1985: Slayer, Hell Awaits

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Tuesday, April the eighth, twenty twenty five. It is currently twelve nineteen pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. What If? What if? Do you like the what if question? What if things would have been different? What if I would have done this? What if they would have done this? I'm not necessarily a fan of what if because a lot of times you're asking what if about a situation where you can't go back and change. In fact, you can't go back, you can't change. All you can do is move forward. But there are times that I think if we stop and ask what if, then maybe we can learn something about where we are and where we are going. So I'm going to ask the what if question to Christianity. I'm going to ask the what if question to Christians? What if Christianity? What if the Church? What if Christians would have handled the Great Satanic Panic of the nineteen eighties. Differently, what if the Puritans would have handled the accusations of witchcraft differently and Salem in sixteen ninety two, what if

1:37 the church would have handled this differently? Sometimes we ask those questions because it forces us to stop and look at how the church has done things so that we can possibly improve how the church does things in the future. At least that is the hope, that is the idea. So today it's all about what if, And specifically we're going to be asking what if the church in the past had handled culture differently, if it would have engage culture in a different way, what if what if it would have done that? And maybe by looking if, what if the church would have handled things differently? And we're going to look at one specific situation that occurred on April eighth, nineteen eighty five, what if the church would have responded to that differently? Well, what could we learn today?

2:30 What could the church learn from that if it would have been done differently, so that we can actually do things differently in twenty twenty five. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't think the church is ever going to learn this lesson. In fact, I think the church is going to completely reject everything I'm about to say, which will just continue, will just continue to do the same thing over and over and over, which I think how we've handled things has been completely completely wrong. So we're going to take a journey. This is going to be somewhat of a long episode. So buckle in and we're going This is going to take some twists and turns. I guarantee you many of you are not going to like where this goes, but we're going to take the ride anyway. We're going to take the journey and hopefully we can learn from what if now. I will be using somewhat of a narrative form for some of this. Sometimes I will go into the narrative. Sometimes I will come out. I hope this goes. I'm going to try to do my very best. Hopefully this is engaging, interesting, thought provoking, challenging, maybe even a little It may induce a little anger, but I think it's something that we need to do. So are you ready? Here we go.

3:47 For the most of the twentieth century, and especially in the second half, the Church didn't know what to do with culture. I believe that's an accurate statement. For most of the twentieth century, especially in the second half, the Church didn't know what to do with culture. In some ways, I'm going to argue, I don't know if the church has ever really known what to do with culture. I think the church has always struggled with what to do with culture. Music changed. If we want to talk about the twentieth century and the second half of the twentieth century, music changed, Movies pushed boundaries, television exploded, books got darker, and art got louder. And the church it panicked. It completely panicked. It held conferences, it ran scare campaigns, It made a list of banned books, dangerous bands, and unclean films.

4:50 And then it turned inward, building safe alternatives to everything. Christian music, Christian movies, Christian and books, Christian exercise, Christian this Christian that everything that the world had, we were gonna christianize, and we were going to create our own alternative universe that was nice and safe inside of this bubble, so the bad corruption of the world couldn't get inside, and we would be pure, and we would be holy, and we would be godly because we would avoid all of the bad stuff. We're not gonna go to Disney, We're not gonna watch Disney movies. We're not gonna go to Target. We're not gonna do this. We're not gonna go there. We're gonna listen to Christian music and watch Christian movies and Christian television shows and go hang out with Christians when we do aerobics, and we're gonna go do this, and we're gonna do this, and we're going it's just gonna be Christian, this Christian, that Christian, this Christian, that Christian this, and we'll be safe and secure because all of the corruption will be out there. And for some weird reason, nobody ever raised their hand and go, hey, Philologically, I think we're a little confused here. The corruption that we're running from is not out there. The corruption we're running from is in side each and every one of us.

6:02 Because one of the core teachings of Christianity is that we do not become sinners by sinning, but we sin because we are sinners by nature. We were conceived in sin. We are corrupt. It's not that the world's gonna corrupt your kids. Your kids are the corruption. They have the corruption inside of them. They're already corrupt. They're born corrupt, they're born sinful. It's not what's going to corrupt them. You're probably you probably should be more concerned in how your kids are going to spread their own corruption because they are sinners. This is a key doctrine within Christianity, but over and over the Church when it comes to dealing with the culture, it's like, we're gonna run from the culture and hide from the culture, and we're gonna we're gonna lock the door, pull down the blinds, build a wall, and will be safe and secure inside. Sh don't let the monster hear us. It's out there and it's the world and it's sinful. Sh be quiet. And then all of a sudden, someone taps you on the shoulder and says, the monster's right here. It's inside the castle, it's inside the locked room. It's inside of you. You can't run from corruption because you are corrupt. You can't run from sin. You're the sinner. Corruption doesn't come from the outside, it arises from within. And the church sometimes forgets all of this. So while the church is running around building all of these alternatives, building our nice little bubble,

7:34 trying to run from the monster. While it was doing all of that, there was one thing it rarely did and almost it almost never does. That is actually take the time to listen, to actually take the time to understand, to actually take the time to analyze. The Church rarely does that. It never it never has. You see through throughout history, throughout church history, Christianity has failed over and over again, not just in what it opposed, because sometimes it even opposed things I didn't even know what it was opposing or why it was opposing it. But even if it opposed something that was should be opposed, over and over and over, it failed in how it opposed it.

8:25 So you can oppose the wrong thing, and you can oppose it for the right reason, but you can oppose it in the wrong way. See a pattern kind of formed, right, So the church would condemn things without any real context, without really thinking it through. It was just condemnation before anything else, before listening, before context, before understanding. See, it condemned rock music, not because of theology, even though we want to claim that, but because of volume. It's just too what is up with these kids in this loud music? This is not even music, it's just noise. And so what do we oh, it's ungodly, it's worldly. Let's condemn it and you'll just throw that out there, not even looking to go well, wait a minute, Well, what about this and this and this that you do? I think that's god ungodly and that's worldly. No, but it's the music, it's ungodly. No, you were condemning it because you didn't like it. You didn't like the sound, you didn't like the volume, you didn't like the aesthetic, and you just condemned it. You condemned it more from personal preference than any true philological reason, No matter what you tell yourself.

