Hi all, just wanted to give you a heads up that we re-released this episode because our previous version had two errors.
Melissa Hogan was under a gag order due to her divorce case, not an NDA or a cease and desist.
And those are legal terms, so it's important to get those right.
There also was only ever one theoretical Dave Ramsey cruise, which was cancelled due to COVID.
So sadly, there are no past participants to tell us what that would have been like.
We do try our best to research and fact check these episodes, but we're human, so if you hear something wrong or if you want to say hi, please reach out.
And with those teasers of what's to come, here's part two of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.
Would you lead us in prayer, Mary? Oh my gosh. No, I will not. Maybe that's something we can offer future Patreon.
Yeah, it's true. If you like pay us enough on Patreon, I'll pray for you. Oh gosh, no. Okay, never mind. I should get back.
This is my Ananias and Sivira grind. Actually, literally.
I remember the day that I went into my local Christian bookstore and there was my book. You are not God. You are just a man.
The Total Money Makeover book is just sold almost. No, because it's out of reading books.
This is Bad Christian Books.
Welcome to Bad Christian Books, a podcast about the worst bestsellers evangelicalism has to offer. I'm Mary Hall. I am a person of faith and I chose to remain in the church.
I am Sam MacCulliato. I am also a person of faith and I will never go to church again.
We're talking about Dave Ramsey. Samuel, this is part two. What do you remember from last time in our conversation about Dave's Total Money Makeover?
I remember that he was very confident that his rules were always going to work no matter what the economic situation of the current time, you know, whether it's a recession or whether it's inflation, whether it's the year 2023 after an unprecedented global pandemic.
He was like, this is going to work. That's the main thing I figured I'd bring up because I what I actually remember and it's the only thing I've been thinking about is the security gland.
Oh, that apparently women have on their faces. Yes, the the gland that tells the men in our lives that they are spending too much on their cars and not enough on household goods like mops for us to clean the floor with.
Do I sound too salty there? One time I got called a housemaker when applying for a car loan and I just, you know, I struggle with that.
I mean, I think you have every right to be salty about that. So yes, you were correct. I mean, basically your summary is was great about Dave.
And I had actually pulled one that was almost word for word. It was from this like Pacific Standard profile, which RIP Pacific Standard don't exist anymore, but they were a great mag.
But they describe they summarize his like tactics as one purge yourself of debt to live on cash, three pretend that economic trends don't affect you and for blame yourself when they do.
Wow, that's a really good summary. And this is a mild rant that I have where there is this weird thing where we have to ignore the news up until it absolutely affects us.
And when that happens, it cannot be the fault of circumstance. It has to be your fault in trying to have control over the situation.
It's actually far more disempowering because you're not worth playing with the full deck.
I mean, do you want to just take over the rest of this episode? We're going to dig a lot into the news.
This is basically just going to be like a catch up on what Dave has been up to since about 2020.
Episode one is like talking about a deep dive into like his money philosophy, right, which has kept the church from like engaging authentically and like really tough economic, racial class, immigration, really difficult topics, right?
If you want to dig deeper into that, listen to episode one. This one, though, is going to be about what it means like for us to have a Christian celebrity.
Oh, boy. And I'm not being sarcastic here. This is one of my favorite topics.
Yeah. And I thought like Dave Ramsey was a really good one to dig into this with because like being financial generally, it's a little bit more intellectual.
And I think it's a little bit easier to like engage with like how is he as a Christian celebrity like affected like the entire church?
Because I think there's no doubt that if you said who is the financial Christian, 98% of people, whether they've read him or not, would say Dave Ramsey, right?
Totally.
So like first is like what happens when we like equate a self help guru with like this is God's way of doing acts.
And even if his way works, like is the worldview that he is presenting a Christian one?
Like is this actually like what the church says it believes that it's like best? Is this like the moral ethical view that we're supposed to like have?
Yeah. Is it a worldview that's sustainable? What might be another question? Because I find a lot of these amoral worldviews are in fact unsustainable.
You know, you take something like capitalism, which is if you just use capitalism as a pejorative, I think people have fatigue to that.
But specifically, this concept of constant growth capitalism, which is one reason why the price of goods is going up and the wages are of actual workers are going down.
That is unsustainable. We are in this weird sort of really dumb era of monetary climate change where we're just literally watching money lose its value because people can't hammer out this idea of constant growth from their minds.
It's an evil point of view, but it's also unsustainable.
Hmm. And now you've just turned off the rest of the listeners.
Because I said climate change.
Oh, I was gonna say because you said capitalism.
Oh, I mean, well, that's why I kind of made the comment of like, I understand that there's fatigue to using capitalism pejoratively.
I actually do understand because I think people can be lazy about that where they'll just be like, ah, it's capitalism.
Then it's like almost like another learned helplessness where it's like, well, there's nothing I can do about it because capitalism.
I actually like completely agree with you.
And that's why I think something that is cool that this podcast can like maybe start to address and I think like the freedom that is faith at its best.
It's a little bit outside of systems.
Mathematician Kurt Godel proved empirically that all systems, no system can prove itself.
Therefore, all systems are inherently flawed.
Yeah. So, you know, real, real fun, sexy podcast.
We talk about God and we talk about math.
I have issues with everyone. I'm a journalist and I'm cynical.
I don't own the term cynical, but I have all of the trappings of a cynical person.
I'm just also a hopeless romantic at heart.
I was about to say I actually like had a thought where I was like, you know, Samuel, I think maybe this is the basis of our friendship.
Is I think we're both optimists who are deeply cynical.
