Oct 10, 2026 · 56 min · 13 segments
Support the Show: Patreon.com/PreacherBoys✖️✖️✖️How did songs beloved by white evangelicals become the soundtrack of Christian nationalism? Author and former worship leader Rick Pidcock joins Eric…
Rick PidcockGuestEric SwirczynskiHostUm, o- one of the stories that came out just recently that I'd be curious to get your take on, uh, that's not in the book is, um, the news that came out about MercyMe.
I'm, I'm sure you are aware of this story with e- [laughs] everything you've been covering.
But, um, essentially MercyMe was getting paid, uh, about $17 million by this child s- uh, sponsorship o- organization to basically promote this... a- and we've all seen them, especially if you've gone to, like, a...
I'm tr- what's that big, uh, Christian concert thing that travels around every year? Be more specific.
I think theirs was with Compassion International, which was not affiliated with the MercyMe thing.
If you're lucky, you'll get, like, someone from Duck Dynasty to give a little challenge, and then they do, you know, "For $10 a month, you can support a child in this country." And this news story broke that basically this child sponsorship organization was paying MercyMe, like, 360 bucks per child that they got sponsored for $10 a month.
And it kinda blew my mind because I naively thought musicians just found a charity they liked and wanted to talk about it, and I didn't realize there was all this money flooding in.
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?
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.
Um, o- one of the stories that came out just recently that I'd be curious to get your take on, uh, that's not in the book is, um, the news that came out about MercyMe.
I'm, I'm sure you are aware of this story with e- [laughs] everything you've been covering.
But, um, essentially MercyMe was getting paid, uh, about $17 million by this child s- uh, sponsorship o- organization to basically promote this... a- and we've all seen them, especially if you've gone to, like, a...
I'm tr- what's that big, uh, Christian concert thing that travels around every year? Be more specific.
I think theirs was with Compassion International, which was not affiliated with the MercyMe thing.
If you're lucky, you'll get, like, someone from Duck Dynasty to give a little challenge, and then they do, you know, "For $10 a month, you can support a child in this country." And this news story broke that basically this child sponsorship organization was paying MercyMe, like, 360 bucks per child that they got sponsored for $10 a month.
And it kinda blew my mind because I naively thought musicians just found a charity they liked and wanted to talk about it, and I didn't realize there was all this money flooding in.
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?
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.
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