wonderful.
It's great.
Well, there are two pro-Biden influencers that have been on TikTok and Twitter.
And Community Notes, which is a new fact-checking service at Twitter, went and fact-checked all of it and found that they were being paid by the DNC.
So they then kind of had a public meltdown about it.
And if you watch these videos, all you need to do is see this still and you know that it's going to be absolutely miserable.
Look at their faces.
So these two guys rant all day about Joe Biden is writing for our nation and Republicans are trying to destroy America.
That's horrible.
But it looks horrible, but it also looks like 99% of other videos I see on TikTok and Twitter.
It just seems like that's what.
It's that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every thumbnail looks like that, and I know that I'll hate it before I click on it.
So their names are Harry Sisson and Chris Mowry.
Have you guys seen these community notes on Twitter?
No, what is Community Notes?
No.
It's a crowdsourced fact check.
Okay.
So instead of the like Facebook approved, like this is false climate info or whatever, people vote on it and you have to have a consensus from people on the left and the right for it to.
Oh, interesting.
But does that work or is it still very?
It seems to work.
I think I've seen a couple flaws where they're fact-checking things that probably didn't need a fact check.
And one interesting thing is these fact checks are popping up on ads.
So people who are paying for ads on Twitter companies are now getting fact-checked.
Oh, like this isn't the best.
This actually isn't the best.
Oh my gosh.
And I'm like, that's probably good for Twitter's business.
I mean, we're so used to being lied to in marketing.
To have a fact-check.
That's very interesting.
It's interesting.
Like, this is actually a stock model.
Actually, the Yelp reviews are terrible.
Our world-famous clam chowder.
Yeah.
False.
No one outside of Missouri has heard of this clam check.
Nobody in Japan has ever heard of this.
But it's actually really interesting because President Biden is getting fact-checked on Twitter.
And it's wonderful.
It is beautiful when you see him getting fact-checked.
So this fact-check said that Sisson recently signed with Pallet Management, which received more than $200,000 to fund their content in the last eight months.
Wow.
And FEC records show that Harry Sisson received $200,000 from Pallet.
Palette took that money from the DNC.
And that's pretty interesting.
So here's another fact check of Korean Jean-Pierre.
He said, when it comes to illegal migration, you have seen it come down by more than 90%.
Almost everyone jumped on her for that one.
And there was a note.
It was so wildly false.
Where did they get that number?
And a nice thing about the community notes is they have to have specific facts, like specific claims.
It can't just be this isn't true.
You know, visit our fact-checking center.
It's like, here's the number of migrants between 2016 and 2020, and here's the numbers between 21 and 2022.
And then it's linked to actual sources, even from the government.
And is this community notes, this new fact-checking system?
Is this our buddy Elon's doing?
I think Elon either launched this or he took something that was called like bird notes that had previously existed but wasn't very expanded.
He just expanded on it.
And perfected it.
Yeah.
He made it perfect as he does all things.
About this one particular claim that Jean-Pierre said, where did, I don't know, did they redefine the term or something?
Like, how did they come up with that number?
Because a lot of times this is what they do.
They'll take something, they'll redefine it, and then they'll tell you a statistic or something that can be interpreted two different ways.
But this just sounds wildly false.
It just sounds like 90% incorrect.
Obviously wrong.
Remember when they did the gas thing and gas prices have come down and they just zoomed in on like one little cent that didn't come down.
90% since 8 a.m. this morning or something.
And it's like, well, there's, you know, there's only two migrants now, and there was 50 this morning.
So it's come down now.
That's right.
That's like that claim when they say we're the fastest growing religion.
And it's one guy, and he invites his friend, and now it's the fastest-growing religion in the world.
That's true.
So this is interesting.
I was always skeptical of that.
I don't know if I should say this or not.
I probably, I don't think it matters because it's public.
When I was at Ellen, they would always give away TCL Roku TVs and they would always say America's fastest growing brand.
And they would say that for years.
And I was like, because nobody buys them, I'm sure they're not bigger than like Sodi or something.
We sold two last year.
Yeah, so now it's so just statistically, it's the fastest growing.
Yeah, that's right.
So maybe it's true, but it's really in a very narrow context.
This has been Adam Yenser's community note.
Well, speaking of things that need community notes, what the heck is President Biden talking about here?
This is his tweet this week.
It says, Muslim culture has been woven throughout American culture from the very start.
We must always stand against anti-Muslim hate and stand up for the rights and dignity of all people.
It's essential to who we are, a nation founded on the idea of freedom and justice for all.
So people are kind of zooming in on that first sentence: Muslim culture has been woven throughout American culture from the, like, from 1776 from the start of yesterday.
I used to, I used to hear, didn't the only, the only thing I've heard of that is, didn't Thomas Jefferson carry both a Bible and a Quran with him?
Did he?
I didn't know that.
He was like a very well-read man.
I think he had read and understood the Quran, but I don't, you know.
That's also that's that's again saying the same to say it's been woven throughout American culture because Thomas Jefferson carried a Quran around.
Well, that's like that's the only reference that I've heard to it in early American, in early American culture.
But is this specifically responding to some Muslims?
That's what I was going to say.
That was the weird thing.
Did something happen this week?
May 1st, I guess.
And the other thing is, is, you know, like the second paragraph, like, yeah, we should stand against anti-Muslim hate.
But would he ever tweet something like this out about the way Christian culture was woven into America from the start?
It's like you agree with it.
It's going out of the way to pander to a certain demographic.
Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure did something happen this year.
It's like I agree with the second part of it, but I don't know why he's tweeting it.
It's like one of those, sir, this is a Wendy's type of thing.
Yes.
Sir, this is a Judeo-Christian culture.
Have you ever heard of the Bible?
This is a chick-fil-a.
And yeah, Thomas Jefferson waged a war against the Barbary people.
I guess that was Muslim culture, maybe.
But I saw a stat, maybe it was one of the community notes on this that the first mosque in America was founded in 1929.
Oh, really?
Which is maybe earlier than I would have thought.
I don't know much about were there Muslim settlers in the very early days of America, even if they were like a slim superior.
Yeah, maybe Israel.
I really don't know.
I don't know much of that history.
I imagine there, I mean, gosh, there were millions of people coming over.
So I imagine there were a few people that were of a Muslim background.
But as far as creating a culture or even an area where the Muslims were kind of together, I don't know.
I don't think that was a big influence in the early American culture.
Yeah, and they're just explosive growth.
But then again, back then, Islam, I mean, gosh, not to get too much in the weeds, but Islam was different in terms of its public persona back then.
It was a lot more peaceful.
There was a lot, I mean, there wasn't as much kind of what we would know of as extremism now.
So, you know, like you watch Lawrence of Arabia, you know, there's all this hospitality over there.
But let's get something that, you know, Christians, Jews, and Muslims hate, Pornhub.
We can all agree.
We can all agree.
Come together that that's not a good cultural force.
No.
Pornhub blocked the entire state of Utah because they passed an age verification law that requires you to upload a picture of your identification that proves your identity and age.
Wow.
So good for you too.
Is that bad face?
Are they trying to punish you?
I feel like that's.
Well, I honestly cannot believe that more laws like this have it.
I am not just in the sense of free speech and artistic expression.
I think you can debate whether porn has artistic value or not.
But I'm not for banning porn, but I am astonished that there are not more regulations in place to keep people from under 18 from doing it.
It's so accessible to kids these days.
It's such an easy first time to get exposed to it at such an early age.
Yeah.
There needs to be more laws that make it so that kids and people under 18 can't access this stuff so easily.
Well, I feel like they should ban porn.
And I feel like it should be something that, you know, it almost like the way abortion used to be, where you have to go out of your way to go get it in some, even if you're not.
You want to go back to the state old days when you had to get it from the CD guy behind the CD guy behind the 7-Eleven.
You had to run through the saloon doors at the video rental place.
The beads and the knees.
You had to drive your car and park out front somewhere.
Yeah, where it was embarrassing.
And instead of making it so ubiquitous to the culture, it's in everything.
It's part of the entire internet.
So I don't know.
I wish we could.
I don't think porn is a good influence on anyone.
And in that sense, I understand why we should ban it.
But I think in the sense of artistic expression, it's hard to draw the line.
Like, how do you know whether you're blocking hardcore pornography or just stopping a San Diego restaurant from having a naked boob mermaid on the ship?
Yeah.
That beautiful artist.
What is the line?
That beautiful art.
That art when you see it.
We talked about art last week.
Yeah.
I think you have a broader understanding of art than I do, but I think the.
I just watched The Simpsons episode with the kids.
And yeah, I let my kids watch The Simpsons, even though I'm a Christian.
Uh-oh.
And they're at a blockbuster.
I had to explain to my kids, like, they're, you know, the renting tapes.
Oh, yeah.
And Bart goes to the adult section and he goes through the beads.
And he's like, all right.
And he goes in and it's all like Watergate's documentary.
Like, adult man.
There's a video story in my hometown when I was growing up.
It wasn't the blockbuster.
It was like the local, I think it was called Marquee Video.
And they had the like saloon door beads and stuff to the adult section.
And when I was in probably seventh or eighth grade, one of the kids saw our social studies teacher coming out.
And so the next day at school, it was all Mr. So-and-so came out of the adult section at the marquee man.
How embarrassing for that guy.
Oh my goodness.
That's awful.
Oh my gosh.