Yes, I would describe myself as a cynical optimist because I love people.
And I actually think people have all the tools they need.
I'm going to sound like Dave Ramsey here.
I believe that people collectively have the tools they need to create a kinder, gentler world.
I also think there is an overwhelming number of reasons why we don't.
So we're going to start with like, what is gazelle intensity?
And like, I think it will lead into kind of some of the themes of today's show.
He says this phrase in the book 43 times.
I know because I found a bootlegged version of his book online and I did a fine search.
And so I wanted you to read this excerpt about where Dave explains what gazelle intensity is and why we need to have it.
It's the new international Dave Ramsey version.
So Proverbs 6, 1 and 5 say, If you have signed surety, my son, surety is Bible talk for debt,
deliver yourself like the bird from the hand of the fowler and the gazelle from the hand of the hunter.
I remember reading that Bible verse and thinking what a cute little animal metaphor it was for getting out of debt.
Then one day later, that week, I was surfing channels and hit the Discovery Channel.
I noticed they were filming gazelles.
The next camera shot was of Mr. Cheetah sneaking up in the bushes, looking for lunch in all the right places.
Suddenly, one of the gazelles got a whiff of Mr. Cheetah and became very aware of his plan.
Realizing he had been discovered, Mr. Cheetah decided to give it his best shot and leaped from the bushes.
The gazelles all yelled, Cheetah!
Well, not really.
They did run like crazy in 14 different directions.
The Discovery Channel that day reminded viewers that the cheetah is the fastest mammal on dry land.
He can go from 0 to 45 miles per hour in four laps.
When I read this, I instantly had the image of the Cheeto man, like with the glasses being like gazelles and then like eating a cheeto.
Yes, yes.
Scientific conclusion, they take a beating, you keep on eating.
Oh yeah, gazelles.
Can I say dangerously cheesy? Is that copyrighted?
I don't know, I have no idea.
The show also proved that because the gazelle will outmaneuver the cheetah instead of outrunning him, the cheetah will tire quickly.
As a matter of fact, the cheetah only gets his gazelle burger for lunch in one out of 19 chases.
The gazelle's primary hunter is the fastest mammal on dry ground, yet the gazelle wins almost every time.
Likewise, the way out of debt is to outmaneuver the enemy and run for your life.
Around our office, the counselors can predict who will make it out of debt based on how gazelle intense they are.
If they are looking at a red line on the refrigerator door and yelling, they have a really good shot.
However, if they are looking for a get rich quick scheme or some intellectual theory instead of sacrifice, hard work, and total focus,
we give them a really low gazelle rating and a low probability of becoming debt free.
If I was talking to a financial planner and he gave me a gazelle rating, I would just stand up and walk away.
I'd be like, excuse me? What does that have to do with anything?
This metaphor makes no sense.
No.
Because it's all about how focused gazelles are, but the cheetah is the one that's focused, and the gazelles just run in every area,
so gazelles are chaotic and cheetahs are focused.
He's basically saying there is a one in 20 chance that no matter what you do, you're screwed.
The cheetah is going to eat eventually.
And the other thing is the gazelles make it out alive because they work together against the cheetah.
So there's a little piece I want to read to you that's like a couple paragraphs after this,
and he writes, total sold out focused intensity is possibly the most important.
This means saying to yourself and meaning it to the exclusion of virtually everything else I'm getting out of debt.
The definition of a cult is a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object,
or a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
Now, if you look at that in the Christian circles, a cult is typically like a denomination that is not recognized by the general church.
How do either of those things differ from how Ramsey is describing our mindset, how it should be?
Well, I like your reaction, Samuel, because it actually is a perfect segue to the next part I wanted to talk about,
which I have the subhead I put on it was strange and quote cult like culture in Dave Ramsey's company.
Dave sold his company as a for profit company for Jesus.
And I would like to explore what people have said about what that looks like in real life.
Jesus loves a prophet. Yeah, actually now. No prophet is accepted in their hometown.
Wow, that was so much dad energy. I can't believe I don't have a child.
Honestly, it's because of my gazelle intensity. I'm just I don't think I'm ready.
Okay, so I'm going to talk a little bit about sources just because like a lot of this is like allegations.
A lot of these are playing out in like court cases and legal cases that like are still to be pending.
I largely am quoting from several investigations done by the Religion News Service, which is like a smaller outlet.
But they do like pretty in depth investigations.
I also like contacted several of the key players in the story, several of who have like their own podcasts.
There is an entire world of like Christian financial influencers who follow Dave Ramsey.
They were really kind to me to share what they knew.
So anyway, price of avocado toast, which is like more of a financial millennial podcast.
And then the second one is called the Untangled Faith podcast.
The woman behind that is a key player in this story.
And I will just say that the Ramsey Solutions and or Dave Ramsey has denied all allegations of impropriety, being illegal,
and or answers journalists requests with sarcasm.
So that was their stance. But I am basically reporting what other people have said who were there.
I'm going to kind of take you through like a timeline of how some of the problematic aspects of the Ramsey Solutions,
like culture came out. I think like to start off, Dave really sold this company as a for profit for Jesus.
And I think a lot of Christians, especially like millennials who wanted like the hope that they still could be financially stable,
even after the stuff that has happened in our lifetime, they really wanted to like be a part of this community.
And it does seem from people who joined that like it really was this aspirational space when new employees would come like and move
to Nashville, where his headquarters are like other employees would like show up to help them like unpack their new house.
