This transcrpit has been edited for clarity.

Episode 043 – Nope, NOT Okay!!! Part 3 – We Renounce Our Last Days Ministries Attack on Gays (aka Sy Rogers, “The MYTH in the Mirror”) with Guest Anthony Venn-Brown

June 19^th, 2024

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

S: And I’m Sharon. And we are Feet of Clay…

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters!

S: Today is part 3, the final portion of our very important conversation with Anthony Venn-Brown. In honor of Pride month, we’ve been discussing and taking responsibility for the – oh my god, the horrible, horrible, harmful, awful anti-gay literature, and other activities that we participated in back during our time with Last Days Ministries.

T: Yes, and I know as we’ve read through those again, they really are, Sharon, worse than I even remember.

S: Yeah.

T: So, if you listeners haven’t heard parts one and two, please go back and listen to those episodes first. As always, we appreciate each and every one of you walking through this series within a series that we’ve been calling it. So here is part 3.

…

S: Ok. Well, now we’re going to come to the final article in that issue, and this is The Man In The Mirror by Sy Rogers.

T: Oh, yeah. And Sharon, of course the blitzkrieg continues. This was one hefty magazine, so in this one insidious edition, now, there’s a testimony of how one man just did everything that we talked through as we were going through Martin’s systematic theology…

S: Yeah, supposedly. Supposedly. Suppooosedly.

T: Supposedly a testimony of how he embraced that message, he married a woman and became the proof that see you can be cured from the sin of homosexuality. Of course, that article, as Sharon mentioned, is The Man In The Mirror by Sy Rogers. We are so glad Anthony is here with us, because he actually – I learned – was doing a lot of research on Sy Rogers, and he’s going to tell us more about how problematic that message was for the community he was involved with.

A: So, Sy Rogers – Sy Rogers would be the single most influential individual that promoted that change is possible – a message, globally.

S: Oh god.

T: Wow.

S: Oh god, just pause for a second, pause for a second there Anthony because um, we – Last Days Ministries – we are the organization that gave him that platform, that reach, to 500,000 people with the first printing of that magazine, and then hundreds of thousands more in the years to come with our tracts, so we did this. We did it, and I am so, so sorry.

A: His 1984 article in Last Days Ministries Man In The Mirror was the launch of his global ministry. But not just you. Sy often said 1984 was the year that everything changed for him. He says, because he was in Last Days Ministries, he was in Voice magazine, and he was in Christianity Today. Now, the more I’ve research Sy, the more I discovered that there are lots of holes. Lots of inconsistencies. There’s dates that don’t match up. There’s things that have been hidden. That statement that just repeated what he said is one of those things. So yes, it was 1984 when you guys published Man In The Mirror, but it wasn’t until the next year that he was in the Voice magazine. Do you know who the Voice magazine is?

S: I don’t.

T: No.

A: You will when I tell you.

T: I do, but I don’t.

A: Well, you will when I mention this. The Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association International.

T: Yes.

S: Ahhhh.

A: Now, all these things we’ve talked about – Teen Challenge, Dave Wilkerson, YWAM, Winkie Pratney, all these things – that was another really substantial influence in that era, wasn’t it.

S: Yes it was.

A: And their publication went all over the world. I don’t know what the distribution was, but it was huge, as yours was. So what’s fascinating is that I tried to track down the article in the Voice magazine for the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship, and I couldn’t find it for the life of me. I found an article in 1984, which is also called The Man In The Mirror, but it’s not the Sy Rogers story. It’s about some guy who was married and his wife and kids left him, went to Germany, got his life back together again when he came back to the Lord, and his marriage and family was restored, and that was call Man in the Mirror.

S: Huh.

A: Course, he used to do positive affirmations. When looking in the mirror, cos he was a sales person.

S: So, was Sy’s story ever in an issue of that magazine?

A: Yes. The next year.

S: Ok.

A: And it wasn’t called Man in the Mirror, so maybe Sy pinched the term Man in the Mirror from the Full Gospel Fellowship magazine the year before. He was already involved with that when he was living in Hagerstown.

S: Hmm.

A: In Maryland. But the next year he was in the magazine, and it was on the front cover actually, and it was called Trapped in the Wrong Body.

T: Ohhh.

A: Yeah.

T: I think – did you find a copy of that?

A: Yeah, I’ve got a copy of that.

T: Cos I think I’ve come across that as well.

A: Yep. It’s essentially his same story again that he gave to you guys, to print in your magazine. He also mentioned Christianity Today. He was in an article but that also was 1985 not 1984, but he’s only got 64 words out of like, 2000. It wasn’t all that influential, but as we know from living in that time, your magazine and the Voice magazine – they were really, really influential in our worlds.

S: Yeah.

A: So people are probably wondering, what’s your fascination with Sy Rogers? When I found resolution, I began to speak out against some of these things, and do some work. I chose not to be an activist.

S: What do you mean by that?

A: I mean that I chose not to be militant and not to be aggressive, but to reach out, to have conversations with people. To sit at the table and have a talk, as opposed to have an argument or debate. And Sy was one of those people I reached out to. I encouraged him to meet up with me, and eventually he did. We met up at the Hillsong church here in Sydney before he did a seminar. We met privately, but everything was meant to be confidential. So I had that meeting with him, I went to him and I said Sy, there’re all these lovely young gay and lesbian people who are Christians these days, and they don’t see a conflict with their sexual orientation. What are you going to do about those? And he said to me, I no longer preach a reorientation message. He said, I haven’t been involved with Exodus for ten years, or whatever he said at that point. But because this was a confidential conversation, I couldn’t say that publicly.

S: Right.

A: But over the years I kept meeting people who he’d said the same thing to; other preachers. So I had actually written an article about him just after we met, in 2007. I’d just been on 60 Minutes, I think it was, or the weekend before, and he’d seen that. He was really quite impressed with that. It was a very good meeting – they sat me down in front of the church, it was all very respectful and everything. Anyway, I wrote this article. If you search Sy Rogers on the internet, if my articles don’t come up number one, or at least on the first page, something’s wrong. So there was all this, so I kept on at him to come out publicly about what he believed, and he wouldn’t do anything about it. I would send him emails, like about this young kid who had attempted suicide because his father said if Sy can do it, you can do it.

T: Ohh.

S: Oh my god.