I said that's awesome.
Porn sucks.
That's awful.
Yeah.
Porn's terrible.
It should be banned.
I hate it.
Hey, I have two questions for you.
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That's samaritanministries.org/slash thebabylon be.
Well, Paul Stanley from KISS called normalizing transgender surgeries for minors a sad and dangerous fad.
Good for him.
Good for Paul Stanley.
I knew I made the right decision when I went and saw KISS at the pond in 2019.
Yeah, the Knights in Satan service.
I'm glad you went.
Saw that guy and his gut was hanging out of his leather jacket.
Oh, really?
And they were coming down on the chains like when the show started or whatever.
And I was like, I bet that guy's against transgender surgeries from because just look at him.
They're horning in on his territory.
He's like, We used to be the only ones who could look weird.
So he said there's a big difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game.
And then parents in some cases allow it.
I don't know if that's a real sentence.
There are individuals who, as adults, may decide reassignment is their needed choice, but turning this into a game or parents normalizing it as some sort of natural alternative or believing that because a little boy likes to play dress up in his sister's clothes or a girl and her brothers, we should lead them steps further down a path that's far from the innocence of what they are doing.
With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the fun of using pronouns and saying what they identify as some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for those who truly affected and have turned into a sad and dangerous fad.
We built this city.
That's not kissed.
You should make us all a delirious.
That's Chicago or something.
I don't know.
That's Billy.
No, not Billy Joel.
That's no, it's Starship.
Jefferson Starship.
What's that kiss?
What's Kisses?
I say, I don't know Kisses.
Rock and roll on this rock.
Rock and roll all night.
That's what I was thinking.
Rock and roll.
I knew they had rock and roll in there somewhere.
And Powell, I made a mistake.
No, I was thinking that was a Kiss song, but I was wrong.
Got it.
Because I knew they had.
I'm not a big Kiss fan.
Got it.
I'm not either.
Jefferson Starship.
Never did like Kiss, actually.
I was trying, where I was trying to remember it from, there's like a family guy where Lois goes to the Kiss concert.
Yeah, they have the Destroyer album and Alive One and Two.
Good records.
Nice.
But they were kind of weirdos.
I don't think that's what it stands for.
You don't think so?
No, that's one of those urban legends like D ⁇ D is.
Is it really?
Yeah.
There we go.
Stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I'm sure that's what it is.
Okay.
Last week we showcased AI's ability to scrape the internet and mash things together to generate images.
Now it seems to be able to create videos.
Enjoyed this video of Will Smith eating spaghetti.
Our friends at NotToB have reported on.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, let's do it.
I would love to hear this video of Will Smith.
But first, I'm going to join the Not the Beast newsletter to escape the censors and toxic social media platforms.
Yeah.
And become a subscriber.
It already looks weird.
It looks like chunk.
All right.
Oh, gosh, what is this?
But see, this doesn't look that good.
This looks very strange.
That smacking sound.
Oh, my gosh.
This is terrifying.
It's not good, but it's one of those things like when your kid draws a giraffe and you're like, oh, good job, man.
That kind of does look like that.
It looks kind of fast.
It kind of does look like that.
What is Not the Be doing?
Why do they report on this stuff?
Well, they're our friends.
They really got to scrape the bottom of the barrel sometimes.
Don't they?
That was weird stuff.
You won't believe that.
And I watched it.
I'm like, no, I believe that.
It was just the kind of stuff you always post.
I think I didn't pitch that headline.
There was some headline I pitched about it.
Like, shocking video and not to be something you've seen seven years ago.
Not that shocking.
Exactly.
It's always that kind of thing.
We love you guys.
It's not that shocking.
That AI was not very impressive.
Keeping it kind of goofy looking.
That was really weird looking.
But Joe Russo, the turned it into a five-paragraph article.
With lots of emojis and fire emojis.
Did they mention that he looks kind of like Chunk from the Goonies?
Not Chunk, the other guy.
Slaw.
Sla.
Joe Russo, the director of Avengers Endgames, thinks that with the speed the technology is moving, we're two years out from full-length motion pictures being generated with voice commands on our couch.
Oh, I hope not.
Say, make me a movie about that is what's scary, yeah.
Because, you know, I think there's probably most people are against doing that sort of thing, but as long as you can make money off of it and it works, there's gonna be studios and people out there who just take the shortcut in the middle.
You're like, I'd rather, I'd like to see an Indiana Jones movie that's about, you know, finding some kind of thing, and you could probably just watch the whole thing.
Just and it would, you'd be the only person that would ever see it.
So here's another one.
This is apparently an AI-generated pizza commercial.
Oh, see, I thought that was sloth in this one at first.
It looked exactly like him.
Delivery, pizzas come fast.
Don't know, who's there?
Pizza Magic.
That seems like someone wrote that.
That's a really hot spot.
It's like family, but with more cheese.
I'm willing to bet that somebody either curated that a little, massaged it, or added the jokes about pizza magic and stuff.
I don't know.
I can believe AI.
It has a good comedic time.
No, it has a good comedic time.
You know that guy that used to post those fake scripts, and he's like, I made a bot watch Thousands of Hours of Batman, but he was actually right.
It was like a very clear.
That's how that comes off to me.
Yeah, and I've seen, I mean, if you ask AI.
It feels like a Tim and Eric sketch.
Yeah, it's just very pizza magic.
Yeah.
If you wish, I feel like I've seen AI produce jokes on par with those jokes that we just watched.
Yeah, that's what it felt like.
That's amazing.
It really does.
I mean, the Will Smith eating spaghetti, I believe that a computer came up.
Yeah.
The other one, I don't think so.
Maybe you're right.
Maybe they generated elements of it, but I think someone stitched it together to make it funny.
Yeah.
All right.
Shocking video.
Are you shocked?
Let us know in the comments.
Super shocked.
So, Elon Musk, Elon Musk commented on The Onion this week.
So The Onion posted a story: Goofy beats Ron DeSantis to death with a crowbar.
And it has a bloody crowbar that Goofy is holding.
And this guy tweeted about it, and he said, The same people who are outraged at the Babylon Bee for telling the truth about Rachel Levine will have no problem with this tweet from The Onion.
And Elon said, The Onion has become jarringly unfunny.
At the heart of humor is a revealed truth, but woke is a lie, so it is humorless.
That's our guy.
That's our man.
He's our cheerleader.
Look at that.
Our number one fan.
I don't think The Onion joke is particularly funny, but I also don't think it's as bad as people were trying to imagine.
I didn't kind of care about it.
It was one of those things where I put it on par with the Will Smith bald joke and with our Rachel Levine joke.
And this joke, if they didn't cause an outrage, they kind of would have just gone.
Yeah, they've just gone away.
I thought you were going to say on par with Will Smith eating spaghetti.
Oh, it is kind of on par.
But is this in reference to some either Goofy or Ron DeSantis?
Well, Ron DeSantis.
The feud and the lawsuits going back and forth with him.
Of course.
There it is.
That's still unfunny.
Even knowing the fact it wasn't funny.
The Onion leans into this absurdist humor sometimes where it's just like something random that happens as part of it, and they're not trying to make a big point with it.
And I think people mistake it for them trying to.
They still every now and then have good headlines, but it seems like they still have some funny stuff.
A pretty clear point on this one.
I don't think there's a point.
What is the point?
Because there's no political point there other than commenting on the situation that both sides hate each other.
They're trying to say that Ron DeSantis should be beaten to death.
I don't think that's what they're trying to say.
They might think that, but I don't think that's what they're saying.
I think they're trying to say it here.
Yeah.
It's like this is a fantasy fan fiction.
I mean, maybe it reveals something.
I don't know.
I think it was just trying to be absurdist and shocking.
I'm just trying to think if the Ballon B's are not being like this, where it's just a statement.
Sure.
I don't know.
I mean, we gave Rachel Levine our man of the year.
But that was when people point out that we told the truth about Rachel Levine.
I do like that phrasing.
Yeah.
A revealed Levine isn't.
Because Goofy never did this, as far as I know.
I don't think so.
Yeah.
Maybe they're just reporting the news.
Yeah, who knows?
Vice, once valued at $5.7 billion, is filing for bankruptcy.
Goodness gracious.
Yeah.
Here's a tweet from Zach Stence.
How in the world did the market ever think Vice Media was worth more than what Disney paid for Marvel Studios?
That number does shut down.
That's insane.
That's almost what they paid for Star Wars.
See, this, you should put, you won't believe this shocking article.
We should pass this off to our friends on that.
Exactly.
Charlie Kirk, who's got a beautiful face, says that.
I live my day as a capital.
What does he say?
I live my life as a capitalist every single day, Shank.
I don't think I've ever seen that clip.
I haven't seen that clip either.
I got to watch it there.
It's so good.
I do agree with you on the face, though.
Beautiful face.
Well, it's a beautiful face.
The features are really small.
Charlie Kirk?
Small face.
I like those when the guys got a large head.
I think it's called Kirkslider.com.
And it's that quote.
It's, I live my life as a capitalist every single day, Shank.
And you can shrink and enlarge Charlie Kirk's face, and his voice gets higher and deeper.
It's hours of fun.
Patrick, can you pull that up?
No.
We'll see if we can get it.
Okay.
Maybe we'll put it on the bank.
We'll put it at the end.
