Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Oh we're back. Welcome back to the story of a
Speaker 2: guy that I swear is going to end in unimaginable bloodshed,
Speaker 2: but at this point he is a sex pest who
Speaker 2: has fled Canada for Jamaica in order to start a
Speaker 2: new evangelical church. Yeah, many such cases. We are back
Speaker 2: with our guests for this week, Molly Lambert. Molly, welcome
Speaker 2: to the show. Back to the show. Hello, Yeah, how
Speaker 2: we feeling as we come back into part two.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to see what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Okay, you want to drop any plugs at the start
Speaker 2: here for your new podcasts?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I will have a podcast out later this year called
Speaker 3: Jenna World Jenna Jamison Vivid Video in the Valley about
Speaker 3: the history of the porn industry in Los Angeles and
Speaker 3: uh yeah check it out when it comes out.
Speaker 5: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Well that gets us back in to part two and
Speaker 2: closes out our cold opening.
Speaker 5: He So we're back.
Speaker 2: As I noted last episode, the Bad Kevin Smith had
Speaker 2: founded KOs Deliverance International around the year two thousand and
Speaker 2: when he fled to Jamaica, violating the terms of his probation,
Speaker 2: he brought it with him. Now that Canadian magazine The
Speaker 2: Walrus reported that he'd been going back and forth from
Speaker 2: Jamaica for a while at this point, so he had
Speaker 2: some sort of an established presence there at different evangelical churches,
Speaker 2: and once he was on the run, he established a
Speaker 2: permanent base of operations in downtown Montego Bay. He reconnected
Speaker 2: with a childhood friend there from Jamaica College named Charlton,
Speaker 2: who had remained in the country when Smith went off
Speaker 2: to Canada and had become a pastor himself in the area.
Speaker 2: Charlton served as a useful early source of connections while
Speaker 2: Kevin built up his flock, but he also had a
Speaker 2: sizeable head start by the time he moved there full
Speaker 2: time time, thanks to his years of international work. Charlton
Speaker 2: later claimed that Smith told him early on he'd started
Speaker 2: ministering to Porchase Simpson Miller, the Prime Minister, and he
Speaker 2: would also sometimes add vaguely that he talked to with
Speaker 2: other government officials. So he's from a very early state
Speaker 2: claiming to be ministering personally to like high level politicians
Speaker 2: in Jamaica and have a lot of connections in the
Speaker 2: local government. And there's some evidence this is true, including
Speaker 2: the fact that he really does not get investigated for
Speaker 2: any of his criminal history to the degree that you
Speaker 2: might expect of somebody who starts who kind of comes
Speaker 2: into Jamaica out of Canada and immediately starts up a
Speaker 2: large and influential church. His flock grew rapidly, and in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve he began affiliating his church with a larger
Speaker 2: Pentecostal organization in Jamaica called Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries
Speaker 2: or I think PICKRIM would be the acronym there. I
Speaker 2: like that, Yeah, there you go. It sounds like a
Speaker 2: pokem on. It was not like a Pokemon unless I've
Speaker 2: really lost the plot on that game. Over the last
Speaker 2: few years. One regular talking point in Kevin sermons while
Speaker 2: he's in Jamaica is that he hadn't left Canada because
Speaker 2: he had committed sex crimes and had to flee because
Speaker 2: he didn't want to do probation. He had rejected Canada
Speaker 2: and his comfortable first world life there to return home
Speaker 2: to Jamaica because he was so loyal to the Jamaican people, Right.
Speaker 1: I like that. He's like, he's like, it's not it's
Speaker 1: not you, it's me. Canada by Hiah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he's reframing it. You guys didn't get forced
Speaker 3: out of Los Angeles, You just you chose to go
Speaker 3: to Portland.
Speaker 2: Right right, right, And he's choosing to go to Jamaica
Speaker 2: because he's so loyal to the Jamaican people, which is
Speaker 2: just also a really fucked up way of pretending you
Speaker 2: didn't sexually assaulted guy, Like there's no non fucked up
Speaker 2: way to do that, exactly, but I guess this is
Speaker 2: particularly fucked up. I'm going to play a clip from
Speaker 2: a revival that he did six or seven years yars
Speaker 2: ago where he talks about why he left Canada for Jamaica.
Speaker 2: Both so you can again get an idea of like
Speaker 2: the personal charisma like here the reaction of the crowd
Speaker 2: when he talks about this stuff because they're buying it,
Speaker 2: and also so you can hear like how he is
Speaker 2: framing why he wound up in Jamaica. Now, in this
Speaker 2: specific part of the sermon, he's discussing a conversation he
Speaker 2: had during a brief trip back to Canada with one
Speaker 2: of his pentecostal mentors in Canada. So this is like
Speaker 2: a Canadian guy asking like, why are you going why'd
Speaker 2: you leave? Why'd you go to Jamaica? Right, that's the
Speaker 2: context of this part of the speech.
Speaker 6: Talk to me now, he said, what takes you all?
Speaker 6: Is that jiy s? He said, the other people thing
Speaker 6: they have to help God don't get polished. And that's
Speaker 6: like the church always splits and divide for seven years.
Speaker 5: That's giving him scene. How do you have scene to remain?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 5: I see hopping to administering. Now he's got any more more.
Speaker 6: He's somebody to teach your Wait a second, let me
Speaker 6: teach you, he said.
Speaker 1: Don't you know?
Speaker 5: He said, you understanding? You see look at you.
Speaker 6: You are coming here and your mind all as coming
Speaker 6: here to take back to Jamaica. Do you know what
Speaker 6: you're doing? I said, no, tell me. He said, you
Speaker 6: are watering the scene.
Speaker 1: I said, what for your me?
Speaker 6: He said, because you love your people. I look at
Speaker 6: being away from more tree days. Because what is.
Speaker 1: The like music and like breathing, combo, very athletic.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful, man, But you gotta hear like the reaction
Speaker 2: he gets people are that is you.
Speaker 5: You can't fake a crown down there.
Speaker 3: It's gonna up. Like Kevin's advocate for a minute, here Uh,
Speaker 3: he's just doing some preaching. You know, he's talking in
Speaker 3: a preacher style. Yeah, it sounds it's it's stylized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the you can really like, Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: hear it. It's fast. It's fascinating to me how international
Speaker 2: that like American Pentecostal preacher voices. I used to be,
Speaker 2: you know, down in the depths of hell, but then
Speaker 2: I got risen up by God.
Speaker 1: Like it's very like he's like doing a lot of
Speaker 1: mouth breathing. And as a podcast producer, that's my worst time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, Sophie, that's why you're never going
Speaker 2: to make it as an evangelical minister.
Speaker 5: You know, I say this all the time. I'm like, Bishop,
Speaker 5: I'm a fucking bishop. God damn. That's my back plan.
Speaker 2: Part of the way I keep recommending the movie Marjoe
Speaker 2: and I know, I talk about it all the time
Speaker 2: because it's great, is because he really explains like why
Speaker 2: that voice works and how you can like kind of
Speaker 2: see it evolving. He was like one of the one
Speaker 2: of the key figures in like making that be a thing,
Speaker 2: and it's just fascinating to watch in real time. But
Speaker 2: it's interesting how universal that is. At least among like
Speaker 2: English speaking parts of the world, right, Like, even when
Speaker 2: it's kind of a different dialect of English, the same
Speaker 2: basic cadence a voice works really well.
Speaker 3: Oh Marjo looks fascinating.
Speaker 5: Oh it fucking rules.
Speaker 2: No, that movie rips, rips like a son of a bitch, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you watch it, Yeah you'll love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, I just didn't didn't really, I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about Pentecostal preachers or yeah child, uh you know preacher.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about Marjo is he kind of he started
Speaker 2: out before the religious right was a thing, and then
Speaker 2: he kind of breaks good, Like he decides that the
Speaker 2: Pentecostal movement and its alliance with the religious right is
Speaker 2: kind of evil and a grift, and he decides to
Speaker 2: like leave and film undercover during like his last year
Speaker 2: preaching within it. So it's it's just a fascinating picture
Speaker 2: of the start of the movement that has really taken
Speaker 2: over American politics right at its kind of like gestation period.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't you think it goes back even further all
Speaker 3: the way?
Speaker 2: Well that's just elements.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love a charismatic grifter. Oh, yes, like the
Speaker 3: national character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, go on, yeah, yeah, tell me certainly
Speaker 2: that part of it has existed for a long time. Yeah, simple, Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course. The unstated truth here is that Kevin left
Speaker 2: Canada when he was on probation for sexual assault, and
Speaker 2: he is a registered sex offender at the time he's
Speaker 2: giving the speech. There are allegations that his government connections
Speaker 2: helped him smooth this over. It's unclear whether Pathways new
Speaker 2: when they accepted him into the Broader Umbrella organization. He
Speaker 2: was eventually disowned by the group after all the killings,
Speaker 2: but initially the sheer amount of money he brought in
Speaker 2: seems to have kept everybody quiet. The Reverend Adenair Jones
Speaker 2: of the Church of God in Jamaica would later accuse
Speaker 2: Pathways of exactly this, of basically ignoring the obvious evidence
Speaker 2: that this guy was dangerous because there was money in him.