9:37 It condemned horror, not because it promoted evil, but because it depicted it. It condemned novels like Harry Potter. Remember the great Harry Potter scare. Oh no, Harry Potter was gonna corrupt our children. They're all gonna be flying around on broomsticks and playing a game. They're all gonna be casting spells, and they're gonna be going to a school of wizardry. Oh no, it's the end of the world. They're all gonna be corrupted. We're all gonna We've gotta do something, We gotta protect our kids. Harry Potter is evil. Harry Potter is the Satan's tool to corrupt my kids. And everybody was scared of Harry Potter. Then it was the Well going Back before the Catcher and the Rye. Oh, the Lord of Flies, What a horrible book. To kill a mockingboard, to kill a mocking bird. Oh my goodness, is what are we going to do? In many cases, they condemned these books without actually reading them, or even actually analyzing them, or actually even discussing them, or even understanding them. It's just condemnation. They didn't try to understand.

10:47 They didn't even try to understand what they were really about. And that's just books. And then oh, oh, it condemned comic books in the nineteen fifties. The comic books are gonna corrupt us. It's gonna destroy us, and we had to They created an agency to to censor comic books to make sure they followed a comic code. Then it was Dungeons and Dragons in the nineteen eighties. Oh no, we're gonna be corrupted. It's gonna be the end. We're all gonna I don't know what was gonna happen to us and playing Dungeons and Dragons, but it was in the end of the world. I remember, I was right there in the middle of a lot of this anything that happens in the eighties and the Satanic Panic. I was a part of them. Our last broadcast we discussed this, right, so Dungeons and Dragons I'll never forget. I kept hearing, Oh, it's the end of the world where you'll be possessed by a demon, all the stuff that's supposed to happen.

11:32 So I go and buy Dungeons and Dragons, and I get my friends together, and Okay, guys, this is supposedly evil, this is supposedly bad. We're all going to be doing something really wrong. We're gonna be doing something really sinful. And after about forty minutes, I'm like, what is this that? What? What? How do you even play this like? I was like, there's nothing evil about this. In fact, my conclusion, and I rarely use the word was I don't I don't ever use the word boring, but I came pretty close to say saying I don't get this. I don't understand this. This is ridiculous. There's a waste of time, a waste of money. I would rather go run my head into a brick wall. Okay, maybe that's a little bit of hyperbole, but remember Dungeons and Dragons was gonna bring us all down. Oh, and now it's TikTok. TikTok is the end of society, these kids and their tiktoks. Oh my goodness, it's the end.

12:20 It's the end. It's always the end. It's always that's the enemy. Condemned, Condemn, condemn, condemn, condemn, don't listen, don't understand, don't analyze, just point your finger in condemn. That's all the church ever can do. And it's like, oh, we gotta keep us away from it. And it's always some grand conspiracy, some satanic plot. It's gonna be the end. It's the Illuminati. It's everywhere. Beyonce Illuminati, Taylor's swift, she's a Satanist and she has snakes everywhere. It's always something, it's always something. It never stops. Each time the message goes something like this will corrupt you. No, it's not going to corrupt you, because you're already corrupted. Let me make it very clear. Anything out there that you say is corrupting, it cannot corrupt you because you're already corrupted.

13:16 You were born and conceived in sin. You were born with a sinful nature. You have a sinful nature, and you will possess it all the way until glorification. This is the devil's work. Everything is the devil's work. Everything is the or it's just human beings. Because of our corrupt nature, we produce things that reflect that corrupt nature. Have you ever thought that the culture simply reflects the corruption that's in. It's not creating the corruption, it's not promoting the corruption in many cases, is simply reflecting what is already inside all of us. And each time the response contradicts one of the church's most fundamental doctrine, that sin doesn't come from without without it comes from within.

14:04 And over and over the church contradicts itself. We say you're born a center, but then everything turns into the corruptions out there. We're the good people, they're the bad people. Don't look you hear no evil, See no evil, speak no evil. Let me make it very clear, whether you hear it, whether you see it, or whether you speak it, the evil's inside of you. Corruption comes from within. So it's this condemnation without any real context, without any real understanding. Another thing the church does is censorship over conversation. Instead of engaging art, the church tries to erase it. It tries to burn it, it tries to ban it, it tries to boycott it, it tries to censor it. It feared lyrics more than it feared ignorance. It feared fantasy more than it feared legalism. It feared r rated films more than it feared bearing false witness about what those films actually said. Let me state that again, the Church has feared lyrics more than it has feared legalism. It has feared fantasy more than it's it is fear. I'm sorry, it's feared lyrics more than it's feared ignorance. It's feared fantasy more than it's feared legalism. It's feared r rated films more than it feared bearing false witness about what the films are actually about. You see, the Church, instead of asking what is this story trying to say, it declared if it's not Christian, then it's evil. The Church and trying to protect people from darkness basically kept the

15:37 people from seeing what darkness really is. In fact, we trying to protect the people from darkness. Everybody seemed to be pretending that there was no darkness inside of all of us. So the Church does this condemnation without context, does censorship over conversation, And then it does this reinforcement of fear based faith. By rejecting culture out of fear, the Church reinforced the lie that Christians are always in danger, as if the power of God is fragile and one song, one scene, one story could destroy it. And what happened.

16:21 A generation grew up seeing Christianity as reactionary, not resilient, fearful not thoughtful, controlling not curious, more concerned with optics than with truth. And many of them walked away, not because they rejected God, but because they never saw how to think like people who knew God. But what if, what if the Church would have done things differently? What if? Well? Today is April eighth, twenty twenty five. On April the eighth, nineteen eighty five, an album showed up and record stores music stores, yeah, way back in the olden days where you had to go to a music store to buy music.

17:19 That album was by the bands Slayer. The name of that album was Hell Awaits. The Satanic panic was spreading like a wildfire. And this album serves because it's the anniversary of the album, serves as a good thing to use to say what if. I'm gonna make this very clear, it's not about the album. It's about the what if. It's about what if the church would have handled this one thing differently, as being somewhat symbolic of handling the entire Satanic panic differently, handling so many of these crazy things differently. So everyone's going to get caught up on the album. It's more I'm just using the album because it's the anniversary of it, and because it was such I mean, it was such a lightning rod of controversy at that time that it's a good object lesson to use.

18:18 So what if it had all gone differently? What if in nineteen eighty five, when Slayer released Hell awaits and churches were holding record burnings and parents were in full panic, and the Satanic panic was on every screen and in every sermon. What if one pastor just one would have said, no, we're not going to burn this, we're going to read it, we're going to listen, we're going to ask questions, and we're going to tell the truth. What if he set his youth group down and track by track they walked through each one and he showed them not how to fear the darkness, but how to discern it. What if someone had treated teenagers like they actually had the ability to think and treated them like thinkers instead of liabilities.