There was a women's group for wives of employees who like would take the new wife out to lunch and help them figure out
what church to go to. And there was like a Facebook group like it really seemed like, you know, a Christian version of like Google or Facebook,
where they're like, this is your life. It's not just your workplace. It's your community. It's fun.
I mean, people described it as like, I got to go to work at Disneyland every day.
Like, yeah, I mean, essentially, you're at work even when you're socialized.
The rise of Ramsey Solutions as this like full, you know, like mega Kingelomoran empire like was at the same time Google was rising from like 2011
through probably like 2019, 18, somewhere in there, he built his like mega headquarters.
It was very much community plus work. But at the same time, there were red flags, you know, in their training, there were these like values that they were taught
because like the company had a Christian value morality aspect that like you had to agree to.
And so companies were taught and trained to have a self employed mentality, that is a quote, that they were told to work as unto the Lord,
which that's a quote from the Bible. For me, that's a red flag and probably other people like looking back, you're not working to the Lord.
You're working for Dave Ramsey. Right. And that's like not necessarily bad. But like you should be clear that this is not the Lord, right?
Other employees have talked about how every employee who was there had to have this like, they called them like Dave stories of how like Dave Ramsey had changed your life.
One employee was quoted in an article saying it was like asking, how did you meet Jesus?
So there really was this sense of like Dave is the savior of Christian finances. This is the part that I was just like, what is happening?
I'm just picturing people being like, yeah, we saw Dave on the road. At first, we didn't recognize him.
Then he began to ask us questions about our personal finance. And we said, Dave, is that you? And he looked at us and said, I am he. And then he screamed at us.
If you're if you're compared to like a radio show, that actually might be a very legitimate Dave story.
But I mean, OK, so but it didn't just stop with the employees to get a job at Ramsey Solutions.
You had to go through multiple interviews and I'm not talking like three or four. I'm talking about like interviews.
You had to like fly if you were out of Tennessee and your spouse was also interviewed.
There's already been so many red flags, but that is the crimsonist flag.
Spouses were interviewed to decide if the spouse was a culture fit.
And all of this like interview employee process comes from Dave's book called Entrez Leadership, which I like was like, I have so much to dig into.
I'm not going to get there, but maybe we will one day. That is like his view of how companies should be run.
His website where he talks about how he does the interview process says when hiring someone, you are employing more than just the person you're taking on the whole family.
And when they are married to someone who is domineering, unstable or simply full of drama, you'll end up with a team member who can't be creative, productive or excellent.
This is so invasive. Dave essentially determines who you marry.
He talked a lot about how often these were the wives. These were wives of employees.
And there was a whole like wife welcoming committee. They had their own Facebook group. Like it was very much targeted to women.
There are lots of incidents where Dave Ramsey talks about women and very like infantilizing terms.
Like he'll call them like girl or crazy. And what I hear about this is if your wife is not willing to like be in line, aka has an opinion and you can't control her, then you're not a fit.
Maybe that's me reading in from my trauma, but that's what I read.
I don't think you're reading into it at all. Literally the whole like security gland thing while silly.
It's pointed squarely at women. I mean, it uses the same language that like, you know, I think I mentioned this in the last podcast.
It uses the same language as the concept of hysteria.
And it leads into the next aspect that was really shocking to me, which is the quote unquote gossip policy that exists at Dave Ramsey.
They define gossip as you cannot talk about anything negative with anyone who can't solve the problem.
Which I'd like you to think about that. That's not the definition of gossip.
No. Also, I'm wondering how do they define who can solve the problem?
Because I think of all the managers I've had, they haven't always said it directly to me, but I've witnessed them say, oh, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions.
And then what happens is you just create a culture of yes, man.
And I think, I mean, that's essentially what quite a few employees across the spectrum have said happen.
It created this culture where like employees can even talk to their spouses about frustrations at work.
You know what this reminds me so much of is Scientology. Even the clip of Dave Ramsey and a surrogate talking, it's got that flavor.
Well, yeah. And I mean, one of the one of the women who who came out about this, like she did the spouse interview and they asked her like, what would you do if your husband came home and like was complaining about his boss or complain about whatever.
And she said that she felt like she had to say, I would tell my husband, go talk to your leader.
And I believed that was the right thing to do.
I have spent much of my career in the workforce kind of helping organize like the whisper network, especially among young women of like what's going on.
And I know from for like not just one firsthand experience, but like 30 firsthand experiences that abusive practices continue because the people who quote unquote can't solve the problem don't know that what's happening to them is happening to everyone.
And it doesn't get solved until all of them talk and are like, oh, all the women at this place are being bullied into taking like the lowest possible salary that like we can legally pay them.
That may sound like a real example and it is. And this has just happened over and over in Dave Ramsey.
They definitely define like anyone who can solve it as being the manager who can change the policy.
But Mary, this is exactly the reason I wanted to do this podcast. This is why I write books like Koi pond. This issue goes far beyond even the evangelical community.
I think the biggest safeguard that people in power have is limiting the average person's ability to say things are not okay.
So I want to have discussions like this to pop those corks and say, it is okay to say that this is wrong.
Right. Yeah. And I've just been in way too many situations over and over that me because like I'm a loud mouth and unafraid of authority, even though I probably should be.
Nah. But no, because I'm a loud mouth who just like tells people what I make and then I ask people what they make.
And then I'm like, oh, so like all of the women at this company are making the minimum and all the men are making twenty thousand dollars more.
I mean, that's a problem. Right. And like, let's talk about it.
It kind of shows this massive ocean of wage theft and how much power employers have in general and how Dave Ramsey is essentially riding that tide.
He's not doing anything new. He's just streamlining it.
