The Darrell McClain show
Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one Planet; nobody's leaving so let’s reason together!! Darrell McClain is a Military veteran with an abnormal interest in politics, economics, religion, philosophy, science, and literature. He's the author of Faith and the Ballot: A Christian's Guide to Voting, Unity, and Witness in Divided Times. He was born and raised in Jacksonville FL, and went to Edward H white High School,l where he wrestled under Coach Jermy Smith and The Late Brian Gilbert. He was a team wrestling captain, District champion, and an NHSCA All-American in freestyle Wrestling. He received a wrestling scholarship from Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa. After a short period, he decided he no longer wanted to cut weight, effectively ending his college wrestling journey. Darrell McClain is an Ordained Pastor under the Universal Life Church and is still in good standing. He's a Believer in The Doctrines of Grace, Also Known as Calvinism. He joined the United States Navy in 2008 and was A Master at Arms (military police officer) He was awarded several awards while on active duty, including an expeditionary combat medal, a Global War on Terror medal, a National Defense Medal, a Korean Defense Medal, and multiple Navy achievement medals. While In the Navy, he was also the assistant wrestling coach at Robert E Lee High School. He's a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under 6th-degree black belt Gustavo Machado, Darrell Trains At Gustavo Machado Norfolk under the 4th-degree black belt, and Former Marine Professor Mark Sausser. He went to school for psychology at American Military University and for criminal justice at ECPI University.
The Darrell McClain show
Holy Hush: Why Won't Churches Speak About Gaza?
What happens when political figures trade truth for attention and religious institutions abandon their moral voice? This raw, unfiltered episode tackles two explosive topics that reveal the dangerous state of American discourse.
Darrell begins by dissecting former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's extraordinary claim that Barack Obama orchestrated a "coup" against Donald Trump. With surgical precision, he separates legitimate concerns about intelligence overreach from absurd conspiracy theories that undermine democracy itself. "If what happened in 2017 was a coup," Darrell observes, "then that aunt who forwards you chain emails about vaccines must be the new head of the CDC." The segment offers a masterclass in how to engage with outlandish claims without either dismissing them outright or lending them undeserved credibility.
The heart of the episode, however, comes when Darrell dons his seldom-worn "Pastor McClain" hat to deliver a searing critique of American churches' silence regarding Gaza. Speaking with the fire of biblical prophets, he challenges religious leaders who find their voice for culture war skirmishes but remain mute about thousands of children dying under bombardment. "If your gospel has nothing to say about the slaughter of children," he asks, "then what exactly is good news?" This isn't just political commentary – it's an impassioned plea for moral consistency from someone who clearly cares deeply about both faith traditions and human suffering.
What makes this episode exceptional is how it transcends typical partisan framing. Whether critiquing a former Democratic congresswoman now embracing right-wing conspiracy theories or challenging religious institutions across the political spectrum, Darrell stands firmly on principle rather than party. His call for reason, moral clarity, and genuine compassion offers an antidote to the very tribalism he refuses to reinforce. Listen and be challenged to examine where your own principles might be taking a backseat to political convenience.
Hello, welcome to the Darrell McLean Show. Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. So we have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again, so let's go ahead and take a deep breath, because the next part requires both patience and precision.
Speaker 1:Former congresswoman, former Army veteran, the spiritual seeker and political shapeshifter, and now apparently the unofficial abuzz woman of America's alternate reality caucus is claiming with a straight face that the former President, barack Obama, the Nobel Prize winner turned drawn enthusiast orchestrated a coup against President Donald Trump. A coup you heard me right, not a disagreement, not a bureaucratic turf war, not even a cover up. A coup, now, the kind that you read about in countries where generals take over parliaments and journalists disappear. The kind of accusation you'd expect from a late-night YouTube channel, sandwiched between a white and confusion, declaring that the former president of the United States was the ringleader of some sort of shadowy deep state rebellion against his duly elected successor elected successor. Now, before we start laughing too hard, let me do what most cable news panels refuse to do, and that is take this claim seriously. And I'm going to take this claim seriously just long enough to test it, because sometimes the best way to expose an absurdity, because sometimes the best way to expose an absurdity is to actually take it at face value. So let's go to the evidence together, shall we? So what Tulsi and her fellow believers, in the chirp of deep state hysteria, point to is the idea that during the 2016 and 2017 transition, there were conservatives among a borough-era intelligence officials, notably around Russia, interferes in the election. Names like James Comey, john Brennan, susan Rice. They pop up in the narratives, they pop up like a shadowy villain in a third-rate spy thriller. There were actually investigations. There were actually briefings. There was actually unmasking an entirely legal intelligence process. There were concerns legitimate ones about Michael Flynn. There were concerns about Trump's flattery towards Vladimir Putin. There were concerns about the Trump campaign aides with a disturbing number of foreign business connections.