19:21 What if someone had opened the lyrics to Hell Awaits and found a world full of sin, judgment, hopelessness, and then used it to point to grace. So here's what we're going to do for the next ever how long this takes. We are going to go back to nineteen eighty five, somewhere in West Texas, a small church, and we're going to tell I'm going to tell. You're going to listen. We're going to go back and in a sense, watch a fictional scene unfold. Because there's clearly this did not happen. That's why I'm saying, what if I want to go back and tell a fictional story of what if the church would have done it this way? Now, when I describe it, anyone who's been in church are gonna laugh because you're gonna be like, this is not even realistic. I know it's a fictional story. But we're gonna go back and I'm gonna do this as a fictional narrative, telling this story of what if this would have happened in nineteen eighty five, because this is the story of what could have happened. This is a story of what could have happened of a small church, a determined pastor, and an album everyone feared but no one understood.

20:55 This is nineteen eighty five. This is the band Slayer, and this is the album Hell Awaits. It's nineteen eighty five. The satanic panic is in full swing. Churches across America are holding rock seminars, parents are burning cassettes and youth group bonfires. Pastors are preaching that heavy metal is the gateway to demonic possession. And Slayer, a California thrash band with a reputation for the terrifying, has just released an album called hell Awaits. Everywhere Christians are panicking everywhere except one small church in West Texas and a modest white church building on the edge of a dusty Texas town.

21:54 A pastor does something unexpected. He walks into the youth classroom. He has in his hands the album the LP Hell Awaits by Slayer. He just picks it up, he just lifts it up. All the kids know about this album. They've all heard about how bad it is, how demonic it is, how satanic it is, and they're thinking, oh no, oh no, we're getting ready to get chewed out. He's gonna tell us how bad this is. He's gonna condemn it. We're gonna get fire and brimstone. We're gonna get yelled. He's probably gonna smash it into pieces, probably take us outside and try to burn it. But he doesn't burn the record. He doesn't warn the kids with fear, he doesn't yell at them. Instead, he's going to invite them in imagine. It's a Wednesday night, folding chairs. It's a youth room with a cross on the wall because you know, back in nineteen eighty five churches had crosses. You know, Okay, it's a joke. It's a joke. Okay, it's a cross on the wall, a chalkboard maybe maybe a chalkboard, maybe a whiteboard, chalkboard. We'll go with that chalkboard because we'll really trying to get that, you know, that nostalgic feel.

23:30 The chalkboard is behind him. He has the album hell Awaits laying right there on the table as a bible. He looks around, he looks at all the kids. He can see they're kind of like, oh, no, what's going to happen? He can see they're kind of like, maybe some are already putting their heads down because they own the album, and or maybe they're like, oh no, my mom and dad caught found the album and they gave it to the pastor. I'm about to get called out. They got all kinds of thoughts. Maybe the pastor says, I know what they're saying. I know what you've heard, that this band is evil, that this album is satanic, and maybe some of that fear isn't completely misplaced. But here in this church, at least in this classroom, we're not going to run from the dark. We're gonna shine a light onto it. We're gonna shine a light into it. My kids are kind of looking around, like, what is happening?

24:41 What is going on? Is the pastor possibly on crack? I mean it's nineteen eighties, right, is the pastor on crack? What is going on? I mean the kids are like a little bit confused. Now. The good thing is they don't they can't be looking at their phones, they can't be texting anybody. All they can do is try to whisper to each other. They don't know what to do. Maybe they could just maybe they're nervous, they don't know what they're like, what is happening right here? The pastor says, So tonight we're gonna do something different. We're going to go song by song, lyric by lyric. We're going to ask what is this album really saying? What does it show us about the world, about sin, about judgment, maybe even about ourselves. And when we're done, maybe we won't be afraid anymore, maybe we'll be wiser, maybe we'll know how to think, because guys, you know how to think.

25:43 You can think. You're not dumb, you're not stupid, you're not foolish. And I'm not going to treat you like children. I'm gonna treat you like young adults who have the ability to figure it out. And I'm gonna teach you how to discern. Now, just even saying that, I know that's crazy because you can't do this in church. You'll get in trouble. But okay, all right, But remember this is a fictional story of if what could have happened, what happened in the fictional West Texas town that obviously I didn't grow up in, because this did not happen for me, And so they begin, no bonfire is lit, no shouting, no lies dressed up as spiritual warfare on church's love to say spiritual warfare and then tell five hundred and twenty three lies. Just a pastor, a room full of teenagers, and a determination to tell the truth, even about something everyone else is afraid of, because sometimes the most Christian thing you can do is refuse to panic.

26:58 So he holds up the album, pulls off the wrapper, pulls off the rapper, and he shows everyone the cover. And the kids seeing the cover in nineteen eighty five would be like, oh, because it looks satanic. It looks scary. Some of the kids may even get nervous because they already know their mom and dad are going to absolutely lose their minds when they find out what just happened in this Wednesday night session. We already know. They already know that this is going to probably be the end of this pastor and probably the end of them ever coming back to this church, because they know something is going on. The pastor opens it up, takes out the LP, says, Okay, guys, before we can understand the lyrics, we've got to understand the music. We've got to understand what this album is doing musically, because so many times people who listen to music don't really understand music. So I'm going to try to help you understand the music, because the music is going to help us understand the lyrics. Hell Awaits. This album does have what we would refer to as repeated sections and lyrical refrains. In other words, kids, you would know what we're talking about. You listen to a song and they repeat something frequently, or over and over and over, okay, but it does not. This album hell Awaits by Slayer does not follow a traditional pop or metal hook structure.

28:28 You know those songs that are really catchy and they get into your head and you just sing them over and over and over. They got that that hook, they got that that part that you just almost like sing it as an anthem. Well, this album doesn't really follow that. There may be some chorus like parts, but they're not written to be catchy. They're not written to be memorable. There's there, They're not hooky in the conventional sense. This is not This album is not like any other album you're going to listen to. It's it's doing something different musically and kids, this should be your clue that you have to interpret this differently. In church, we talk about hermoneutics, and you as you look for the text, you look for those hermoneutical clues. Well, when you listen to an album, you've got to pay attention to the music because sometimes the music gives you the hermoneutical clue. And hell Awaits by Slayer has a hermoneutical clue all over it, and it's the way the album is structured. And traditional rock or pop or metal songwriting, a hook is a it goes something like this. It's melodically or rhythmically memorable. It's got a melody, it's got a rhythm. It's very it's easy to be remembered. It's got the sense of it's something catchy, right, It's something that you're going to know as soon as it starts. You know what to say.