A: That happened all the time. So I’d send him these emails, and he wouldn’t do anything about it. Then he moved to New Zealand. He was part of a friend’s church there, Paul – it’s actually in the book, Tracey, and he was pastoring a church in Auckland. I sent him one more of the emails, and at this stage what had happened was, Exodus had closed down, Alan Chambers had apologized, said 99% of people had never changed their orientation. There was all that going on, and Randy Thomas, so these were all his friends, had all come out and said it doesn’t work, and we’re sorry for the harm that we’ve caused. I encouraged him to do something about that, I sent him an email and he said I can’t do it now, I’ve just moved into this new church and I don’t want any dramas just yet. Because if he comes out and says what he really believes, it’s going to be a media frenzy. It was at that point I just lost all respect for him. People are dying, families are being torn apart, because of your previous teaching, your videos, your CDs, everything – you are the one that created this narrative by telling your story a million times. In South America, in Australia, in the US, in the UK – you are the one, and you can change this. But he didn’t.

S: Oh my gosh.

A: I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of his tapes. I’ve read all the newspapers – so much stuff. There’s probably everything I’ve ever come across, I’ve gone through. If you look at the whole life, you can see the evolution of how he’s shifted away from that original narrative that he created about change is possible, to he would just talk about sexuality and sexual abuse, and a whole range of things. So when he passed away in April 2020, it caused me to begin to write about all this stuff that went on behind the scenes that people didn’t know about, and that’s when I began researching, and that’s when I began to find all the holes, and the inconsistencies, and the change in the message, and everything which has never, ever been told, but maybe one day it will be told.

S: Wow.

A: So that’s who Sy Rogers is.

S: That’s so heavy, because as you said Anthony, this was a pivotal message, this was held up as a shining example of see, God can totally change you, you can no longer be gay, or you can no longer be transsexual, you can have a “normal heterosexual life”, if you just trust Jesus enough, if you just believe enough, if you just obey enough. And if it’s all a fraud – and maybe not initially an intentional fraud, right, not like a charlatan, but somebody who so desperately had bought into the message himself – that he was an abomination, that he was wrong, that he was wicked, that he needed to change, and he so desperately wanted that and did everything he could, and kind of – I don’t know, you tell yourself it’s getting better when it’s not. But then the other thing I see is, you know Anthony what he told you, that I’m going to a new church and I basically can’t rock the boat right now – the fact is that so many of these leaders in various aspects of the Christian movements, whether they are musicians like Keith Green, or the widow of someone like Melody Green, or a pastor, or an author, or a whatever – their livelihood – well, their identity, but then their actual physical livelihood, the funds that they get; how do they live; how do they feed their children; how do they keep a roof over their head – it’s totally dependent on the story they’ve been telling. And therefore, to change that story puts all these things of their own life at risk. It’s one thing if it’s what I used to call the gimme gospel, you know, somebody who’s preaching the prosperity shit, and causing other people to give away too much money, but if it’s this, and it’s leading people to believe that if Sy Rogers can do it then I can do it, and if Sy Rogers didn’t do it, then all the despair, and all the self-loathing is multiplied exponentially, and people kill themselves.

A: You got it sister.

S: And that’s horrific.

A: You got it.

T: Yep. And you know, Anthony also had his livelihood tied up in his ministry, so I would think when Sy met with you, was he aware of that and did he realize that you had come forward and been honest?

A: Yes, he did know that, because he’d seen the 60 Minute show the Sunday night before, but he would have known about me anyway, because I was out there, doing my usual thing of overcoming ignorance and misinformation, and speaking the truth about things. But his story was such a strong narrative, Man in the Mirror, that story, was such a strong narrative that he could not change that.

S: Right.

A: For him to get up in front of a congregation and say you know what I used to preach? I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t believe you can change from gay to straight. I haven’t.

S: Mmm.

A: He hadn’t, and I know of stories where that didn’t happen, so he would have immediately, as you mentioned Sharon, he would have lost everything; his livelihood, he had a wife, a child, a grandkid – and a reputation, preaching in all the top churches all over the world.  A household name in many of them. All the top conferences; he was always at the Hillsong conferences, preaching to thousands.

T: Oh Hillsong.

A: So you know, it’s a big ask. I was thinking the other day, if there is one thing I would ask of the church today, it is I would ask for authenticity.

T: Mmm.

A: That’s the main thing. I think of what’s gone on at Hillsong, I think of Sy, and I think of – you meet some other people and you think, that’s just a façade. Who are you? You created this persona, and maybe you don’t even believe this stuff anymore, but you are continuing on because of what you will lose. I lost everything. I have to say that was not because of an initial decision. When I realized I had fallen in love with a guy, I knew I couldn’t preach anymore, and I am making plans to leave, because up until that point, every day I fought it. But once I fell in love with Jason, I wanted it, because it wasn’t sex; it was love.

S: Oh my gosh, Anthony. That authenticity thing, I think there are probably a couple of different levels to that, because as Tracey and I have been unpacking our early years, our teen years, coming to Jesus, going to Last Days, and trying to sacrifice all – we were not authentic to ourselves on the one hand, because we were so busy trying to suppress and deny so much of who we were. So it wasn’t authentic, but it was sincere.

T: Sincere.

S: It was sincere, because we believed this is what we should do, and we wanted to please God, so there could be aspects of a façade, but they were because – what was it, fake it till you make it. We’re trying so hard. So that’s one aspect of – no, we were not our authentic selves.

T: Yeah, but Sharon, when the cracks began to show there was a point where I could not keep living in my community and kind of holding these truths I was coming to. I think that’s Anthony’s point with Sy, ok – even if you didn’t come out and say you are not still committed to your wife, that you’re not preaching a conversion therapy – you could have at least come out and said that.

S: Right. Exactly, because that is the other type of inauthentic, where it’s not sincere. It’s not because you really believe, and you’re really trying, and you’re desperate for yourself and you’re faking it till you make it. It’s not that. It’s like, you know, no this isn’t real, but it’s going to cost me too much to be truthful, and that inauthenticity – that’s shit. That’s horrible.

T: That is.

A: He believed that his shift in message was enough. But it wasn’t.

T: Right. It was not enough.

A: Not enough, no. You have to take ownership for this. And the impact this has had on people’s lives, but he couldn’t do that.

T: So he was friends with the whole Exodus, and I don’t know, leadership of Outpost, when they came out and apologized. Do you know if there was conversations with him – it seemed that at least that would have made it a little easier to also come out and say hey, I agree these organizations were very harmful?

A: Mmmm. I know stuff. I know conversations that went on, that I’m not at liberty to divulge at this stage. But what I can say is it just reinforces what I’ve said; that there was a priority, and the priority was his livelihood and his reputation.

S: And we’ve seen that. We see that with Melody Green.

A: Mmhmm.

S: I mean, she went through – talk about hypocrisy, but not coming truthful about it – she still publishes this whole article on Everything You Should Know Before You Get A Divorce, and how awful and horrible divorce is, and she remarried after Keith died, and she got a divorce, but she never talks about it. It’s just scrubbed.

A: Right.

S: And she still sells, or offers for a donation, that whole article on it. It’s like, the hypocrisy – just to what? Just to keep the money coming in.