Speaker 5: And I'm going to quote from a.
Speaker 3: Artist, okay, and not to play Keaven's advocate again, but
Speaker 3: that's my role on the show.
Speaker 5: I think, no, no, no, sure, But it also sounds.
Speaker 3: Like I haven't heard about the throat slittings yet, so
Speaker 3: imagine you know, I'm coming from a place of innocence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not knowing where he lands.
Speaker 3: It sounds like perhaps this child was brought into this
Speaker 3: preacher thing without sort of his consent. You know, he
Speaker 3: was told all this stuff about himself, about being special.
Speaker 5: Yeah, about being a prophet.
Speaker 3: And maybe there are some issues with his sexuality being
Speaker 3: repressed coming out of a culture, both a Christian culture
Speaker 3: and you know, growing up in Jamaica where there's just
Speaker 3: a culture of homophobia. Maybe he's just a troubled a
Speaker 3: troubled dude, you know. Yeah, And it's almost almost not
Speaker 3: his fault he got forced into this line of work
Speaker 3: because you know, I don't know, he was chosen sort
Speaker 3: of without his his choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's always a degree with all of these guys
Speaker 2: where you wonder, like where does the complicity start, right,
Speaker 2: because there is often a case where like someone is
Speaker 2: like a victim in this period of time, right, Well, it.
Speaker 3: Sounds like he's a victim of his own circumstances, Like
Speaker 3: don't you know. It's obviously it's not okay that he's
Speaker 3: actually assaulted somebody, But it does sound like he could
Speaker 3: have had a different life if he had been raised
Speaker 3: under different circumstances. It sounds like he was really groomed
Speaker 3: into this position of being a religious leader and also
Speaker 3: in a religion where there's a lot of homophobia and
Speaker 3: sounds like he might be queer. Yeah, so I'm feeling
Speaker 3: bad for Kevin at this point. I feel like his
Speaker 3: life sucks and he's trapped in it.
Speaker 5: I feel both. Let's see, ye, let's.
Speaker 3: See if I change my mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, he is a registered he's as exist.
Speaker 3: No, but I mean I'm saying, like coming out of
Speaker 3: a super like he may have things may have happened
Speaker 3: to him as well. This is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And he alleges things happened to him. He was sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted as a kid, He was abused as a kid.
Speaker 5: So like, there is it, and it excuses it.
Speaker 3: But there's a cycle in place, obviously, and.
Speaker 2: She's certainly part of a cycle, and he's part of
Speaker 2: a cycle of like child abuse wherein young charismatic kids
Speaker 2: are adopted into this movement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the charismatic child preacher thing also just seems like
Speaker 3: that's very exploitative. Yes, it would fuck you up no
Speaker 3: matter what. No way to be well adjusted from that.
Speaker 2: Which is a big part of like what the documentary
Speaker 2: Marjo goes into is like him being like, I know
Speaker 2: I'm robbing people, and I know that what I am
Speaker 2: doing is bad and perpetuating this movement, and also because
Speaker 2: of how I was raised, it's literally all I know
Speaker 2: how to do, like it's my only marketable skill.
Speaker 3: But also, isn't it sort of like it's a little
Speaker 3: bit consensual robbing? Right? Yeah, Like if somebody, if somebody
Speaker 3: wants to give you money for some nonsense, you're not
Speaker 3: stealing it from them, You're not forcing it out of them.
Speaker 3: There's other things you could give people. Then I can't
Speaker 3: to seem worse. Sorry, I'm really playing Cabin's advocate.
Speaker 2: No, well, we're Here's what gets me fucked up about
Speaker 2: that is I can see that logic, and I can
Speaker 2: make that argument, but I can also see that logic
Speaker 2: leading you into gradually becoming a cult leader. Like it
Speaker 2: starts at the little steps, like.
Speaker 3: Do you take Patreon for your podcast?
Speaker 2: I don't, but I don't have a problem with it, right,
Speaker 2: And like if.
Speaker 3: Somebody wanted to pay you for like your charismatic ramblings
Speaker 3: on a microphone, sure, well, don't see that as exploited
Speaker 3: of You're like, they just want to give me money
Speaker 3: because they appreciate me.
Speaker 2: I don't see it as inherently, but I do see
Speaker 2: it as potentially right in that because I've watched this happen. Right,
Speaker 2: there are some cults where it starts out as like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is just a person who is like a content
Speaker 2: provider online, and then the level of like adoration and
Speaker 2: fame and the weird parasocial relationships they get, they take
Speaker 2: it in really abusive directions. But like we've all seen
Speaker 2: plenty of cases of like white men in media who
Speaker 2: wound up with like very aggressive, like aligned fan bases
Speaker 2: and went increasingly insane. It's not a it's not detached
Speaker 2: completely from this like we're talking about this kind of
Speaker 2: psychological like this like wheel in the case of like
Speaker 2: evangelical Christianity. But it also it's not detached from like
Speaker 2: celebrity culture, right, Like it's it's it's not really great
Speaker 2: for people, especially when they're really young. I think if this,
Speaker 2: if this starts to happen to you when you're older,
Speaker 2: you have you can have more of like a defense
Speaker 2: against it. If you've got a family, if you've got friends,
Speaker 2: if you've got a good number of people who know
Speaker 2: you and have known you, I.
Speaker 3: Think being famous makes everybody crazy. I don't know that
Speaker 3: it matters when it happens. I think being a child
Speaker 3: it's a form of abuse, and it is like making
Speaker 3: a child do any kind of.
Speaker 2: Job, you know, Sure, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Any kind of work is like, no, kids shouldn't be working. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But it's kind of in the Michael Jackson family of things,
Speaker 3: where it's like, oh, are we supposed to deny this
Speaker 3: child's incredible abilities that you know the world should be
Speaker 3: deprived of the greatest performer of all times?
Speaker 5: Do you stop them from playing? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think about this the other day because there are
Speaker 3: kids with podcasts now and I was.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, that's just a bad idea.
Speaker 5: But they're also But.
Speaker 3: I was also just like, oh, that's sad for them.
Speaker 3: They're making content. They should be like in a laying yard. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like playing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's messy, And I don't know what the actual
Speaker 2: solution is here.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying is we're all complicit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's agree on banning children from being advertised too.
Speaker 2: Can we at least start there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can start there.
Speaker 2: Maybe that'll start fixing some of the problems for sure,
Speaker 2: And I don't know, maybe have a government agency dedicated
Speaker 2: entirely watching the parents of child actors.
Speaker 3: Okay, but if you got like a million dollar contract
Speaker 3: to advertise Galaxy gas to eleven year olds.
Speaker 5: Sure, absolutely get them hooked, get them hooked. No no, no,
Speaker 5: no, no no no.
Speaker 2: I think I think kids need to be doing way
Speaker 2: more drugs. Look, I mean, look at what they're getting
Speaker 2: up to. Have you seen this Minecraft movie shit like
Speaker 2: it seems like if the kids were getting a high,
Speaker 2: they'd be a lot healthier. No, don't do drugs, kids,
Speaker 2: or do Okay, don't listen to me.
Speaker 1: Back to the other Kevin's been.
Speaker 5: Back to the other Kevin Smith. So yeah.
Speaker 2: The Reverend Adnair Jones of the Church of God in
Speaker 2: Jamaica would later accuse Pathways of basically ignoring the other
Speaker 2: Kevin Smith's criminal history and problematic history in order to
Speaker 2: make money. The Jamaica Gleaner writes. Jones said that congregations
Speaker 2: have been too accommodating of virtually anyone bearing a Bible
Speaker 2: who could delivers soundbites using charisma and flare to flourish,
Speaker 2: as did Smith and initially KOs fits in with the
Speaker 2: rest of the Pentecostal churches in the country. Its website
Speaker 2: claimed our divine mandate is to transform the people by
Speaker 2: the power of Jesus Christ, and stated that the mission
Speaker 2: of his church was to win souls to the Kingdom
Speaker 2: of the Lord Jesus Christ and deliver the lives of
Speaker 2: people from the snares of darkness. Pretty standard stuff, However,
Speaker 2: while most pastors within Pathways affiliated churches went by the
Speaker 2: title pastor, which is normal, Smith showed an early flare
Speaker 2: for the extreme. His website listed him as the president
Speaker 2: and founder of Chos Deliverance International, as well as Chief
Speaker 2: Special Advisor of the King's Oracles, and he ordered his
Speaker 2: followers to refer to him in person as excellency, his excellency,
Speaker 2: or your grace. And I think we can see where
Speaker 2: problems are starting here.
