Weird Religion
Brian Doak and Leah Payne
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Top 10 Weird Religion Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Weird Religion episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Weird Religion for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Weird Religion episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
100 THE NATIONALISTS (Deuteronomy ch. 32, Moses sings, and Republicans want a Christian nation)
Weird Religion
03/15/23 • 31 min
Moses sings a song that takes us...deep into the problem of Christian nationalism. Come for the most secretly controversial passage in the Bible; stay for Leah trying to be a therapist for Brian on the problem of hating Christian nationalism but fearing that we need it for social cohesion. And a scholarly theory on the evolution from polytheism to monotheism in ancient Israel.
Deuteronomy ch. 32: sons of Israel, or sons of GODS?! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2032&version=NIV
The new survey, showing 50% of Republicans like Christian Nationalism: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1156642544/more-than-half-of-republicans-support-christian-nationalism-according-to-a-new-s
The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover (book): https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175119/the-gospel-of-j-edgar-hoover
Kristen Kobes du Mez: https://kristindumez.com/
A past episode, 018 THE WAR: Professor James Byrd on war and social cohesion: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/018-the-war-ken-burns-vietnam-documentary-professor/id1428037534?i=1000425540100
Psalm 82, many gods? https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+82&version=NIV
Mark Smith, Princeton Seminary, on the Origins of Biblical Monotheism: https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686
1 Listener
03/01/23 • 29 min
Despite not being known fundamentalist or evangelical influencer royalty, Brian scored an invitation to the 2023 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. We discuss the sights, sounds, beliefs, dress code, costs, content, scandal, and music of the event. Was Brian inducted into The Family? We reveal.
Axios article on the new Prayer Breakfast format: https://www.axios.com/2023/01/29/national-prayer-breakfast-congress-leadership
Slate on the National Prayer Breakfast schism: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/national-prayer-breakfast-family-fellowship-gathering.html
Netflix documentary: The Family: https://www.netflix.com/title/80063867
Kenyan Civil War avoided through staged hug, facilitated by “The Family”? https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/kenya/b136-after-kenyas-leaders-reconcile-tough-path-ahead
Leaked emails on the Family’s continued involvement in the Prayer Breakfast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRrAtS4sjYY
Donald Trump’s “non-traditional” prayerful address to the Prayer Breakfast in 2020: https://youtu.be/XuE2Tgg0qFE
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy’s live video address to the Prayer Breakfast: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/videos/mayemo-zrobiti-vse-shob-nastupnogo-roku-mi-zmogli-pomolitisy-4129
Cathy McMorris Rodgers: ***CORRECTION: She initially said she would not certify the election, then changed her mind after the January 6th riot and did vote to certify (she did not think the Capitol Riot was “great,” apparently; but she didn’t think Trump was to blame at all; see the following links): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_McMorris_Rodgers#Donald_Trump; https://www.krem.com/article/news/investigations/mcmorris-rodgers-says-trump-didnt-give-rioters-direction-to-storm-the-capitol/293-6052edac-09fc-433f-8694-c4390a265e15; https://www.khq.com/news/mcmorris-rodgers-asks-protesters-to-stop-attacks-on-capitol-police/article_3b5f0246-5058-11eb-9496-4b48f26ee63c.html
1 Listener
02/15/23 • 30 min
An epic thematic bombardment: Living again with Scientology, the fall of man and the curse reversed by avocados, the Black National Anthem, erasing your mistakes on the new Google phone, and Rihanna
Live again...with Scientology: https://www.scientology.tv/you-can-live-again/?utm_content=LiveAgain&utm_source=redirect
Adam and Eve and the avocado reverses the curse: https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2023/02/12/garden-of-eden-avocados-from-mexico-super-bowl-ad-commercial-anna-faris
He Gets Us, part 49: https://hegetsus.com/en/featured-videos
Google Pixel 7 and erasing your mistakes: https://www.justjared.com/2023/02/12/google-pixel-7-phone-super-bowl-commercial-2023-amy-schumer-erases-exes-plus-more-celeb-cameos/
Lift Every Voice and Sing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/02/12/super-bowl-sheryl-lee-ralph-abbott-elementary/
Lauren Boebert on how there is only one national anthem: https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1624827803609841666?s=20&t=Wvg37P6aNwsDtxglKYhG9w
Rihanna halftime show: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a42843643/watch-rihanna-super-bowl-2023-half-time-show/
1 Listener
099 THE DOMINION (a new Christian dating site, and the Gospel Coalition sex article scandal)
Weird Religion
03/08/23 • 30 min
Here witness the thematic collision between a dustup over a now-deleted Gospel Coalition article about sex and a new Christian dating site for men and women who want to be in what they think are biblically-traditional relationships.