Right. Which like his whole message is you have the power to change your wealth and he bases that on the fact that he changed his wealth, except he didn't.
Oh, he became a media personality. He did not save his way to wealth.
But at the same time, he is forcing this mentality on employees and then not letting them speak up.
So the other thing that is just like totally bonkers to me, Dave Ramsey, as a part of the company culture, they would have these like all staff meetings where Dave, it sounds like basically they would call them like devotionals.
It's very strange. But Dave Ramsey would just get up and like rant.
And there are multiple audios of like these things on the Internet if you like really want to listen.
It reminds me of substitute teachers at my private Christian high school who would come in and just start ranting like about how we were an entitled and enabled generation.
And it's like, hey, I think you were supposed to talk about graphing today. But cool. Thanks.
Obviously, we had very different substitutes.
Yeah, let's just say you were missing out in Ecuador.
Okay, so there was this thing that was called like they called it like Twitter gate, which is just like such a name for something that like no one cares about unless you're in this community.
We also need to retire adding gate to every scandal.
Yeah, it's over. It's over. Stop making it happen.
Gate is over. It no longer is. It was. Do you know that quotes? Do you know that?
I don't. I was trying to go mean girls with it, but you were going a different direction.
Someone knows. They'll email us. It'll be great.
So anyway, so there was this like scandal where I guess someone was like tweeting at Dave Ramsey, just talking about some of the like culture issues.
Dave Ramsey and two separate all staff meetings. One, he offered bounties.
What?
Like money during a staff meeting for employees who could identify who was tweeting.
And like it wasn't even like necessarily like an employee.
Like it didn't matter. Anyone in this community who's tweeting, if you know, you'll get money.
A different staff meeting. He pulled out a gun.
Dave has a very like I'm a hillbilly who like, you know, follows my grandma and God.
It's not OK to pull out a gun at work no matter what, unless you work at a gun range.
What are you doing now? And this might be this looks like this might be new in 2022.
I'm not I haven't I'm literally digging it up as we speak, but I'm seeing that in Tennessee, it is the very least criminal to cyber bully or harass someone online and doxxing, which is what Dave Ramsey is putting out a bounty for is just that.
Right. And I mean, there have been things where people have talked about how, you know, gossip.
People would say like, you know, stuff that where it sounded like people weren't actually gossiping.
They were coming together and saying, you know, I'm really concerned about X, Y and Z.
And then someone else like their coworker or a different person would like take it up the ladder and then Dave would call them into their office.
And sometimes these were even people who had no association with Ramsey Solutions at all.
But he's like a huge employer in this area who has a ton of power, but really kind of the chinks in the armor began to happen during COVID.
In these like staff meetings and on the air, the thing with Dave Ramsey is he says it publicly.
Like, I mean, he is who he is.
He's like telling you who he is.
But he he began to rant against the media against COVID as a real disease.
I guess Dave Ramsey does like cruises frequently where like you can go on the Dave Ramsey cruise, which why you would want to do that.
I don't know.
But people do.
And so it's specifically I'm sorry.
He does the Dave Ramsey cruise.
Where do they go?
Hilton head.
That's a good question.
If you've ever been on the Dave Ramsey cruise, please email us and tell us what it was like.
Please, please hit us up and tell us like how many cases of stomach flu were on that.
Anyway.
OK, so this is what he said publicly about people who were like calling and being like, hey, like, are you canceling events?
Are you like changing them based on COVID?
Which like early 2020, this was like a thing.
He said, you would think that the black plague was coming through the U.S.
Listening to people whine.
You guys have lost your mind out there.
We have people calling in.
They're wanting to cancel stuff for a live event in May.
Let me tell you how much of your money I'm going to give you back if you don't come for the coronavirus in May.
Zero.
I am keeping your money.
You are a wuss.
Oh, did baby's bottom line get hurt?
It's just like, what are you talking about?
Yeah, dude, he's he's down.
He's down bad.
And I think that thing that's like most offensive to me and that because like I get like I live in Chicago.
I actually was like a breaking news producer who like part of my job in those early days was like tallying death tolls like for and sickness tolls for coronavirus like every day.
My day would end updating the death toll.
And that was like very challenging.
And at the same time, like I had family and like more rural or kind of like, you know, like these areas of the Midwest and other areas where like it wasn't taken as seriously.
I get that.
But I think like the mean spiritedness of that, because it's not like people are like, we're canceling.
Give us all our money.
Like they're saying like, what are you doing?
Right. There's a call to accountability that he is responding to with snarkiness.
I mean, that's why I made my snarky response, because it's just like he's not acting like an adult.
He's not acting like someone who is literally my parents age.
He is acting like a child.
Right.
Well, and like just the end.
You are a wuss.
That is a personal attack, which like I think actually if you listen or really read what he says, I think if you listen to him, he's such a good communicator that like you're kind of like, oh, this is a percent.
But if you read it, it's actually like a very personal attack.
Like it's all based on personal attack.
At best, it is a bullying tactic because you don't actually want to like answer people.
Right.
And it's also not it doesn't hold any water in any court of law.
Oh, and it's and I mean, it's against your honor.
My client was being a bit of a wuss.
Yeah.
Like I say, like Dave Ramsey has always said what he means, like his entire personality, method, business, persona.
It's based on this.
I know my way is the right way.
Anyone else who thinks differently, you're wrong.
When you hit something that was COVID that became so politicized, like from the very first weeks, you have this kind of response.
He's still very smart about knowing his audience because I am not his audience.
So I hear that and I'm like, this man's a child.