Speaker 5: Now, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's unclear to me, number one, who the
Speaker 2: King's Oracles were. I have not come across that an
Speaker 2: explanation of that title, so I don't know what that
Speaker 2: is exactly supposed to mean. It's also unclear to me
Speaker 2: win the Prosperity Gospel preachings got into Kevin's sermons, right,
Speaker 2: Is this something that he's really talking about? Before he
Speaker 2: lands in Jamaica, but during his first five or so
Speaker 2: years on the island he becomes increasingly enmeshed in prosperity
Speaker 2: Gospel preaching, which is a major part of kind of
Speaker 2: the charismatic Christian evangelical movement. The prosperity gospel started out
Speaker 2: in the United States. And the way this works it
Speaker 2: basically you're preaching that God works like a high yield
Speaker 2: savings account or a really good four oh one K, right,
Speaker 2: if you put money into God, and by God I
Speaker 2: mean the church that you go to and it's pastor
Speaker 2: by tithing regularly giving up the church a percentage of
Speaker 2: your income and then handing out additional seed offerings on
Speaker 2: a weekly basis, and seed offerings kind of the key
Speaker 2: is that it hurts. Right, every week, you're supposed to
Speaker 2: give more money than you can afford to the church, right,
Speaker 2: and the promise is that if you do this, if
Speaker 2: you give all you can to the point where it
Speaker 2: like damages your financial stability, God will reward you with
Speaker 2: miraculous financial gifts. So again, it really is like a
Speaker 2: four oh one K that works on a much faster
Speaker 2: time period. If you give God more money than you
Speaker 2: can afford. Now, God will give you back many times
Speaker 2: that amount of money, you know, at some point in
Speaker 2: the near future. That's like the literal premise upon which
Speaker 2: prosperity Gospel is predicated. Now, it's probably worth taking another
Speaker 2: asiet here to discuss prosperity Gospel and more detail, since
Speaker 2: it is one of the root problems with American evangelical
Speaker 2: Christianity as a whole. The gist of it is that
Speaker 2: in the late eighteen hundreds in the US, there are
Speaker 2: two different strands of revivalist christian thought that come together
Speaker 2: and they cross pollinate. On one hand, you've got the
Speaker 2: Holiness movement, who believes prayer works the same way the
Speaker 2: force does in Star Wars. Right, it allows people with
Speaker 2: sufficient faith to heal the sick and do magic because
Speaker 2: all illness and discomfort come from sin. Right, So if
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit is in you, you can wipe sin
Speaker 2: away from people and it makes them able to either
Speaker 2: heal or even perform super human acts. Now, the Holiness
Speaker 2: movement kind of opens the door to a really theatric
Speaker 2: church going experience, which is a key aspect of revival culture.
Speaker 2: You're not just telling people they're healed. You have people
Speaker 2: play acting as healers and the sick, right, and this
Speaker 2: provides kind of an emotional and social outlet. People can
Speaker 2: come in barely able to move and then start jumping
Speaker 2: around and dancing and they'll get this like huge surge
Speaker 2: of applause and this kind of like it's a performance, right,
Speaker 2: So there's this two way relationship between the performers and
Speaker 2: the people reacting to it that has this kind of
Speaker 2: catharsis in it, and there's a degree of forced cognitive
Speaker 2: dissonance here. As Associate professor of religion Donathan Bahar writes
Speaker 2: for nine marks dot org, the key was to believe,
Speaker 2: pray and hold on to it, believe that it is yours,
Speaker 2: and act out the healing even if lying symptoms persist. Right, So,
Speaker 2: even if you know you're not cured, those symptoms because
Speaker 2: you've been cured are a lie. Right, If you feel
Speaker 2: like you still have cancer, you have to just ignore
Speaker 2: that because that's the devil trying to trick you into
Speaker 2: believing that you're still sick. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: like you know, there's a lot of victim blamey stuff
Speaker 2: around illness in American culture period, but this is one
Speaker 2: of the places in which it manifests. Right is in
Speaker 2: this kind of movement. Now, there's still an This is
Speaker 2: still the Holiness movement kind of an underlying pillar of
Speaker 2: charismatic evangelism today, and it's why all of these churches
Speaker 2: are such fertile hunting grounds for guys like the other
Speaker 2: Kevin Smith. Now, the other movement that collides with the
Speaker 2: Holiness movement in the late eighteen hundreds to create prosperity
Speaker 2: gospel is the New Thought movement. And the New Thought
Speaker 2: movement isn't an explicitly Christian movement. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: precursor to the self help movement. It's related to scientology,
Speaker 2: Dianetics is involved in this, and it's also the root
Speaker 2: of stuff like the Secret Right. And the basis of
Speaker 2: the New Thought movement is that you can radically alter
Speaker 2: your mind, body, and situation through purging negative thoughts and
Speaker 2: reinforcing positive ones. Right, And kind of the main semi
Speaker 2: secular figure we get out of the New Thought move
Speaker 2: is Norman Vincent Peel, who's booked The Power of Positive
Speaker 2: Thinking in the fifties and sixties, is a big influence
Speaker 2: on young Donald Trump. And all this stuff kind of
Speaker 2: collides together and gives us the Prosperity Gospel, which is
Speaker 2: based on a merger of the two and starts to
Speaker 2: spread overseas in like the eighties and nineties right to
Speaker 2: a lot of countries that have exploding evangelical movements in
Speaker 2: the post colonial era. And Jamaica, which has a lot
Speaker 2: of impoverished people who are desperate for hope that feels actionable,
Speaker 2: is a particularly fertile breeding ground for Prosperity Gospel to
Speaker 2: start taking over, right, And so it really does, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of what provides what tills the soil for
Speaker 2: the church that Kevin is going to start here in
Speaker 2: the early two thousands, he begins hosting almost daily prayer sessions.
Speaker 2: I think they're three or four times a week, and
Speaker 2: those come with expected daily donations. So you're supposed to
Speaker 2: give a tithe of your income and then you're supposed
Speaker 2: to pay every day give a seed donation. And then
Speaker 2: he has one on one courses. Right, he's still operating
Speaker 2: as a psychotherapist, like you can pay him for therapy too. Basically,
Speaker 2: the idea is all of your money goes to Kevin
Speaker 2: and the church, right, like every dime that you get
Speaker 2: goes here, and if you're spending money on anything else,
Speaker 2: even spending money on like food or rent, you're kind
Speaker 2: of not putting your faith in God. And that's a sin,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 5: Like it's a very.
Speaker 2: Abusive way to look at the relationship between like a
Speaker 2: pastor and his church. Speaking of abusive relationships advertising, Yeah, the.
Speaker 5: Shoe fits and we're back.
Speaker 2: So Kevin starts offering free and discounted services to the
Speaker 2: odd male member of the flock that he wants to
Speaker 2: get closer to. And this is there's allegations that he
Speaker 2: basically starts kind of whenever a young man will come
Speaker 2: into the church, he'll start by offering that guy's family
Speaker 2: like benefits, free services or breaks on the money they're
Speaker 2: already spending on the church in order to get that
Speaker 2: young man closer to him, you know, to make him
Speaker 2: his assistant, to have him work for the church. And
Speaker 2: there are some allegations that he basically starts operating a
Speaker 2: male harem through these kind of tactics, right, pulling in
Speaker 2: young men this way. This is not something we have
Speaker 2: a lot of detail about, in part because in Jamaica,
Speaker 2: admitting that you were abused in this way, like there's
Speaker 2: a lot of consequences to it, not that there's not
Speaker 2: in the United States, but it's hard to get people
Speaker 2: talking directly about this kind of relationship. Right It's not
Speaker 2: clear how much of this is like just psychological and
Speaker 2: how much of this is actual physical sexual violence, but
Speaker 2: there are direct allegations that he used these kind of
Speaker 2: relationships to engage in what was at least adjacent to
Speaker 2: human trafficking. The Gleaner a Jamaican investigative news site with
Speaker 2: very good reporting on Smith and maybe the worst coded
Speaker 2: website I've ever used, which is not their fault. I
Speaker 2: know what budgets are like right now, it's just rough.
Speaker 2: They interviewed a former member of the church named Jivon.
Speaker 2: At age seventeen, Jivon was taken that's his word, from
Speaker 2: his parents by Smith and used as an errand boy
Speaker 2: for the church. Now it's unclear to me. Does Kevin
Speaker 2: force this guy's parents to give their kid up, or
Speaker 2: does he bribe them in some way, or is it
Speaker 2: a situation where they just feel like, well, this guy's
Speaker 2: the prophet and we can't say no to him. Jievon
Speaker 2: claims that at the start he sees Kevin as like
Speaker 2: a foster father, and he feels chosen like he's maybe
Speaker 2: the Prophet's adopted son. Right, But this quickly gets disabused
Speaker 2: because Kevin takes advantage of this position of trust to
Speaker 2: have Jivon handle intensive, time consuming tasks like counting the
Speaker 2: money given it offerings every week and do them for free.