30:00 You just feel that it's just you're going to remember it. I'm trying to do this in the most non technical way possible, just as if I was talking to these kids. It's repeated at predictable intervals, usually after every verse. Usually you have the verse in the course, then the verse and the chorus. So you sing the verse and then here comes the course. And even if you don't remember the verse, everyone knows the chorus. Everybody sings along. Everybody sings along, Everybody sings along. It's designed to stick in your head after one or two listens. It only takes two or three. You could think of if we were going back to this is nineteen eighty five, guys, shoot us priest, pricking the law, pricking the law. Everybody knows that. Right.

30:44 If we were to go in further up in time, enter Sandman by Metallica, Right, how about ac DC back in Black. You know these songs are catchy, they're hooking, and you could just name a number a million of other songs popular past present. Now I'm trying to stay within the narrative, but kids would know a song that's catchy. They're structured, they're accessible, they're almost as an anthem. Everybody sings along. Right, But this album, he holds it back up to the kids. Hell Awaits by Slayer. It doesn't seem to care about any of that. You see, it has unconventional song structures, mini tracks, hell Awaits Praise of Death.

31:36 They have extended intros, abrupt tempo changes, riff based development instead of verse course, repetition, long instrumental passages, complex time signatures and transitions. There's a million things going on musically. And this is why kids, when your parents say it's just noise, it's not even music, they're not understanding because they're not even giving it. They're not even trying to understand it. There's all kinds of complex things going on in this album. There's the instrumentation, the complex time signatures, the major tempo changes, it abrupt tempo changes. There's a lot of complex things going on this album musically. People may talk down to it and speak of it as garbage or trash. It's because they're not seeking to understand it.

32:27 And if they can't even understand the music, they'll never understand the message. These songs are almost as episodes. They're episodic, they're not cyclical. You don't come back to the same part predictably. It's more like reading a short horror story than hearing a jingle. It's not like the music goes this way and then comes back to it, goes this way, comes back to it, right. You know that, you know that no no, no, no, no no. This is like it's an episode. It's like telling a story. It's going from here to here. It's not gonna just keep repeating back like a jingle, so it gets stuck in your head. Now. The vocal delivery on this album hell Awaits, it's rhythmically aggressive.

33:13 It's more shouted than sung. It lacks melodic phrasing. There's no melodic phrasing on here. It's closer to barking. It's closer to ranting. It's a narrative scream. It prioritizes violent speed and impact over tunefulness. It doesn't care if it's to in tune. It's about this violence to speed. Even when lines are repeated like hell Awaits or kill Again, they're not hooks in a musical sense. They're almost like a slap in the face and a rhythmic assault. There's nothing normal about what's happening on this album. Kids. It's about atmosphere and it has narrative goals. Slayer didn't write the album to be catchy. They wrote it to be unsettling.

34:06 They wrote it to be unrelenting. They wrote it to be thematic, not marketable. They didn't write this to get on radio. They didn't write this to get popular. They wrote this because they were trying to tell stories. The album is immersive horror, not accessible metal. Even in songs that have a repeated line kill and kill again, the goal isn't for you to sing along. It's for you to feel trapped inside the craziness, the chaos and the madness. So yes, some Slayer songs, some fans, some people may tell you they have choruses because they're repeated lines. But from a compositional standpoint, hell Awaits rejects traditional chorus hook structure and favor of thorough composed brutality. It's like comparing a pop song to a piece of avant grade class music.

35:01 Both may have motifs, but one is built for memory. The other is for immersion and unease, and hell Awaits is about immersing you into the uneasiness and the fear and the chaos and the madness. That's what this is about, kids, that there's something going on here that requires you to have the ability to discern it, to understand it, and to analyze it, just like we try to discern and analyze literature. The Bible. We seek because you can't condemn, you can't yell at, You shouldn't burn that which you don't understand. You see, the musical structure is the first clue.

35:48 This is storytelling. It's not a sing along from the very first, from the first reversed chant, because at the beginning, and in fact, when you play it, if you've tell you this album kids, if you've listened to this Teenagers, right, you hear this all kind of just weird noise. In this reverse chant, it has this sprawling, rift driven arrangement. Hell Awaits is musically not designed to recruit you. It's not designed to convert you. It's not even designed really to entertain you in any conventional sense. It's meant to unfold, not to repeat. It's to immerse, not to indoctrinate. It's to terrify you. It's not to entice you. Slayer intentionally avoids verse coorse, verse repetition. It intentionally avoids catchy melodic phrasing.

36:46 It intentionally avoids harmonized vocals. It intentionally avoids predictable tempo patterns. Why is it doing all of this? Because those elements are used in pop and even in traditional metal to make things stick in your head. They're tools of retention and reinforcement. Slayer wasn't interested in retention. They were interested in relentlessness and dragging you through a hellscape without giving you time to catch your breath or to sing along. The album isn't asking you to participate. It's showing you a vision, like watching a horror film unfold with no breaks. There's no breaks, there's no slowing down. So if you look at it, it's basically linear storytelling. Much of Hell Awaits is built like a narrative or film score. It has a beginning, it has a middle, it has an end.

37:41 It has rising tension, shifting sections instead of repeating refrains, escalation instead of resolution. These are literary and cinematic techniques applied musically. This is not how you build an anthem. This is how you build a store. For example, the title track starts with ritualistic chant, builds with layered rifts, and ends with complete submission to hell. Praise of death crescendos into nihilistic climax necrophiliac sends into grotesque narrative detail, ending in supernatural birth and damnation. These are thematic hooks, they're plot points. The music mirrors the lyrical content, the disorientation, the tempo shifts, the lack of repetition, all that serves the horror of storytelling, or the storytelling of horror gifts.

38:39 We could say if Slayer was trying to recruit people to Satanism, they'd make the music catchy, empowering, rhythmic, something you'd want to return to and repeat, instead of a music that keeps you off balance, that tells us that this isn't propaganda, this isn't this is fiction. This is a sonic descent and to darkness. So the music on this album, Teenagers is our first interpretive clue the album. If the album had catchy choruses and simplified riffs, you might argue it was written to imprint an idea onto the listener. But it is chaotic. It shifts, It shifts constantly. Its brutal structure tells us it was written to paint a world, to narrate, not to indoctrinate. Slayer didn't write Hellaways to get stuck in your head. That wrote it to pull you down into a world where all hope is gone and judgment is final. And that alone is a massive interpretive shift, one that most Christians, most of the Christian world, most of your parents, most pastors, everyone, nobody caught on, and then nineteen eighty five and no one is catching on. What if the pastor would have broken down the music of the album like that. You see, most adults can't even do that. Adults can't even come close.