A: Yeah.

S: That’s just shit. That’s shit.

A: Yes. I didn’t realize until after he’d passed away and I had talks with some other leaders in the ex-gay movement, just how intentionally deceptive he was. There will be people who don’t like what I’m saying, they’ll be listening to this and they won’t like what I’m saying about Sy, but what they need to realize is you may come into Sy’s ministry when he had already shifted his message, he was talking a lot about sexual abuse and a whole lot of other things nobody else talked about, so people in the churches were hearing these messages they needs so desperately, in a good way, so they think that he was like a savior. But they don’t know so much of all the damage he did for decades. I mean, he was in the ministry for 40 years. The quotes that I have from him in his initial days – even with his ministry. I’ve got one here. So, in 1991 he moved to Florida and he was running a ministry called Eleutheros, he used to say 80% of the gays who walked through the door left months later, cured of their homosexuality.

T: Oh. Wow.

A: It doesn’t happen overnight, he says. God doesn’t just wave a magic wand and poof! They’re all heterosexual stallions, Rogers said. This is a quote from a newspaper article. I mean, he used to quote a Masters and Johnson study, and he’d say that the recovery rate from homosexuality was 71.6%.

T: [gasps]

A: For decades he just got all this bullshit, and made up all this bullshit. So that was in the early days and that was a narrative that was established. You were gay. Now look at you, oh my god, you’re married, and you’ve had a child – oh, you must be heterosexual. No. It never changed. He still was tempted, and he still came onto people. Oh. Did I just say that out loud?

T: Yeah. That is so good. I am so glad you’re on here. This fits completely with our theme, Feet of Clay, and we obviously are very aware of the people in Youth With A Mission and now IHOP Kansas City, and Last Days Ministries that we’re familiar with, so it’s no new thing under the sun, but you know, we platformed Sy Rogers; when I first heard you tell me how much a part of our publication helped catapult him – that was also just sick to my soul Anthony. I don’t think we understood what we were doing.

S: No, we didn’t have a fucking clue! We’re out there spouting and all this shit that we are just parroting, and we don’t know, and we’ve got no right…

T: Correct! And the weight. The weight of these messages that we’re like – sure. And knowing that we were also –what we were seeing even in Americans Against Abortion, and the whole religious right at the time – we’re being exploited as well right, because we’re there, we just want to serve Jesus, what are we supposed to print – sure, we’ll stay up late, we’ll do all this stuff and not really understanding how these would then take such an insidious turn in our country. For you to share the things about Sy – because I did a little digging, I think after I saw the movie Boy Erased, which I referenced either in the last episode or earlier in this episode, and just how that rocked me and wrecked me to the core. So I did a little digging, and it did say – there was an article that he died faithful, a faithful man that never recanted his message, I think was the little blurb – it was short, but that’s what it said.

A: Yeah. Yep, that’s what’s out there, and I got that from what I put up on the website. That’s the source of that; they didn’t acknowledge the source of that, but that’s exactly what happened, and because I actually had that conversation with him.

S: So Tracey, the movie you just referenced, Boy Erased, that is the story of someone being subjected to conversion therapy. I saw that too, and I wept and wept, it was just so intense. And knowing that we – knowing that we helped perpetuate and give platform to this sort of stuff – oh my god. I think quite a few of our listeners will not be familiar with this whole concept of conversion therapy and the organizations that were on the frontier of it, like Exodus, Outpost, Love In Action, Mount Hope – these others, and we promoted them too. So, do you want to kinda pivot and talk about that stuff?

A: Well, you know, when you published that in 84, we’d gone through the Jesus Revolution, there’d been the rise of gay rights, then there was the backlash of the church, in the so-called gay agenda that we were trying to change society. We just wanted to stop being thrown in prison, and having electrodes put on our genitals.

S: Right.

A: We wanted to have a better life. So you know, what you were doing was being done everywhere. People were writing all these books, they thought they knew all about it; everything, so it was prevalent within the church. What’s happened is that, that generation – your generation and my generation, they all became the leaders of the church, so they’ve had the biggest influence.

S: Mmhmm.

A: Up until now. They’ve been the megachurch pastors, the home group leaders, the bible study lecturers – all that stuff. They were all fed all this garbage. What we’re waiting for is that next generation who have their friends who are gay, transgender diverse, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual – whatever, and they’re going oh look, my friends are so cool. There’s nothing wrong with them. What’s all this garbage about?

S: Which just means most of us need to die off, Anthony. That was our generation – we need to die off.

A: We’ve got a job to do, and you’re doing your job, aren’t you. Right now.

S: We’re trying.

A: Yeah, you’re doing a great job. You’re doing a great job. It’s an important job. We may have done some personal deconstructing; we’re also doing it for some other people.

T: Yes!

S: You too, Anthony. I mean, your work is just astounding.

A: I gotta say something here. There’s been more than once, maybe three times, you’ve apologized to me for what you did, and your contribution to this. For me, it’s a little challenging to sit here and take that. Not that I don’t think it’s completely sincere or anything like that; it’s just that I’m in such a good place. All that pain, all those years of suffering, all those times when I wanted to kill myself – they’re all gone now. Even the PTSD seems to have subsided substantially for me. But what I hope is that as your listeners are hearing our conversation today, that when they hear your sincere apology, that they reach out and take that into their hearts, themselves, and take it for themselves, because there are so many people who need to hear, we were wrong, and we are sorry, and here’s what we’re doing to try and correct that.

S: Thank you, Anthony.

T: Yes, thank you.

A: It’s true.

S: [deep sigh]

T: Well, I think this could be a really good time, if you want to talk through part of the good places that we’ve come in the last 40 years. I think for us – I think what’s stunning for us, because we’ve deconstructed for a long time now, it’s been 20 years we’ve been out, right; I think what’s been surprizing for Sharon and I is to see the rabid nature of the Christian fundamentalist right Christian Nationalism political movement, here in the United States. I don’t know how much you hear about that in Australia, how much you know about that…

A: Oh yeah.

T: But I think that’s what even makes our apologies so much more heartbreaking to us, because we helped lay a foundation that’s like that fucking zombie is coming back to life, and it’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We helped give this animation, and we want to take away all of our part to make sure that doesn’t keep doing damage.

A: Mmm. Because what’s happened now is that – and I’m generalizing here – is that they’ve given up attacking the gays. Mostly. They’ve lost that battle. We have marriage equality today, so there are lovely gay and lesbian couples that are going home to their parents and saying I just got engaged tonight. Can we have an engagement party? There’s a wedding. You can’t go to a wedding without shedding a tear.

T: Right.

S: True!

A: Beautiful moments – a person walks down the aisle and you’re like, you’ve got the hanky or the tissue up, because these are beautiful moments. Previously all people could talk about was sex. They’re seeing the beauty of love right before their eyes.