Speaker 2: And this is not an easy or a small task
Speaker 2: because a lot of money is coming in. Per Jivon.
Speaker 2: There were four different types of offerings. You have the one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars offering that starts the service, the thousand dollars
Speaker 2: seed offering, and then the regular offering, and then another
Speaker 2: offering where you make covenant with the word. So by
Speaker 2: the mid aught some people are donating four times a
Speaker 2: day with services three times a week Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
Speaker 2: There's also, you know again, these kind of one on
Speaker 2: one sessions where he's making money sometimes up to like
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty dollars for what's called a deliverance
Speaker 2: session where he has like a one on one spiritual
Speaker 2: encounter with the person. And since Jievon's doing a lot
Speaker 2: of the counting of money here, he's able to give
Speaker 2: the gleaner an educated estimate for how much the church
Speaker 2: is pulling in, and he claims that a single night
Speaker 2: could bring in a quarter of a million US dollars
Speaker 2: or more, which means Kevin's Church is pulling down three
Speaker 2: quarters of a million a week just from services. But
Speaker 2: he also offers up a bunch of side sessions as
Speaker 2: noted earlier, which brings their estimated weekly income up to
Speaker 2: around a million. And just what we know objectively about
Speaker 2: the assets, the number of properties the church held, this
Speaker 2: is a pretty credible estimate for what they're kind of
Speaker 2: making bringing in at their.
Speaker 1: Heights so much fucking money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is they're making a ton of money, so crazy,
Speaker 2: But they're also almost always He's expanding so rapidly. He's
Speaker 2: buying so many new properties that the amount of money
Speaker 2: it costs to keep the church operational is pretty close
Speaker 2: to the income they're bringing in on a weekly basis.
Speaker 2: So there's always this level of stress of like, we
Speaker 2: really need to continue to squeeze our members for as
Speaker 2: much as we possibly can, otherwise this house of cards
Speaker 2: is going to fall apart.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: The Jamaica Gleaner goes into more detail about the different
Speaker 2: grifts that Smith built into the foundation of his church.
Speaker 5: Quote.
Speaker 2: Members of Pathways Christian Cathedral, as the church was sometimes called,
Speaker 2: were charged a fee of five hundred dollars for adults
Speaker 2: and one hundred for children for the monthly miracle Covenant
Speaker 2: Seed for the church's ministerial upliftment. They also paid tithes
Speaker 2: offering Covenant seed or other special contributions as requested by Smith.
Speaker 2: Membership cards also came at a cost, with adults and
Speaker 2: children paying five hundred dollars and one hundred dollars respectively,
Speaker 2: while widows were charged two hundred dollars. The more one gives,
Speaker 2: the more God gets happy, one church member told the
Speaker 2: Sunday Gleaner in defense of the numerous payments they would
Speaker 2: the leader would help a lot of people in need,
Speaker 2: But nobody's talking about that. And that is an aspect
Speaker 2: of this too, is like people are seeing there are
Speaker 2: actual community services that are being operated now, not to
Speaker 2: the extent of costing a million dollars a week, but
Speaker 2: there's also enough that people can be like, well, the
Speaker 2: money's clearly going to a good cause, right. Members were
Speaker 2: expected to volunteer time to help, you know, staff these
Speaker 2: different sort of community organizations, and also to show up
Speaker 2: at regular festivals, for which they'd be expected to pay
Speaker 2: like two hundred dollars or five hundred dollars for a ticket.
Speaker 2: And while there is aid for parishioners, this is also
Speaker 2: often a grift. For example, Smith offered loans to members
Speaker 2: of the church at a fifteen percent interest rate, which
Speaker 2: is not exactly charity, right, we can say that about that.
Speaker 1: What does he want with all this money? Though, Like
Speaker 1: I don't understand it's so much money. What is he
Speaker 1: doing with.
Speaker 2: Well, he's got he's building his empire, right, he's operating
Speaker 2: as we'll talk about it, like he's operating businesses in
Speaker 2: the community. Now he's trying to start like other churches.
Speaker 2: And he's like he's like building, getting into real estate.
Speaker 2: You know there there's always places to spend this kind
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 1: Because now he's got so much money that he can't
Speaker 1: keep he's putting it into real estate like they do.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is that, like there's bribes that
Speaker 2: have to be paid to local politicians. Like he talks
Speaker 2: about it as if he's like ministering to these guys.
Speaker 2: But there's always bribes to be paid, right, So you
Speaker 2: know that's not a zero percent of the story. Here too,
Speaker 2: Jievon describes his own role within the church in unsparing terms.
Speaker 2: We were like slaves. I was not allowed to go
Speaker 2: around my parents or any relatives or friends outside.
Speaker 5: Of the church.
Speaker 2: And he works for both the church and for Smith's
Speaker 2: psychotherapist business, which is how a lot of these one
Speaker 2: on one sessions were marketed. He had to get permission
Speaker 2: if he wanted to do anything besides work, even to
Speaker 2: go get a haircut. He describes it, yes, essentially like
Speaker 2: he's in prison. KOs Ministries does open a food bank
Speaker 2: with some of the money that Kevin makes, and they
Speaker 2: establish a program to help poor students pay their school fees.
Speaker 2: They pool donations to help fund medical care for small
Speaker 2: children and elderly parishioners. And this is done in part
Speaker 2: because it's like a really good recruitment tool, right, Like
Speaker 2: this helps bring more people in, and he's also able
Speaker 2: to He's able to take in donations for himself and
Speaker 2: also take in donations to fund these different organizations, so
Speaker 2: it's not cutting as much into his bottom line. The
Speaker 2: primary appeal of the church is always Kevin's personal charisma.
Speaker 2: Per reporting in The Walrus, one former attendee Charise happened
Speaker 2: to pass by the church one day and heard Smith's voice.
Speaker 2: That voice sounds powerful, she remembers, thinking she went inside.
Speaker 2: Charis immediately felt that Smith wasn't a typical pastor. He
Speaker 2: insisted on being referred to as his excellency. He spoke
Speaker 2: eagerly about the gospel of prosperity. Charis and former members
Speaker 2: say Smith regularly brought up the fact that he was
Speaker 2: a Canadian citizen, a point of privilege. He leveraged to
Speaker 2: suggest that he could help get others visas to work
Speaker 2: or study in Canada for a fee. Smith charged for
Speaker 2: consultations or prayers, attendance at workshops, and other events. One
Speaker 2: event in twenty thirteen, a wealth Transfervation summit entitled money
Speaker 2: Come to Me Now, promised explosive prophecies to help participants
Speaker 2: break the cycle of poverty forever.
Speaker 5: Wow, you see, like the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's just a no end to the grifting. Like
Speaker 1: he's doing every playbook, every single playbook.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's getting depressing now I understand, Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's getting depressing.
Speaker 2: And there's so much of this that is like predicated
Speaker 2: on Well, he got out to Canada, so he must
Speaker 2: have some connections, he can get me out like that.
Speaker 2: Just how much poverty provides the opportunity here, because there's
Speaker 2: like no easy way out of poverty and people are
Speaker 2: desperate to believe there's hope, you know. So it's it's
Speaker 2: the bummer, Yeah, it's it's bleak as hell. Now, the
Speaker 2: good news is that Scherise has the presence of mind
Speaker 2: to evaluate the promise of Smith is making based on
Speaker 2: their impact on her real life. So she's to see,
Speaker 2: I've been given money to this guy, and I am
Speaker 2: not getting it back in any way, right, And you're
Speaker 2: not supposed to think this way. Remember, at the root
Speaker 2: of all this is that you have to ignore your
Speaker 2: lying symptoms if they tell you that handing over money
Speaker 2: to the church hasn't made anything better, right, You're not
Speaker 2: supposed to feel like that. You're supposed to think that way.
Speaker 2: And Jeevon eventually comes to the same conclusion as Cherise,
Speaker 2: But because he's not a normal congregant, but someone raised
Speaker 2: in the church whose whole family buys into Kevin's bs,
Speaker 2: the task of leaving is a lot harder for him.
Speaker 2: He attempts to flee for the first time in November
Speaker 2: of twenty fifteen, and this would prove to be the
Speaker 2: first of ultimately six attempts to flee Kevin Smith's church
Speaker 2: over the years. For The Gleaner, each time I ran away,
Speaker 2: the church members blamed me for being disobedient, he stated,
Speaker 2: adding that the last time he ran off, Smith placed
Speaker 2: a death prophecy on his head, saying that his head
Speaker 2: would return on a platter. Once you try to leave,
Speaker 2: they instill fear within you. Jievon said. Many people refuse
Speaker 2: to leave pathways in international out of fear for their lives,
Speaker 2: and in fact, they believed he was a prophet, and
Speaker 2: Kevin kind of cultivates this reputation for prophecy in the
Speaker 2: same way any other grifter of this kind does. He
Speaker 2: makes these constant, big predictions about like they're going to war,
Speaker 2: a natural disaster are coming, right, but he doesn't say where.