But his target audience hears that and there's this sense of it's so funny that he labels them as gazelles.
He's calling them clowns.
He's like, I am the predator.
You are the prey.
Do you feel scared yet, little boy?
Dave Ramsey had his like staff, his radio show and all these programs.
But he like that company also relies on people who aren't really like compensated as employees, but they're like teaching this method.
This is the point where a lot of his like we're saying with the price of avocado toast podcast,
the couple in there talks about how his response during COVID was the beginning of them being like, huh, maybe this doesn't align with like what we believe as a couple.
Kind of after like all of these rants, Dave Ramsey did like take all of their workers work from home for a bit, but brought them back pretty quickly.
Around the same time, someone filed an anonymous OSHA complaint.
They're the agency that like enforces that you're not employing children, you know, like that kind of thing.
They're all safety and complaints, but someone filed a complaint with them about Dave Ramsey.
And again, very publicly in one of these like public meetings, Dave went on another of his rants and he said,
So whoever you are, you moron, you did absolutely no good except piss me off. You are not welcome here if you are willing to do stuff like that.
If you are really scared and you really think that leadership is trying to kill you, we really don't want you here.
And then he said if he found out the person's identity, he said, I will fire you instantaneously for your lack of loyalty, your lack of class,
and the fact that you are a moron and you snuck through our hiring process.
Hmm. I'm also Googling is Tennessee an at-will state?
Yes, it is. Okay.
Which another thing that like no one needs to go into, but I have a little bit of experience working in at-will states and
As do I, as a Californian.
Yes, it is. It can be challenging and like employers can fire you for almost literally anything.
I am also seeing though that what qualifies as wrongful termination in Tennessee is an employer may not discriminate against any employee on the basis of the employees, race, sex, age, religion, color, national origin, or disability.
It doesn't explicitly fall under that, but I did see on at least his Wikipedia page that he there was a firing that does fall under that.
In July of 2020, which was just this month of chaos, a woman at Dave Ramsey was fired for having premarital sex.
What? How can you prove that?
Well, okay. So I'm so glad you asked, Samuel.
How you can prove that is that she filed for pregnancy leave under the FMLA Act, which is Family Medical Leave Act.
It protects you from basically if you have an illness, if you have a chronic condition, if you're pregnant, you cannot be fired.
Your company has to at least give you unpaid time off for that.
And because she was not married and filed for that, she was fired because it was against company policy to have sex outside of marriage.
I assume that there are legal grounds for that policy because the policy exists. However, how on earth is that legally tenable?
Well, um.
Or is it a forgiveness or permission sort of a thing?
I mean, it's very dubious legal grounds that he can sue someone for being pregnant even if it doesn't fit an employee code of conduct because the Civil Rights Act says that secular employers, even especially large ones, which Ramsey Solutions falls into,
you even if it's run by a Christian organization or religious person, it cannot discriminate on the basis of pregnancy.
I mean, that's kind of like standard like case law.
However, in Dave fashion, he wrote on his blog about this case.
He said, I've got a right to tell my employees whatever I want to tell them.
They freaking work for me.
That's not true. I mean, you're right. It's not true. But it's what he wrote.
I mean, this is the thing that he says what he is like. I mean, and he's been saying it for years.
And I think that is his that is assuredly why he's so popular.
This is kind of the second little bout of legal trouble that Ramsey got into. The Religion News Service released their first kind of big investigation in January of 2021.
And it was called as Dave Ramsey's empire, the quote, best place to work in America. Say no and you're out.
That's a reference to the fact that the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Well, I mean, that's like it's based off of this thing that like forever Ramsey would say like we are the best place to work in America.
And I guess there was some survey. But like, I mean, maybe at some point they actually like won it.
But towards the end, several said like they felt coerced into like rating Ramsey Solutions was very high on this like scale.
I feel like the right often talks about the war on the Second Amendment that's happening in this country.
Whether or not you believe that that's actually what's happening or that the Second Amendment in this day and age can do anything to protect citizenry from an Abrams tank.
There is a definite war on the First Amendment from the private sector.
You know, it's not about right or left. It's about the private sector. Your employer does not want you to have free speech.
No, I mean, there's always the phrase, right? HR is for the company, not for you.
100%. That's that's definitely true. But I mean, this is just so egregious, right?
Like, there's a lot of HR people out there who I know that do try to do good if they can't do great. This is just so egregious.
Hashtag not all HR people. One of my best friends is in HR, so I have to give her love.
Basically, in that article, in addition to quite a few other things that we some of the stuff we've already talked about,
there's a series of allegations that came to light about one of Dave Ramsey's big personalities, Chris Hogan.
We kind of talked about this last time, but in addition to Dave and his whole thing,
he has a bunch of personalities that have done his methods and some of them wrote a book or did whatever.
And so they also have their own shows or they have their own YouTube channels or whatever. Chris Hogan was one of his really big ones.
I think the the time frame for this was like 2019 ish. Ramsey Solutions found out that Chris Hogan had had multiple affairs,
which, as we will note, sex outside of marriage is a key thing that can get you fired.
Right, Mary, but you have to understand boys will be boys. OK, and the person who got fired was not a boy and therefore should have known better.
You just summed up all of my thoughts. So anyway, right before this came to the attention of Ramsey Solutions,
just weeks before Chris Hogan was about to go out on a huge speaking to Ram book launch,
it came to the attention, meaning his wife brought it to Dave specifically and others in leadership.
Oh, she brought it to people who could have a solution to the problem. She did it the right way.
I'm sure she'll be rewarded for that. And she says during this period, she knew that the adultery policy was in place.