Well, he says this comes just days after BuzzFeed News closed its doors and weeks after NPR announced it was laying off 10% of its workforce and ESPN, ABC News Corp, and Vox Media have all announced staffing cuts this year as well.
It's a bad sign for the economy, bad sign for journalism sector in particular.
Here's one that doesn't affect us.
The writers are.
Speaker for yourself.
I might have to go picket some of those.
Oh, yeah, okay.
The writers are going on strike.
I might have to.
You might have to.
Is that part?
Is that really true?
I don't know how much you can comment on it.
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to comment on it a lot, but yeah, I'm in the WGA, so I may have to go walk the picket line.
You should take this one.
No, I shouldn't.
Oh, maybe you should.
I should not.
I'll take this one.
Yes.
The writers are going on strike.
So, Writers Guild of America, Board of Directors, the WGA West, and the Council of WGA East, acting upon the authority granted to them by their membership, have voted unanimously to call a strike effective at 2.01 a.m. Tuesday, May.
Or 1201.
12.01.
So, really quick, what is this?
I mean, obviously, strikes are always about.
Oh, and this is the greatest part.
It shut down all the late night coming.
I think it was instantly the next day all those shows didn't air because they don't have the, those are those ones that they're written the same day and they're produced on the same day, so they can't produce anything.
But you know who's still going is Gutfeld.
Gutfeld's still doing it.
Is this part of the issue?
Everything he does is extemporaneous.
You're allowed to have shows if they're just speaking.
Like right now, I can do this because I'm just making sure as I go.
But you can't have stuff that's written.
You're telling me Gutfeld does not write his monologue?
Oh, his monologue, yeah.
But I don't think it's a guild show.
I don't think he has a guild show.
There we go.
Must not be because he's still on.
It's AI generated.
It's generated by Coleman.
So I don't know how anyone wants to comment on this, how accurate this is, but it says part of the issue seems to be the economic strain put on writers with the transition to the streaming model.
Writers are paid per episode in what used to be a 22-episode television season and is now a 10-episode streaming season, so a lot less work.
This will have wide-ranging economic impact on the entertainment industry, such as caterers, production crews, local restaurants in LA, Georgia, New York, all the other filming spots.
And I know, Adam, you probably could comment more intelligently, but you're not going to.
I think this is a necessary correction, though.
Yeah.
Because for a long time, the streaming platforms have really sort of gutted the industry in terms of who gets what.
And the back end is terrible, and we got to figure this out.
Yeah, the writers want their fair share of the pay as this switches to streaming services.
Now, this has been the issue for the last versions of this have been the issue that's come up the last few times they've ever gone on strike or have been close to going on strike.
Because the industry is transitioning from network and cable media to online and streaming stuff.
And yeah, the current business model and the contracts aren't really built to pay people fairly in that model.
Yeah, as far as I understand it, people generally get paid in production and then nothing on the back end.
It used to be that you made all your money on the back end.
And so I don't know.
I think it needs to be adjusted so that there's more of that because people are still making money on your product for a long time.
So I think it's important.
It's important.
Kind of get that piece of the pie.
Still strike at the Babylon B, though.
But luckily, you know, it's not just writers.
Luckily, the economy is bad for everybody right now.
Hold on.
Somebody's.
Patrick just wrote, what is your favorite pie?
Patrick?
Our assistant, our production assistant.
What is your favorite pie?
What is my favorite pie?
That's a good question.
Is that what we're really going to talk about?
I like a pumpkin pie.
I don't know why this, I don't know why this depends on a question just popped up.
Because I think someone said, because he said, get the piece of the pie.
Oh, okay.
I thought this was just apropos to nothing.
I'll go with pumpkin pie.
I think I like a good, like something really sweet, like an apple pie that's got a lot of like a Dutch apple pie with ice cream with a vanilla.
It's kind of like a donut crust.
Have you ever had that where it's glazed?
I don't think so.
That's an amazing thing.
Okay.
So it depends on the year for me.
Or the time of year.
So I like a 2000.
Yeah, 2004.
His piece of power.
A mince meat pie.
No, I think I do like around Thanksgiving, I like pumpkin.
And then the rest of the year, I'll probably have apple if I have pie.
So I like pumpkins.
There's a pretty good consensus here.
And usually we argue over things.
We're all apple pie and pumpkin pies.
I think those are only two pies.
Now, what does start a debate is if you ask cake or pie, which is better.
Pie.
That's controversial.
I'm a pie gang.
Oh, see, I'm generally a pie person.
I've agreed with it.
I've heard people get into debates about that, though.
I don't like cake.
I don't understand that birthday cake.
See, the only cakes that I like are ice cream cake and cheesecake, which are more similar to pies, I would say, in their consistency.
And it's just because I like cheese and ice cream.
Yeah.
I would love an ice cream cake with the crust that's all crushed.
And those little Oreo crumbly crumbles.
I love that.
I love an ice cream cake.
Is this the economic collapse that won't be televised?
How are bank failures worse now than in 2008?
I thought that was the Burj Khalifa, but it's an economic graph.
So this graph is completely unlabeled, so we have to figure out what it means.
I think it's banks that have failed like in 2008.
I can't make out any of those slides.
These are all names of banks.
So there's a bunch of banks that failed in 2010-ish.
There we go.
I can see it now.
And then this.
This is the most meaningless chart I've ever seen in my life.
And then there's some balls.
This is the worst infographic I've ever.
And then there's more balls over here.
And some of them have numbers, but some of them have words.
And neither axis is labeled.
So there's three banks that three very large banks, Signature, Silicon Valley, and First Republic Bank.
Those all failed.
Failed now.
And the stack, the tower is almost as big as this tower.
Oh, so that tower was the last financial crisis.
2008.
I see.
Okay.
But it's not as many little banks.
It's two-thirds of the crisis with three entities.
With only three.
So I think the point is that if this tower fell over, more balls.
There's as much money being as all those tiny banks that failed.
Well, this is what happened in the news this week, everyone, but we wanted to leave you with one question.
What would Ron Paul do?
Let's go on to the banger of the week.
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Banger of the week.
What about Rand Paul?
The best stories are the ones that we're trying to figure out what we're looking at as we discuss it.
What in the world?
Here's our banger of the week.
Unemployed guys' basement selfie video crushes Fox News in primetime ratings.
We didn't talk about Tucker.
We talked about Tucker last week, didn't we?
We mentioned Tucker last week because it had just happened hours before we did the podcast.
Yeah, that's right.
And he got 24 million views on that little two-minute address that he did.
In a few days, too.
It was like really quick.
I know the show was getting, what, three or four million viewers?
But of course, getting two minutes on a tweet isn't the same thing as getting people to watch a solid hour of.
And now Fox News has been leaking stuff.
Someone there has been leaking stuff, trying to smear Tucker or expose the.
They're trying to make.
There's a video where he called someone's girlfriend Yummy.
That's right.
In between takes.
And then there's some text message, probably the most incriminating one.
It was a group of MAGA people beating up an Antifa person.
And he said part of him hoped that they would kill the guy.
And then he also said that's not how white men fight.
No.
This is not how white men fight.
I feel like Fox News is trying to make Tucker Carlson unhireable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's kind of, because there are options that he could go to like Newsmax.
And we had Chris Ruddy on our show probably, I don't know, three or four months ago.
And he was talking about Newsmax, but Chris Ruddy can hire.
We're prepared to offer Tucker Carlson, what, $17 an hour?
Yeah.
Yeah, he could probably get higher than minimum for sure.
Yeah.
We'd love to have him.
We just don't have a lot of money to give him.
Yeah.
We pay $15 a headline, so if he's got any ideas.
Yeah.
It's kind of interesting in that thing you're talking about with the Antifa.
He released this text that I guess he had written to his producer.
And he said, I was watching this video that these people fight.
A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid.
And then he said, I suddenly found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they'd hit him harder, kill him.
I really wanted it to hurt the kid.
I could taste it.
And somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off.
This isn't good for me.
I'm becoming something I don't want to be.
The Antifa creep is a human being.
Much as I despise what he says and does.
So see, that's that's I just looked at this this morning, right before we started shooting.
They cut off, obviously.
Yeah, that he.
I shouldn't gloat over his suffering.
I should be bothered by it.
I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid and would be crushed if he was killed.
If I don't care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I any better than he is?
So he's saying the exact opposite of what's happening.
It's like when they said Trump called white nationalists fine people because they cut off the part where he said white nationalists should be condemned totally.
Don't get me wrong, not the white nationalists.
They just have to edit it there so they can make it sound as bad as possible.
Well, we also have a bomb of hold on, hold on.
He didn't explain why he thinks white men don't fight that way.
That part's still a little weird.
Wow.
I didn't understand what that meant.
I don't really either.
This is not how white men fight.
Maybe it was a typo.
Bomb of the week.
Job's three friends offered to cheer him up with a song on the recorder.
I like that one.
It was a good one.
The recorder's annoying.
Yeah.
Little kids play it all the time.
Right.
I think Joel said his kids started taking up the recorder, and now his wife was posting pictures in their minivan of them all in the back seat.
Playing my country, Tizz of the Hot Cross Buns and the Jurassic Park theme.
Oh, yeah.
So if you guys complain that we don't do church humor anymore, why don't you click on the Bible jokes?
Because it bombs now.
Is it bombs?
Explosively bombs.
Bomb of the week.
It's the Babylon Beats sketch of the week.
Is the FBI listening to your phone calls?