Speaker 2: And like if you say there's going to be a
Speaker 2: war that breaks out soon or a natural disaster, you'll
Speaker 2: always be right, you know, Like, yeah, I predict that
Speaker 2: in the next six months a major natural disaster will
Speaker 2: strike the United States. I'll guarantee you that prophecy is correct,
Speaker 2: because you can say that at any point in time
Speaker 2: and it will be true in the United States or
Speaker 2: most other countries, right, Like that's just the way the
Speaker 2: world is, you know. The most compelling prophecies that he
Speaker 2: would lay out, though related to individual members of the church.
Speaker 2: Jivon recalled one that stuck in his mind. When Kevin
Speaker 2: told a female congregant about a vision he'd had for future.
Speaker 2: He prophesied saying that he saw her son in a
Speaker 2: pool of blood with the name baby Killer. And about
Speaker 2: a week later, the same incident happened and was on
Speaker 2: the pages of the Western Mirror. And I don't know
Speaker 2: this specific case, but it's one of those things, especially
Speaker 2: if you get to know you know your flock, if
Speaker 2: you have members of your church who have like family
Speaker 2: members in gangs, it's not such a big prediction to
Speaker 2: be like, what if you is going to lose a
Speaker 2: loved one soon, right, because, like you know, that's just
Speaker 2: how it happens when people are involved in gangs. So
Speaker 2: it may just have been a situation like that. But
Speaker 2: this causes the fact that he seems to have this
Speaker 2: ability and that people believe it. It makes people afraid
Speaker 2: of Smith, right, you don't want him to prophesy negatively
Speaker 2: about you. And your family because you believe that this
Speaker 2: can have an impact on you. And it's also hard
Speaker 2: to leave if you're someone like Jeevon who started to
Speaker 2: question you know the actual power of this guy, because
Speaker 2: everyone you know in love is still in the church, right,
Speaker 2: and so you can be cut off from your whole
Speaker 2: support network by leaving fairly normal cult thing. And this
Speaker 2: is why Jevon keeps coming back time and time again.
Speaker 2: He's going to leave like five times before it finally sticks,
Speaker 2: and things only change when he falls in love with
Speaker 2: a member of the congregation and tries to start a
Speaker 2: relationship with them. This enrages Smith because again Jievon hadn't
Speaker 2: asked for permission, and Smith, along with a number of
Speaker 2: other very young men, kind of wants to keep this
Speaker 2: kid chased and close to him. Jievon claims the prophet
Speaker 2: told him, if you think I'm going to marry you
Speaker 2: and her, you make a big mistake, right as in
Speaker 2: perform the marriage right, Like I have the ability to
Speaker 2: determine who in this church can get married, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to prove that. And you get the feeling
Speaker 2: it's kind of out of like a sense of jealousy
Speaker 2: on his part. That he really doesn't want this kid
Speaker 2: escaping his orbit in any way. But that is what
Speaker 2: gets Jievon.
Speaker 5: Out right so crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a pretty pretty normal deal. Gievon
Speaker 2: ultimately leaves and stays gone, which may have saved his
Speaker 2: life given what comes next, but in the immediate term
Speaker 2: it causes him tremendous pain because Smith does command family
Speaker 2: members to cut off their loved ones, and this is
Speaker 2: not just a thing Jevon has reported. The Jamaica Gleamer
Speaker 2: reports a young woman said she was kicked out of
Speaker 2: the church after two years as a member because of
Speaker 2: forn ocasion. They don't speak to me. I have two
Speaker 2: uncles and aunt in law and three cousins still there.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he's doing and he's doing the scientology.
Speaker 5: He's doing the every cult, right.
Speaker 3: You know, he's doing the scientology.
Speaker 2: He's doing scientology. He's doing he's doing the l right,
Speaker 2: you know, he's doing the l rod. He's not throwing
Speaker 2: people off of boats making them search for gold, but
Speaker 2: he's got a lot of that playbook to him.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, he's doing the child labor.
Speaker 5: Definitely, that the.
Speaker 1: Cutting off family members, the stealing. Everybody's hard or earned money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got the holy trifecta of yep, yep ye running.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, it's it's he's l running, he's hubbarding hard.
Speaker 1: It's bad now.
Speaker 2: One thing Hubbard would never have done that Smith does
Speaker 2: that I don't fully understand is in twenty seventeen, he
Speaker 2: returns to Canada and he hands himself over to the
Speaker 2: Toronto Police. Why It's unclear, but reading between the lines,
Speaker 2: I think he works out an arrangement with Canadian authorities
Speaker 2: using his Jamaican government contacts as an intermediary right because
Speaker 2: he doesn't go to prison, and he basically gets set
Speaker 2: up in a situation where he pleads guilty on probation violations,
Speaker 2: but he's allowed to return to Jamaica and then travel
Speaker 2: internationally more easily. He's not like dealing with the fact
Speaker 2: that he's wanted in Canada anymore over the next eighteen months,
Speaker 2: as long as he finishes his probation Canada.
Speaker 1: Why why Canada?
Speaker 2: Well, he does have to make the five hundred dollars
Speaker 2: donation to a rape crisis center. Oh okay done, And
Speaker 2: they also require that he engage in sexual behavioral counseling,
Speaker 2: but only if he stays in Canada for longer than
Speaker 2: a month, So as long as he leaves Canada never
Speaker 2: stays more than like a week at a time, he
Speaker 2: doesn't have to do any counseling.
Speaker 1: None of this math adds up.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, seriously, that's fucking.
Speaker 1: Despicably embarrassing Canada.
Speaker 3: What we're doing.
Speaker 2: We're missing a part of it. But again, it's definite
Speaker 2: that like some of the money he brings in as
Speaker 2: bribing local politicians, and my suspicion is that those local
Speaker 2: politicians have connections in Canada and there's a less direct
Speaker 2: kind of bribe going there.
Speaker 1: Sure, it's still fucking despicable.
Speaker 2: You know, there's ways to influence politicians and countries that
Speaker 2: where that is looked at more that are still effectively
Speaker 2: a bribe. Well, maybe you're getting invited to speak at
Speaker 2: an event at like a resort in Jamaica or something
Speaker 2: like that, or like a permit that you need because
Speaker 2: you've got some sort of business over there, it gets
Speaker 2: a little bit easier. I don't know exactly what's happening,
Speaker 2: but clearly something sketchy happens here, right this kind of
Speaker 2: sweetheart deal, It just seems unlikely that it would be
Speaker 2: handed out otherwise. And yeah, but we don't exactactly know
Speaker 2: why Canada agrees to let this guy off with just
Speaker 2: the slappiest on the wrist of slaps on the wrist
Speaker 2: for a multi year long probation violation after a sex crime.
Speaker 1: I mean again, he's hubbarding, he's hovering, he's blackmailing and
Speaker 1: paying off the government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although Hubbard would never have turned himself into the.
Speaker 1: Efforts comsoletely not, he would fucking.
Speaker 5: H Yeah, he would have set. He would have set
Speaker 5: to C.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's but he So the understanding here is that
Speaker 1: he's doing this so that he can travel easily.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's so that basically he gets like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's holds and stuff, showing his documents. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and now he's allowed to travel easily as long as
Speaker 2: he periodically call, like contacts his probation officer back in Canada.
Speaker 1: Bad job Canada, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Not great, not great work Canada. Bad job Canada, Bad
Speaker 2: job Canada. Not the only time we've said that on
Speaker 2: this podcast, and not the last time. But you know
Speaker 2: who's not Canada.
Speaker 1: Well we don't know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we don't know that.
Speaker 2: We don't know these sponsors may or may not be Canadian,
Speaker 2: there's no way to say, and we're back. So in
Speaker 2: April of twenty eighteen, Smith holds an elaborate public party
Speaker 2: for his thirty sixth birthday, which I think also kind
Speaker 2: of doubles as a celebration of the fact that he's
Speaker 2: about to be done with his probation terms. Police escorted
Speaker 2: hundreds of his followers as they marched through the streets
Speaker 2: of Montego Bay, and he follows them in a silver
Speaker 2: stretch limousine. He goes on a spending spree, buying a
Speaker 2: large rural compound with stables in livestock, several luxury homes
Speaker 2: on the coast, sports cars, and several businesses on the land.
