... things like that?

that?Yeah, I think it's-- One of my concerns is [clears throat] a lot of people are, especially now that Trump is in his theoretically final two years, you know, a lot of people are thinking like, they're so focused on Trump.

And my concern is, well, you know, these dynamics have been around a lot longer than he's been around, and they're going to be around a lot longer after he's gone.

And, and so I think it's important to understand history, to see those patterns play out over time.

Um, and when-- Because, like, in my race and ethnicity chapter, I start off with like, you know, these people used this language of like, "We're doing this for the praise of God's glory," in committing genocide against the Native Americans, and they were inspired by the Canaanite conquest of, you know, in the Hebrew Bible.

We are-- They identified as Israel, "We are going to, you know, take out the Canaanites and commit genocide." The, the Amer- Native Americans are the, the Canaanites, "And God has pro- given us this promised land." And so, like, you s- you see, okay, they're strengthening their own power, they're dehumanizing the Native Americans.

And any Native Americans who won't bend the knee to them, they're waging war against them.

Mm-hmm.

Like, when you came across that story, on a scale of one to 10, how shocked were you, and what did it kind of reveal about the Christian music industry that you think people should lock onto?

Yeah.

So that was actually one of the stories that broke after the book, you know, that I was like, "Oh, that would've been really interesting to put in the worship oligarchy chapter in particular." Um, but it w- it wasn't surprising.

It was just like, "Oh yeah, of course." Like, of course it would function in this way.

Um, in the, in the, in the book I quote a guy named Caleb Mascal, and he, uh, he was at an event I was at at Candler School of Theology, and he said, "What does it mean to industrialize a formative moment?" He said, "When you introduce, uh, songs into the context of Sunday morning worship and there's money to be made by songs being sung together on Sunday morning, you have an entire industry that just shifts its focus toward that bucket of money." And, and you see that at the Christian concert situation.

You know, there's people that are going there, you know, the individual evangelicals, they're going to have a worship experience.

Uh, but the, the band, you know, they've got other interests.

But it's like, there's so many buckets just getting filled with money, and it's from people who are not getting a full picture of how the whole system kinda breaks down.

Do you remember that? Do you remember that controversy?

I do remember reading about that story, and I don't remember exactly how it played out.

I think it was dropped because worship leaders just kind of come to be more of a broader used term.

But it does speak to this, something that's going on right now that's actually rather interesting is what do you call that person? Because when I was in this independent Baptist world, we called it song director.

But then it was like when I got into the contemporary world, we felt more spiritual because you're not directing songs, you're leading worship.

So that's why we called it worship leader.

But I actually just released an article today or last night about this new survey that was done by the Southern Baptist Convention.

What are some things that we should be watching for? What are some conversations we should be having in our local church to sort of be aware of this and maybe do better?

Yeah

... is kind of the posture a lot of people take.

But for me, it's more like how are these different views shaping people and shaping their attitudes? And really when it comes to the end times, it's essentially what you're hoping happens.

And, you know, this is how you're...

if this, if the end times is God bringing justice, then that is what you hope happens.

And so you're, you're, you're celebrating that, you're, you're writing songs about that.

And, and Christians going back to the 1970s especially, um, have a lot of these, you know, there were some Left Behind type movies that came out, and it's, you know, there was al- there was all these songs, um, about, you know, one, one was taken, the other, you know-

Oh, good.

But then when you when you break it down, you're like, what's the actual message? And you're like, oh, this is terrible.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, it's interesting because it's important to remember that worship wasn't an invention of the 20th century.

It was actually first written about in scripture, which was written during a time of empire.

And so one of the things that was interesting was And when I was at Northern Seminary, we would have these three different kinds of classes.

We'd have these church history classes where everybody would go in all excited, thinking we're going to learn about how the Christianity spread throughout the world.

And this is going to be amazing to see how God worked.

Right.

So tell me, tell me about this, this thing that Feucht's doing, this tour that he's on, and how, you know, it relates to your book, Weapons of Worship, you know? But tell me about how Sean envisions worship as warfare, and how it relates even to politics in the upcoming midterm.

So you may remember last year after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a lot of, um, Christian nationalists took up this, uh, persecution card, you know, "We're all being mart- Charlie Kirk was a martyr for the Christian faith.

We're all being persecuted." Um, they had AI videos of Charlie Kirk post-death, you know, talking to them and telling them that they need to enlist for the, all of these conservative causes.

And one of the things that Sean Feucht did during that time was he appeared at an event with, uh, with Charlie Kirk's pastor, and he announced that he was going to be doing a revival, a service tour that was going to be sponsored by the US government.

Is either invisible to them, or they, they see it and they say, "Yeah, well, we should have privilege." I'd like you to just kinda link this again to your book, because it's coming out in September, and I feel like it's an important book.

Yeah.

So basically, like, you know, Sean, a lot of people when they think about worship, they think about the experiences they've had, um, you know, either with communion in a more traditional type setting and liturgies, or if you're coming from, like, a mega church setting, people think about, you know, enjoying the, the nice fun band and everything.

And, um, but what Sean Feucht and these worship, uh, leaders are doing in this Christian nationalist space is they're wielding worship as a weapon against their neighbors.