We got footage of a couple FBI agents in a van listening in on some extreme shoes.
It's shocking, and you won't believe it.
You will not believe it.
So the van was fun.
I wasn't out the shoot.
Was it fun?
I wasn't sitting with Siak in the van for, what, an hour or two?
It was okay.
The last two shoots we've had have been.
This is not what white men usually do.
It's like 100.
It's like 100 degrees in both cases in the last two shoots.
We've had the one yesterday for the Disney one, and then that van shoot was just terribly hot.
We had a good time, though.
And yeah, it was so fun to just kind of play and have a good time with Siake.
It was great.
And Adam did a great job directing.
I know he hates doing it, but he does a great job.
No, I left for that one.
Brandon directed it.
Oh, Brandon.
Never mind.
Right.
Never mind.
He didn't do anything.
He didn't do great.
Yeah, you were there for a minute, but you did write this one.
Yes.
Yes.
Prior to the strike.
Didn't write it.
Did not write it.
Didn't do anything illegal.
That's right.
Okay.
And we had a bunch of.
It just got posted this week.
Yeah.
We had a bunch of voice actors who phoned in some performance.
Kergo was on this one.
We had Austin Robertson on it.
He played the well.
Played a few parts.
Played a few parts.
That's the magic of his voice.
Yeah, let's see.
We had Adam played a couple parts.
You played a couple parts.
We had a lot of folks.
So it was an amazing sketch.
I think this is one of my favorite sketches we've ever done.
I thought it was a lot of fun.
It really was great.
It flowed really well.
I usually can't enjoy our sketches that much because I was involved in them.
And this one, you wrote the script.
I kind of had read it, but I didn't, you know, I wasn't on the shoot.
So I just got to see the final product, and I loved it.
I was very much enjoying it.
It's such a great little gag machine.
I'm pretty sure.
I don't think there's any gay or trans jokes in this one.
No.
No, really?
I think we made it through.
Can we still make an edit or is it too late?
Maybe add an addendum with an identify SaaS joke.
If you guys, if you become subscribers, you really want to see the outtakes on this one.
I think this one had a lot of fun riffing.
Very fun.
Yeah, I think, yeah.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
You and guys had a lot of fun and then it came to me editing it.
And I said, nope, back to the story.
Only what's wrong on the stage.
I am a writer.
He won't do what I say.
The Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon where the robot's hammering in the no fun allowed sign.
No fun allowed.
That's how I feel when I edit everybody's stuff.
They're like, we had so much fun on the shoot riffing.
It's got to be.
It always reminds me of the old Simpsons where Homer is the, is it the football team or the baseball team?
He's the coach and he goes, now it comes for the easiest part of any coach's job, making the cuts.
Now I couldn't cut everybody I wanted to.
I think it has to be really, really good to make the cut if it's an improv.
Like I don't think it has to be really good.
Yeah.
So I don't mind the cutting because I think usually the script is good the way it is.
But sometimes that riffing just kind of like gives you the energy you need for the rest of the sketch.
No, it's fun to do it.
I think a lot of times it doesn't make the cut.
But when you watch the shows like The Office, a lot of times people think those are very improv, but they're not.
They're very short.
Oh, yeah.
Shares like Office and Curb and stuff, there's a little improv involved, but they're a lot more scripted.
Modern Family was entirely scripted.
Like, if you could not go up.
Yeah, I can tell that one, yeah.
And even in your audition, I went to, I auditioned for it once, and you have to memorize word for word.
You could not leave out an uh or an a.
Did you audition for the gay couple?
No.
I auditioned to play a golf instructor.
I don't know.
It was a long time ago.
Well, riffing is always often funny, like riffing and improv, you know, in the outtakes and stuff like that.
What's hard is it's very funny, but often it ruins the pacing or delays the setup to another joke later.
The next line is supposed to feed off the kind of yeah.
Yeah, the jokes have to continue.
It has to be a crescendo.
Don't do that anymore, Jared.
Thanks.
Yeah.
If you want to see something that's entirely scripted and not riffed at all, check out weekly news with Adam Junster.
Here it is.
It's time for the weekly news with Adam Jenser.
The Writers Guild of America has gone on strike.
That's it for weekly news.
To see more, subscribe to my YouTube channel and come see me live.
I'll be at Copa Comedy Club in Ventura, California, May 5th and 6th, and at the Comedy Chateau in North Hollywood, May 12th.
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Then I spend the rest of my time on my family, focusing on my wife and kids.
You need to be able to take care of yourself as well.
I've had to learn how to balance those things.
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Awesome.
And now it's time for getting to know Dan Dylan.
Who is he?
Has he been posting some interesting polls on Twitter?
What do you guys think in response to these questions about controversial conspiracy theories?
So here we have Dan Dylan, who apparently is related to Seth Dylan.
We know.
And he's posting these things about conspiracy theories.
I think these are interesting.
Which one of these controversial topics do you honestly consider more likely to be true?
So let's, I guess we can answer these.
Sure.
Okay.
Epstein killed himself.
Seven-day biblical creation.
Which one's more likely?
Okay.
Which one's more likely to be true?
I mean, seven-day biblical creation.
Yeah, obviously, yeah.
Obviously.
But I do think.
I'm with the crowd on that one.
Wait.
So Epstein.
Okay.
All right.
Did kill him.
So here's another one.
Bush orchestrated 9-11 versus Moon Landing was staged.
Which one would be more likely to be true?
I don't believe either of those, but Bush orchestrating 9-11, I think, is more likely than the Moon Landing.
Really?
Because I don't think he, I don't think he was that much of a mastermind.
I think they're both far-fetched.
Yeah, but I think if Bush orchestrated 9-11, it was deep state like puppeteers and not like Bush was like, well, I think what we should do is.
Not to go too deep into it.
I think it's more likely that they had information that it was going to happen and did not do all they could to prevent it.
Yeah.
So I guess I'll say Bush orchestrated 9-11.
It's which is like a would you rather where you have to see?
All right.
2020 election was rigged.
January 6th was staged.
Which is more likely to be true.
I have to wrap my head around this.
Yeah, so again, I don't believe either, but I think it would be more likely that the 2020 election was rigged than that January 6th was staged.
In its entirety, I don't think there was people instigating there, but to say the whole event was staged.
Yeah, my answer might change if you would say January 6th had some federal operatives that were there that were egging it on.
Yeah, hanging on, maybe.
Yeah, I would say it was breaking wheels there.
I don't know.
But completely staged.
I don't think anybody thinks it was completely staged.
Oh, I'm sure there are.
Well, apparently, 43% of the people who voted in this poll did.
There are QAnon people back when it was happening that thought it was just completely fake.
But like those people that were thrown in jail and like the market.
But what part of January 6th?
That's like such a broad statement.
The entire calendar.
Yeah, because January 6th isn't real.
January 5th.
I think the riot.
The date of the calendar.
It's actually January 5th, part two.
All right, here's JFK murdered by the U.S. government or the COVID or COVID release was planned.
See, that's tough because I think both of those are very likely.
Yeah.
The others, I think they're all unlikely.
Well, this one, I think both of them are.
I would say.
I don't think the COVID release was planned.
Like, I don't think it was.
Let's release this into the wild.
I think it got out and then they used it.
I think that's, I think that's what's happened, but I think there's a chance.
There's a chance it was fun.
There's a strong chance.
My vote would be for JFK on this one.
Here's a theory.
I'm sure this is out there already.
I think a possibility with COVID is that it leaked from the Wuhan lab, and then China realized it was going to decimate their population.
So they allowed it deliberately to infect the rest of the world so that everyone would be impacted by this virus and not just China.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think they were okay with it.
But no, I would say 50-50.
I think both of those.
They have too many people there, and that's what I think they were trying to deal with it.
All right, we got a couple more.
We live in a simulation.
Elvis is still alive.
No.
Elvis is still alive.
Oh, see, I think simulation is more likely than Elvis is still alive.
I don't, yeah.
I don't believe, again, I don't believe either of them, but I think living in a simulation is more likely than Elvis is still alive.
Elvis would be what?
He died in 1970, 1970-something.
You're considering that even if he didn't die when he said he did, by now he'd be dead.
Maybe.
That's a valid.
That's a valid thing.
He'd be in his 90s.
He'd be really old by now.
So he, you know, he may have died this year.
So I don't, I think we live in a simulation is like zero, but I also think Elvis being still alive is like zero.
So, I mean, I guess I would say simulation, but it's not.
That's a weird thing.
Yeah, I don't believe any of them, but I think simulation more likely than I would say Elvis is still alive is more likely.
All right.
Final one: The Big Bang and Jesus' Resurrection.
Well, that's it.
I think they might both be true.
Jesus' resurrection.
But Jesus' resurrection is far more likely to be true.
Correct answer.
There's more evidence for it.
All right.
Now we're going to talk to local pastor Brian Holland, who I talked to and loved speaking with.
Very memorable.
One of our most memorable guests.
Oh, God.
We're about to find out if Adam was on the interview.
Here we go.
He has a book called Simple.
Go check it out.
It is great.
And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon B podcast.
Hey, guys, welcome to the interview show.
We're so excited to have my good friend Brian Holland here.
Brian's a pastor in Claremont.
He's also written a book called Simple.
It's a great book.
We're going to highly recommend it.
And if you live in this area, you should go to his church.
It's a great church.
What's the name of your church?
Ignite City Church.