T: Oh, that’s so true.

A: Roe vs Wade has been switched around – horrendous. They may go for marriage equality again, who knows, but essentially what’s going on now is they’re attacking the trans community.

S: Mmhmm.

A: And the reason they’re attacking the trans community is they’re a minority within a minority. They’re easier to attack, but the reason they’re attacking is once again, it threatens their world view, which is God created man and woman. To have babies. To procreate. So they will attack the transgender, diverse – these lovely young kids who are vulnerable enough, these awful people will say the most horrendous things about them. They’re being sexualized, they’re grooming, they’re being groomed, that they’re wanting to go into bathrooms and rape people – will you get a grip on this! What you are doing is evil to these poor young people, who have got a challenging enough life without you saying all these horrendous lies about them, because you have no idea what you’re talking about, and God’s a big God and he will cope with a few queers.

[soft laughter]

T: Yes.

S: Oh god. I love that.

A: Yeah. So was I being too heavy then?

T: No!

S: No, Anthony, this is great.

T: So great.

A: We’ve got to stand up for the trans and gender diverse people, they really need our support and our help. It’s terrible what’s being said, and it’s just becoming more and more complex. We just recently had a council in Sydney, which is a very multi-cultural council, and one guy on the council put through a motion that all the same-sex parenting books for kids were to be removed from the library.

S: Welcome to Florida!

A: Yeah. Well, we turned it around in a week. Two weeks.

S: Oh wow.

T: You guys turned it around in a week?

A: Two weeks, yeah.

T: That’s fantastic.

S: That’s amazing. That’s AMAZING. So Anthony – I actually want this for myself, but I’m sure there are other listeners that would really benefit from getting an overview of what do you see about what has changed, what have been the significant events in and for the gay community? Could you give us a little walk through on that?

A: Ok, I’ll give you a bit of an overview, because there might be listeners who are not aware of these pivotal moments.

S: Ok.

A: The most pivotal I guess, is that in 1969 there was a thing in New York known as the Stonewall riots, or the Stonewall uprising. This was at a bar, hotel – what you call a bar, in Greenwich village that was regularly raided by the Police. It was owned by the Mob, and the Police were being paid off, and they would go and raid this, and one night it just got too much for the crowd in this gay bar, and they rioted. It went on for nearly a week – the riots. And the Police were initially overwhelmed. That’s become the turning point. There were other protests that went on before, as gay and lesbian people started to get a sense of self, and what was wrong was not about them, what was wrong was the laws, and about what people were saying and their understanding of sexuality. That was the turning point of gay rights, in 1969. But what’s interesting is that the year before that, a Pentecostal minister – who was gay – had a meeting in his lounge room of about a dozen people, in Los Angeles, and started what was known as the Metropolitan Community Church, and that was really the beginning of the gay Christian movement. Now that’s grown from a dozen people, to now whole churches, whole denominations, LGBT affirming. If you don’t know what LGBTQ affirming is, go to our website abbi.org and I have a little progression thing there that shows the difference between being accepting, being welcoming, and being affirming. So, that was – isn’t it incredible that a church was way ahead of them.

S: Wow. Right.

T: Way ahead, yeah.

A: Way ahead. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality off the list of mental disorders.

S: Yay!

T: Which is crazy that it took till 1973, for starters.

A:  I think it was because of the protests of gay activists.

S: Ok.

A: That was 1973, so overnight hundreds of thousands of gay people were no longer sick.

[laughter]

A: And I mentioned that the gay Christian movement has grown exponentially, and of course when that was happening way back in 69, the last thing they were thinking about was getting married. They just wanted to stop being put in prison.

T&S: Right.

A: But we have marriage equality, and that was quite a battle. We went on for about a decade, here in Australia, and you had a long journey with it as well; various states, you know. And the next thing was banning conversion therapy. In lots of states you already have laws which are banning conversion therapy, and in New South Wales here we’ve just passed that in March, so that it is illegal to try and suppress or change a person’s sexual orientation, or gender identity. Depending on the level of harm depends on whether it is a civil or criminal offence.

T: Wow.

S: So that’s in New South Wales.

A: Yes.

S: So in Australia, each state is going to set their own laws?

A: Yes, like you’ve been doing in the US.

S: Ok.

A: You’ve been doing it state by state as well. It’s easier to do it that way, but you can’t do it with marriage in Australia, because the federal government overrules all that. So we’ve got Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales, and the ACT – so 4 states. We’ve still got the Northern Territory to go, South Australia, Westen Australia, and Tasmania. So there’s a few more, but they’re already underway to have that changed. And then it might happen then, depending on who’s in the government, that might be passed nationally as well. So things are changing, you know. Things are changing, but as I mentioned before, it depends on what your family is like, what your culture is, where you live geographically, and whether religion is involved – whether you’re living in the now, or whether you’re living 50-60 years ago. But we keep going. Just keep going. Change is not happening overnight; it’s happening slowly, but we just gotta keep going.

T: Yeah, it surprizes me that banning conversion therapy is still not everywhere yet and that’s why movies like Boy Erased are so important, so people who may not understand what is involved in that can get a birds eye view.

S: And Anthony’s book.

T: And Anthony’s book.

S&A: Yes!

T: And it is, and if you’re like hey, this doesn’t really impact me – it does. So please, if you’re not educated on this, please go in and look at these resources. I was interested in the years that you did this, because there is a part of me – this is my idealistic fairytale side of me. I think back to the Jesus People, right, and everybody who was coming to Haight-Ashbury, and it was born out of the hippie movement, and then the Jesus People were born, and then the damn fundys came in to get a hold of this movement and take it where they wanted it to go. And if the Metropolitan Community Church was being formed at this time, this movement could have been so different. We could have ended up in such a different place. There is a part of me – ugh, I’d like to write a movie on that alternative because it does shock me how many sincere people there were in those movements, and then we bought in. We bought into that old time religion.

S: Mmhmm.

A: I like what you said before Sharon, about authenticity and sincerity, because we were sincere.

S: We were. We were sincerely wrong, but we were sincere.

A: We were not intentionally deceiving people, you know, this was a belief that we had, that we had adopted, and there was evidence that backed it up for us as far as we knew, it was all confirmation bias, but…

[laughter]

S: That’s right.

A: We didn’t understand that at that point, and there’s a time when it can all begin to unravel, and that’s what’s happened for many of us. But thank god we can be in this place of authenticity and no judgement, and loving people for who they are.

S: Loving people for who they are. Forgiving others, and forgiving ourselves. I mean, we have to be able to do that. We do.

A: Yeah.

S: Anthony, I would love for you to do some bragging on yourself, brother, and tell us more in depth about ABBI and your book and your vision for what you want to see happen next.

