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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda gam Nation.

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Speaker 2: Well, my next guest is Mark Fanell. He's host of

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Speaker 2: a chart topping ABC podcast. He's a Walkley Award winning journalist,

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Speaker 2: and he's a host to a new documentary airing this

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Speaker 2: week on SBS called The Kingdom. It explores the scandal

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Speaker 2: plagued megachurch Hillsong and asked the question is the Kingdom crumbling?

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Speaker 1: Welcome Mark, Mark Hoibo.

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Speaker 2: Very well, nice to talk to you. You have kind

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Speaker 2: of a personal interest in this, I guess because seventeen

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Speaker 2: years ago you ran away from a Pentecostal religion.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I was sort of born in, to

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Speaker 1: be honest with you, So the first third of church

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Speaker 1: we went to as kids was the big one. It

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Speaker 1: was what would eventually become Hillsong. And then I spent

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Speaker 1: my pretty much my entire childhood growing up in Pentecostal

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Speaker 1: churches that you know, we had a lot of them,

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Speaker 1: were playing out in sort of you know RSL event rooms,

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Speaker 1: school hall. But it's funny because I haven't really I

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Speaker 1: haven't really kind of addressed while left because I quit

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Speaker 1: what I was sort of like nineteen twenty and it's

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Speaker 1: only now that i've sort of gone back into it,

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Speaker 1: and it's time to explain to people what my child

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Speaker 1: was Like I realized how strange aspects of my childhood

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Speaker 1: I was. Like I was telling somebody the other day,

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Speaker 1: I reckon I was the only kid on the streets

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Speaker 1: that regularly had demons being thrown out of people in

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Speaker 1: their living room on Wednesdays. It's been a bit of

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Speaker 1: an unusual process both have of charting what's happened with

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Speaker 1: Pentacostal bus down in Australia, but also going hah, I

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Speaker 1: haven't really processed these things yet.

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Speaker 3: Religion's a funny thing I went. I was raised to

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Speaker 3: Catholic and I went to Catholic schools, so we went

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Speaker 3: to church every Sunday. And it was probably around about

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Speaker 3: when I was about fifteen I stopped going to church regularly.

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Speaker 3: And I still get the Catholic guilt. So do you

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Speaker 3: get pen do you get Pentecostal guilt?

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Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing I kind of quiet quit

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Speaker 1: as a nineteen year old, sort of twenties, and I

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Speaker 1: just it was very easy for me to just disappear.

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Speaker 1: And it was only when we started to go back

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Speaker 1: and look at the you know, what had happened with

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Speaker 1: the sort of the rise, and I guess it's full

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Speaker 1: of Hillsong and all the other churches around it that

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Speaker 1: I had to go, what did I this? Because it's

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Speaker 1: very easy to just walk away. And I think one

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Speaker 1: of the I think one of the really kind of

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Speaker 1: interesting things about the film is I kind of process

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Speaker 1: it in real time. I got therapy, and I had

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Speaker 1: happened to have it filmed. Yes, well, and we look

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Speaker 1: forward to seeing it.

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Speaker 2: What's going on with the church. There have been allegations

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Speaker 2: of sexual impropriety, of financial impropriety. What are some of

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Speaker 2: the scandals that have plagued Hillsong.

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Speaker 1: It'll sounds a really interesting one because it is one

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Speaker 1: of Australia's most powerful cultural exports, right really when you

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Speaker 1: think about it, I mean they had millions upon millions

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Speaker 1: of people singing Hillsong songs, not even in Hillsong churches,

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Speaker 1: all around the world. They set up churches in the

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Speaker 1: US and the lead past is Brian and Bobby Houston

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Speaker 1: were superstars. I mean, whether you like or dislike Hillsong,

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Speaker 1: you have to acknowledge though, are one of Australia's most

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Speaker 1: powerful exports that you go like iron Ore Hemsworth Brothers, Hillsong,

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Speaker 1: but there has been as you say, there has been

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Speaker 1: allegations of sex with proprietary then this is leveled at

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Speaker 1: various different parts of the church and financial mis management.

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Speaker 1: And I think what's happened is we do know that

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Speaker 1: lots of the people rocking up and the people chuinning

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Speaker 1: into their sermons has dwindled in the last couple of months,

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Speaker 1: and their revenue has also dwindled. And actually what's interesting

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Speaker 1: right now is a whole bunch of other Australian mega

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Speaker 1: churches that are sort of inheriting the kingdom at the moment.

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Speaker 1: And it's an important kind of turning point that we're

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Speaker 1: kind of witnessing because a lot of the problems that

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Speaker 1: we existed in pentecost to Christianity now sort of an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to go hold on maybe our relationship with money

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Speaker 1: or the you know, because a lot of these churches

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Speaker 1: are sort of propelled by volunteers. Maybe our relationship with

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Speaker 1: that isn't healthy. And so I think this is why

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Speaker 1: it was really important right now to go as one

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Speaker 1: kind of dynasty looks like it's facing decline and all

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Speaker 1: these other churches stands to inherit the kingdom. Can his

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Speaker 1: history going to repeat or can things change right now?

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Speaker 3: And so derivative now they're like a Marvel franchise.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that was the thing that

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Speaker 1: was weird for me is I hadn't been in one

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Speaker 1: for a long time, and I remember going to visit

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Speaker 1: one of the Pentacostal churches in the US, and I

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Speaker 1: remember walking and going, oh, it hasn't changed. And mean, look,

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Speaker 1: no one likes to admitut it, but there is a

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Speaker 1: bit of a formula to why Pentecostal services work. And

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Speaker 1: again no one might submit it. And it's always super welcoming.