40:01 You give them an album, it's just like it. That's a lot. That's a lot. There's no all right, don't even try to understand it. What if that would have happened, those kids would have walked if that would have been the end of the if the service and they would have all walked out. Can you imagine that they would have walked out understanding the album more? I mean just right there would have given them a The ability to discern, to understand, would have given them skills. So what if the pastor then would have said, okay, guys, well let's do this. Let's start with track one. Now, if there's only seven tracks on the album, right, the album is only like thirty five thirty seven minutes long. I want to take us through the narrative of going through every single track, right, But I think at that point, I'm gonna this, what if this is just going to turn into a lot of detail. But I'm gonna pick certain songs here go through them, just to give you a how this could be done, how it could have been done, and how it would have changed everything. And then we'll try to wrap this up more with the lessons I really want to get here, because this is all about how the church could and engage culture, but how versus how the church actually does. So what if the pastor after he held up the album and he explained that to all the kids, maybe he could have even asked questions, do you understand musically what it's doing? Do you understand how different than it is than anything else? This thing and just from a musical standpoint, it's somewhat revolutionary. It

41:33 has a completely different approach. But that approach tells you something's going on. Yeah, storytelling is going on here, and nobody seems to catch on. All right, back to our story, back to nineteen eighty five, small white church on the edge of a dusty Texas town. The kids are in the youth group. He's right all right, Track one. Everyone. The kids cannot believe this is happening. They can't believe they just got an entire lesson on the music musical structure of hell Awaits by Slayer. They're blown away. They cannot believe this is happening in church, and now they feel like they understand the album already better than anyone else.

42:17 But the pastor is like, all right, track one, he says, this is where most folks stop listening. Right here, This is going to be the end. That reverse chanting at the beginning. All it's saying is join us, played backwards, over and over and over and over again. Now leaving the narrative, I think yesterday I said it was only three or four times I had to go back and listen. It's over. It's at the beginning. It's already doing it. But all you hear is kind of this, all this noise and sound, and it's way low, and you think something's wrong with your stereo system. But slowly it's just this reverse chanting, and all it's saying is join us, Join us, Join us. Is it spooky yes? Is it scary? Yes?

43:00 If you at the first time you were listening to this in nineteen eighty five with a pair of headphones on at midnight, you may be going, what is happening? But it's just theatrical. It's like something out of a haunted house, like something at a horror movie trailer that may be used a you know, to preview a new movie coming out. It's designed to set a mood. It's not trying to convert you to Satanism. Then the music kicks in and it's relentless Musically, it's chaos, but it's deliberate chaos. These guys know what they're doing and lyrically, let's try to understand it, all right, because we got the aesthetic, we got the sound, which many people will be like evil. It's just creating an atmosphere for the story that it's going to tell that is somewhat horrible.

43:50 Now I can't. I'm not going to read all the lyrics because if I read all the lyrics, we'll be here for five years. All right, So let's start existing on Damnation's edge. The priest had never known to witness such a violent show of power overthrown. Now this isn't talking about a modern pastor teenagers. It's drawing a scene of cosmic battle. It's apocalyptic fiction, like revelation twisted through a horror lens. Angels are fighting, but they're aimless. The forces of hell are described as winning. Is that true theologically? No?

44:31 But remember This is not a theology text book. It's a story. It's dark, it's dystopian and intentionally shocking. Back to the lyrics the gates of Hell waiting, as you see, there's no price to pay. Just follow me. I can take your lost soul from the grave. Jesus knows your soul cannot be saved. Now, this is where your parents are going to get angry. This is where people are going to start yelling and screaming and burn. But let's be clear. The speaker in the verse, it's not the band. It's a character, likely Satan or one of his demons, speaking to a damned soul. It's a temptation speech, not a belief statement. Much like in literature when the villain taunts the hero. This is the evil boasting. You don't quote the serpent in Genesis and assume that's what God thinks.

45:27 If you only read these lyrics at face value, you miss the fact that the entire song is a guided tour of damnation. It's not inviting you to hell. It's showing you what awaits if you end up in hell. Just listen to the imagery. In the second verse, the reaper guards the darkened gates. The demons feed the furnace, each leading to the burning hole that Lucifer controls. This is terrifying on purpose. It's like the Inferno of Dante, dark fantasy, meant to disturb and provoke. Is it biblical? Not really? Is it evil not necessarily? Is it fiction? Grotesque, vivid night marish fiction. Then there comes a line that sounds like folk lore, pray to the moon when it is round death with you shall then abound. Now I'm reading this in kind of like a rhythmic way. They're not delivered in that way. They're delivered really fast, like pray to the moon when it is round the death with you shall then about. It's like it's very kind of really fast. If you listen to the album. Okay, but now that's straight up poetic horror. It's a cult sounding, but it's a fictional verse. Slayer isn't teaching theology, they're crafting atmosphere. Then listen to this. Now I have you deep inside my everlasting grasp. The flames of hades burn strong.

46:52 Your soul shall never rest. The message you're lost, there's no escape, there's no redemption, there is no rest. Is that satanic propaganda. No, it's despair. It's the natural consequence of damnation without grace. It's what the world looks like without a savior. It's what hell would be if Jesus had never come. And that's the irony teenagers. Christians reacted to this song with rage, but if they'd actually read it carefully, they might have seen something else, a fictional vision.

47:38 We go back to my notes here, let me go back here, because my notes kind of got messed up. And that's the irony. Teenagers. Christians reacted to this song with rage, but if they'd actually read it carefully, they might have seen something else, a fictional vision of what the world looks like if Satan wins and God is nowhere to be found. It is hopeless, it is terrifying, and it's the perfect opportunity for us to ask if this really, If is this really what awaits all of us?

48:21 Or is there something else? Is there someone else? Is there someone else who changes this hopeless, horrific ending as described by Slayer in the song hell Awaits? What if the pastor would have done that? What if he would have just done that. He's not using sensationalism, he's not using fearies like the song is just describing what basically it is, if there is no God, if there is no savior, if Jesus can't say I mean, the album seems to put the song seems to put forth the idea that Jesus can't save you because you're so condemned.

49:03 There's no hope and there's no And we say that's not true theologically, But what if there wasn't any God, there wasn't any savior. This is what would be. But what if it isn't that way? What if someone what if God did send his son to die for us, what if he did shed his blood. I am by putting our faith in him, we don't have to have this hopelessness and helplessness and this fear and dread. We can have hope and that what Christ has done for us. This is the perfect opportunity to use the song to talk about a different approach to how things could end. Not in a cheesy way, not in the like trying to be ooh, it's just in a realistic way. This song puts forth this idea. It's just putting forth an idea.