The Gospel Coalition’s apology for the article / book excerpt, “Sex Won’t Save You–But it Points to the One Who Will”: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sex-wont-save-you/
NT Professor Michael Bird’s response to the “Sex Won’t Save You” article, with many links etc.: https://michaelfbird.substack.com/p/tgc-sex-and-christ
NT Professor Esau McCaulley on “Sex Won’t Save You”: https://twitter.com/esaumccaulley/status/1631380537892806669?s=20
On New Christian Dating Apps: https://religionnews.com/2022/09/27/new-dating-apps-and-in-person-mixers-target-religious-and-political-niches/
Dominion Dating member requirements: https://dominiondating.com/member-requirements/
Read the opening three chapters of Genesis, ye heathens: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-3&version=NIV
Trad Wives on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/tag/tradwife?lang=en
1 Listener
03/22/23 • 28 min
This is possibly the weirdest religious moment of the year so far: Buried within a legal brief about an election fraud scandal are the contents of an email someone sent to Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s lawyers, in 2020. The email makes claims about how someone might receive information about a stolen election. Those claims are surprising.
The Dominion Voting Systems vs. Fox News defamation suit: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150647042/dominion-voting-systems-1-6-billion-defamation-suit-against-fox-news-goes-to-tri
Who is Sidney Powell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Powell
What evidence is now coming out about where Sidney Powell got some of her information:
https://www.businessinsider.com/sidney-powell-voter-fraud-claims-headless-time-travel-dominion-fox-2023-2
and
https://www.salon.com/2023/02/17/trumpworld-conspiracy-theory-stemmed-from-email-by-internally-decapitated-ghost-filing/
Documents for Dominion Case vs. Fox News (see pp. 37-38 on the email about time travel):
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/redacted-documents-in-dominion-fox-news-case/dca5e3880422426f/full.pdf
056 THE BUFFALO (Jake Angeli, QAnon, apocalypse, epiphany, and the iconography of insurrection):
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/056-the-buffalo-jake-angeli-qanon-apocalypse-epiphany/id1428037534?i=1000504839007
Sidney Powell’s website appearance request form:
https://www.sidneypowell.com/speaker-invite-form
1 Listener
![Weird Religion - 032 THE CREATOR (Elizabeth Holmes gender smackdown) [August 2019]](https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/episode_images/0c18f94858f7913f7f6b6fc8ff7413318d3b92c31e12dd50813315fd0b30565e.avif)
04/12/23 • 31 min
A rebroadcast of one of the top five most popular Weird Religion episodes of all time: on the embattled former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and her attempt to create—or rather, fake having created—a futuristic blood-testing system. We end up having a gender smackdown conversation about women-on-women violence in the workplace, discussing ancient female fertility figurines and matriarchal societies, and musing on whether Holmes intentionally tried to dress like a religious leader. Longtime listeners can remember our older format and theme music; newer listeners can go back in time and hear how we were doing it in the summer of 2019 (this was S3 of the show).
UPDATED NOTES:
Holmes seems to be losing her appeals, and, barring future developments, is set to report to prison for 11 years on April 27, 2023: https://apnews.com/article/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-fraud-prison-sentence-754b44bc47eb200f032b75f45969cb07
Holmes has had two children during her trial, and since we first recorded this episode; many have criticized her for this, suspecting that she is using the babies to try to avoid jailtime: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-03-01/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-cites-baby-reason-avoid-prison
1 Listener
06/08/22 • 30 min
Few things can rile the Christian faithful like a new Bible translation (see, e.g., John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, etc.). The scholarly and ecumenical translation of choice, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), got a haircut of sorts; it’s called the NRSVue (ue = “updated edition”). We give a review.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
NRSVue in full on Bible Gateway: https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Revised-Standard-Version-Updated-Edition-NRSVue-Bible
List of the major changes: https://guides.library.yale.edu/newtestament/nrsvue
Some people who don’t like it: https://juicyecumenism.com/2022/01/19/liberal-nrsvue-bible-translation-update/
Interview with committee member Dr. Abraham Smith: https://blog.smu.edu/perkins/nrsv-updated-edition/
1 Listener
11/16/22 • 27 min
Who are “the Nephilim,” you ask, and why did they create the Federal Reserve? We are so glad you asked and we’re going to tell you—by way of reviewing a most ambiguous Bible story and tracing some of the surprising ways this story is being received today.