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Speaker 1: No one will ever question how unbelievably warm and welcoming

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Speaker 1: they are at the Pentecostal churches. You have your three

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Speaker 1: big songs, your three emotional songs, and then you and

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Speaker 1: now all the prayers that God answered them the last week.

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Speaker 1: Then you do the offering, you have some money, and

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Speaker 1: then you have these incredible speakers who are just the

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Speaker 1: most charismatic people. I'm a fine at my question, and

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Speaker 1: then you have this big swelling music towards the end,

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Speaker 1: and that's when they do the What was amazing to

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Speaker 1: me is how much they hadn't changed over the years,

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Speaker 1: and there's a sort of pragmatism I guess about pedacostalism,

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Speaker 1: like if it works, it works. But I think this

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Speaker 1: now is an opportunity to go. It doesn't nest and

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Speaker 1: there's nothing inherently wrong with that, by the way, they

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Speaker 1: put on amazing shows, right, But it's a question of

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Speaker 1: like what does that cost, Like what does it cost

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Speaker 1: in people and what does it cost in money and

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Speaker 1: who's paying that cost?

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Speaker 2: And also very interesting we had a prime minister, a

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Speaker 2: former prime minister who is very much influenced by IT

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Speaker 2: fence policy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean we went back into the

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Speaker 1: archives and you know, Scott Morrison's obviously the famous one,

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Speaker 1: but if you go back Bob Carr rocked up at

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Speaker 1: Hillstoon conferences, John Howard went to Heilson conferences over the

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Speaker 1: course of the nineties, in particular, you know when they

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Speaker 1: started to a massive, big crowds. I think all politicians

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Speaker 1: of all stripes really recognize, I guess the value of

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Speaker 1: talking to that community. Scott Morrison's an interesting one because

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Speaker 1: I don't in the end, I don't think either he

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Speaker 1: nor Pantaclostal Christianity came off that well from that. I

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Speaker 1: think when he first you know, when he first invited

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Speaker 1: cameras in to take a photo of him with his

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Speaker 1: hands up in the air, which became such a big

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Speaker 1: feature around the news of his Prime ministership, I think

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Speaker 1: I at the time thought he was quite clever because

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people who would never have voted

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Speaker 1: for Scott Morrison looked at that and went and made

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Speaker 1: all his judgments about him in his faith. But those

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Speaker 1: people are never going to vote from anyway. But then

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Speaker 1: there's a whole there's literally millions of Christians that probably

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Speaker 1: looked at that one. Oh he's a real one, he's

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Speaker 1: one of us. But in the end, I think it

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Speaker 1: kind of was a bit of a nurse around both

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Speaker 1: sort of cohorts next and in the end, I don't

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Speaker 1: think he quite escaped all people's I guess people's prejudices

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Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, around Pentecostal Christianity. And

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Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons why I wanted to

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Speaker 1: make this is I wanted to there's going to be

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people watching who've never been in

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Speaker 1: one before, and I wanted to kind of explain why

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Speaker 1: that world worked, why people were drawn into the world,

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Speaker 1: but they're also at the same time kind of be

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Speaker 1: clear right about there are problems here, right, and it's

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Speaker 1: really about everyday Christians, right, Like this is going to

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Speaker 1: sound strange, but it almost matters more to me that

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Speaker 1: every day Christians watch it because there are real issues

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Speaker 1: within the church the journey to be dressed, and it's

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Speaker 1: about them. It's not like Brian Huston, who's the very famous,

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Speaker 1: you know, global past there's no shortage of stories about

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Speaker 1: his scandals and they're important to cover, right, But every

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Speaker 1: day there's real issues facing every day Christians within that

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Speaker 1: world and they need to be addressed as well. There's

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Speaker 1: sort of this like slight toxic positivity issue within Christian

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Speaker 1: world because people don't talk publicly like people hushed talk

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Speaker 1: about the problems, but people don't always talk about publicly enough.

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Speaker 1: And I felt like this was an opportunity to kind

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Speaker 1: of stand in the gap with my weird background in

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Speaker 1: the church and go, there are issues here, but we're

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Speaker 1: not necess they're really attacking people's face because you know,

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Speaker 1: I've got family members that are still in this world

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Speaker 1: and the people and I think sometimes on their story

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Speaker 1: there covered there's a slight undercurrent of like, look at

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Speaker 1: these weird people and what they believe. And my personal

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Speaker 1: view is faith is you. I'm quite happy. I would love,

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Speaker 1: I personally back anybody to believe anything, so long as

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Speaker 1: you're not hurting other people. And I think sometimes faith

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Speaker 1: has a problem with that last part. But I think

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Speaker 1: that I don't. I don't want anybody to kind of

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Speaker 1: hear this and think it's an attack on their belief

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Speaker 1: not that more. Does this model still work and who

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Speaker 1: does it work for?

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Speaker 3: You've got to have faith. George Michael said that that's

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Speaker 3: the Church of George Michael.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that one I can get down with.

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Speaker 3: The Kingdom is available to stream from Thursday. That's this Thursday,

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Speaker 3: the eighth of June on SBS on demand. Mark Vanelle,

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Speaker 3: thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 1: The place is always always mind talking to you both.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Mark,