49:45 I don't need to be afraid of it. So that's that's hell awaits that's track one. Is it dark? Absolutely? Is it dangerous only if you don't know how to read it. Let's not be afraid of art just because it's Let's learn to ask better questions. But we need to move on to track two, Kill Again, all right? Track two Teenagers. This one is brutal and I'm not going to share sugarcoat it in any way, shape or form. Kill Again is written from the perspective of a serial killer, a man completely consumed by bloodlust, power, and hatred. The first verse opens like a slasher movie, lurking in the dismal fog, hungry for your blood. This is Slayer stepping fully into psychological horror. It's not a theological statement. It's not satanism. It's horror fiction from the viewpoint of a monster.

50:44 Like reading a diary written by Jack the Ripper. What we're what we're looking at here is the mind of madness. It's grotesque, it's disturbing, but nothing here is being celebrated. This is something Christian real need to understand. Writing in the first person doesn't mean endorsement. Slayer is showing us what evil thinks like, not what they believe. Back to the lyrics, no apparent motive, kill and kill again. My life's a constant battle, the rage of many men. This is an important line. The killer isn't portrayed as strong. He's broken, filled with rage, constantly at war. This is not empowerment, it's torment. Now the next verse is even more violent. Slice her flesh to shreds, watch the blood flow free. This is horrific. This is horrible, And that's the point. Slayer is pushing horror to the extreme, to shock you, to disturb. Look at any horror film or extreme horror novel. It's designed to confront depravity, not endorse it. Now, I want to make it very clear. When people hear that lyric, they're like, oh my goodness, that's horrible. I don't want my kids reading that. Well, I guess you don't want them reading the Bible. I don't know where you know. The men of this city take that woman and chop her into pieces and send her parts to the different tribes of Israel. In the Book of Judges, he said, Well, the Bible's not celebrating it. Neither was Slayer.

52:14 They were describing it. So the pastor could say something like this if this actually occurred. If you've ever read Judges chapter nineteen, you'll find something far more terrifying and heartbreaking and scripture. The Bible does not shy away from violence. It records, it reveals it, and condemns it. What Slayer's doing here is not unlike what the Bible does. It's exposing the evil of the human heart. The differences that Slayer offers no hope, they offer no redemption, they offer no grace. And that's why it matters that we're here to That's why we're here talking about it. That's why it matters. Let's talk about maybe the most disturbing line in the song, kill the preacher's only son, the infant die.

53:02 This isn't satanic doctrine. It's the killer's fantasy, targeting innocence, faith, and purity. It's meant to be vile. And here's what I want you to see. The character isn't exalted, he's not admired. He's a demented maniac, consumed by death with no purpose but destruction. This is not inspiration, though, it's that, it's condemnation through storytelling. If Christians had looked at the song honestly, they would have seen that. It's not recruiting people to evil. It's exposing how evil thinks. And it gives us a chance to say, what does scriptures say about violence, about the brokenness of man, about justice, about wrath and the desire for power? The Bible has lots to say about these things. Slayer's not going to give us any of those answers. It's just showing you the reality the evil. If we're honest, we'd admit that there are men like this in our world, men broken by rage and sin, and the Gospel doesn't pretend they're not real.

54:09 The difference is that the Gospel doesn't just show us evil, It shows us what came to ultimately defeat it, and that is the eternal Son of God, who came to die to ultimately defeat and destroy evil. Now, just imagine if a pastor would have done this. Just imagine what would have happened. So there's the song kill Again. It's horrifying, but it mirror, but it's a mirror into the mind of evil, and if we're brave enough to look into that mirror, we can ask better questions, not just about Slayer, but about the world we live in. What it looks like when God's truth is nowhere to be found? What is it like when everyone does what is right in their own eyes? Now, I could go to track three At Dawn they Sleep, This is basically just a vampire horror narrative. Nothing really, It's basically Dracula, all right. So we could take the song all apart. I'm not going to go all the way into it. I could, but for time's sake, we won't, all right, And again it's another violent song. Basically, if someone would have just read

55:41 this song, if Christians had read the lyrics without fear, they might have seen what it is. It's not a message of be like this. It's a portrait of what life without light looks like. Creatures who fear the dawn, addicted to death, forever thirsting and never satisfied. And again that's where we come in to offer a better story. Track three isn't inviting you into the darkness. It's showing you what the darkness does when it wins. And the best way to fight darkness is to understand it and then speak truth, to speak truth clearly to its face. So let's just look at track four briefly. This track is called praise of death, and no, Slayer isn't asking you to literally praise death. The song isn't about satan or demons. It's about something far more personal and far more relatable. It's about what it feels like to live in a world where nothing makes sense and death seems like the only certainty. This is Slayer's existential crisis. Look at verse one deceased in deceased in mind, decree of death, blackened heart, baptized in fire. Draw the line live for death, potent thrust, excessive pain. This is a voice of someone broken mentally, emotionally, maybe spirits. There's rage here, yes, violence here, yes, but also numbness, confusion, and exhaustion. The narrator isn't glorifying death, He's drowning in it. And when we hit the course

57:11 what Mayson would call a chorus, the real heart of the song comes out, stricken to live, hell on earth, shackled and bound, we lie praise of death. Life's a dream. We're only living to die. This is nihilism. This is plain and clear. This is not the voice of someone who's free. Is the voice of someone who sees life as pointless, mechanical, and inevitably tragic. There's no hope in these lyrics. But that's what makes this such a profound moment, not of evil, but of honesty, because sometimes this is how people feel, This is sometimes how you feel, this is sometimes how I feel. That's why we need to engage it, not run from it. Victim of life, insanity, lives, deep and shock intensive care, push too far overkill, time to die, no way to win. This verse is like a panic attack in poetry form. There's violence, yes, but more than that, there's mental collapse, rage, and futility. The narrator doesn't kill because it's fine. He kills because it's the only thing that makes him feel something. And that's not glorification, it's confession. From the edge of the abyss.

58:23 Then comes what may some would refer to as the bridge, running and runting, running and hunting and slashing, burning, destroying and killing and bleeding and pleading than death. This is an explosion, But what does it really sound like. It sounds like a world that's come completely unhinged when people destroy everything because they no longer believe anything matters. It's not satanic. It's absolute, complete hopelessness, and that is far more dangerous feeling than any devil costume at mock ten velocity, pressure builds, can't take the strain, fill the pull, life will expire, cardiac cease to exist, the body gives out, the heart stops, and the song and the life it describes ends and collapse. The track isn't about death being beautiful.

