The Power of Comedy to Aid Learning – With God’s Comic, Brad Stine: Comedy can be extremely useful and powerful. Should comedians be able to approach important topics in a way that may be inappropriate for others? Where is comedy really needed? Is Trump responsible for “meanness” at the Oscars? Tune in to laugh and learn with God’s Comic, Brad Stine.

Air Date: 03/30/2022

Guest: Brad Stine

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders Live, thrilled to have you here with us. We’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective and sometimes the funny topics of the day. In fact, that’s what we’ll be doing today as Brad Stine, God’s comic joins us. 

I’ve got a tour coming up with Brad, the comedy constitution tour all across Texas happening in April. We’re hitting some California locations and other places throughout the year. If you’d like to be a part of that, go to patriotacademy.com and click on the speaker button, and you can bring us to your hometown as well.

And speaking about laughing at some things, there’s some things that are funny, and then it’s very serious as well. And I’m going to be asking Brad about the whole thing at the Oscars and Will Smith decking Chris Rock over a joke. 

And so I just want to warn our audience today that that topic may be a little bit sensitive because of some of the things surrounding that subject in a weird, weird relationship with Will Smith and his wife and how that works. So that’s obviously will be a part of that topic as we get into that with Brad Stine later. But first, let’s get a little bit of laughing and learning.

And it’s always good to have God’s comic Brad Stine with us. Thanks for joining us on WallBuilders Live today, Brad, appreciate sometime today.

Brad:

Well, you know I was in my prayer closet fasting and praying for you because you always struggled. You know, you’re always having problems. You’re eating too many donuts, has happened so often. I catch him, I don’t know if he tell, I’m sure you’re pretty open with your people. But he’s always eating doughnuts, folks and then a whole gallon of milk. I’ve never seen anything like it. So I try to help the poor guy.

Rick:

I’m trying to swallow. I’m trying to finish my doughnut, man, you’re interrupt. Wait, but you were in your sixth hour of prayer for me. So I thought I should enter give you a break, let you come out, get off your knees for a little bit.

Brad:

It’s true. God, I have camel knees. But I got up, I got out and here we are. But always love to talk to you. We always seem to have something interesting we’re doing or have done. And so I always love to reconnect and certainly love the ministry of WallBuilders. So, love to be on. It’s an honor.

Rick:

Well, man, we love having you on. And I love being able to laugh and learn at the same time. And of course, that’s what we do in our comedy constitution events around the country. We’ve got a bunch of them coming up. That’s a bunch, that means a lot for those of you not from Texas. But we’ve got a lot of these comedy constitution events coming up in April in Texas, actually. We’re going to hit all over the state. So for all our Texas listeners, be sure to check that out today at patriotacademy.com.

Brad, we’ve got a chance for people to laugh and learn. How important is it both to laugh but to start getting into some of these serious subjects? You are really good at getting people to laugh, but then turn around and hit them right between the eyes with some just truth bombs about what’s happening in the country and why as citizens, it’s time for us to step up.

Brad:

Well, I think that what I do as a comic is kind of has a nice fit for what we do. Because certainly, comedy is always fun. I mean, it’d be likes to laugh and nobody is going to complain about having some fun and laughing together and finding something in common, which is what comedy does. But as you know, because we’ve done these shows and have worked together for many years, I’ve always felt like what I had to bring to the table as a comedy was more than just laughter. I felt like I wanted to leave people with more. And I felt compelled called, frankly, to a deeper mission.

And part of that if you want to sort of combine hybridize the sacred and the secular. From a sacred standpoint, I’m a truth teller. You know, I have to speak truth as a Christian. I’m beholden to the truth at all times. It’s part of how it help me understand how to navigate Corona. If a governor tells you do this or a mayor says to do that or somebody else, and people say, well, you know, Christians is the best citizens, and you got to obey the government. 

And I’m thinking, well, it’s a bit of a gray area here as to what’s being approached as far as how government can tell us about what we can and can’t do. And sometimes you’re not going to like what a government tells you to do. And that’s kind of part of being a citizen.