She was still in the like, we're working on our marriage. Like, I don't want this to be like, you know, I still believe in Dave Ramsey.
Like, whatever. As will likely surprise no one, Melissa was bullied into being quiet.
Chris Hogan went on his tour right after he came back. Dave in the staff meetings.
I just don't understand why he keeps putting all his cards out.
Ramsey said that Hogan in one of these staff meetings was being taken off the tour to rest.
Quote, nothing earth shattering or evil, nothing like that. But you're going to kill a thoroughbred.
He is a good man, but you aren't going to see him for the month of February.
He's going to one of our sea org camps. Oh my goodness.
And I mean, yeah, this is in a company meeting where basically, you know, his wife came to Dave,
but, you know, was very concerned about her husband being like a leader in this organization when she knew what he was up to.
I want to give her props, by the way, because we're irregardless of Dave's rules.
She is handling it in the least messy way possible, which I don't even think is necessarily owed.
Like, I don't think she had to do that. But like, she is doing she clearly is trying to be at least pro social about it.
Which her and I DM'd a little bit on Instagram. I had some like fact checking questions for her and, you know, just wanted to get her her sense on a few things.
She's a lawyer. She knows her stuff. Like, she she actually is an expert in this kind of thing,
but was just like incredibly gaslit and really bullied throughout this entire period.
And and a lot of this stuff is documented in this article, as well as, again, the Untangled Faith series.
She has several episodes where she talks about this period.
So basically, Ramsey Solutions, the response was, we're going to work with you on your marriage.
They agreed to pay for a couple's therapist, but they made her waive like HIPAA confidentiality.
And the therapist had to submit a report to Ramsey Solutions leadership when she was like, that's weird.
She was harassed over phone and email of people trying to like bully her to be silent, who were like, you need to get in line with this idea.
She was eventually barred from the book tour and eventually she received like cease and desist stuff as well.
She was under an NDA for a while and kind of went silent for like a good period of time.
And in this company meeting where, you know, Dave is calling Hogan like a thoroughbred and saying he's just been working it.
He there's language in there where again, he's saying she's a crazy, bitter, nasty woman.
They're going through a nasty divorce. Like the blame is being put on her.
And then at the same time, I mean, it just kept growing.
There were several other employees who like knew the Hogan's and their situation who began to go to leadership and be like, I feel like something's really wrong here, like whatever.
And they were either fired or forced out kind of in succession or resigned on their own because leadership said basically said they knew they knew about all this stuff.
And they were just, you know, they basically their solution was to create a restoration plan.
This is 100% what people talk about when they talk about boys clubs.
I mean, you've got this conspiracy of complicity that all just revolves around. I can't let this man get fired.
It's like if you, you know, Dave talks this big talk, but he does not walk a walk.
I don't even think his rules are good, first of all.
But if you're going to make these terrible rules, you need to enforce those terrible rules, even when it's not convenient.
And he is clearly making value judgments based on convenience, which is not very gazelle of him.
I can say. Or maybe it is because gazelles just like have a chaotic response to fear.
I don't know. I think it actually is very gazelle because it's just like it is that classic thing of men are the biggest secret of patriarchal men is they are deeply afraid of everything.
And I cannot stress enough how this is like skimming the surface.
If you're more interested in more, there's like tons of resources out there and I'll will link some of those and like the podcast notes.
So recently, the last kind of legal hurdle that's been going on, which came out this month, is that Dave Ramsey is now being sued for his involvement in a timeshare scandal.
I feel good about this because I sent you this article. I broke the story to you.
Yes, you did. Thank you, Samuel. I'll do to you.
I do need to give a shout out to my mom, who is aware of what we're doing. And she was like, Hey, this is aren't you guys doing an episode on this guy? And I was like, I sure am. So well, Mary sure is.
So I shout out to Samuel's mom.
And the thing like I think you need a little history of like why it seems very niche until you like kind of are in the Dave world.
He has like these talking points that he just like repeats over and over and over.
One of them is that timeshares are scams, which like, I mean, yeah, in some ways, he reformed like they are.
However, this is a thing that like he just, you know, would always have like he would repeat again and again.
So there's this company called TimeShare Exit Team, and they say that they help people get out of exploitative timeshare contracts.
This is going to be spicy, isn't it? They paid Dave 30 million.
Well, okay, Ramsey Solutions, whatever. Thirty million dollars between 2015 and 2021 to advertise their services to help people.
Dave did not tell anyone that they were advertisers. How he framed it is I went looking for someone to talk about time, who was who was solving the issue of timeshares.
So no one knew that this was an advertisement, which is like very fuzzy on the ethical scale at best.
There is a group of 14 Dave Ramsey former listeners who are suing him saying they paid minimally $5,000 to this company, who told them to stop paying fees on their timeshare,
created false property deeds and other records to con customers.
And then like when customers would be like, hey, I'm still in this like timeshare contract and now I'm behind because I haven't been paying anything, they would ghost them.
Oh, my goodness. This timeshare exit team would also give them a money back guarantee.
And the lawsuit alleges that they have taken 200 million dollars from clients.
They have faced multiple lawsuits, some of which they've lost.
And now this these 17 people are suing Dave Ramsey saying that they should have known they did not do their due diligence at best
and like actively knew as early as 2016 at worst that this was a fraudulent company.
I mean, this is to the point like for the Better Business Bureau, they issued a warning against this company.
And David went on a nine minute rant about how the government, how reporters and how the timeshare industry was conspiring against him.
It's like I have to quote him because you couldn't make this stuff up.