A: Ok. It’s been a journey. I just had open heart surgery.

S: Oh wow!

A: My dad died of a massive heart attack at 72 years of age, and passed away in the morning, in bed. So last year – I’m 73 – so last year it was very much on my mind.

T: Oh yeah.

A: Accidentally they found out that something was wrong with my heart. So I’ve just had (at the end of last year) open heart surgery and I’m just at the end of recovery now. I’ve been given extra time. But as you read Tracey, in the book, I never intended to be doing this work. I actually planned to commit suicide at 50, because all I’d heard was gays are all lonely, desperate people, and who wants to be that, so when I left the ministry and resigned, I thought well, I’ll have a few years without any guilt, I’ll have a fun time and then I’ll check out. Obviously somebody or something had some other plans, because I found some resolution. I found peace. It was like another conversion experience. It was like I got born again, again.

S: Yes!

T: We talk about that – we got unborn again – again. So yes.

A: I was told to tell my story, which you’ve read about. I was literally told. I can’t say it was an audible voice, but I knew exactly the words that were said to me, which were tell your story, be completely honest, it will help lots of people, and don’t worry about a publisher, I’ll organize everything.

S: Wow.

A: So I came home from this retreat I was on in Mexico, and I began writing. The first edition got published in 2004, became a best seller, sold out second edition, same thing happened with that. But what happened was, from day one my inbox was literally flooded with emails from complete strangers who would say your story is my story, and they’d pour their hearts out to me.

S: Oh wow.

A: I’d sit at the computer and weep, just reading those emails, and the suffering, the rejection in the family, and what the church had done to some of these people, and their friends had abandoned them. It was just awful. So I set up a support group for people. I did that for six years, but I had no financial backing. If there’s anyone out there listening who wants to support a great organization, ABBI would be grateful for your help.

T: Yes!

S: ABBI meaning – say the name of the whole organization.

A: Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International.

S: Ok good. ABBI.

A: ABBI is the acronym. So ABBI – we live totally by donations now. We’re a registered charity with the government. I have the organization, but I also was running a business to try and keep the roof over my head, and I burnt out once a year trying to run this organization and do that. But now I’ve got ABBI, and that’s by donation. But I realized with the previous organization Freedom to Be, that we could spend the rest of our lives running ambulances at the bottom of the cliff, when we need to build fences at the top of the cliff.

S: Mmmm.

T: Oh yeah. That’s great.

A: That’s what ABBI is about. ABBI reaches out to dialog, to have conversations with people, to provide seminars, so the enemy is ignorance – that’s the basis of our philosophy. We overcome ignorance with truth, and facts, and information. So we support people, we do all this training, and seminars and workshops, and have dialogs with people, and do lots of writing as well. That’s what we’re doing now with ABBI, and it changes people’s hearts and minds. Through that we’ve had a major Pentecostal church in Australia become completely LGBTQ affirming. Who would have thought?

T: That’s fantastic.

S: That’s beautiful.

A: It was too slow. It’s too slow. If you’re listening to this and you are a minister who’s got some questions, can I say – let’s talk.

T: Oh, please. Please, please, please.

A: You’ll find I’m very respectful. Actually, I’m lovely.

T: You are lovely!

S: You are. What’s your website?

A: It’s www.ABBI.org.au.

S: Excellent.

A: You can contact us through that. I’d love to hear from you. There’s so much work to do, you know. I’ve been given extra time, obviously, so I’m going to be around for a little bit longer. I won’t see all of the vision fulfilled in my lifetime, but I’m gonna do pretty well damn as much as I can.

S: Well, that’s great. I am hoping that there will be, maybe some listeners of this podcast, or maybe others, who will feel inspired and challenged by what you have been doing there in Australia, and take up the mantle – oh my god, can we even say that, right?

[laughter]

S: But help to bring about some of those changes here in the United States, because holy shit, we need it here, for sure.

T: Yes, and we have a long way to go. And tell them how to get your book because I do want to reiterate that even if you have never struggled with same sex attraction, or had that message turned around on you, it is a great book for really showing us how the church treats people. I think when you just said that, when you would weep from the emails, I was weeping by just how the church treated you.

S: And I guarantee you, everyone of you listening, everyone of us, we know people. We know people who have suffered, who maybe are suffering, so – yes.

T: And we have suffered similarly, right, a lot of the people deconstructing have also suffered at the hands of – when the church is just inadequate to know how to deal with stuff that they don’t know. You do a great job really immersing the reader into that sphere. It’s a beautifully written story, Anthony.

S: I confess I haven’t read it yet. It is on my list. It’s going to be the next book I read.

A: I have a feeling maybe you will read it.

S: Yes.

T: So how do they get it?

A: There’s this thing called the internet.

[laughter]

T: We’re old. I think we’ve already established; we’re old.

[laughter]

A: If you go onto the internet, however you get your books on the internet you will find A Life Of Unlearning on all the booksellers on the internet. As in Amazon, Barnes & Noble – any of them, you will find it there. If you have any trouble just email me or through our website. The other thing too, if you’re looking for a particular answer, I’ve got over a decade of writing on our website. Your question – I’ve probably already answered, and if you can’t find it, I’ll find it for you if you email me and I’ll send you the link so you can read and share.

S: Oh Anthony ,you are so generous, so generous in this. Thank you.

A: Well, you know, somebody said if you give, you receive.

S: It will be given back?

T: It will be given back…

T&A: Pressed down, shaken together and running over!

[laughter]

S: Oh wow. Wow, wow.

A: We’ve been given a gift, so we should be sharing it. It’s all about doing that – can I just share a little story with you?

S: Yes, please!

A: So, Exodus closed down in 2013. Because I’m Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International, and not an angry, militant gay activist, I was reaching out to Alan Chambers, the head of Exodus. Every time he did something good, I thought was good, I’d email him and say thank you, that’s going to make a big difference, Alan, in people’s lives. Whereas everyone else was saying he was a – whatever, and he should burn in hell. But I was being nice. We developed this warmth on email, and we would joke about different things. Anyway, I had this strong feeling that I should go to the next Exodus conference. I’d never been to one before, I just wanted to go and be there, and see what goes on. And Alan said to me, I’d love you to come. I’d raise the money and everything, and I got there. I was there for the very last Exodus conference, on the first night, to hear Alan Chambers say, it’s finished, we’re closing our doors. The night before he wrote this wonderful apology to the LGBTQ community, for all the harm, all the damage that had been done. I got to interview Alan just in the very last hours of that week of conference, in 2013. I said to him Alan, people will be intrigued as to what Anthony Venn-Brown is doing here at this conference, considering in Australia, I am probably the leader of the movement that has done everything to see this whole thing close down, once and for all, and for good. So people will be intrigued to know why I was here, and he leant over and said you are kind to me. And I thought, is that all it takes? A bit of kindness.