But I am always beholden to the truth. And when I heard things told, withheld data lies, not accurate information about how my life is going to be spent based on a lie, I knew I can’t do that. I’m not going to do that. But what I meant by the sacred and the secular hybridizing is in our case as Americans, and that’s how we negotiate the world because we’re Americans, we’re also given a First Amendment of free speech, and how you live your life and that’s protected. 

And it’s the First Amendment. It’s the one that is the most important because once without that, really nothing else matters. If you’re not free to think and do and behave in public and private as you choose, you’re not free at all. So what difference does it make?

So that’s the other thing that I think comedy for me helps to illuminate when we perform, but in general, is free speech, is saying we have to be… Listen, if comics can’t just sort of make fun of everybody, take some risks, have people kind of go uh, ah, that’s the point of comedy. People forget that when you do comedy, it’s a performance art and it’s a technique that isn’t for everybody. I understand that maybe there’s some things that comic says that you oh, I couldn’t get away with it. No, because you’re a mechanic. It just may not fit there.

But as a comedian, you’re given this license to say you’re the ones that get to kind of expose the idiosyncrasy, you’re the ones that get to expose the hypocrisy of bigger government workers and those who have been part of the government system for so long and making fun of those who are higher than us, and especially those that think they rule, instead that represent us. And that is where I think comedy really can be effective. Because yes, it breaks down kind of your preconditions as to how you’re going to listen to something that you may or may not agree with and you kind of laugh and break it down.

But then here comes some truth and you kind of have to deal with it objectively, which is what’s being lost in America, to be objectively able to listen to dissenting points of view, hear them for what they are, instead of caricaturing them and then making a decision as to how you want to approach it from that point on. But at least every side supposed to get equal access to a table of ideas. And that’s been lost in America.

Rick:

Well, you definitely echo a little Patrick Henry there in his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech on March 23rd, 1775, he actually started with saying, according to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate, that that’s the only way we can arrive at the truth. And that’s essentially what you’re saying, is when you don’t have free speech, when you don’t have the chance to poke holes at things, sometimes poke fun at things in order to poke holes at things, then you just buy the lie, and people end up in this mass formation psychosis that we have seen over the last couple of years.

And comedy is a great way of expanding the magnitude or the breadth of the debate whenever the subject is so important and has been avoided by so many people because they’re afraid of giving offense. You have, like you said, almost like a license to be able to open up that debate and at least open up our minds to discuss these things.

Brad:

Well, and here’s something that I’ve said to people for quite some time. And it’s not a revelation to you. You’re smarter and you’re very much have the pulse of what’s happening in America. But leftism and again, I do separate liberalism from leftism, I never would have thought that I would have longed to have liberals…

Rick:

No kidding.

Bead:

So, that leaves they gave us the opportunity to debate. But the Left is the problem because it is it’s the concept that has been derived from the Marxist ideology. And it’s why it’s destroying us. Of course, it’s communist. And so it’s in a different form. It’s in a little bit more different package than we were used to a bit more surreptitious. But now it’s coming out in the open. But the leftism is a real is a religion. Make no mistake. You need to understand that when I speak to folks. You happen to understand, this is their religion.

Remember, the Left has jettison God. He can’t exist. He’s not part of it. We are secular humanists. We are materialists. We are postmodernist. So there’s no God. You make your own rules. You make your own reality. You make your own morality. You make your own truth. And so no one can judge that or stop you from participating in that. And heck, will even compel you to agree with this? Even if you disagree with what your eyes are telling you or your head’s telling you your logic is telling you?

So to understand that and people do scratch their heads how can people act like? Because if you think of it as a religion, they found a Satan with Donald Trump, there’s Satan that they could blame every ill on. We just had this incident in the Oscars, I just came across it accidentally, I don’t watch the Oscars, haven’t for years, but this idea of Will Smith slept and Chris Rock, and a one of the commentators on CNN blamed it on the normalization of inappropriate behavior from Trump. Is he the one that kind of created this scenario that allows this to happen without people sort of…?

Rick:

You got to be kidding me.