Ignite City Church.
Brian, it's really nice to have you here.
Thank you.
And with me is Adam, obviously.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we go way back.
Yeah.
Brian, how did you guys meet?
Do you know how we met?
I can't remember.
I think the first time I met you, we went to lunch because you were applying for that worship pastor position.
Did we go to La Paloma?
No, it was down.
It was the one down the El Mandero.
El Marandero.
Fantastic.
The biggest burritos you've ever seen in your life.
I had a bean and cheese burrito because that's what I always get there.
No meat?
No.
Oh, that's horrible.
No, it was good, though.
And I remember we sat down, we talked, we talked about the Lord, we talked about worship, talked about a lot of things.
What's going on with you, man?
Why'd you write this book?
You know, I wrote the book.
Actually, it's been on my computer for the last probably three or four years, just sitting there.
But I feel like I should probably finally obey God and publish it.
I was simple.
Just do what he says.
I was down in Mexico probably seven years ago or so.
I was speaking.
AP used to do a Mexico outreach thing down there.
And there was a married couple who were leading worship.
And I preached the message that this book is based on.
And the wife came up and said, hey, I really think you should write about that.
I think the Lord wants you to write about that.
And I said, I'm not a writer.
I mean, that's just never anything that I've been good at.
I don't think that I've got a good handle on grammar.
And so I was like, I'm not going to do that.
You're not a smart person.
I don't feel like I'm not the sharpest tack in the box.
Absolutely not.
But after a while, as I kept praying about it, I thought, okay, I'll try it.
And I did it.
And then I just kind of sat there, sent it to a couple publishers.
Nobody was interested.
But man, you can self-publish now for nothing.
And so, I don't know, about two, three weeks ago, I was sick at home and I thought, I've got time.
And so I just put it together.
But I became really passionate about what the message of it is.
That I think maybe we've complicated, we've complicated following Christ.
We've complicated what the church is supposed to look like.
I feel like when I read the book of Acts, and if all the churches met in homes for the first two or 300 years without a building, I can't imagine a group of 20 people showing up and half of them are on an elder board and half of them on our deacon board and everyone's fighting about power and structure.
It just seemed like there was an it seemed like it was an organism rather than an organization.
And I feel like maybe we've lost the heart behind it.
And so then to just take John chapter 2 and just look at key points within that passage that makes us go, okay, so what is this?
What is this following Jesus look like?
And I really do.
It's not easy.
I mean, I don't think simple and easy are synonymous.
But I think simple, it's just do what he says.
I mean, this is what he wants us to do.
And so then just do what he says.
And even if it goes against what we're wanting to do or naturally inclined to do, we just say, God, I want to honor you.
I want to love you.
And so there's a part in that book and in that passage when Mary looks at Jesus and just says, just do whatever, not looks at Jesus, but looks at the servants and then says, just do whatever he says.
Just do whatever he says.
That's the simplicity of it.
You're talking about like this scene where he turns water into wine.
Yeah.
You know, and Mary's like, just do what he says.
Just do what he says.
Just do what he says.
Yeah.
Or like with the cult.
I was just reading that story where the cult, where he's like, go up and do this.
Like, okay.
Like, go take somebody's colt without really untie it.
It's like walking up to somebody's Tesla and not asking if I can borrow it.
The Lord needs it.
Yeah.
I'm going to try that the next time.
And the Tesla owners.
When I want to drive the car.
The Tesla owner's like, okay.
Right.
And they'll let you do it.
Yeah.
So it's actually the sense of trust in him.
And do we actually trust him to just do what he says?
Now, you've been a pastor for a lot of years.
Yeah.
So tell us a little bit about your journey.
Like, how did you start?
Who are you?
Where did you come from?
And how did you become a pastor?
Yeah, so I was born and raised here in Southern California.
I never wanted to be a pastor.
I mean, I grew up going to church.
I was part of a Christian school all my life.
But I remember it's in high school that Jesus becomes a subject and the Bible becomes a textbook.
And you got to make sure you get the grades so you can get into the college, so you can get the job and hopefully find the wife and then you can have that perfect little life.
But I wouldn't say it was until when I was about 16 or 17 where Jesus became real.
I was actually, my dad's a retired cop.
My brother is a cop.
I thought that's the direction I was going to go.
I have the size for it.
So I figured, well, this is what I'm doing.
You're also a black belt.
Well, I haven't really told a whole lot of people that, but now a whole lot of people.
Now everybody knows.
Now everyone will know, but thank you.
Yeah.
If you mess with Brian, he could probably kick you.
I'd kick you right in the face.
Everyone he's related to is a cop.
That's right.
So, you know, so there's some connections, I guess.
Yeah.
So I thought I was going to do that.
And I remember saying things like, I'll never, like, speaking in front of people was something I never wanted to do.
And, but I have this, I have this little line now that never is God's playground.
Like, you want to see God just kind of laugh, just say what you'll never do.
And he's probably going to move you in that direction, which is, it doesn't work always because I'm like, I would never be a billionaire.
That's what I usually, I try to go that direction.
And I feel like he says, absolutely not.
You're not going to do that.
I would never.
So, but growing up, like I said, I just want to be a cop.
And then I remember when I was 19, my youth pastor said, hey, I want you to work with middle schoolers.
And I thought, no, I tried it once.
And it just felt like they were like minions of the Antichrist.
Like, I didn't know what to do with them.
What do you hate about middle schoolers?
Then, not now.
Then, they were just so squirrely.
I mean, plus, I was a 19-year-old kid.
And so, when they're just so squirrely and weird, and then but I feel about 19-year-old kids, that's right.
It seems like it's gotten worse over time, not better.
I was just hanging out with some last night.
They're the worst.
Well, you're gonna have a strong ministry then.
I'm just kidding.
So, yeah, he changed my heart.
I mean, the first time I tried it, I absolutely adored him.
I loved it.
I mean, I'm showing up to their middle, like middle school basketball.
And at halftime, it's like six to two.
And you're just thinking this is the most boring thing I've ever been a part of.
But I wanted to be there, and I wanted to pour into these students.
And so, God changed my heart.
And then I had people speaking into my life: hey, you're going to be a preacher one day.
I was like, not at all.
There's no way that's going to happen.
And he's done it.
And so almost 30 years in, I did student ministry for 17 and young adult for five.
And then was the campus pastor for Purpose Church for five.
And now we just launched our church Ignite City a year ago, January.
When does someone stop being a young adult and they're just old?
Just like a regular, a regular old adult?
Oh, I don't.
I don't even know.
I've been there.
Yeah.
Is that what you're saying?
I'm definitely old now.
We've passed it.
Yeah.
I'm not a young adult anymore, but I'm always curious.
But in your head, do you feel?
Is it just because every now and then?
Well, see, I just turned, I just turned 40 a couple months ago.
And throughout my 30s, I went to young adult groups and social events at church through my 20s into my early 30s.
They're in my mid-30s.
I would still get invited to young adult things.
And I started to question if I'm really that thing anymore.
Did they keep inviting you because they needed to make sure there was enough people there that it felt like it was good?
I don't know.
I like to think they just liked me.
Okay, good.
Maybe they didn't.
No, then at some point, you're just a regular old adult.
You're just an adult.
Yeah.
I agree.
I think there was a phase.
So I was always in the ministry when we were through that period.
Yeah.
So I can't imagine not being in the ministry and being invited as a 36-year-old to hang out with these 23-year-olds.
Yeah.
That's a little weird.
Yeah.
It's weird.
Yeah, there's, what we ended up doing like 18 to 35, which is like a crazy span of young adults when we were in ministry together.
And so 18 to 30.
I think 35 is the cutoff.
35.
I think it might be sooner than that.
But we're Delhi.
Some of the 35-year-olds are still.
35 is where I felt old.
Yeah.
I'm with you on that one.
Back to Jesus.
I don't want to answer.
Less about me.
Yeah, let's talk about Jesus.
So that's where I'm at now.
That's where you're at now.
So Ignite City Church, did you know that this is kind of a, if you have read the postmodern Pilgrim's Progress by Kyle Mann and Joel Berry, which they just released it last year, the name of the church in that book is Ignite Church or Ignite City Church.
Did you know that?
No.
He did not base it on you.
That's kind of a bummer.
Well, we've made it.
Funny.
Yes.
No, it's so funny.
Anyway, read it.
It's not your church.
But yeah, but they did use that name.
No, that's great.
I remember when you were coming up with that name, we used to do a worship event called Ignite, and we'd have all these different people, and there was this worship leader named Brian Hall that would come and he'd just be awesome.
It's just such a great worship leader, very anointed guy.
It was awesome to get to do that.
I mean, have these things.
And so over the years, that name just kind of stuck with you.
And then when it was time for you guys to kind of be your own entity, you ended up using that.
Well, that's weird.
Actually, the team, I wasn't even going to go that direction.
I was going to call it, I want to go Mission City Church because it's like, hey, we're on mission in our city.
But the team was kind of leaning that direction.
I thought, well, I don't want to bring Ignite back from that.
And I just was, I was going to fight a little bit, but it was really a young little, how old was she?
Probably six at the time.
There's a set of twins who are part of our community.
And she motions me over after a worship service and gives me this little picture.
And it says, names for our church.
Like she's thinking through it.
I told the people to kind of give me ideas.
And the first thing it said was Jesus' church.
And I went, I guess it doesn't matter what it's called.