S: Kindness.

A: The power of kindness is underrated. And if we could have more kindness towards LGBTQ people, more kindness towards others, and give when we can, with all the terrible things that are going on in the world, at least we can put our head on the pillow at night and say, we did something good today, which is going to make life better for somebody else.

S: That is beautiful, Anthony.

T: That is so beautiful. Our faith spaces should be the leaders in kindness. That should be a foundational spiritual principle.

A: Yeah. Simple eh.

S: And you telling this story about this last conference of Exodus – you know, people can change.

A: Yeah.

S: Not the change that we were advocating in this stupid, stupid magazine, but real change, like you said – towards kindness and truth. People can change. Thank you for being a catalyst for amazing change. Thank you, Anthony.

A: And thank you for what you are doing and the wonderful opportunity to join you today.

S: It’s been fantastic.

…

S: Tracey, I cannot overstate how profoundly thankful I am to Anthony, for giving so completely of himself – to us, to all of our listeners out there, and honestly, to people throughout the world.

T: Yes, and if you all don’t know, he’s on a completely different time zone than we are, and so, so gracious to sit with us through a very, very long recording session.

S: Yeah. Well, it’s been several weeks now since we recorded those three episodes with Anthony.

T: Yes, and for you listeners, that was one long recording session from us that ended up being almost five hours, and again, Sharon and I can sometimes hunker down and do this, but that Anthony hung in there with us – god, we love him. Thank you so much.

S: I know. It was a marathon. A marathon for sure. So in those few weeks between that initial recording and us today, right now Tracey, I have had some time to do some more – I guess quiet reflection, and even delve a little deeper into some other materials, and just to expand my own awareness.

T: Oh my god, that’s so great.

S: Now, on the other hand, my friend, I know that you have had an absolutely jammed and hellacious past few weeks, and barely a moment to breathe.

T: Yes, it has been crazier than usual, so again I just have to say thank you Sharon, and listeners, she’s the one that’s putting in all this editing time, and getting all this stuff together while I’ve been handling the other parts of my life, so thank you Sharon for all your hard work on these.

S: Oh well, as always you’re welcome, and that sounds like I was soliciting and I didn’t mean to be, so…

T: No no, not at all. It’s heartfelt and it’s true.

S: Alright. Well, because of this, I’ve been thinking and pondering these past couple of weeks. I wanted to share some additional thoughts, and I guess I’m sharing them with you for the first time Tracey, because we’ve hardly talked at all. Also of course, for our listeners. So, first of all, point number one. The day after we recorded with Anthony I started reading his autobiography A Life Of Unlearning.

T: Oh I’m so glad, so glad Sharon.

S: I know.

T: And we haven’t, listeners, gotten a chance to download on that, so I’m very eager to hear what you thought.

S: Yeah. Well, I finished it in just a few days – or maybe it was a week in between other things. Tracey, you did tell me how incredible the book was, but girl, I think your praise was an understatement.

T: Awesome.

S: I don’t think you talked it up enough, because…

T: Well, sometimes you know, when something hits you and you don’t want to build something up too much because then people can be disappointed, so I am so glad to hear that because it was riveting for me.

S: Yeah. Yeah, me too. Ok, well I’m going to run the risk. I’m going to maybe build it up too much for our listeners. Because, I found his story to be astounding and moving. In every way – his honesty, his humility, his vulnerability, his integrity – you just don’t hear that level of transparency, even from – there’ve been recently some folks coming out of the old fundy Evangelical world and writing books and kind of owning it, deconstructing, but I’ve never read anything to this level.

T: Oh you know, you’re right. You’re right.

S: Yeah. And truly, if I had a magic wand, I would give this book to every single person on earth. I’m not exaggerating, because to me, no matter who you are, no matter your background, your faith, whether you’re straight or gay, or whether you don’t know. No matter where you are in your journey of life, this book has something beautiful for everyone.

T: Oh I am so glad to hear you say that. I was trying to paint that picture in the episodes, and I know you hadn’t read it yet, but just how poignant it was for all of us, whether you absolutely are gay or straight, there is a story in there for us straight people. Ultimately I think it’s that whole self-loathing.

S: Yeah.

T: Anthony does an incredible job of painting that picture – it pulled me right in. You can completely relate to it when you’re reading it.

S: Absolutely. Absolutely. So Tracey, are you ready for a radical Last Days Ministries blast from the past?

T: Uhhhh, well, when you put it that way it kind of scares me a little bit.

S: Alright, well, brace yourself woman. Ok, everyone out there, here is my offer. If you want to read Anthony’s book but you are struggling financially, it can be yours for whatever you can afford, even if that’s nothing.

T: Oh my god. The Whatever You Can Afford policy. Of all the blasts from the past, that was something that actually drew me to Last Days. Did you talk to Anthony about this?

S: Nope. Nope.

T: I think that’s amazing. I’m kind of…what does this mean?

S: Ok, here’s what the deal is. So for those listeners who maybe weren’t familiar with Last Days Ministries and Keith Green, we did this radical thing. We offered literature and albums and concerts for “whatever you can afford”. That meant that people who had no money to spare, they could get our stuff for free. So here’s…

[laughter]

T: Wait, wait, so am I going to be packing a lot of books in the back of a warehouse somewhere Sharon?

S: No.

[laughter]

S: No, this is how it’s going to work, folks.

T: Before you go on, – that’s amazing, and listeners I had no heads up that she was going to do that, that’s why I asked her if she’d talked to Anthony, I’m like wait, wait.

S: No, and don’t tell him. Don’t tell him until this episode drops. Let him hear it live, ok.

T: This is amazing. It’s all happening here, listeners, right here, so explain this as I obviously don’t know about this.

S: Alright. So here’s what I’m doing. You can go to the website alifeofunlearning.com – or you can go to Amazon or wherever you would online buy a book. So buy it. And then you send us a screenshot of your receipt, and I will personally Venmo you the money to cover it. So you send the email to us with your receipt to cultsisterspodcast@gmail.com. I’m serious everybody, this will be our gift to you.

T: Woow, I love it.

S: And PS, I’m spending my kids’ inheritance, so it’s ok.

[laughter]

T: Well hopefully they’re not listening.

[laughter]

S: There’ll still be something left for them.

T: There’ll still be something. Oh that is great. Now, my homeschool days are kicking in – are you going to require any book report follow up? As people read it?

[laughter]

S: That’s a great idea. I hadn’t thought of it.

T: I know right! Or we could do a shared space where people can share – I don’t know, that can be part two of it, but I think that is so amazing because I agree, there is something in this book for everyone and especially for most of our listeners who have deconstructed, I’m telling you Anthony paints the picture of that world so amazingly well. I think I’ve mentioned this before, just the cruelty of the church spaces that I think all of us can relate to. So this is awesome Sharon, I’m excited about this!