Brad:  No. It’s like, please folks, he’s not the president, just find another route to blame your problems on. But this guy is gone. But my point was, it’s a perfect analysis of what happens. When you need a savior, you need enemy, you need a way to behave that gives virtue and gives you a sense of utilizing what you are being taught to prove that you’re worthy of your faith system. So for them, it’s social justice, it’s virtue signaling, it’s creating protection for the minority or the one that has not had a voice before. 

All of these things sound nice and friendly, and fair, until you realize that they’re not. They’re simply a counterfeit version of equality. It’s a counterfeit. And the reason we know it’s counterfeit is because it doesn’t give equality. It just gives special status to certain groups, which immediately puts the rest of the group into a subservient position, which is not in any way free, in any way equal, in any way fair. But it’s never been about fairness.

Rick:

No, and it makes the person that’s pushing it seem righteous. It gives them a chance to virtue signal and seem like they’re doing a good thing. Brad, I got to take a quick break. When we come back from the break, I got to ask you have you’ve ever told a joke that cause someone to get up out of their chair and come up and slap you on stage? Brad Stine will give us that answer when we come back. Stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Comedian Brad Stine with us; come see us in the comedy and constitution tour all across Texas throughout the month of April, start April 11th going almost to the end of the month. And we even got one weekend that we’re doing with all the folks from the Biblical Citizenship in Modern America or a lot of them anyway, Rob McCoy and Kirk Cameron and David Barton, Tim Barton, Mark Meckler, Allen West, you go down the list. It’s going to be an incredible weekend, April 22nd, 23rd for that special weekend. Anyway, all of the events are available at patriotacademy.com to learn more.

We’re back with Brad Stine. I just got through slapping him for telling a joke that I didn’t like. Seriously, Brad, have you ever had anybody in the audience get physical with you over a joke that they didn’t like?

Brad:

Well, I make it very clear that I am a conservative. And I live in the south. So they can…

Rick:

They put two and two together, this guy’s got a gun.

Brad:

Yeah. Listen, we all need to be able to defend ourselves one way or the other. That’s the beautiful thing about… I know that you’re kind of a fan of MMA as MI especially when it first came out, it was so interesting to me. But the beautiful thing about MMA was it was trying to discover what style of fighting martial art is the best. 

And what it really taught people as it evolved was there is no best fighting style. What’s best is if you’re better at your style than I end at mine, you will win. That’s what it’s taught. It’s like oh, can you punch better than me, then I’m going to wrestle you. Oh, can you kick better than me? Then I’m going to stay away and use jujitsu or judo. So it used to be you use your strengths against you and avoid them.

So, ultimately, if you think about it, the fighting arts, I can beat any MMA professional right now. I promise you. I could beat every single one. And I don’t even, heck, I can be 10 feet away.

Rick:

Wait, I’m dialing Francis Ngannou, the heavyweight champ right now… I want to hear the rest of this. Go ahead. Yeah.

Brad:

Well, because as I said, MMA was a technique to teach you how to evaluate your weaknesses and their strengths and how to overcome them. And what you’ll find is with a Glock 19 or a 1911, you would be surprised just how powerful you become even if you don’t have a cake. So that’s really what I’m trying to make your point is that I’ve never been… 

Now I did study martial arts myself, I’m not saying I was any pro by any stretch of imagination, but I did do some study. I wasn’t completely an amateur type person who’s maybe never practiced fighting it at all. So I would think I at least had a little bit of an opportunity to defend myself.

But in all my years, now, of course, I do a lot of work now with churches and in conservative groups who are pretty useless, fairly good citizens and civil. But never really can remember anyone in there, remember, I was start out in clubs so people were drunk; people were, especially last year on Saturdays, people were smoking. I mean, it led to some…

Rick:

Interesting exchanges.