So I just went back to the team.
I said, guys, what are you wanting?
And they said, Ignite City Church.
I said, perfect.
All right.
Because it's just Jesus' church.
So I just, I got it from a little seven-year-old, a little seven-year-old that I felt like God used her to release me to say, it doesn't matter.
But then I said, now that we are Ignite City Church, I'm super passionate about it because the goal is to move everyone away from, hey, we do everything centralized in a place.
Think about it.
It's like church has become a place you go to or it's an event you're part of.
But the church is a gathering of people brought together to fulfill a purpose.
That's what ecclesia means, is a gathering of people.
And so it should be, hey, if your mission field starts in your zip code, which is something I push constantly with our people, and everyone's called an anointed, like if you're a follower of Jesus, you are a missionary.
It's not just I need a passport so I can go somewhere, but you are a missionary in your community.
Then hit your community.
And your neighborhood is your mission field.
And then wherever you live, whoever your neighbors are, just think about it.
How often you leave, you leave your house, you drive past all your neighbors to go worship, and you come back and you haven't talked to your neighbors at all, then we'll prepare ourselves for a short-term mission somewhere around the world.
And all the while we'll miss out on the mission we're called to.
Yeah, there was a quote that I remember somebody, I think it was a guy named Norman Grubb would say that if you're not effective here where you are, you're not going to be effective if you get on a plane.
I guess a lot of people have said that, but I think that's, I love that.
Yeah, if you've got to be effective in the place that you're living, you know, otherwise you're not going to be effective overseas.
Although I do think short-term mission strips are good for training your heart to sort of learn how to do it.
But maybe if we'd see them as like a break from our mission rather than that's my mission.
Because then we just like a vacation from our mission.
I do think some of these short-term mission strips are vacations.
Let's just be honest.
Let's be honest.
That is so crazy.
So, you know, it's interesting.
I'm noticing while you're talking, I'm noticing that you're kind of your approach to your relationship with God includes a lot of people like speaking into you.
And at different times, you kind of like are like, oh, that's a word from the Lord.
That's a word from the Lord.
Can you speak?
I know you're a very orthodox, like, I don't know what theological background you're from, but like, I do know that you take a lot of, you put a lot of value on the Holy Spirit speaking through people to you.
Yeah.
Um, what would you call that?
How do you, how do you describe that?
And, and, uh, how can how can people do that?
I think you know that I feel like I'm still in process.
I mean, all of us are trying to figure that out, but I do know, I mean, you think about the early church, they didn't have the Bible to read.
Most of them were illiterate, they were illiterate, and so the apostles would be preaching the things that Jesus taught or things from the Old Testament.
But you would see them pray all the time.
That was what they were known for.
And now we're known for preaching in Bible studies.
And prayer is kind of like what you start with and what you end with, right?
So it's, God, would you speak to us through your word, which I believe?
I mean, the foundation is the word.
But I can't understand and I can't decipher God's will if I'm not in his word.
And so I'm not one of those guys that's like, I don't need to read the Bible.
I'm just going to go with whatever I feel.
The thoughts have to then be kind of, they have to be deciphered.
And you teach the Bible verse by verse guy, right?
Yeah, aren't you?
That kind of guy.
So you're like the opposite of the guy that's like, we don't need the scripture.
Absolutely.
I got this.
Yeah.
Verse by verse, I just feel like, hey, they wrote it for a reason.
And all the topics that we're wanting to preach, we're trying to find them in there.
So we'll get to those.
But yeah, just verse by verse.
But I do believe just the way that the Holy Spirit spoke to people in the book of Acts, I want you to move.
I want you to go speak to the Ethiopian.
And he goes right then.
There's no hesitation.
The Ethiop.
We're going to go speak to him.
But now today it's like, well, I don't, I mean, that makes me nervous.
Or what if it's not him?
And we kind of justify it.
So I feel like if ever this thought comes in my mind, hey, you should go bring up Jesus with them.
I doubt it's Satan.
I doubt it's the devil going, hey, you should go tell him about Jesus.
But a lot of times we go, oh, no, I'm not going to do that because, one, I'm not comfortable with it.
As if we think that God's whole existence is to make sure that we're comfortable.
It's not about that.
It's about making sure that people hear about Jesus, even if we're uncomfortable about it.
But I feel like I've had people come up and say, I feel like the Lord wants me to tell you.
And sometimes I'll listen and sometimes I'm like, I don't see it.
But I'll get other people's opinions of people who love Jesus more than they love me.
And I trust their discernment.
I know that they're people who love Jesus and they're in the word, but not just this random, especially sometimes when people say, I have a word from the Lord.
And it's something that's very, it's kind of for everyone.
It's kind of like the Lord wants me to tell you that he loves you.
Oh, wow, that's pretty much the constant.
But when it's specific and I can trust their character, so you brought up Brian Hull, I trust his character.
Like if all of a sudden when we were working together, so I feel like the Lord's wanting, and I trust your character because you're a person of the word.
You're seeking counsel.
I'm seeking counsel.
We're in prayer.
So it's not just, hey, every thought that fits with my feeling must be the Lord.
I just, that's, that's arrogance.
That's ego.
I think we pastors can get a little bit egotistical.
We can sit in our think tanks and we have this thought and therefore it must be God because we're in the room with each other.
And I just don't believe that's true.
I think everyone, like when you think of the church, we're all in this together.
And some of the best ideas, if not the best ideas, come from outside the think tank.
Like let people speak into it and be part of it.
So that's that's, I wouldn't, I don't know that gives the answer to the person except be in the word, be in prayer, and find people that are wise and gone through life and love the Lord.
Let them speak into those things.
And then if you sense the Lord still saying go for it, you have to obey.
Yeah, there was a, my grandfather was a pastor and he used to say that the Lord speaks in about five ways.
So he'll be like, I don't even speak in probably more than that, but he would say the categories are scripture, obviously the revealed word of God, wise counsel, and then what was the other one you just said?
The three that you just said.
You said scripture, wise counsel, and I forgot through prayer.
Yeah, so there's moments of prayer.
So we would like the still small voice in your spirit.
And then there's random occurrences kind of stuff.
And then like audibly, I guess, maybe there's six.
Like sometimes he'll speak audibly.
And then sometimes he actually just kind of, yeah, maybe it's just like a sign or something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Movies, seven.
Hey, definitely.
Braveheart.
We're starting to add to the numbers.
Yeah.
Braveheart.
Yeah.
So that's, it's interesting, though, because I think the challenge for us as Christians is to hear the voice of God and learn how to discern what he's saying and then obey it.
Right.
So is that kind of the basis for simple?
It's kind of that.
Hear his voice a bit?
I think the basis for simple is be faithful in the mundane.
Just be faithful in the mundane so you can have the front row seat to the miraculous.
Because when you get to it, she tells a bunch of servants, just do whatever he says.
The problem, there's no more wine, which is a huge shame.
It's a huge shame on the family because they couldn't provide.
It is a shame.
In many ways, I suppose.
It's a big shame.
But when he says, hey, go fill these up with water.
Well, the only way to get water into these massive jars that holds 180 gallons is with a bucket.
And it's the same monotonous thing.
You take the bucket and you fill the jar and you just take that and nobody's paying attention.
Nobody even knows it's happening.
And yet the end of the passage says, and Jesus manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.
And it's all because some unnamed servants did something that nobody else noticed.
And it brought about the first miraculous sign that Jesus showed everyone.
And actually, even everyone probably didn't even know about it.
But enough that he manifests his glory because he filled some jars.
And then his disciples believed in him because some dudes filled some jars.
And if we could get on, if he could get that into our minds, it doesn't have to be, we're going to put together this massive event that draws in millions.
Because I feel like maybe that's just not working anymore.
Like we think if we can get the biggest amount of people at this, at this specific thing.
And I just heard of a pastor at a camp just said these words.
I think his name is Chris Hilkin.
He said, we don't serve a God who works efficiently.
We think that everything's going to work so efficiently.
He really takes his time.
He's not in a hurry.
And so in my mind, instead of always trying to have these events and say, this is the thing everyone should come to, what if every follower of Jesus simply, quote unquote, filled some jars or every follower of Jesus brought Jesus up in a conversation one time every week?
How many people would hear about Jesus?
But then everyone's involved in the process of making disciples rather than, hey, the pastors, they're the pros.
And then we pastors need to ask for forgiveness and stop saying, hey, you need to invite them here so they can hear someone teach about the scriptures or teach the gospel.
And what we should be doing is equipping God's people to share the gospel.
And inviting someone to an event or inviting them to a worship gathering should be supplemental to what every follower of Jesus is doing.
It's really kind of, it's unfair and it's selfish of us as leaders to not give people and equip them with the ability to go and share Jesus, but only to expect them to bring them back.
I mean, you think, just bring them to this thing, bring them to this thing.
But now we have a, I feel like we have a culture in generations that don't know how to bring people to Jesus.
We just know how to bring them to something, but not someone.
Someone.
And so that's what it should be about.
Like all of us should be able to brag about Jesus.
We should all be saying, hey, this is what it's like.
I'm a sinner before I come to Christ and I have nothing to offer him.
But then he woos me.
He calls me because he wants me.
And then to be able to explain everything that Jesus went through and then resurrects so that we can be reconciled and redeemed.
It's mind-blowing.
I really like, I like what you're saying.