S: Good, good, good! Ok, I’m glad – I thought maybe you’d say I was absolutely out of my fucking mind, but ok.

T: Nope! Nope.

[laughter]

S: Alright. My point number two: last week I also went and watched this Emmy nominated Netflix documentary called Pray Away.

T: I haven’t seen that yet.

S: Oh, you’ve got to. You’ve got to. It is really powerful, and it includes interviews with a number of folks who used to be key Christian leaders in the whole gays can repent and be healed movement. The whole conversion therapy shit. These leaders later renounced and apologized for all the harm they caused, so I highly recommend this documentary to all our listeners, and we’ll put a link in the show notes.

T: Oh good. I have a couple on my list, and I know I’d seen that you posted you watched that, so I will be very interested. So listeners, I’m going to join you, clicking into that link and watching that.

S: Good, good. Alright, point number three. You and I Tracey, have never been known for, nor been accused of moderation, right?

T: No, no we haven’t, thus Confessions of the Cult Sisters. We have some stories to tell – although I would say that some people think – I don’t know if it’s true or not, but some people think that I might be a little bit more moderated or modest than you.

[laughter]

S: Yeah, they might. You know what, it is really a good thing – oh my god, I can’t believe I’m about to say this. It’s really a good thing that we’re only doing this on audio, because right before we recorded, Dave and I were out, we were playing pickle ball, we were sweating our asses off, I rushed in and took a shower – I am literally sitting here naked because it was too hot to get dressed again. So, no.

[laughter]

T: So people now know why we’re not on YouTube. People are like, why don’t you put all your episodes on YouTube? Classic. Because um…Sharon’s usually not dressed.

S: No, that’s not true. This is the first one I’ve been totally naked for. So, anyway. Ok. True that I am not the most moderate person. And I do know Tracey, that a central life theme for you is this idea of balance. You know, in all things. And that is beautiful and I’m very thankful for your influence on me in that way. Of course, you couldn’t get me dressed today, but – you know, oh well.

T: But at least we’re not on camera. I would have vetoed the camera.

S: So, back to my point of not so much moderation. Well, when we started down our path, which was actually several years of examining then ultimately deconstructing our belief system, at the end of that we walked away from it all, entirely.

T: Yes, and I always say we walked away and I always say we walked away hard. If people haven’t understood that – I mean, we had to build new social circles, new friend circles, new reading material, and we didn’t look back.

S: No, we didn’t. we didn’t. And we saw no value at that point in holding onto any form of organized religion, so not even Progressive Christianity – but, Tracey, I do realize that for some other people, including some of our listeners, their life journey, their faith journey – it looks different than ours. And that’s not only ok, I think that’s a good thing.

T: Yeah, and it’s something I’ve had to really learn, living in Tennessee, because there are a lot of my neighbors and co-workers who are very strong in faith, and I do see how some people have been able to incorporate that into their life as a good thing. Let me clarify; it’s a good thing if – and only if – that faith is helping them to love themselves and to love others more authentically.

S: Yes.

T: I know Anthony had mentioned authenticity a couple times in our podcast, so some people have found that through their faith expression, and that is ok, Sharon.

S: It is. Absolutely. And that if – that big, big if, too. So, for those folks who are in the LGBTQ community and who are still holding some measure of Christian belief, whatever that is, but who are also looking for a less toxic expression of that faith, Anthony has created this wonderful resource. It’s a simple graphic, and I know there’s a lot more behind it too, that summarizes the differences between churches that are welcoming, versus accepting, versus affirming. It’s on the website for Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International, which is abbi.org.au – we’ll put a link in our show notes, for sure.

T: Yeah, and I have been spending some time going through his website these past couple of weeks. I haven’t just not done anything, Sharon. It has so many links and resources, so listeners if you haven’t gone on his website, please do. There’s a ton of good stuff, and I know as Sharon had mentioned earlier, we’re still learning. We’re still learning a lot ourselves, so it’s been very, very helpful for us.

S: Yeah. Alright. So I’m just going to give this basic summary, the takeaway I took from that section of the website. So first of all, we’ve got churches that are anti-gay. They believe that all LGBTQ folks are going to hell, and of course, you would not be welcome as your authentic self to go and be part of that church.

T: Yeah. And that’s what we’re most familiar with. And I think when we talk about, when we bristle at faith centers that’s usually what we’re familiar with.

S: Right, which is probably almost every fundamentalist or Evangelical church. It’s just all of them. Ok, now there are churches that consider themselves welcoming. That’s the word they use. The way Anthony defines it, this type of church would say yeah, come on in sit down, listen to us, and if you let God change you, then maybe you can go to heaven. So that’s a church that’s welcoming, but you still gotta change.

T: Yes. And that one you have to be very careful of. I think it’s great that Anthony gives that definition, because I think they can be sneaky Sharon, in that …

S: Oh yeah. Sneaky as hell. Sneaky snakes.

T: Mmhmm.

S: Ok. The next step up is a church that is accepting of LGBTQ people. So you’ll be invited to come in, and be part of the congregation. You’ll experience love and warmth, but you’ll also be told that you must be celibate. It’s not just about sex. That also means that you can never have a romantic same-sex relationship, you can never fall in love, never have a life partner. So that’s huge.

T: That is huge. That’s exactly what our articles were saying, so you have to watch out for that too. Again, I explain that to be sneaky, sneaky, sneaky language.

S: So then, what you’re really looking for are churches that are LGBTQ affirming.

T: Affirming.

S: Affirming. That means that you and your partner – you are fully welcome. You can be fully part of the church community, be fully yourselves, fully serve in any capacity, without limitation. They believe that you are part of the kingdom of God just as you are.

T: And just as it should be.

S: As it should be. So there’s so many great resources on the ABBI site, so be sure to check it out. And, I’m just gonna say, if you happen to want to give a little donation towards that work, I think that would be greatly appreciated, and be going to a great cause. Ok, finally, my point number four.

T: Finally! I thought this was supposed to be a summary Sharon, and it’s maybe a podcast 2.0.

S: Well, tough shit, we haven’t talked for a while, so I’m talking. I want to mention something about that final story that Anthony told in our conversation, about what the director of Exodus said to him about why he had invited Anthony to that final Exodus conference.

T: Yes, and I know I had posted on Instagram recently just a little block that was in the Last Days magazine that had the reference for Exodus. As a reminder, Exodus was that umbrella organization that helped promote (ugh) and coordinate all sort of other ministries that were doing that whole gay conversion crap. I mean, damaging. As Sharon mentioned earlier in the documentary Pray Away, that includes the closing of Exodus, so I definitely have that on my list.