Speaker 2: He begins constructing a new church called the Arc, which
Speaker 2: is meant to be self sufficient and able to survive
Speaker 2: in the event of an apocalypse. Right, so he's built,
Speaker 2: he's bought his compound, he's building a church called the Ark,
Speaker 2: and they're like growing food to try to get ready
Speaker 2: for the end of days. And so, you know, things
Speaker 2: seem to be going well for the other Kevin Smith
Speaker 2: until twenty twenty. Now, if anyone listening is old enough
Speaker 2: to remember back then, a virus called COVID nineteen started
Speaker 2: spreading through the global population. Governments around the world entered
Speaker 2: panic lockdowns with very little understanding of what might actually
Speaker 2: happened or how long any of this was going to last.
Speaker 2: It is a you know, we all remember right now,
Speaker 2: Given the severity of the disease, it made total sense
Speaker 2: that you would lock down. But as you might recall,
Speaker 2: about a third of the population lost their minds over this,
Speaker 2: right like, people do not react well to this and
Speaker 2: the other. Kevin Smith is one of them. He seems
Speaker 2: to have fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole himself first
Speaker 2: by listening to and watching American COVID denialists online. So again,
Speaker 2: we really we've got our part to play in this.
Speaker 2: He starts spending way too much time on YouTube while
Speaker 2: things are closed up, and that's not good for anybody.
Speaker 2: And based on the reading I've done, he really starts
Speaker 2: to go over the a once the vaccine becomes a
Speaker 2: reality and governments around the world start talking about a
Speaker 2: mass rollout. Since he's got this big platform, he starts
Speaker 2: using both his church's social media and his actual pulpit
Speaker 2: to howl to the masses that the COVID vaccines have
Speaker 2: microchips in them, and per the Walrus, ingredients linked to
Speaker 2: the Devil, which I love is a description of like.
Speaker 3: Vaccine ingredients link to the devil, link to the.
Speaker 2: Devil, Like what like sulfur, like, like what is linked
Speaker 2: to the devil?
Speaker 3: You put it in under a microscope and you see
Speaker 3: little devil hats.
Speaker 5: Yeah, little little Satan faces.
Speaker 3: Little satan's like little pitchforks.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2: I also just like the idea of like the Devil
Speaker 2: was an international crime syndicate, and like you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the Satan's fingerprints are all over this vaccine. We can
Speaker 2: see bits of them in air well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got shooters everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is that is something the Devil's famous for famously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the devil hosse shooters.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now he described wearing masks and getting vaccinated as
Speaker 2: taking on the mark of the beast. And I think
Speaker 2: we've all heard a lot of rhetoric like this since
Speaker 2: COVID broke out, Right, Like I can remember when certain
Speaker 2: and this is not this goes back before COVID, by
Speaker 2: the way, right, The idea of describing certain things that
Speaker 2: are just sort of like marks of modernity as taking
Speaker 2: on the mark of the beast. I remember back in
Speaker 2: the nineties when there were certain conspiratorial Christian pastors warning
Speaker 2: people that like bar codes on products, which were new
Speaker 2: at the time, were the mark of the beast. Like
Speaker 2: bar codes are going to allow the government to track
Speaker 2: everything that you do. You know, this is the devil
Speaker 2: coming to like take this country down.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I will say a barcode makes more eschatological sense than
Speaker 2: a vaccine as a mark of the beast, because the
Speaker 2: Book of Revelations does describe followers of the Antichrist as
Speaker 2: having a mark and that quote no one can buy
Speaker 2: or sell unless he has the mark that is the
Speaker 2: name of the of the beast or the number of
Speaker 2: its name. Yeah, of course, Yeah, No one's really stopped
Speaker 2: from buying and selling goods based on vaccination status. Right,
Speaker 2: that doesn't actually happen, But that's immaterial to guys like Smith. Right,
Speaker 2: the fact that, well, but this doesn't like fuck man
Speaker 2: and anti vax people are running the United States now,
Speaker 2: Like maybe this is not the mark of the beast
Speaker 2: in any way. That doesn't really like factor into these
Speaker 2: people's thinking, as it is the fact that the beast
Speaker 2: I like all of this, Like apocalypse narrative is very
Speaker 2: funny to me, just given the actual text of the
Speaker 2: Book of Revelation, right, because the beast is not at
Speaker 2: all described as you know, anything like what you hear
Speaker 2: in the kind of popular fiction that's often inspired by
Speaker 2: the Book of Revelations. The beast in the actual Book
Speaker 2: of Revelations has ten horns and six heads, with ten
Speaker 2: crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
Speaker 2: It has it's like a leopard, but its feet are
Speaker 2: like a bear's and its mouth was like a lion's mouth.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that has to do with the
Speaker 2: COVID nineteen vac scene. You can twist that, I'm sure
Speaker 2: into making it, but it just sounds like it sounds cool.
Speaker 2: Some guy was tripping and described a rad monster. You know,
Speaker 2: I've seen something like that on enough acid, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure it was someone on ergot poisoning who wrote the
Speaker 2: Book of Revelations. You know, many such cases. Smith also
Speaker 2: described the vaccine as a plan for population control, which
Speaker 2: also doesn't really make sense with the mark of the
Speaker 2: Beast thing, because the marked are followers of the beast,
Speaker 2: and if the Mark kills them off. It's kind of
Speaker 2: the Antichrist shooting himself in the foot, right, Like the Antichrist, like,
Speaker 2: why would you want to kill these people?
Speaker 5: Right? He want them? He just as soldiers.
Speaker 1: None of his math adds up.
Speaker 5: None of this math ever adds up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now The Walrus has like done a deep dive into
Speaker 2: where a lot of Smith's but like where he is online,
Speaker 2: what stuff he's sharing, and where his beliefs kind of
Speaker 2: come from, and a lot of it traces back to
Speaker 2: Glenn Beck, particularly his website The Blaze, which I is
Speaker 2: just the least surprising thing in the world. But it's
Speaker 2: so frustrating that that motherfucker continues to have the kind
Speaker 2: of penetration that he has. One of the stories that
Speaker 2: Smith shared that seems to have really radicalized him was
Speaker 2: the arrest of Canadian pastor Arthur Pawlowski, who was fined
Speaker 2: in December of twenty twenty for failing to wear a
Speaker 2: mask while having an unpermitted anti mask protest. Now, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't even call this a slap on the wrist, Right,
Speaker 2: he gets fined for breaking COVID lockdowns and having a
Speaker 2: protest at the early stages of the pandemic, barely a
Speaker 2: slap on the wrist, and in fact, just getting charged
Speaker 2: with this is a huge boon to this guy's career
Speaker 2: because suddenly he's a victim of religious suppression. Right, this
Speaker 2: guy goes from a nobody to one of the most
Speaker 2: famous pastors in the world, and other religious leaders like
Speaker 2: Kevin Smith start screaming that he's a victim of state repression.
Speaker 2: Pawlowski kind of decides to let this shit ride, and
Speaker 2: so he holds another rally in February of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: during which he carries a tiki tourt despite it being daylight,
Speaker 2: for reasons that have absolutely nothing with signaling his support
Speaker 2: to the fascists who you said torches to beat people
Speaker 2: in Charlottesville back in twenty seventeen. Right, it's clearly nothing
Speaker 2: suspicious about the fact that this guy does a tiki
Speaker 2: torch rally during daylight in February of twenty twenty one, nothing.
Speaker 1: To do with that loocking weirdos.
Speaker 2: Proving that he was the one trickiest of one trick ponies.
Speaker 2: Archur has continued this grift up to the present day
Speaker 2: and has been locked in basically constant litigation as a result.
Speaker 2: You know, every time things will calm down, he'll try
Speaker 2: to commit some other public crime in order to get
Speaker 2: charges against him so that he can fund raised off
Speaker 2: of that. He has never been locked away or you know,
Speaker 2: disappeared by the state, which you might see as evidence
Speaker 2: that he's not in any way being persecuted.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Nonetheless, this con works perfectly on guys like Smith. It
Speaker 2: either works on them or they see it as useful
Speaker 2: to share themselves.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: And when Smith first hears about Padlowski's first charges, which
Speaker 2: result in nothing but a fine, he posts on Facebook,
Speaker 2: this is abomination persecution of the church in Canada. The
Speaker 2: world is watching and mouths are closed. We must know
Speaker 2: what's coming to Jamaica now we had absolutely was not.
Speaker 2: Jamaica is not gearing up for a crackdown on these people.