Speaker 1:But a coup, friends. If what happened in 2017 was a coup, then that aunt that you know, who is forwarding you the chain emails about vaccines, must be the new head of the CDC. Let's define our terms here. A coup d'etat is an illegal, overt seizure of a state by a small group, often the military or secret police. It is not a slow drip of bureaucratic leaks. It is not an awkward dinner between James Comey and Donald Trump. It is not a FISA warning that has been authorized by judges. A coup requires tanks in the streets. A coup requires generals on the airwaves. A coup requires an absolute rejection of the constitutional process. And guess what? Guess what? That didn't happen, not even close. Donald John Trump was sworn in.
Speaker 1:Donald John Trump governed for four years. He rallied, he stacked the courts, he tweeted often. He tweeted with the freedom of a 4chan mod on Adderall. He faced no tanks, no lockdowns, no martial law. In fact, arguably, donald Trump had more executive leeway than any president in recent memory, and mainly because Democrats were too obsessed with Russiagate. They were so obsessed they couldn't organize an effective, legitimate opposition.
Speaker 1:But that's not the point of this stuff. Tulsi is pulling, is it? No, no, you see, facts aren't what the accusation is actually about. This is a narrative maneuver, a political pivot, tulsi Gabbard.
Speaker 1:In the midst of all everything that's going on in this country, tulsi Gabbard is doing a full-blown rebrand. She has traded her Bernie-adrescent populism for a spot as the high priestess of anti-woke temple. She is now a heroine, not of the anti-imperialism that we knew her for, but of grievance politics, and, like most converts to any new orthodoxy. She is more zealous than the born again who've been sitting there for years. She saw an opening, she saw an audience, she saw a vacuum and she ran straight into it. She ran straight into it like a candidate looking for her next Fox News segment, because in Trump world, the one unforgivable sin is ever questioning Trump's victimhood.
Speaker 1:So if you want to stay relevant there, you have to out conspiracy, the last conspiracy that you think that President Trump happened to see on TV, which is exactly what Tulsi Gabbard is trying to do. So let me pause here, because someone out there and I hear you is saying but Darrell McClain, aren't you the guy who said the intelligence community can't be trusted? Darrell McClain, didn't you criticize the CIA? Darrell McClain, didn't you criticize the FBI? Darrell McClain, didn't you criticize the NSA?
Speaker 2:And the answer is absolutely.
Speaker 1:I did, and I'll be doing it today, tomorrow and forever. But there's a difference between skepticism and spectacle. Being critical of the intelligence agencies, being critical of intelligence overreach, is not the same as turning it into some type of superhero comic book where Barack Obama appears as Magneto, leading an army of psyops, mutants to take down the orange savior, donald Trump. That's not oversight, that's fan fiction, it's political, it's politics as cosplay. And Tulsi seems to be auditioning for a permanent role on the Patriot Channel playing Lieutenant Logic, the destroyer of the destabilized. And here's the deeper tragedy in all of this and I mean this from my heart Tulsi Gabbard had potential, and I mean real potential. I was literally in the process of writing an article praising Tulsi Gabbard, steve Bannon, sega Anjanetti and Tucker Carlson, saying these are the right-wing populace we need. When Tulsi pulled this stunt, it's somewhat heartbreaking. I have friends like my friend Jamie Kilstein, who is also from Hawaii, who knows Tulsi Gabbard personally, and they're dear friends. When Tulsi Gabbard stood up for regime change wars, tulsi was right and that was necessary. When Tulsi Gabbard pushed back against the corporate democratic machinery, that was brave. When Tulsi Gabbard called out Kamala Harris's prosecutorial record on the Democratic debate stage. That was a moment of real righteous fire, but the arc of her story is starting to look more like a cautionary tale than a comeback.
Speaker 1:And that, my dear listeners, is what this particular monologue is about Not just the ridiculous coup claim, not just the spectacle of Obama once again as Obama the boogeyman, but the deeper danger of what this all represents. We are living in a time where being wrong loudly is more profitable than being right quietly. We're living in a time where the algorithm rewards the absurd and nuance is treated like weakness. Tulsi didn't fall into a conspiracy. She climbed into one, because the ladder of a conspiracy leads to clicks, it leads to followers, it leads cliques, it leads to followers, it leads to donors, it leads to influence.
Speaker 1:The accusation that Obama staged a coup is not just wrong, it's reckless. It sets fire to an already fragile democracy and I know Tulsi knows that. Know Tulsi knows that. It tells the American people that no election, no transition, no institution at all can be trusted unless it always delivers your preferred outcome, and that is the same fuel that burned on January 6th. So, tulsi, on the off chance that you one day may hear this, on the off chance that you are listening, tulsi. Come home, come back to the realm of reason that you used to live in. Come back and critique the deep state. Come back and condemn interventionism. Be skeptical of surveillance, but don't do this for the sake of whatever Donald Trump wants you to do.