I feel like Luther has this thing where it was, he wrote a, I don't know what it was in, but he said, God smiles when a man changes a diaper.
So it's like, it's this, it's this, we have a false dichotomy, a false distinction between the secular and the sacred and the professional Christians and the lay people, the clergy and the lay people.
So we have this false dichotomy, false distinction.
And really what we are, what the clergy is there to do is to equip the saints for the work of the gospel, right?
Like it says in Ephesians.
So equip the saints.
And then that's kind of what your philosophy is.
Give the people the opportunity to go be the missionaries that they need to be.
Each person is a missionary.
There are no attendees at your church.
There's only missionaries, right?
All missionaries.
Yeah.
Is that kind of the way you see it?
That's exactly how I see it.
Yeah, yeah.
There's no attendees.
I think Spurgeon is the one who said every Christian is a missionary or an imposter.
And so he can't just sit there and go, well, you have the missionaries who go somewhere else when all followers of Jesus are called to go.
So I might just go across the street or I might just drive down to Claremont, which is where our church gathers to worship.
But then everyone goes back.
And the goal is to get everyone to get, hey, you have a part here.
Who's the one person that God wants you to impact?
Watch.
I mean, read the gospels.
You'll see Jesus do things with the multitudes a few times.
But the focus of the gospel, he'll leave the multitudes to go deal with the one.
He'll pull aside the one.
Like think of the deaf and mute guy.
There's a ton of people around him.
And some friends bring the deaf and mute guy and he takes him to the side by himself.
And then it's weird.
He does this weird thing.
Like he puts his fingers into his ears and then he spits and touches his tongue, which is kind of weird.
That's the worst church greeting ever.
Is that how you got it?
That's how I try to convert people.
Okay, good.
Is that how you greet one another when you get to work?
Yeah.
But what's he doing?
How else do you tell a deaf guy, hey, I'm going to open your ears?
And if they had a belief that there was healing and spit in that day and he spits and touches his tongue, he's like, I'm going to heal your tongue.
But he does it by himself.
It's just Jesus and this one guy.
Or Jesus crosses the Sea of Galley to deal with a guy who's possessed by a demon, then crosses again.
And then he's confronted and invited by Jairus to come heal his daughter.
I mean, there's all these passages about the one, but we're trying to be as efficient as we can.
And then I feel like a lot of times as pastors forget that we're shepherds.
I think sometimes we want to be leaders before we're shepherds.
But the role of the shepherd is to care for God's people.
It's in the book of Acts chapter 20.
I think it's verse 28.
Like to continue to care for the flock of God, not to prod them and to lead them, but care for them.
It's about proximity with the people and not just get as many people in the room, stick them on a conveyor belt of Christianity we call discipleship, when it's not really making disciples who make disciples.
It's just getting Christians together to hang out.
And I just don't want to go that route.
I just, I've been convicted over the years that I just wanted the crowd.
And now it's like God's really worked on me and broken me a lot, especially the last five years.
Man, shepherd his people.
And as I shepherd and equip them, they go out.
And then I go out as a disciple.
It's not like I don't have to do anything.
Isn't it weird how we pastors can be really bold behind a pulpit?
But often we're very timid when we're out with everybody else.
And so I want to be a disciple of Jesus before a pastor of his people.
Because I feel like when you do it that way, you're a better shepherd.
But if you start with shepherd, you're a really bad disciple, then you're actually disobedient.
I'm supposed to be a disciple, a pupil, a learner of Jesus.
So I just, I do.
I want to see the ministry handed back to the people, and I care for them when they come back.
I check in on them constantly and then send them back out and then know that, hey, I'm doing the same thing you are, just as terrified in situations.
But we have to ask the question, is Jesus worth it?
And if he is, we'll do it.
And if he's not, we won't.
But I feel like it gets down to that simple.
And when Mary says, just do whatever he says, just do whatever he says.
And if it means I just fill jars, or if it means, hey, I got to do the dishes and serve my wife, or she's going to do the dishes and serve me, or she's going to happen to love my kids.
Because I used to think, if I could just make it to that massive conference that I could speak at, then I know I've made it.
I felt like the Lord put in my heart a few years ago, you know you've made it when you've served me and when you've loved your wife, when you've loved your kids.
It's like it's so simple rather than, oh man, look at the number of people I got to preach to as if it's about me anyways.
So it really comes down to the simplicity of just, man, it's about Jesus.
Do the little things.
I know a good book called Simple.
That's right.
It's a great book.
I should probably read it.
So what's next for you guys?
For the first time.
That's right.
Who are we talking to?
I guess the church, yeah.
What's next for you?
Let's get more specific.
I was thinking about Ignite City Church.
No, but what's next for you?
And what's God taking?
What's he doing with you right now?
Well, I just finished that.
And then I've started to think, well, it is kind of easy to put those things out now.
So I don't know.
I've had a couple ideas of some other things to do with regards to that.
But my priority, honestly, it's not, no one's going to plot.
No one's going to post about this.
I just really, well, I want to love Jesus with everything.
And I want my wife to be loved well.
I want to be obedient in how I love her and how I love my family and to care for the people that God entrusts to me and to do it so well that he would actually applaud my efforts.
Because I remember asking, I asked a few, I asked a few pastors, hey, how do you know you're doing it right?
How do you know when I was getting ready, like starting to do this?
How do you know you're doing it well?
And I got like six or seven different answers.
And some were like, I don't know.
I guess I'll find out in heaven.
But then you have the first three chapters of Revelation, especially two to three.
And Jesus is saying, hey, I like this about this, what you're doing, but I don't like this one.
Nobody said when the tithe numbers are up.
They didn't say attendance.
They didn't say when you get the mansion and the private jet.
They didn't say that.
Oh, that's still up.
I'm still going for that.
That's the same school.
When pre-COVID numbers are back to normal.
Yeah, that's the goal, right?
Yeah.
But when you get to Revelation 3, and I think it's the church at Sardis, and he says, you have the reputation.
We have more diversity in our church.
But he says, you have the reputation of being alive, but you're dead.
Sardis.
That's as far away from truth as you could be.
Hey, we're doing a great job.
And the whole time Jesus is looking at going, you're dead.
Whitewashed tombs.
It says horrible.
The other thing is I asked, hey, what's the role of a pastor?
And I got six or seven different answers.
It's almost like we pastors don't know what our job is.
It's simply to care for God's people and to equip the saints for works of service.
It's not to grow the church in numbers and finances.
No, I used to think that.
I don't believe that.
I think it's supposed to build the kingdom.
I think Mike Breen, I think he wrote a book about discipleship.
And he said, if you start with building your church, you won't automatically have disciples.
But if you start with building disciples, you'll always have a church.
And I like that.
Like you focus on discipleship.
Worship gatherings for me are for the saints.
Anybody can come in, but it's for those who know Jesus.
Easter are Easter gatherings.
They're for followers of Jesus to celebrate Jesus.
And anyone can come in and hear the gospel, and I will present the gospel.
Great.
But worship gatherings are for the saints.
They're for Jesus lovers.
And we are mindful of those who come in.
So I guess there's nothing different.
I seriously just want to be faithful.
But at the end of the day or the end of the week, God will say, hey, well done.
You did a good job.
I like that take on life incremental.
Kind of just move forward, be obedient.
You know?
I like it.
It is simple.
It is simple.
So check out Brian's book, Brian Holland Simple.
You can find it on Amazon.
Is that right?
That's the only place.
The only place you can get it is on Amazon.
So do that.
Yeah.
You know, we usually do 10 questions that we ask every guest.
Would you like to do that now?
Sure.
What do you think?
Let's start it.
Should we like do something else, like an arm wrestle or something?
Oh, he's a black belt.
Check them out.
Arm wrestle.
I'm not strong, though.
Maybe we can both take him.
I don't know.
He's got the reach.
Yeah.
He's got the reach on us.
Like Abraham Lincoln.
Yeah.
It's just like, boom.
The 10 questions.
Well, we usually ask these 10 questions.
They're rapid fire.
Okay.
Number one, have you ever met Carmen?
No, but I noticed that you all have, for at least the picture.
We have a picture.
I've met the picture.
I've never met him.
Have you?
No.
I didn't know who he was until I started working here.
Because he was a Lutheran.
Yeah, yeah.
All of us evangelicals were like going to his concerts, his free concerts.
Yep, and we all did the mime thing of all of his songs.
We do these mime.
Oh, the champion mime.
Champion Mime.
We called that human video.
Yeah, that was it.
That was back when there was a movement in Christianity called Being a Mime.
That's like an inside joke.
There was this movement called Being a Mime.
That's right, Sam.
It was like a lot of Marceau-Marceau followers.
Anyway, are you a Calvinist or an Arminian?
Oh, gosh.
That's number two.
Yeah, I'm not going to land on either edge of that.
I feel like the truth is in the middle at a level we'll never understand.
So I don't land on...
I feel like if you ask me my theological background, I guess...
A Molinist.
Like...
Like Reformed charismatic.
Like I still believe in the gifts, but I like the Puritan writings and I know that it all starts with Jesus.
I believe in the gifts too.
If the rule was not there that you couldn't add something to the Bible, you're allowed to add one book to the Bible.
What would it be?
One book to the Bible.
Oh, my goodness gracious.
I think that I would, I think I, I just read one.
I just read one that just really blew my mind.
It's called The Prayer Life by Andrew Murray.