Speaker 2: And in fact, thanks in large part to Kevin Smith
Speaker 2: and Anti the Other Kevin Smith and other anti VAX's
Speaker 2: religious leaders, less than half of Jamaican's have been vaccinated
Speaker 2: against COVID nineteen at any point, a significantly lower rate
Speaker 2: than most of their neighbors by summer of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: Though Smith is totally pilled and COVID nineteen became the
Speaker 2: sole focus of most of his sermons. From an article
Speaker 2: in the Jamaica Gleaner. In one of the entries declaring
Speaker 2: his mission, Smith, who appeared to be obsessed with titles,
Speaker 2: declared himself his Excellency Doctor Kevin Osmith, Crown Bishop, an
Speaker 2: end time nobby of him, conqueror, Lion of the Tribe
Speaker 2: of Judah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Yesos Christos,
Speaker 2: the One and True Living God. Yahweh ninety ninety nine,
Speaker 2: which is the opposite of sixty sixty six.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it also hard to fit on a business card.
Speaker 1: Molly, you should totally take that title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need we need more. King of
Speaker 2: Kings and Lord of Lords.
Speaker 4: Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Podcaster writer, I think
Speaker 4: yeahweh nine nine nine. That's basically a fucking uh. You
Speaker 4: could get that as like a license plate. Yeah, YHVH
Speaker 4: nine nine nine sounds good. He makes posts like forced
Speaker 4: vaccination in law is rape. A man forcing something into
Speaker 4: another man is buggery. A man forcing himself into a
Speaker 4: woman is rape. No Prime Minister can change common law
Speaker 4: and common sense. We don't need to go into all
Speaker 4: of the different things that are wrong about that. That's
Speaker 4: the kind of rhetoric that he's he's putting out of
Speaker 4: this period of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his math doesn't add.
Speaker 2: No, none of it adds up. In a post responding
Speaker 2: to a recent statement by Prime Minister Andrew Holness in
Speaker 2: which he stated that unvaccinated Jamaican should not expect the
Speaker 2: government to prioritize them for bedspace, Smith prophesied, we will
Speaker 2: be pushed out of the hospital and supermarket and the
Speaker 2: airports and the businesses. Again, this doesn't happen. He began
Speaker 2: preaching that the police and the military would soon corral
Speaker 2: Jamaican citizens into camps and force them to take fatal vaccines.
Speaker 2: Anyone who yielded to the state and took the vaccine
Speaker 2: would be killed by God, not necessarily literally, but a
Speaker 2: kind of spiritual death. Meanwhile, Smith promised, if you give
Speaker 2: up your life for Christ Jesus, you will save it.
Speaker 2: So he starts to insist that by October twenty second
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty one, the Jamaican government will use fictitious
Speaker 2: legislation to make the COVID vaccine mandatory. The end game
Speaker 2: will be to try and deceive us or force us
Speaker 2: into quarantine concentration camps. Prepare to stand your ground.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, how are we going to get
Speaker 1: to the throat cutting?
Speaker 2: I mean, you could see it starting to happen here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I heard forced march to concentration camp.
Speaker 2: Right, I want want here we go right, like the
Speaker 2: government is coming force on the specific date we need
Speaker 2: to be ready, right, that's going to set up a confrontation.
Speaker 3: The Jim Jones situation.
Speaker 2: Ye to come, yes, exactly. He predicts a series of
Speaker 2: natural disasters around the globe that will coincide with this,
Speaker 2: which is all pretty standard in time stuff, but it's
Speaker 2: married to a marked invisible degradation in Smith's mental health state.
Speaker 5: Quote.
Speaker 2: Smith's behavior in person became noticeably stranger.
Speaker 5: Over time.
Speaker 2: He became more adamant that his congregants donate as much
Speaker 2: money as possible, telling them that if those who had
Speaker 2: money resisted giving, the member would crash and die, and
Speaker 2: that Smith would send his wrath out to the members family.
Speaker 2: So he's like, if you don't give me everything now
Speaker 2: so that I can get ready for this, I will
Speaker 2: make sure God kills your relatives in a car crash
Speaker 2: ten days before his predicted date for Jamaica, making the
Speaker 2: vaccine mandatory, Smith told his followers that anyone who gets
Speaker 2: vaxed now would be exit communicated from the church. He
Speaker 2: posted a video to Facebook two days later, insisting my
Speaker 2: job is the apocalypse and that an unveiling is coming soon.
Speaker 2: His followers were shortly thereafter ordered to prepare their photo
Speaker 2: IDs and church membership cards and gather at the ARC
Speaker 2: on October sixteenth. Never a good idea, Never a good idea.
Speaker 3: I'm really starting to wish this was about the mall
Speaker 3: rats Kevin Smith.
Speaker 5: That malrats.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh if only it was the mall rats Kevin Smith.
Speaker 3: It's like and it culminates and like he made Jersey Girl,
Speaker 3: and yeah it was bad for everyone's careers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just go on like a fifteen minute rant
Speaker 2: about Jersey Girls and Tusk can last.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like the view askew, Prophecy is coming.
Speaker 2: No very different. And for an idea of how Smith's
Speaker 2: sermons leading up to October sixteenth, this day of prophecy sounded,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have Sophie play another clip.
Speaker 6: I have been sent to this nation to declare from America.
Speaker 6: Canada up when the world for the last come.
Speaker 1: Where got bad?
Speaker 6: Plot is we're been planned in the houses right a
Speaker 6: streets where we filing red plot?
Speaker 3: Yes, I said, I.
Speaker 1: Come from the dead dead.
Speaker 6: Hi, I'm these it is a.
Speaker 1: Sight Yeah okay sir.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he's you know, really amping people up. You're not
Speaker 2: getting people into a logical state of mind when you're
Speaker 2: doing that shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's committed to the to the to the
Speaker 1: grift yea to the bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's unclear to me how much of this is.
Speaker 2: He has really started to spiral and his mental health
Speaker 2: has declined as a result of getting caught in this
Speaker 2: conspiratorial media loop.
Speaker 3: You know, also like look who was doing well mental
Speaker 3: twenty two? Who was like functioning?
Speaker 2: Me?
Speaker 5: Now everybody?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was doing good now?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: So really, on the sixteenth, members of Smith's church start
Speaker 2: showing up outside the arc wearing all white. There's a
Speaker 2: sermon and service that follows that he's not conducting. He's
Speaker 2: got like lieutenants who are conducting the sermon and service,
Speaker 2: which goes on until around one am the next morning. Right,
Speaker 2: so they're doing like a marathon session. Smith's lieutenants manage
Speaker 2: the festivities up to this point, and he seems to
Speaker 2: have spent these hours like where people are gathering and
Speaker 2: like this is going on in a frenzy of social media, posting,
Speaker 2: mostly to Facebook, where he ordered everyone to show up
Speaker 2: at the ARC without their cell phones, wearing white saying
Speaker 2: the arc is loading now, the flood is coming. Go
Speaker 2: now run. He tells everybody that the ARC is going
Speaker 2: to leave on the eighteenth, and in case there's any
Speaker 2: doubt about what that means, he posts that in order
Speaker 2: to be saved, everyone at the ARC has to participate
Speaker 2: in what he called a quote Roman Catholic sacrifice that
Speaker 2: will have no survivors. The cops don't get called as
Speaker 2: a result of this. Nobody's like, well, this guy's telling
Speaker 2: everyone to come and there's going to be a sacrifice
Speaker 2: at this arc that no one lives through. Probably not
Speaker 2: worth Karen about right, must just be some like religious bluss.
Speaker 2: Dozens and dozens of his congregants take this seriously enough
Speaker 2: that they spend more than a day in prayer. Smith
Speaker 2: doesn't show up until the seventeenth, and his first command
Speaker 2: is for everyone to throw out the canned goods that
Speaker 2: they'd brought, expecting to need food. To survive the apocalypse. Then, confusingly,
Speaker 2: he ordered them to empty soda bottles and fill the
Speaker 2: soda bottles.
Speaker 5: Up with water.
Speaker 2: One member who shut up that day at the ARC
Speaker 2: was Michael Brown, who had been hospitalized for severe kidney
Speaker 2: issues and had forcibly discharged himself from the hospital after
Speaker 2: Smith had ordered everyone to show up at the church.
Speaker 2: We'll discuss Michael later, but this is a guy with
Speaker 2: a life threatening kidney problem who like leaves his hospital
Speaker 2: bed where he needs to be to stay alive in
Speaker 2: order to be at this thing because he considers it
Speaker 2: more important. Outside the church, Smith made congregants bowed down
Speaker 2: on their knees before entering, giving them judgment and writing
Speaker 2: their names in the Lamb's Book of Life, a biblical
Speaker 2: register of those chosen for salvation. The Walrus reports as
Speaker 2: congregants entered the church, Smith wrote name of each person
Speaker 2: in a book. When Tanica Gardner walked through the doors,
Speaker 2: Smith turned to her. Is your blood clean? He asked?
Speaker 2: Do you believe that I am the resurrection in the life.
Speaker 2: Gardner replied yes. Smith then said that her blood had
Speaker 2: to be cleansed in order for her to be resurrected.
Speaker 2: I will have to cut your throat, he told her.
Speaker 2: She allegedly again replied yes.