Speaker 1:Don't, for the sake of whatever is left to your credibility, of whatever is left of your credibility, don't rewrite history to serve the mythology of a man who can't distinguish between losing and being betrayed. Because the moment you start to say things like Barack Obama states to Q, you are not standing up for the Constitution, you are mocking the Constitution and you are spitting in our face and you are asking for us to pretend like it's water and that, my friends, is a hell of a thing to do in the name of patriotism.
Speaker 2:You're wondering why more churches aren't talking about the murder and starvation of children in Gaza. Hi, I'm CoolPastor and welcome back to the channel. What's? Happening in Gaza is truly terrible, I'm told, but it's a bit of a bummer for Sunday service.
Speaker 2:You see, we're trying to attract a younger hip audience, the ones that dress up like they're going to a singles cruise so they can meet someone in the lobby, marry them too fast, have babies too fast and raise those babies to also not care about babies in the Middle East. We may be silent on the starving children of Gaza, but we save plenty of lives. No, we're not sending money to children who are being forced to wear garbage bags as diapers. We save people when we dunk them into an inflatable pool while the worship band rips a maverick city and they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Does the church care about babies Not born babies or even conceived babies? But through my youth program titled Sex bullet train to hell, we save millions of pretend babies by stopping unwanted pregnancies.
Speaker 2:Cowabunga, I'm trying out new hip catchphrases with Gen Z that don't involve they-them pronouns. In these trying times, we all have to make sacrifices, which is why our congregation raised $10,000 to get me a new cold plunge and sauna. Cool pastors need to be hot pastors to attract more horny people to our slutty little lobby. So I hope to see you next Sunday, hands raised and eyes closed to the suffering of others, like Jesus would want.
Speaker 1:So that was my friend, jamie Kilstein, trying to do what a lot of us do sometimes we have to laugh because we want to cry and so Jamie had asked a question about the church's silence in Gaza. If you don't know about Jamie, he was born Jewish, he converted to Christianity and he has been having some questions about this specific moment. And he, like me me who is raising the african methodist episcopal uh tradition, and I just have some questions. Um, I have some statements, so I'm gonna put on a hat that I don't normally put on on this podcast, purposely I don't put on on this podcast, purposely I don't put it on, and we're going to go to my roots of Pastor McClain, which people who know me do know I am an ordained pastor, although I do not pastor a church, and we have to talk about this.
Speaker 1:And tonight we need to talk about something like this because it has been eating at me, not knowing politically, like a theological critique. Like you know, those nod me, sometimes politely, not unsettling like an awkward doctrine, but burning inside of me like fire shut up inside of my bones. And I am talking about the church, and I'm talking about the church, and I'm talking about the church in Gaza, specifically about the silence of the church when it comes to the genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Now, I know some of you are already shifting in your seats, some of you are already forming the rebuttals that it's complicated, that we can't speak on every issue. The church is called to preach the gospel and not politics and to that, on this issue, I say nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.
Speaker 1:Because if your gospel has nothing to say about the slaughter of children, then what exactly is good news? For If your pulpit cannot rage about this but it can rage about drag shows in Nashville, but not about bombed out hospitals in Roswell you are not preaching the gospel, you are peddling cultural anesthesia. Anesthesia, let's lay it bare. Since October, gaza has endured what can only be called a catastrophe, an unrelenting campaign of destruction that has killed a conservative number it's 30,000 people. Over half of those people have been children. And before someone says but Hamas? Let me remind you of this Not a single child in Gaza voted for Hamas. Not a single infant launched a rocket. Not a single grandmother signed off on a ceasefire breach, but they all died just the same. They all died in their beds, in their bread lines, in their hospitals, with no medicine, in schools turned into mass graves.
Speaker 1:And in the face of all this, where is the church? Where are those white evangelicals who will hold a prayer rally if a Starbucks removes a snowflake from a coffee cup on Christmas time? Where are the reformed brethren, of which I'm a part of, who are so devoted to justice in theory but allergic to justice in practice when it's not convenient? Where are the charismatic churches that can feel a demon in a Beyonce album but can't discern the spirit of empire in a billions of dollars of United States military aid to this. Where's the black church that once stood on the front lines of civil rights but now remains curiously quiet when the descendants of others oppressed people are being turned to ash by the American-made weapons of which their churches get tax benefits? Get tax benefits. We are so loud about Israel's right to exist, but so quiet about Palestinians' right to even be able to breathe. And do not come to me with your spiritual platitudes. Don't tell me we need to pray for both sides. When one side controls the water, when one side controls the food, when one side controls the airspace and when one side controls the narrative, when one side lives behind concrete and drones and the other beneath rubble and airstrikes.