Murray.
Andrew Murray, it blew my mind.
And the first chapter says the necessity, it's a lot of talking to pastors and leaders to confess the sin of prayerlessness.
And about a month ago, I sat there at 2.30 in the morning because I couldn't sleep.
And I just thought, oh, this book will put me to sleep.
I've never read it.
It kept me awake for an hour and a half.
And I did.
God, I confess.
I pray nice prayers, cordial prayers, but I had to confess the sin of prayerlessness.
And it's revolutionized my prayer life.
It's unbelievable.
It's so sweet now.
I love Andrew Murray.
Yeah, he's fantastic.
Yeah, he's a South African pastor about turn of the century, 1900s.
He's not afraid.
He doesn't pull punches.
No, he's really good.
There's a bunch of books by him.
If you get it, check him out as an author.
Absolutely.
I highly recommend him.
All right.
So I already know the answer to this, but cigars or pipes.
I don't do either one of them.
Either.
I don't.
If you could hang out with any three people, living or dead, and you can't pick Jesus, who would it be?
Oh, gosh.
Can I already know them?
Yeah, it can be like, oh, I hang out with my friend every week and I just like to be a man.
If I met you, it'd be kind of fun to continue.
I just met you, so it might be kind of fun to hang out and get to know you a little bit.
But I don't know if you've made the list yet.
All right, you got to think about it.
You're blowing a big up.
You're blowing a big spot there on me.
So Adam actually is very interesting.
I know, I totally play.
Yeah.
Unbonnounced to some.
He's very interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, growing up, like, I love playing basketball.
And so, like, Michael Jordan was the guy back in the day.
Like, like, when basketball was better.
Like, I really liked it then.
And I know, I would like to hear his story.
I'd like to hear his life story.
Haven't you watched Space Jim?
Isn't that his?
That's a biography.
Isn't that autobiography?
Autobiography.
It's a biography.
I think I'd like to listen.
I think I'd like to listen to Mother Teresa and watch her heart for the poor.
So you, me, Michael Jordan, and Mother Teresa?
Yeah, that's it.
Applebee is three.
So, I mean, it's kind of Apple beast.
It's kind of all over the place.
One of my friends met Mother Teresa.
And he said she was really mean.
Dude, I was hoping you would say that.
That's so funny.
She was like the mean.
My friend Alan Tennyson.
He met Mother Teresa.
He said that she was like the meanest lady.
Well, that just ruined my idea.
I'm sure she wasn't, but he tried to bring her a chair or something.
Like she was like standing there.
She's like 90.
So he tries to bring a chair over.
And she's like, what are you doing?
Like, bit is that up?
He was like, I would be like, if I was.
I'm sorry, Mother Teresa.
You know, you've made it when you've had to apologize for it.
Oh, funny.
Okay, so I already know the answer to this too.
Whiskey or beer?
I have the palate of like a two-year-old.
I don't like any of it.
It's not like I'm against it.
I just don't like the taste.
You had to, if you had to force yourself to down one of them more.
I wouldn't even know what I feel like whiskey just feels like you're stronger, I guess.
I don't know.
But just don't.
I'll take a whiskey.
That's what it sounds like.
What would be the first thing you would do as president?
Oh, gosh.
I think.
Okay.
I think I would, you know, they have that big party, the inaugural thing for the president when everyone shows up and it's the insurrection ride.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, not that.
You know what I'm saying?
Once he's inaugurated, they have to go.
Everybody climbs the wall of the Capitol breaks and they let the Buffalo guy in and everybody's.
Any praise for everyone?
Yeah.
I wasn't thinking about it.
The inaugural ball.
Yeah, the inaugural ball.
Yeah, it's the inaugural ball.
I don't think I said insurrection, but if I did, I apologize.
Oh, I said.
Okay.
I think I want to get rid of that and just kind of have the in-and-out trucks in the backyard.
And then I want to fly an Air Force One.
I just want to go see what that person is.
Yeah, let's just go do that.
And then you got to get to work.
Then you got to do your thing.
Get to work.
I'm also not the greatest at politics.
So I'm just, I'm pretty simple.
You just be a fun laid-back president.
There's a job to do.
Food trucks and airplane rides.
There's a job to do in the beginning.
Or there's a job to do, but at the beginning.
Each American will get to ride Air Force One one time during my presidency.
Let's see if you get elected.
But who would say yes to that?
I would want to.
Every single person.
Oh, yeah.
I would do that.
Yep.
Maybe I'm on to something.
I think maybe you are.
I'd vote for you.
Okay.
So have you ever punched anybody or been punched?
Did you have a good story?
Well, I did karate, so I get punched for that.
But I remember my brother and I, we kind of got into it one day.
I don't know who.
Have you ever peed your pants in public?
Is the other one?
I've never peed my pants in public.
It was at the next question.
Because that's not part of this one.
It's got to tell us about punching.
Just tell us about it.
But this is all.
I just interrupted the story.
This is before the case.
He didn't let me have my glory on this one.
This is before he was a cop.
We were young and we were both taking karate at the time and we were on the side of the house.
And I don't know.
We just got it.
We're brothers.
And all of a sudden he took a swing and I blocked it.
Couldn't believe I blocked it.
I nailed him right in the ribs.
And you heard the air go out of him just kind of gas, like, and then he couldn't breathe.
And then he said something like, I'm going to kill you.
And then I ran to the park for two or three hours until my parents got home.
And then I came back because he really could destroy me.
But at least in that moment, I nailed him.
I dropped him.
It felt pretty good.
Yeah.
Lucky punch.
No, it's solid.
I'm not going to say lucky.
No, no, no.
Don't take my glory.
I nailed it.
It was skill.
It was your taekwondo.
It was.
I nailed it.
It was innate ability.
I don't know what happened.
I was just, my body's just part of it.
Yeah.
It's a weapon.
So funny.
Yeah.
So that's the one time.
Or any time.
Yeah.
That's cool.
You could go see one concert, any band in history.
Who do you see?
Oh, gosh.
Any band in history?
I don't know.
I mean, I kind of like journey.
I'm kind of like a journey guy.
I'm not sure about you.
You wasted your any person in history on me and you're any band in history.
Yeah, I don't, I don't watch a lot of, I don't, I don't hear, I don't listen to a lot of music.
Like, I know that I feel like I'm the worst one.
Like when people say, hey, what's your favorite?
What's your favorite movie?
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know.
That pop culture stuff, I'm just not up to speed on all that stuff.
Yeah.
So I don't know.
Don't know.
I don't do a lot of concerts anyway.
DC talk.
Oh, they were good back in the day.
Yeah.
Come on, yeah, right.
It's good.
From the very beginning, I was all into them.
Yeah.
You were down with the DC talk.
Down with the DC.
Dip down with the DC talk.
Don't mount it.
I was singing that with Alyssa Childers like a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah.
Yeah, we were singing that song together.
She was doing that.
And it was a very strange from Zenoe Girls, so she's good to go, right?
I know, dude.
She's red.
Okay, this is our last question.
We ask this of everybody.
Okay.
And it's our last question of the interview, buddy.
Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
You know, I think so.
I think I'm there.
I think I'm ready.
Are you there?
I think I've made it to that point.
We got him.
Would you finally do that so you can lead your people well?
That's right.
That's right.
Finally receive Christ.
Well, thank you, Brian Holland, for coming to this to the Babylon Beats.
Yeah, thanks for being here.
And make sure you check out his book.
Yeah.
It's fun.
Check out his book, Simple.
Yep.
Simple.
Oh, that was great.
I love that guy.
I really enjoyed that.
I love that guy.
We still don't know if you were on the interview, guys.
I think I did great on that interview.
You used to be good.
Adam Ford.
Adam Ford.
I really miss Adam Ford.
Here's Hate Mail on our recent Michael Malice podcast.
More kosher-controlled op podcasts.
No thanks.
We get a few of the anti-Semitism.
That's an anti-Semitism every now and then.
The Jewish conspiracy theories.
His name is Trans Smart.
And his picture is Karine Jinpir with a clown.
We could know.
I couldn't tell who that was.
Oh, that's news.
It just looks like a clown.
Yeah.
Good eye on that.
Here's a reply to our newsletter.
And someone responded, Flowerbed.
View, I unsubscribe to your religious bull emails.
If these emails continue, I'll stick a pack of baby eaten of baby eating eating Democrats on your head.
Ocean water.
I'll sick a pack of baby eating.
Sincerely, sincerely, Matt Russell.
No, it's thanks.
Oh, thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Some kind words.
But then what we edited is he went on to say, then I realized I shouldn't think that way about other people because someone out there loves them.
Oh, you see?
Yeah.
We're deceptively editing the email.
Dan, Dan's deceptively editing.
Thanks for joining us on the Babylon Bee podcast this week, everybody.
Become a paying subscriber at Babylonbee.com/slash plans using code podcast, and you can join us for the rest of the episode.
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Coming up next, for Babylon Bee subscribers!
It was like one of the first games.
Complicated board games.
It was one that's too complicated.
I like don't break the ice ants in the pants.
Yeah.
It is a fiddly waves of strategy.
Crossfire.
Crossfire.
Don't get caught caught up in the crossfire.
And then at the end, he goes, you like?
I don't care if you like.
Checkmate atheists will say it's fake.
This has been another edition of the Babylon B podcast from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon Bee, reminding you to take the white pill.