S: Yeah. Listen to it – and another little thing about that whole gay conversion therapy folks, another plug for the movie Boy Erased. That’s another must-see. Both really worth watching. So anyway back to this, my attempt at this point. You know, most of our listeners are already aware that I, we no longer believe in this idea of the bible being the infallible, divinely authorized word of God. I mean, not at all. We do not believe that at all. But, I do believe that the writings do contain some beautiful and universal truths.

T: It’s interesting Sharon, because that’s where I would say you’re a little more gracious than I am.

S: Ok, well…

T: Go on, go on. I’m like, I can find beautiful inspiration in countless other books but go ahead. [laughing]

S: Yes, but I will take beauty and inspiration wherever I can find it, even in the fucking bible.

T: Ok, look at you, look at you.

S: So my favorite verse for decades has been Micah 6:7, which basically says there are only three things required of us, to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk in humility.

T: Mmmm.

S: Did you want to say something.

T: Ok, no, I like that too.

S: That one’s ok? Alright, cool.

T: I wish that people lived it, who lived that bible, but yes.

S: No kidding. No kidding. I wonder if they’ve taken this one out of the Trump bible, huh, the God bless America bible.

T: Oh, that is a rabbit trail.

[laughter]

S: Ok, sorry. So I was really, really moved by Anthony’s account of that conversation with the Exodus director at that closing conference. And as he told it, the key – like, the entire reason that Anthony was even invited to be there, that he was in the room and had the opportunity to continue speaking into the lives of these people was because of kindness. He was kind. I find that to be both inspiring and challenging to me personally. Tracey, it’s really easy for me to have kindness towards those who are oppressed and misused and abused, but it can be a lot harder for me to extend kindness to people who I see as being asshole abusers. I’m working on it, and I still need to work on it. As the saying goes – in fact, I put a sign in front of my farm that says this – in a world where you can be anything, let’s choose to be kind.

T: That is so great. Anthony is such a great example of that, especially coming from where he comes from, is very similar to where we’ve come from. And you know Sharon, we have been on the receiving end of some of the old circles, we call them. They’ve said some pretty harsh things about us.

S: Pretty fucking funny things, actually.

T: Yes, and we do – listeners, we will definitely pull that out and get kind of snarky back, but as far as one on one with them, we really do have a lot of understanding and compassion, because that was us.

S: It was us.

T: It was us, years ago, and we know that clobbering people over the head doesn’t work. Oh, I love that. I love that sign, and I love that you really took time to call out kindness – and speaking of kindness, next week we will be talking to truly one of the kindest and coolest people that we have ever met, and was a part of our Last Days community. We’ve maintained a relationship over the years, and we were able – I don’t know if we coerced him, but we were able to get him to agree to come onto our podcast and do an interview with us, particularly in honor of Pride month.

S: Yes, because why? Because…

T: Because he is an out and proud and married gay man, and has a really inspiring story, so listeners you will not want to miss that, as we reconnect with one of our old LDM brothers for this next episode.

S: Jim. Not going to say his last name yet but it’s Jim. That’s our teaser.

T: Ok.

S: Alright. As we wrap this thing up, Tracey, you know that old infomercial schtick – but wait, there’s more.

T: I feel like that comes in my life all the time at the moment. I feel like I’ve said that all week. But wait, wait there’s more!

S: Yeah, but I think most of the more you’ve been dealing with hasn’t been good stuff.

[laughter]

S: Sorry about that but this is a good one. So just more thing for folks, if you listened to us in season one you will remember our Flamy Grant Christmas Special.

T: I loved that title so much! The Flamy Grant Christmas Special! I was so happy she agreed to do that with us.

S: I know. Which of course, featured the one, the only, hip swaying, shame slaying, song writing, chart topping, drag queen, and her music is amazing. Amazing. The vocals, the melody, the lyrics, the instruments – everything – amazing.

T: Yeah, really talented, because we’ve done a lot of drag shows through our deconstructing days and a lot of it is showmanship, and I’m telling you Flamy has just the musical chops. Just really brilliant music.

S: Brilliant. And what’s maybe almost amazing is that Flamy herself will be coming to my farm in Florida to do a private concert on October 31^st. Halloween!

T: Halloweeeen! Actually I didn’t know you were going to announce it on our podcast. I thought the key words were private concert!

[laughter]

S: I’m full of surprizes.

T: You are! But you know Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year.

S: I know. So not only is this going to be an amazing concert, and a wonderful time to personally connect with others who are on the same life journeys as we are, and our listeners are, but it’s also going to be a fun costume party for anyone who enjoys playing dress up. Not required. Not required, but optional.

T: Whoa, oh, oh, that’s where Sharon again is a little bit more moderate than I am, because I would absofuckinglutely make costumes mandatory.

[laughter]

S: No they’re not, you’ll scare people away.

T: I’d be like, you have to put a hat on, you have to put something on, you can’t just come on Halloween – but that reflects a little bit of who I am inside of me.

[laughter]

S: Alright.

T: So Sharon, I’m a little confused, so listeners you’re getting to hear this just as I am – if it’s a private concert, who’s invited?

S: All of you. All of you dear listeners – you are invited. So, what this means is it’s a private gathering. This is not going to be open to the general public, this is not going to be promoted to the public. Tracey, it’s you and me and our friends, and people that are on this crazy Cult Sister journey with us. We would love to meet you guys in person, and of course we are expecting a number of former LDMers and former YWAMers to join us, so if you want to be a part of us, just pop over to our Facebook group, Feet of Clay Confessions of the Cult Sisters Community.

T: The community, which is a closed group and you do have to be accepted to be in.

S: Yeah, but all you have to do is answer a question that you’ve listened to an episode. But anyway, ask to join, get in there, and we’ll be sharing more details soon.

T: Yes, we will. I’m very, very excited about this, because it’s got costumes, it’s got Flamy, it’s got great music. Listeners, Sharon’s farm is beautiful.

S: Yes it is.

T: She has classes out there, she’s got the infrastructure to really make this thing a wonderful time – and it’s in October, which is not fucking 120 degrees in Florida, so…

S: That’s right. We’ll have fun.

T: It’ll be great, great, great.

S: And again, something you did not know Tracey, I have been corresponding with Flamy and ever gracious as always, she’s given us permission to share her latest single with everyone.

T: Oh, I love her so much.

S: I know. People, you’re gonna love it. You’re gonna love it. Thank you so much everyone. Check us out on Instagram, feetofclay.cultsisters.

T: And if you can spare a few seconds, please rate our podcast, go write a review. I know we always say this, but that does help bring it up in the search engine, and people can find us.

S: Yes. Ok everyone, until next week – and in the words of Flamy Grant…

T: Oh, such a great song.

S: Stay proud, radiate, only love can drive out hate.

T: So great.

[Flamy’s song plays]