Thankfully, the days of YouTube when any religious content was flooded with dislikes and arrogant, mocking comments from the most avid Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris fans are gone. Partly because YouTube does not display the dislike count anymore, and partly because the atheism fad of the 2000s has passed. But even more so, it’s because the platform’s audience has since grown more mature, and a lot bigger as well.
This made way for some religious content creators to enter typically secular entertainment formats—for example, podcasts.
Reverends Thomas Pelham and Jamie Franklin started the Irreverend podcast from scratch during the autumn of 2020, and were joined after a few months by Reverend Daniel French. Jamie Franklin serves as a curate in Nottingham, Thomas Pelham is a vicar in Burwash near Tunbridge Wells, while Reverenc French, who happens to be a Hungarian Conservative contributor, is the vicar in Salcombe near Plymouth. Jamie Franklin created the YouTube channel for the Irreverend Podcast in January 2021, in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, when the faithful were not allowed to congregate in many parts of the world. The first episode was recorded in March 2020, and uploaded to the channel on 5 February 2021. It was an hour-and-a-half-long conversation with Reverend Thomas Pelham. True to the show’s tagline, which is ‘Faith and Current Affairs’, the two men touched on a number of topics, even ones seemingly unrelated to religion and faith, such as the 2003 film Cold Mountain starring Nicole Kidman, or recent Premier League scores.
After a little over two years and 136 uploaded videos, the Irreverend YouTube channel has amassed around 4,200 subscribers, and is pulling in around 1,000–2,000 views per episode. However, please note that it is just on YouTube alone where the podcast is posted. You can find it on other platforms as well, namely on Apple Podcasts and on its own website, where it reaches additional audiences.
Looking through the latest episodes of their catalogue, we can tell that
they kept their profile of commenting on current affairs.
Some of their recent thumbnails feature people like US President Joe Biden, or King Charles III (who is also the head of the Church of England, so not disconnected from religion); while some of their recent titles feature topics like NatCon 2023, feminism, and wokeism.
Overtime, however, the show also adopted a professionally produced intro which kicks off every episode.
Listeners tuning in from the start are now greeted with verse John 8:32 from the Bible: ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’.
In episode 127, published on 26 May 2023, Franklin and Daniel French, who happens to be a Hungarian Conservative contributor, too, discussed the conspicuous presence of satanic themes in pop songs, in reference to British singer Sam Smith’s 2022 hit ‘Unholy’ featuring Kim Petras. The song itself is about an adulterous husband going into strip clubs. However, Smith and Petras’ performance of it at the 2023 Grammy Awards featured costumes and set designs that very much made it look like the song is connected to Satanism.
More surprisingly, however, even the BBC, the public broadcaster in the United Kingdom, ran a seemingly sympathetic piece about the Satanic Temple, a religion officially recognised by the US government across the ocean, on their website in May.
On this topic, the two men discussed how ‘tolerant’ a Christian man these days is expected to be towards other religions, especially if those include Satanism. Both agreed that while they do see value in other religions and respect their believers, as men of Christ, their position is that only Jesus and his unique message can lead to salvation, as this is what the Scripture indicates.
The duo then went on to talks about the National Conservatism Conference, which recently concluded in London, and at which Reverend French was present. About his experience there, he had this to say:
‘I think some of the politicians who came to it didn’t necessarily pitch it right, and actually underestimated the importance of theological issues that underpin this. That this is a movement looking for a soul, looking for a theology.
There’s a deep recognition that the culture wars are actually spiritual and sacred wars.
I noticed that when there were speakers who tapped into that, then there was extraordinary applause…But there was an incident, where one particular minister of state indiscreetly said that we don’t want to overdo “the God thing”, to one of the delegates the day before, and didn’t realise that the delegate was actually highly religious, and this went around like tumbleweed.’
Continuing on the topic of NatCon 2023, Franklin and French reflected on the comment made at the conference that invited the most scrutiny from the mainstream media. Author Douglas Murray jokingly said that people should not discount nationalism internationally just because the Germans ‘mucked up’ twice in the last century. To this, the men pointed out Yoram Hazony, the chief organiser of the event, is actually an Israeli-American Jewish man, who was present in the audience when the joke was told and laughed.
Watch Reverend Daniel French’s Appearance on the Irreverend Podcast Below
Religious Online Content In Hungary
Hungary has had podcasts hosted by ordained priests as well. Papifrankó was an online content brand run by Catholic priest and influencer András Hodász. He was creating content on YouTube and Instagram between 2019 and 2022. However, alas, not only did Hodász quit making religious media content, he quit priesthood as well for a year to deal with depression.
The YouTube channel Bizony, Isten! can currently boast around 21,000 subscribers, and their roundtable discussion show titled Agapé (Agape) gets as many as 10,000 views per episode.
777blog.hu published a list of Christian podcasts religious people in Hungary should follow. Their list was topped by Különvélemény (Separate Opinion), hosted by Imre Somody and Ádám Szabados, followed by ProjectOne run by to young men, Kristóf Benedek and Mátyás Turczi.