Speaker 5: Oh again. I don't know. Does she believe this is literal?
Speaker 5: Does he talk?
Speaker 1: Does he kind of explaining that this is actually like
Speaker 1: or is it just metaphorical? Do they really think? I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: So much of his rhetoric is like talking in terms
Speaker 2: that are apocalyptic and violent, but what you mean isn't literal?
Speaker 2: Up to this point, maybe people are like, well, you
Speaker 2: can't possibly mean he's kind of literally cut people's throats, right,
Speaker 2: that'd be nuts.
Speaker 5: You know, it's a.
Speaker 2: Spoiler that is exactly what he means. So at this point,
Speaker 2: members are ordered to lay on the ground and throw
Speaker 2: away any cleaning or sanitation supplies like antibacterial soap or
Speaker 2: wipes that they had on them. Well, this was going on.
Speaker 2: Someone throws a wine bottle onto the floor, and Smith
Speaker 2: orders a follower to use one of the shards to
Speaker 2: slit the throat of a congregant who happened to be
Speaker 2: seated near where the bottle had landed. He told another
Speaker 2: male follower that in order to be worthy of heaven,
Speaker 2: he would have to let one of Smith's lieutenants cut
Speaker 2: his throat with a knife. This guy got so far
Speaker 2: as to lay down in front of a dude who
Speaker 2: had like a knife when he realized like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this guy's gonna actually cut my throat, and he fucking runs,
Speaker 2: He like bounces. He's like, oh shit, you meant this.
Speaker 2: This isn't just some sort of a fucking thing we're doing.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: And Smith's follower with the knife, a guy named Plumber,
Speaker 2: chases both of these guys, who like both of these
Speaker 2: guys flee the ark at this point when they're like,
Speaker 2: oh fuck, we're actually going to get right. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: He chases both of them ounta and he stabs them
Speaker 2: both in the back, wounding both of these men. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: back inside the arc, Smith finds Michael Brown, the man
Speaker 2: with kidney failure who had left the hospital on his
Speaker 2: orders and the pastor told him, you have to die,
Speaker 2: but you will write because I am the resurrection and
Speaker 2: the Light. Now, this guy is still wheelchair bound and
Speaker 2: is still taking IVY medications, and Smith pulls the tubes
Speaker 2: out of this man, causing him to bleed to death.
Speaker 2: While this is happening, he turns his attention next to
Speaker 2: Taneka Gardner, who had already agreed to have her throat
Speaker 2: cut earlier for the Walrus. Smith then handed a knife
Speaker 2: to a seventeen year old follower named Billy, who instructed
Speaker 2: to cut Gardner's throat, but Billy hesitated, later saying that
Speaker 2: he remembered that one of the ten commitment states thou
Speaker 2: shalt not kill. Smith's right hand man, Andre Ruddick, stepped
Speaker 2: forward and, at Smith's urging, allegedly cut Gardner's throat. She
Speaker 2: died shortly.
Speaker 1: Thereafter Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: So at this point, two people are dead inside the
Speaker 2: church and two more have been stabbed outside. Some parishioners
Speaker 2: have gotten the fuck out right. Other people flee when
Speaker 2: it becomes clear he's actually going to be killing us all,
Speaker 2: and they call the cops, right, although I should also
Speaker 2: note one of the people here is a police officer,
Speaker 2: one of the parishioners, and I don't think it's him
Speaker 2: who calls the cops, because he might have been down.
Speaker 2: It's unclear precisely who ordered what. But when the cops
Speaker 2: show up, members of Smith's church open fire. Some of
Speaker 2: them have guns, and the police start shooting back, and
Speaker 2: we get a little bit of a Waco situation on
Speaker 2: our hands here. Yeah, Plumber charges the cops with his
Speaker 2: still bloody knife and is shot and killed by the police,
Speaker 2: who themselves have to call for backup from the military
Speaker 2: because they're just not prepared to deal with this whole situation.
Speaker 2: The church crowd is fully split at this point. A
Speaker 2: lot of people have fled in sheer terror, but a
Speaker 2: number of them charge the police. Billy who'd cut Tanaka's
Speaker 2: throat also gets shot in the chest trying to rush
Speaker 2: the cops, but he ultimately survives. Smith is eventually arrested
Speaker 2: along with one of his higher ranking lieutenants, and the
Speaker 2: police begins searching his properties to try and figure out, like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck happened to you? Right from the perspective
Speaker 2: of cops, think of how wild this is. You know
Speaker 2: about this church. It's a normal like evangelical church, and
Speaker 2: then one day you show up and there's people with
Speaker 2: their throat slit and like stabbed out in front. And
Speaker 2: you show up and people start shooting at you and
Speaker 2: charging you with machetes, and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what the fuck is happening here? It's just like completely
Speaker 2: disorienting to everybody, so less than two weeks after this
Speaker 2: goes down. You know, Smith is in custody and incarcerated,
Speaker 2: and while he's being driven to Kingston with police escorts,
Speaker 2: the officers driving him take a detour that lengthens the drive,
Speaker 2: and then his vehicle crashes into two oncoming vehicles. Smith
Speaker 2: dies at the scene, along with a twenty six year
Speaker 2: old officer in the car with him, and two other
Speaker 2: officers are badly injured.
Speaker 5: There is a.
Speaker 2: Lot of immediate speculation like, oh, okay, so he was murdered,
Speaker 2: this is a setup because of what he knew or whatever,
Speaker 2: like something shady has gone down here. A post mortem
Speaker 2: revealed that Smith had basically taken off, like like grabbed
Speaker 2: the driver's shoulder and pulling him to cause the accident. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the official story. I don't know, it's there's some
Speaker 2: weird stuff here. Although if the if the state orchestrated this,
Speaker 2: they also got a cop killed with him. But you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what happened. I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily need to believe that anything sketchy happened. But this guy,
Speaker 2: like probably a lot of people who don't want him testifying.
Speaker 2: Also because of some of the shit that he's done.
Speaker 2: So it's not like inherently weird to be like, well
Speaker 2: maybe something went on here. I don't know, but yeah
Speaker 2: that's the story if the other Kevin Smith fuck me,
Speaker 2: oh wow, yeah that is related quickly huh.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had to grab Truman at the end. I was
Speaker 1: like this is bad.
Speaker 2: I needed Yeah, this is like fucked up, and then
Speaker 2: like what right to throat cutting very quickly.
Speaker 1: Making the guy in the wheelchair bleed out, and then
Speaker 1: trying to get a seventeen year old to slit a
Speaker 1: woman's throat. It's bad.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I really feel for like Juvon who has to be
Speaker 2: thinking this whole.
Speaker 1: Time, like, and all the fucking money is my question?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, that's an interesting question. Obviously
Speaker 2: a lot of it gets bribed out. They do find
Speaker 2: he has a property listed for like three hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty grand. After he dies. There's a number of other properties,
Speaker 2: like several million dollars in real estate that get auctioned off.
Speaker 2: But it looks like, based on the cost of maintaining everything,
Speaker 2: was not all that far from what was coming in,
Speaker 2: So there may be a degree that like maybe as
Speaker 2: he had gotten crazier and more focused on anti COVID shit, right,
Speaker 2: It's possible that, like maybe there was a decline in
Speaker 2: the number of members in the amount of money that
Speaker 2: they had, and he was losing the ability to like
Speaker 2: fund what he was doing, right, and so maybe after.
Speaker 3: The big drift, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, time for a swan song perhaps.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, well yeah, that's ruined my day.
Speaker 3: Thanks, yep, yeah, thanks great, have a wonderful weekend. I
Speaker 3: guess have a.
Speaker 2: Great time everybody. Yeah. Maybe, I don't know, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of all of this is so downstream from like
Speaker 2: what happened to everyone during COVID, yeah, or a lot
Speaker 2: of people during COVID, like the the fact that like
Speaker 2: the lockdowns really supercharged the spread of a lot of
Speaker 2: propaganda that really damaged a lot of people's like like
Speaker 2: cause you see, like this guy is a significantly different
Speaker 2: logical actor in a lot of ways after that happens,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Uh it's bleak, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: All right, what's the name of your book? One more
Speaker 1: time for our listeners, Double Axe and Pop Amazing.
Speaker 3: Check it out and get at commercial type dot com
Speaker 3: and some bookstores.
Speaker 2: Sweet Excellent.
Speaker 1: Listen to a Wait Days podcast wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: That's by Jake Candrahan and uh touch grass after listening
Speaker 1: to this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go touch so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, peda dog if they want you to, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Peta dog if they want you to touch some grass
Speaker 2: if you think the grass wants you to, and check
Speaker 2: out check out Molly's new podcast.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when is it? When is the podcast coming.
Speaker 3: Coming out this fall?
Speaker 5: Hell yeah, stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Super exciting.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, all right, everybody.
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