59:15 It's about death being all there is. It's a lament told through the lens of extreme music by people who are confronting the void without God. And that is why we're here, because we do have an answer. We do believe that life is more than survival, that suffering isn't pointless, that death is not the end. But we won't go. We won't get to say any of that if all we do is burn the album and walk away. If this song speaks to anything, it speaks to the heart of a generation that feels loss, a heart to a generation that feels completely alone, to a generation that feels exhausted. It speaks to a generation that feels angry, to a generation that feels like nobody is listening to them because they're too busy burning your music. That's that's how the pastor could have walked through it. Now, I can go through.

1:00:12 I got. I mean, we're we're already down to track five, but we're already at an hour, so I'm gonna have to wrap this up. The next song is Necrophiliac, which everyone loses their mind over and it Yeah, it is the most explicit, It is the most vile, It is the most like any If Christians were gonna condemn the album, Necrophiliac would have been this song to go after. Right. It is a disturbing story, but the Bible is filled with some very disturbing things as well. But it's not glorifying it in any way, shape or form. I'm not gonna sit here and like, I'm not even gonna pretend that the song makes everyone. Let's not pretend here. This is the song, if we're honest, that would make everyone walk out of the room. Right. And the song is Necrophiliac, And yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. The song describes, in graphic, horrific detail, a man who digs up a chord, violates it and ends up cast in to hell. All right, now, if this is if this was being celebrated, I wouldn't even be talking about it. But it isn't celebrated. It's condemnation wrapped in the most grotesque horror fiction Slayer had ever written up to that point. All right, now, I could go through the lyrics, some of the lyrics I could not even repeat because they're they're they're they're vile.

1:01:27 Let's just there's no playing around with it, all right, So what do we do with this? Well, we tell the truth. This is a story of a man overtaken by darkness, so corrupted by lust, hatred and violence that it becomes less than human and in the end he is judged. There's no redemption in this song because there's no grace in the world Slayer has created. And that's what makes this the perfect moment to ask what kind of world are we describing when we talk to people. Are we telling the truth about sin? Yes? But are we also telling them the truth about mercy? Slayer shows sin and all its horror, Christ grace and all its beauty. The church's mistake wasn't hating this song. It was not listening to it and realizing what an opening it could have been for the gospel. Hey, guys, this is a world without God. There's no hope, there's no redemption, there's no salvation. This is horrifying. This is a world where everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes.

1:02:21 That's why Judges is so brutal. At times, some Christians called that song a satanic anthem, but if we're honest, it's a moral warning. It's a grotesque, horrifying fable that ends an absolute judgment. And instead of panicking over it, we should have sat down with young people and said, do you see what happens when evil rules the heart? Do you see what happens when grace is nowhere to be found. The song doesn't glorify sin, it exposes it, and that's where our message begins. Now, we could go through the rest of the tracks, but we'll just skip all of that, well, skip the rest of the song of the songs, and we'll skip down here. All right, I'm gonna because I got all my notes here, and I got a lot here still to go through some of the songs here. So then imagine they've gone through all of it. The kids are looking around, they can't believe what just happened, and the pastor says, so that's the album. We didn't burn it, we didn't run from it.

1:03:35 We read it, and then reading it, we learned something. Slayer told the truth about death. Now it's our job to tell the truth about life. Now, let's be honest. What would have happened if a pastor did that. When the teaching ended, the kids probably didn't say much. They probably were kind of quiet because they didn't need to say anything, because if that would have actually happened, something significant would have happened in that little church in West Texas, something very rare, something very brave. No one needed to shout, No one had panicked, no one brought their lighter or a box of matches, because they simply sat and listened, thought analyzed, and for maybe the first time in those teenagers lives, someone treated them not like a potential victim of the devil, but like a disciple capable of discernment.

1:04:52 That night, a few things probably changed what it would have accomplished if this really had happened. Maybe it would have taught a group of teenagers how to read stories, even dark ones and disturbing ones. Maybe it would have told them you don't need to run from culture, you just need to understand it. Maybe it would have taught them how to look at fear and respond with truth. Maybe it would have shown them that their questions aren't dangerous, and that the Gospel doesn't fear the dark, and maybe just some of them would have stayed, stayed in church, stayed in the scriptures, stayed in pursuit of the God who doesn't panic, but who meets people right in the middle of the graveyard. But let's be honest, that would have been the end of that pastor. He would have been labeled a compromiser. He would have been accused of letting the devil into the church. He would have been accused of polluting young minds with films. Calls would have gone out if they were a part of a denomination.

1:06:05 Letters would have been written, Rumors would have spread. Who would have been forced to resign? The church may have even split. Other churches would have blacklisted him. If he had books, they would have been pulled from bookstores, because when fear rules the church, telling the truth is rebellion and discernment looks like betrayal. But you know what, I think a real pastor would have done it anyway, because that's what a shepherd does. They don't just protect the sheep from wolves. They teach them how to recognize the wolves when the disguise is convincing, and they show them how to follow the shepherd even when the valley is dark.

1:06:53 That night in West Texas wouldn't have gone down, and any church history books. There would have been no revival deadlines, no altar calls. But a group of young people would have walked out of a church building carrying something more powerful than fear. They would have carried truth, and in nineteen eighty five, that would have been the most radical thing of all. But the story would have ended with the pastor carrying the last box out of his study because he's been fired, carrying the box to his car, putting it in the trunk, and driving off, and the lights would have gotten turned off the church building because the people want to stay in darkness. They want to live in darkness. They don't want truth, they don't want discernment, they don't want facts, they don't want logic, they don't want rationality. They like fear, conspiracy, paranoia, half truths, misinformation, lies.

1:07:44 That's what the church always wants throughout two thousand years of church history. That's how it would have ended. Parents would have been furious, he would have been fired, so fast. It would have been seen as an act of full blown Satanic rebellion. How dare he even if someone would have just saw him walk into the building carrying the album. I'll never forget when I was teaching the singles at my church, not my church, at a church and Bellevue, Nebraska, one of the singles brought in a Metallica album. Wanted me to look at the lyrics, wanted me to see what I thought, and he brought in the album and I just remember, like, dude, don't let anybody see. If someone sees the album, we're dead. You can't. Nobody can see Metallica in this room. Do you understand what you're doing?

1:08:48 You're bringing in Satan? Okay I didn't say it, but I'm like, that's how everyone would have reacted. I'm like, Hi, hide it, okay, man. We can talk about this later, Okay, not in the parking lot, man, at midnight. We can't be seen with this now. Just for historical context, this is how I interpreted the album in nineteen eighty five. This is pulling from my interpretation. I always thought that the first track, hell Awaits set the tone. It's the destination.