He said, bring it. You have done poked the wrong bear. You've done pissed off the wrong hillbilly.
Which like he's not even really a hillbilly because he like grew up and has always lived in Nashville, which is like a very large city.
Between him and J.D. Vance, it's like the battle of the hillbilly posers.
We'll see what happens and who wins.
But like I kind of like as I was thinking about Dave and so much time with Dave, I've just had this question of like, why do we love our Christian celebrities?
And I think I've reached a conclusion that like one of the big lures is like legalism through simplification.
I mean, that touches on Josh Harris. I mean, by his own admission, why Ike is Dating Goodbye was so popular.
Right. I mean, I literally had that on my notes is that like we saw this in Ike is saying goodbye that like dating equals bad.
Like when someone can put into like a very concise path words like this is God's way.
If you're a Christian, you do X. If you're a Christian, you don't do X. It's comforting.
Yeah.
Because it simplifies religion, which I think should be something very complicated.
Like, it's kind of interesting because you have so many churches where the rhetoric is step out of your comfort zone.
But the largest comfort zone to step out of is the one in your own head.
And if you're not living in that kind of gray area where you're asking yourself, why do I think this?
What are the consequences of thinking this? I would argue that that's not faith.
There's a difference between being submissive and being trusting.
But even even saying that, I look at submissive as a bad thing. A lot of people don't.
People fear that they will go wrong or that their children will go wrong.
And that's like in essence, a lack of faith in God and your relationship with God.
There is such a narrative amongst Boomer Christian parents of like, oh, my kid no longer believes or oh, my kid isn't doing enough to make enough money.
And it is popular to worry about your child. That is not trust. That is not faith.
I think it is one reason why millennials have been sort of conditioned to look for somebody like Ramsey,
because Ramsey is the honest John that scoops you up off the street when you run away from Geppetto's home.
You know, it's like Geppetto is your parent who's worrying about you.
Dave Ramsey is the person who preys upon that worry.
I mean, kind of what we're talking about with like fear and not stepping outside of the bounds of whatever these like very simple rules are.
It does show a lack of faith in God.
Well, I do actually have a Bible verse that I think kind of was funny because when you were talking about how your God is complicated,
I was thinking about how I think sometimes people use Micah 6.8 as a weapon to say Christianity is simple.
But what's funny is a Micah 6.8 is not about Christianity.
Christianity did not exist yet when Micah 6.8 was written, but it is about God.
And it actually sums up a lot of the issues with Dave Ramsey's perspective really well.
Oh, OK, tell me Micah 6.8 because I don't know that reference off the top of my head.
God has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does God require of you to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?
I did have a suspicion that that was the verse.
Yeah. And so we look at Dave Ramsey. Is he acting justly?
Well, our investigation shows that is not the case. Is he walking humbly?
OK, even if you think Dave Ramsey is the bee's knees, could you honestly say this man is acting humbly?
Does he love mercy?
I'll let it hang. I'll let the question hang.
I do think since we are kind of, you know, examining stuff within the church,
like it is good to like use the verses that Dave talks about as like a way of saying, is this worldview a Christian one?
And I want to go back to that passage that you read at the beginning because he referenced Proverbs 6 when he was talking about the gazelle intensity.
And I don't know if you remember, but he said,
If you have signed surety, my son, surety is Bible talk for debt,
deliver yourself like the bird from the hand of the fowler and the gazelle from the hand of the hunter.
I will say actually Dave in this passage is correct and how he's using it because it's being framed in this proverb,
at least in these first verses, basically the idea of like being a cosigner on a loan.
You need to get out of that and work off that debt because it's not a super wise financial place for you to be.
So like it actually seems like Dave is interpreting the first like five verses of that correctly, especially like exploitative debt.
It's about like the wicked and the rich taking advantage of others.
I would like to point out that like the two other main places where surety comes up within the Bible, one is the story of Joseph.
One of the brother pledges his life in place of another brother.
And in Hebrews, which is a New Testament book, like it says Christ becomes surety for us.
So this idea that like Christ on the cross like pledged himself with his life in place of our debt.
So Christ is not adopting a gazelle mentality.
No, he's well, this is this is all messed up then Mary.
This is no good. I think I got to stop going to church.
If you were Proverbs is a lot of like this is how the world is and how you should like exist to be wise.
It's not necessarily like in the most ideal shape or form.
This is how the world would be in Joseph and Hebrews, the people who are who put themselves in the place of debt.
It's like third, the gazelle who like walks up to the cheetah and they're like, here I am so that others can get away.
I mean, it's very much a selfless sacrifice, complete intentional selfless sacrifice.
I think a lot of the issues of how Dave uses scripture, he overlooks money versus that I think are actually much more applicable,
including like ones that were actual Old Testament law, like the year of Jubilee, which was a law in Israel that said every 50 years,
everyone was released of all of their debts and all of their indentured servitude no matter what.
It didn't matter if you got the debt the year before and this like 50 year mark, everyone was released.
Yeah, so we're getting towards the end, but I'll have you read the end of Proverbs.
Like I said kind of earlier, it's really being framed as like wicked people exploiting others.
And this is pretty close to how the Proverb ends. It's Proverbs 6, 16 through 19.
There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Now I can already see how this could be used as a weapon, by the way, against his own employees,
because I look at that last comment as a person who stirs up conflict in the community, and I could see how that could be misconstrued.
I read the whole Proverb and I was like, this is interesting how it ends, given how it starts, how he uses it at the start.
There are issues I have with Dave Ramsey. Obviously I wouldn't have devoted this much time to him if not,
but I do think whether or not his method works for you, this is the issue that should give you pause.