Brad:

Yeah, that would, but for the most part, I never had anybody really get physical. And it’s happened to comics over the years. I haven’t experienced it. And now I’m kind of amongst people that normally wouldn’t even accomplish that, and again, my fans, which would all have my back, and then some, so I think I’m okay. But that was an interesting thing…

Rick:

I’m curious what you think about the situation. I mean, there’s so many weird factors in this right. Like, it’s weird that Will Smith would defend his wife over this, but yet they have this open relationship where they sleep around. It’s like just a weird, typical Hollywood craziness, and then Chris Rock to be able to finish that segment to me, I would have never thought that one of my colleagues was going to walk up there and literally take a shot at me. So he was clearly in shock that that had happened and still finished the segment, which I thought was pretty impressive. But clearly, I don’t know, what do you think? I mean, is the joke too far? Is there ever? Go ahead.

Brad:

I think what he was trying to be was a bit of a Ricky Gervais. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen?

Rick:

Oh, I saw that where he just for seven minutes roast the Hollywood celebs. Yes.

Brad:

He is the best ever that ever was. This guy was ruthless. I’ve never seen anything like it. But he has reached a point in his career where he is so famous and so rich and so sort of, he’s a producer of his own material. So he can kind of get away with it. Nobody’s going to get rid of them because he’s going to make money. But he’s also has a technique of doing comedy that’s always been kind of that style. So you kind of know what you’re getting. It’s just normally people don’t do it to these self-appointed, like, make it sure elite of Hollywood. 

Because honestly, Rick, I don’t know, and I’m not even being facetious. I don’t know if I can think of a profession that gets paid more money for being more unimportant than acting. And I think they’re not skillful. They are. I’ve been in 20 movies myself. I think it’s a cool art form. It’s a beautiful way to tell stories. I’ve been in movies, it’s not easy to be an actor. Certainly, there’s brilliance. So I’m not taking away that they’re not skill.

But if there was never another movie made for the rest of history, we’d still survive, we’d still somehow go beyond and still eat, still enjoy our time together. So I think it’s so overrated of a profession anyways, that it’s almost like them trying. I mean, these awards that they have for themselves. They give themselves awards. And it has tanked over and over the last number of years in Oscars.

So I think it’s a little odd that this really crazy thing took place that that everybody’s talking about. Yeah, this is what is needed, right. I mean, they were eating it. And if anybody knows how to do drama, anybody knows how to work a crowd, anybody knows how to market to try to cause some interest and some intrigue, it’s people in…

Rick:

No, so you think it was staged then to get the Oscar some attention?

Brad:

It does seem to have an element of that to me because like you said, Will Smith comes across as though he’s trying to be this this husband honoring his wife, which maybe would have been almost admirable. But like you said, they have an open relationship. This woman, apparently, again, I don’t follow these people’s lives has sex with his son’s friends. I mean, you got to be kidding me. So obviously, with something is a little bit out about him honoring her honor, that seems to be out the window.

And so, this is a guy that’s about to be up for best actor and that’s what he’s going to do is go do that prior to him getting the award, he’s going to look like an ad. I don’t know. I just seemed Rock said he’s not going to press charges. This was clearly assault. Why wouldn’t you do that? I mean, so I don’t know. It’s just there’s a lot of missing pieces to this thing that I don’t know if we’ll ever quite know how it all panned out.

But it just tells me that this is a group of folks who are so they’re so enamored with themselves, they truly believe they’re so important, because they make ungodly amounts of money. People don’t understand how much money an actor makes, I mean, that are at A level, not the typical guy, but the guy at their level. 

How much money they’re pay, oh, he made 20 million for that film maybe; maybe didn’t make 20 million. What you didn’t know is the back end that he’s going to get. What you don’t know is the point she’s going to get. What you don’t know is all the money he’s getting on top of that every time it’s played overseas.

 What you don’t know is that these guys are getting paid from every one of these movies forever. The ones they did 20 years ago, still getting paid for that. So they are on just unbelievably wealthy. And so…

Rick:

Well, I think you’ll like this one. I don’t know if you follow Matt Walsh. But he said, Will Smith will not tolerate other men making jokes about his wife, he will, however, tolerate other men having sex with his wife. This is a man of principle. In other words, I mean, basically saying what you’re saying, this guy is not a man of principle. You know, if you’re allowing these crazy things, there’s probably all kinds of emotional problems as it is and psychological issues that you’re dealing with. So it’s just crazy, honestly. And what does it say to the world of comedy to say that it’s okay to assault someone over a joke?

