Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World with Elle Hardy

Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan

Dr. Steven Hassan

Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 684 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum, I discussed the steady rise of Pentecostal Christianity with award-winning journalist and author Elle Hardy. Her 2022 book, Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World, details how the charismatic movement has become a global phenomenon, with currently (2025) an estimated 900 million followers worldwide. As I wrote in the Cult of Trump, a key base for true believers are involved with megachurches involving millions of Americans. The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) has transformed Pentecostal Christianity from a spiritual movement to an aggressively politically motivated group. Hardy explains the phenomenon: “They don’t just want to save souls; they want to transform societies.” For example, prominent Pentecostal leaders, such as Paula White-Cain, who is in the current administration, refers to Donald Trump as a modern-day “King Cyrus.” In the Bible, King Cyrus is an imperfect, divinely chosen leader who fulfilled political and social ambitions on behalf of God to help his people. Trump’s portrayal as divinely chosen in these circles is strategically cultivated to amass the group’s support and reshape American politics. Hardy provided insights into the prosperity gospel, describing it as “the faith of the working poor.” This aspect of Pentecostalism attracts marginalized people seeking hope through promises of divine financial blessings in exchange for devotion and sacrifice. However, Hardy pointed out a troubling reality. Vulnerable individuals often give beyond their means, pushing them deeper into poverty through manipulative teachings. Our conversation highlighted how such practices illustrate financial exploitation and reinforce harmful “magical thinking” and loaded language. Authoritarian leaders commonly exploit these techniques to control followers, which are classic signs of undue influence. Unethical practices like these strip people of their critical thinking and autonomy. This conversation was exceptionally interesting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr. Stephen Hassan with another episode of my podcast, Cult Conversations.
0:08.0	And I'm very excited to speak with journalist, award-winning journalist, I should say, an author, Elle Hardy.
0:16.0	Elle actually interviewed me for a forthcoming book she's working on on my former cult, the Mooney's.
0:24.6	But when she first contacted me, she told me about her book on Pentecostal Christianity called Beyond Belief,
0:34.6	how Pentecostal Christianity is taking over the world. And I said,
0:39.1	Elle, would you come on my podcast? And you said, sure. So I'm delighted to have you on. And I would
0:47.4	just also like to plug you co-host a podcast about spiritually motivated crime and conflict called Hell to Pay.
0:57.6	Tell us, before we get into this, just tell us about your podcast because I haven't heard of it.
1:03.7	Sure. It's only been out for a couple of months, but it's between myself, a friend,
1:08.6	Arma, who's a Bahraini Canadian, and Sipo, who is a Zulu South African,
1:15.6	and we all obviously have very different backgrounds, but very common interests in, you know,
1:21.6	in things that are going on in the spiritual world and, you know, history, war, whatever,
1:27.2	you name it. And so, whatever, whatever you name it.
1:29.2	And so, yeah, we just kind of go through some interesting things that have piqued our
1:32.5	interests, go through a story each week, and just chat about it.
1:36.4	And it's not always, not always happy endings.
1:40.9	No.
1:41.6	But, yeah, we, you know, we try to, it's serious stuff, but we try to keep it kind of
1:45.9	light and, you know, just enjoy talking about the world that we're in at the moment, because
1:51.0	it's a pretty crazy time. Yeah, well, spiritually motivated crime is huge and true crime is huge.
1:57.4	But let me just say about this important work, and I kind of like the graphic for those
2:07.1	watching the video of Jesus with, what would you call those? They're called Shutter Shades.
	...

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