God calls us to complete selfless financial sacrifice and or sacrifice of whatever you have.
Whereas, like I said earlier, Dave promotes this self-sacrifice or family sacrifice so that you can be wealthy at the end.
Think about how Proverb 6 ended. I'm just going to read you a very short little excerpt of how he describes what it's like to complete his baby steps and be wealthy.
He describes it as the feeling of going downhill after you've ridden uphill by bike.
The ride down is glorious. You are now enjoying the ride. The coasting is the fruit of your labors. Memories of strain, sweat, and repeated near failure fades.
As the sun shines and the wind tickles your ear whispering, you are the king. You did it. You climbed the hill. You didn't quit. You paid the price to win.
The smile in your soul says, accomplishment.
And as I was reading out this afternoon, it reminded me of kind of a different line in the parable of the talents.
And Samuel, do you remember the summary of this parable?
There were three servants. They were all given various amounts of talent. One took it, invested it, and invested it a little, got a lot.
And one took it, invested it even more, got even more. And then a final servant was like, I don't want to lose this money. Investments are risky. So they buried it in the ground. And God was like, you suck.
Right. And like we should say talents.
Oh yeah, talents like drachma or dollars.
It's like saying like money. Basically it was money. But I do think like a lot of people, probably rightfully so, have like said like this parable actually isn't about money.
It's about using whatever God has given you to like invest and grow and help others.
It's the closest the Bible will ever come to using the term scarcity mentality.
Like it is basically advising against that, whether it's in money or in actual talent.
You know, I think someone like Dave could say, well, you know, they're God saying use your money wisely.
Literally, I think it's like two or three verses later, this is what's said.
The king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me.
I was sick and you looked after me.
I was in prison and you came to visit me.
Not to make this into a Bible study podcast, which it is not.
You know, there's the verse, don't put your treasures on earth where moths and rust destroy.
Instead, put your treasure on heaven.
Invest in the people in front of you.
So much of Christian culture has become doing what is socially safe.
There is a social order in that you need to recognize and it is more important than whatever conviction you have in your heart.
A lot of the narrative of scripture, especially from Jesus, is at the end of the day, if God is telling you something, i.e. if you feel conviction, you got to go with that.
If you have faith, like you have to step out in faith and be like, OK, God.
I would also say whether or not you're religious, like we live in a world that is defined by cost cutting.
I think this is stuff that's invaluable for Christians, but I think for non-Christians even, it's like we're seeing how stupid thinking only about money and only about saving money.
Can be. Just on a pure level of natural selection, it's not all that it's cracked up to be, despite the fact that it is the thing that society values the most.
We can all be different. We can all do differently.
Just because we value something doesn't mean that it's valuable.
I think we need to start prioritizing the value of people over the value of money.
I sent you a link to a Hillsong Church service from February 2020. Melissa Hogan actually sent this to me when her and I were talking about some timeline stuff.
You know, as I said last week, sometimes I really agree with Dave Ramsey, but we come to radically different conclusions about what he says.
Now, I'm not here to tell you that money will make you happy. It won't.
I'm not here to tell you that getting some money will heal your life. It won't. Jesus will heal your life.
Walking in Jesus will bring you joy.
When you get money, what it makes you, the more money you get, it makes you more of what you already are.
If you're depressed and you get money, you're going to be very depressed. Money doesn't heal you.
If you're angry and you get money, Lord, help the people around you. You're going to become a tyrant.
Okay, I do kind of agree with money makes you more of what you are.
Yeah, right. I think it's such like an indictment of Dave.
Yeah, it is. It's the truth.
I mean, this is the thing of like, Dave says the quiet part loud. Like, money makes you more of what you already are.
Money pulls out the stuff that maybe you need to work on. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the church has bought into the idea.
You can never be too much of a gazelle, is what I'm discovering.
Well, actually, since we're talking, I mean, cheetahs and gazelles, literally like the sentence before this clip,
Dave Ramsey says that with his money, he bought a Jaguar. He was talking about a car. But still, there's something there.
It's almost like he's a predator.
I would love to hear like what people think, whether they've like followed Dave Ramsey, whether they hate Dave Ramsey,
whether they like to be a gazelle, whether they want to be Mr. Cheetah.
You can email us at badchristianbooks at gmail.com.
We're also on socials at badchristianpod or badchristianbooks is like our username on like pretty much everything.
If what we've talked about resonates with you and you're kind of in this transitional stage where you're either leaving Christianity
or looking to seek a different outside perspective on it, I write a horror. I have a horror novel about being a Christian.
It is called Koi Pond and it is about a fictional, very religious town in Tennessee and all of the unexpected horrors that lie underneath.
You can find that on amazon.com slash author slash Samuel Cooliato. That's C-U-L-L-A-D-O. I feel like I am on PBS.
I guess if you want to like follow me as a journalist, my like Twitter handle is at hall underscore Mary E, all lowercase.
I don't really tweet about a lot of things about faith, but maybe I'll start. I don't know. That's like more of my like work as a reporter and producer.
So there you go. You can find me on Instagram as fake Sammy C. Are you serious? I am dead. Are we even friends on Instagram? Oh my gosh.
We are not and we should change that. My Instagram is I post one like photo dump per month and then it's just like a bunch of memes on my story so that I can see if people are paying attention to me or not.
Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I've never made a story. Maybe I'll change that. Okay, so we was in charge of the stories.
Well, Gazelles, thank you for joining us for this Christian bookstore dumpster dive. We'll see you at the next one.