Brad:

People have rushed stages in comedy, and that’s not unusual. You can just Google search on YouTube a comedian attacked on stage, you probably find a handful of them. Listen, you don’t usually have bouncers or at least anybody of note like you’re in a major concert where they have professional security. 

Usually, they don’t have that at a comedy club, it’s just the front man that let you in, and they don’t know what they’re doing. You don’t usually have, a lot of these clubs are smaller. It’s not like you’re dealing with thousands, you’re dealing with a couple of hundred people, they’re drunk a lot of times, so that’s going to because… You’re not going to be safe. And if people just decide they’re going to go up and [inaudible 22:37] or punch you, there’s not a lot you can do, but to trying to defend yourself. I mean, people have been shot on stages, performers and musicians.

Rick:

Yeah. True. True. There are crazies out there. And then there’s Will Smith, but I repeat myself. Okay, so before we let you go, Brad, we got to let people know what you’re up to these days. So definitely, we got the Texas tour coming up and all kinds of fun events throughout the year. But you’ve also got Brad Stine has issues, that’s your show that people can catch streaming on some of the social media channels, but they can also get access to all of the shows that you’ve done all your different videos and everything through your Patron at BradStine.com. Right?

Brad:

That’s right. Yes. And my show has just continued to evolve. I have more and more began to work with, and you are one of the first, men who are also trying to defend America’s values, our freedoms, our religious liberties, our First Amendment rights and free speech, liberties and care about America and re-remember our history, not trying to hide from anything that is untoward. I mean, obviously, America is filled with humans and sinners, and has made mistakes, but it’s also done incredibly good.

And so I do things in my show like with our comedy constitution show, I have a show called the spirit of America I do with an opera singer. I mean, he sings about moving to America and I talk about things like I do with you about comedy and laughter in our history. And you can see this grow and it needs become…

Rick:

So you don’t sing the opera part? You don’t do that?

Brad:

I do. But I don’t like to make a big deal about it.

Rick:

Yeah. They turn the microphone off before you start, right.

Brad:

Yeah. But I do have that. And I’m touring in churches, churches bringing in for full weekends, doing a Friday night with it with men only Saturday night comedy with truth. Sunday services sometimes like you even talk about critical race theory and his services and how it doesn’t correspond to Christianity, and the God experience show which is proofs of God.

The Power of Comedy – With God’s Comic, Brad Stine

So my show, Rick, has just continued to grow and evolve into a ministry, a legitimate ministry of being a missionary to America and a prophet of the church to speak to the church in this day and age and say, you need to understand what’s at stake, what it means to stand for the gospel and the truth of this unapologetically and without any fear and preparing yourself and your family to defend your faith and understand that maybe, just maybe, we’re going to end up in a position of persecution and so forth that has happened to all of our brothers and sisters around the world. And that could be happening here.

But until it does, we fight, and we do everything we can as well as entreat God to help us have a third great awakening in America and just see what would happen if God is willing to give us another chance. But it’s going to be us completely fully and utterly committed to His ways, His will and to let Americans know we need each other in this time frame. I can’t help to fall far left. 

They are the unteachable. They’ve lost. They’re gone. Their hearts are hardened. But for those who are still confused, and even those of you who were more left leaning, thought you were being good to people and have seen the debacle of Joe Biden and what this is because in our country to become, we need you on our side. 

You don’t have to become a Republican, you have to become conservative. You do need to become an American that cares about freedom for everybody. And that’s what we’re shooting.

Rick:

Amen. Amen. Good stuff. Alright, BradStine.com is the website. You can also bring them in for the “Unapologetical American” comedy tour. Check it out of BradStine.com. Brad, thanks for being with us today, bro.

Brad:

You got it, buddy. And I’ll see you on Brad Stine has issues tonight. See you.

Rick:

Alright, folks, thanks for joining us today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.