Genesis 6:1–4 (NRSVue): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A1-4&version=NRSVUE
Numbers 13:31–33: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+13%3A31-33&version=NRSVUE
1 Enoch (see esp. ch. 15): https://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/enoch/ENOCH_1.HTM
Book: The Roots of the Federal Reserve: Tracing the Nephilim from Noah to the US Dollar: https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Federal-Reserve-Tracing-Nephilim/dp/1942790198
Beautiful Jekyll Island, Georgia, where Nephilim may infect the soil today: https://www.southernliving.com/travel/georgia/jekyll-island
Popular book on Amazon in the category “Christian Mystical Spirituality”: Judgment of the Nephilim: https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-Nephilim-Ryan-Pitterson/dp/0999208306
Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”: https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/
Gary Wayne, The Genesis 6 Conspiracy: How Secret Societies and the Descendants of Giants Plan to Enslave Humankind: https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Conspiracy-Societies-Descendants-Humankind/dp/1632692902
1 Listener
05/25/22 • 46 min
Brian has a confession that will shock the world of the News Roundup. Leah offers absolution. Give us a shout on Twitter if you finished this ep and we will celebrate you.
STORIES DISCUSSED (yes actually)
Mythical root axe: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/13/1098545920/kansas-man-finds-ax-tree-root-handle-reddit-thor
Far Right American Christians converting to Orthodoxy: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/10/1096741988/orthodox-christian-churches-are-drawing-in-far-right-american-converts
Spilling blood in fake tiger fighting for rain: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220508-mexican-tiger-fight-ritual-draws-blood-to-bring-rain
Exorcisms have gone mainstream: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/exorcism-is-something-we-cant-quite-quit/ar-AAX12Wr
Quasi-religious ceremonies for crypto creation https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2022/04/27/edward-snowden-revealed-as-key-participant-in-mysterious-ceremony-creating-2-billion-anonymous-cryptocurrency/?sh=3ae4c1803b24
Surprising reason why Christians help migrants: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/church-satan-marjorie-taylor-greene_n_6269c72fe4b04a9ff8974f2d
Wine loving nun is the oldest: https://www.fox5ny.com/news/worlds-oldest-person-french-nun-sister-andre
Eve Frank, the first female Jewish messiah: https://daily.jstor.org/meet-eva-frank-the-first-jewish-female-messiah/
We’re calling everything a “hellscape” now: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/why-were-calling-everything-a-hellscape/629565/
Crucifying Jesus in front of Five Guys: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/u4dpc3/warm_enough_to_crucify_the_bishop_today_in_front/
A theory of why we’re all going nuts online: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/something-happened-by-us-a-demonology
Mercury extra retrograde has people changing their lives: https://www.wsj.com/articles/astrology-fans-feel-the-dread-mercury-is-in-retrograde-an-extra-time-this-year-11650292198
Catholicism declines in Latin America: https://www.axios.com/catholic-decline-latin-america-evangelicals-dd2bab11-6a22-48cc-b65a-554578c7a62e.html
Zuck on life’s meaning: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/news/inside-mark-zuckerbergs-plan-cure-26358289
Evangelicals starting to have a political mind of their own: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/trump-fails-to-turn-evangelicals-against-gop-governor-he-scorns
Trapping people in your guitar worship service at 30,000 feet: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/u4yroc/wanna_get_away/
Near death experiences are not hallucinations: https://www.braintomorrow.com/2022/04/08/near-death-brain-activity/
Pastors flipping properties: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/miami-church-real-estate-first-presbyterian
Christian sect burning shed and Colorado fire:
09/03/19 • 37 min
SPECIAL EPISODE: This week we take you on location to the McMinnville UFO festival to watch the premier of the new documentary about Roswell whistleblower Bob Lazar. We talk about belief, how UFO communities are like churches, and the extent to which each of us believes and/or wants to believe. We meet in a dark back alley within the convention hall like Mulder and Scully, and end the day in a less-than-inspiring food tent.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Weird Religion have?
Weird Religion currently has 147 episodes available.
What topics does Weird Religion cover?
The podcast is about Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts and Tv & Film.
What is the most popular episode on Weird Religion?
The episode title '100 THE NATIONALISTS (Deuteronomy ch. 32, Moses sings, and Republicans want a Christian nation)' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Weird Religion?
The average episode length on Weird Religion is 31 minutes.
How often are episodes of Weird Religion released?
Episodes of Weird Religion are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Weird Religion?
The first episode of Weird Religion was released on Sep 26, 2018.
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