Speaker 1:The prophets didn't say both sides needs to work it out. They said woe to those who crush the poor and grind their face of the needy. They said how long, oh lord? They said let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. So where is the stream now? Where is the mighty voice of the church? Oh, we found our tongues for Ukraine. We hosted prayer vigils, raised funds, waved blue and yellow flags in Sunday school, and rightly so.
Speaker 1:War is evil whenever it occurs. But why is Gaza so different? Why is it so different? Is it because the children being incinerated don't look like our children? Is it because the victims of the war don't speak English? Is it because they don't vote for Democrats or they don't vote for Republicans? Is it because they don't tie to our megachurches? Is it because we swallowed the lie hook line and dispensationalism that somehow Israel's modern statehood is untouchable, sacred and beyond critique? Because if that's the reason, then what you're worshiping is not Jesus Christ. That's the reason that what you're worshiping is not Jesus Christ. It's a geopolitical ideology shaped in a flag. I always remember that quote from the World War II historian that's now being demonized everywhere, and when he said there is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. Let's go deeper.
Speaker 1:This silence isn't passive, it's complicity. When the church is silent in the face of state violence, it's not neutral. It's siding with Pharaoh, it's dining with Caesar, it's kissing the rank of Pontius Pilate while Jesus bleeds in the streets of Conunis. And I know, because of my normal tone and tenor, some of you think that I'm being divisive, you're going to say, oh Darrell, the church has called to unite and this will actually distract from the gospel. So I'll say this to you. Let me be clear Unity that requires silence about injustice is not unity, it's tyranny, it's emotional blackmail wrapped in a Bible verse. It's a kind of piety that says sheesh, don't talk about race, don't talk about bombs, don't talk about empire, because the donors might be uncomfortable. The donors might be uncomfortable. We're worried about alienating donors while children are having limbs amputated without anesthesia.
Speaker 1:And don't get me started about theologians. Where are they? Where are the public statements from councils and coalitions, the gospel networks? They can write a multi-page paragraph position papers, thousand words apiece, on same-sex bathrooms, but they can't seem to string together three words about ethnic cleansing. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian loved by conservatives, said silence in the face of evil is evil itself. Well, silence must be having a revival right now.
Speaker 1:And here's the real scandal. The church's silence isn't rooted in them being confused. It's rooted in them being cowards. It's the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. It's the fear of being unpatriotic. It's the fear of criticizing the president because he's on your side about abortion or something like that. Or God forbid, the church is too political or God forbid the church is too political. It's the fear of telling the truth, because it might cost you your platform, it might cost you your book deal, it might cost you your next speaking engagement.
Speaker 1:But let me remind you, church leaders, the cross, even when it tried not to be ended up being political, jesus christ was lynched by a state colluding with religious leaders, and when he said blessed are the peacemakers, he wasn't talking about warm-hearted neutrality. He was talking about people with guts to step between the oppressor and the oppressed and name names and actually get bruised for it. So what's the way forward in all of this? You have to repent. We have to tell the truth. We have to stop cutting our porals over protests and start lamenting the policies that made them necessary the policies that made them necessary.
Speaker 1:The church needs to start preaching a gospel that is not just about personal salvation but public liberation, a gospel that does not flinch when it sees empires wooden bombs in the name of democracy. We start seeing the crucified Christ in the eyes of the Palestinian father carrying his dead daughter from the rubble. I've lost a daughter. I know how this feels, because, let me tell you something?
Speaker 1:If Jesus came back today, he would not be welcome to many sanctuaries Because he would smell like tear gas. He would talk like a protester, he would be quoting Isaiah, he would be arrested before most congregations even let him preach. And when we see him again, jesus won't be asking how many Bible verses did you memorize? He'll be asking what did you do for the least of these? Not what side we took, but what witness we bore. Did we stand for the image of God in every child or did we stand aside? Did we cry out for the suffering or did we justify their death to look for political or theological calculus?
Speaker 1:The church's silence on Gaza is not just a political failure. It's a spiritual betrayal, a sin of omission written in blood. And if we don't find our voice, if we don't repent, if we don't weep with those who weep, then we will one day look back at this moment and realize we didn't just miss the moment, we missed the Messiah, again in disguise. I don't have the capacity to talk about another political subject after this, so I have to end the show with that. We have one planet, nobody is leaving, and right now the children of Gaza are dying while the American church is sleeping. Wake up church. Let's reason together. This has been another episode of the Darrell McLean Show. Independent media that will not reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving. May God help us reason together.