1:09:28 It declares hell is real. Judgment is final, and there's no salvation. The narrator speaks with certainty, Jesus knows your soul cannot be saved. This is Slayer's fictional world, and that world, redemption does not exist. The opening track and my estimation, I would have our and I did state and argued with people, it's the thesis track. It's the thesis. Hell is the only outcome, and I believe the rest of the album is simply a tour of the damned. That's how I always interpreted the album as a teenager. Track two, Kill Again. It's a portrait of a serial killer driven by obsession and rage. He lives in darkness.

1:10:11 He destroys indiscriminately. Hell awaits him as a natural result of his soul's corruption. Hell awaits who's gonna be in this hell? That awaits well, the guy who kills and kills and kills again, the serial killer. Number track three at Dawn, They sleep, vampires, cursed, bloodthirsty, hiding from light. They are symbolic of spiritual slavery and addiction to sin. They're undead, but they're undead but not truly alive. Hell awaits them too. Creatures ruled by darkness. So serial killers, vampires. I think the vampires are somewhat symbolic, but okay, vampires and attract four Praise of Death nihilistic. This is despairing those who see no point to life. The track is the voice of a person crushed by meaningless Hell awaits not just the murderer, but the hopeless in this world where there is no grace. In some ways, I kind of always I always kind of looked at track four the way I interpreted as a teenager, Well, we're all gonna go to hell because there's no point in living.

1:11:07 Life is horrible and meaningless, there is no hope. Just everyone just give up. That's kind of basically how I interpreted it. And then even more nihilistic way Track five Necrophiliac. Well, this is the most grotesque perversion moral, physical, and spiritual. He's not just broken, he becomes a literal monster. His end is eternal damnation. Slayer leaves no ambiguity. Hell awaits the most depraved, So Hell awaits his track one, it's just everyone, It's just now. Every song is about who who. Hell awaits Track six Crips of Death. This is the sorcerer, the one who actively conjures evil, raises demons, curses priest a mythic level antagonist. He unleashes death and disease and is consumed by it. Hell awaits him and his kingdom turns to ash and then track seven hardering, the hardening of the arteries. Now the world itself is in decay.

1:12:03 All of humanity is infected by fear, hate, and spiritual rot. This is the collective damnation of all of mankind and a godless reality. It is the final vision. Hell doesn't just wait a few It awaits all of us. That's how I interpret it. In fact, I think I even had a notebook that at the end, because a lot of times I'll listen to an album and I will go through the songs. I put at the end in my notebook was Hell awaits all of us the end. That was my interpretation of the album. And I think there's a lot of truth to my interpretation. So I asked artificial intelligence. I'm like, hey, it was my interpretation as a teenager, somewhat accurate, and it says your interpretation makes thematic sense. Track one, Hell is waiting. Track two through seven, Here's who Hell is waiting for. The reading frames Hell awaits not as a collection of random shock songs, but as a dark concept album, a unified narrative of spiritual doom in a world without grace and the irony.

1:13:01 By showing us a world without redemption, Slayer indirectly highlights the very thing Christians offer. Christianity offers a different ending, And there we go. That was my interpretation. Now, what do we get from all of this is that Christianity never does this. This is just a fictional story of what if would have happened on the edge of a dusty Texas town on a Wednesday night with a pastor walking and going kids. Everyone in the world is panicking about this right now. Everyone is scared. There's gonna be churches in this area burning this album and probably you know, by Saturday, there's gonna be a rock seminar on Friday that everyone's losing their minds s. Everyone calmed down. I'm not gonna treat you like you're stupid. I'm gonna treat you like you're a young adult, and I'm gonna teach you how to discern it. So let's try to discern this album. I'm not seeing the album is good I'm not seeing the album is bad. I'm seeing the album tell stories. And these stories are brutal, they're violent, they're controversial, they're grotesque, they're explicit. At least a necrophiliac is all right, it's very explicit. But so I'm not saying you should listen to it. I'm not saying you shouldn't listen to it.

1:14:27 I'm saying you should understand it how it impacts you. I cannot speak of that. That's how you engage culture, but the church never wants to do that. It always acts in fear and panic, comparanoia. Now it's the anniversary of the album forty years. Can you believe that forty I believe it's forty years forty years. My math is horrible. Not for me. It was probably around I don't know what time in the day I bought the album, but it was somewhere during the day, and then it was that night I put on the headphones. I'll never forget when I hit play. When I put the needle on the LP, I was like, something is wrong with my stereo because it's like there's a reverse chanty. It's all low and it's all the I'm like, what has happened, And all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, I'm not in Kansas anymore, I'm not in Buffalo Gap, Texas anymore.

1:15:30 Where where did I just end up? What is happening? And all I knew was people are not going to be happy about what Now? Was it the most controversial album? Was it the one that got all the attempt I'm not going to say I got all the attention. There was lots of albums people were yelling and screaming about in the eighties. They were burning and condemning everything from Iron Maiden to Judas Priest Prince Michael Jackson. Everything was satanic, just like everyone was doing with the Illuminati. Beyonce, Oh this singer, look at that. Look what they did on the Illuminati. The Illuminati. It's always the same thing. The Church never learns, and we look foolish, we look stupid, we look fearful, we look like we're we panic at everything instead of being rational, going guys, can we just talk about it? And isin't it crazy that all this stuff we're fearful of and panicful and we're all scared of And then just two years later it's like everyone just already just moves on like Harry Potter was going to destroy the entire world and all of our kids were gonna be witches. Next thing, you know, the author of Harry Potter is now the hero of those same conservative Christians who wanted her burned at the stake for being a witch. Now she's like, she's against transgenderism. We're all for her. Yay. Well wait, wait, she's the witch who was trying to turn your kid into a witch.

1:16:50 What happened? Because you know what you're getting played, You're getting manipulated. If you take a group of Christian leaders who can use the panic and guess what they almost always do. They make money, They hold conferences, they charge money, they sell books, they sell materials, they get paid, they get rich. You get filled with fear and panic, you make irrational decisions and sometimes looking like a fool, They move on to the next thing. And all you did was look like a full and lost fifty dollars, one hundred dollars, two hundred dollars, three hundred dollars, four hundred dollars because you were spending. Because you've got to get all of this information to protect yourself from the new thing that's about to destroy you. They get paid, You get plaid the end. Thanks for listening this fictional journey to nineteen eighty five and what if the church would have actually engaged it. They could have broken that stuff down and it would have been much better. Thanks for listing.

1:17:57 God bless ye