Lincoln Russ

I began my weekend on Friday night with a trip into the Auckland CBD to try to catch roving fundamentalist evangelical preacher Lincoln Russ.

Russ has been popping up on my social media feeds for a few weeks now. He's been attempting to tour the country - what he's calling his Repentance Tour - proposing to visit all 66 towns and cities around the country with a population of more than 20,000 people - on the smell of an oily rag. He's fallen well short of that so far, having only visited a handful of places, mostly in the South Island.

He's been asking people for donations so that he can pay for the costs of the tour. Last week he was asking people to “step out in faith” and give $1,000 - asking for 20 people to step up - that would let him get a vehicle and hire venues to perform in.

Russ lives in Christchurch, and began his tour down that way. His brand of preaching, which he calls “Church on the Streets”, mainly consists of him walking around while shouting into a radio mic, which is being received and amplified by another guy close by wearing a portable speaker. It's shouty, obnoxious, loud and distorted. The topics are pretty toxic, calling out all the usual fundamentalist stuff such as homosexuality, trans people, abortion, and sex before marriage, all things he wants to be made illegal.

He's been heckled in various places, which I think is good pushback. The one I particularly liked was a woman in Wānaka, with her own sound system which she put to good use, and a Birds Aren't Real conspiracy sign. (Mark's written about the Birds Aren't Real movement in the past. It's basically an anti-conspiracy parody.)

In Wellington, he turned up in Cuba Street to preach, but received some good heckling, which unfortunately turned into a bit of pushing and racial slurs being used, and Russ praying to “rebuke that spirit of homosexuality” from one of the hecklers.

On Friday night, he'd advertised he was planning on being in the Auckland CBD at 9pm, outside the Farmers store on Queen Street - a fairly prominent location, so I took a trip into town to be there for it.

I showed up a little early and took a walk down Queen Street, noting about 4 or 5 other religious evangelical efforts - indeed there was already a group of Christians outside Farmers preaching “the need for Jesus”. Their stuff was fairly tame compared to Russ, and I got handed a couple of cartoon tracts published by NedGod.net, which is connected with Ray Comfort (aka BananaMan).

9pm came and went with no sign of Russ at Farmers. Then, checking his social media, it turned out he'd been waylaid because of a late departing flight from Christchurch, so was planning to start at 9:20pm instead. I'd have expected crowds of people gathering at Farmers, based on his social media claims - that there would be lots of people there, including 15 Samoan security personnel, and lots of hecklers. It was deserted.

Farmers store on Queen Street - no sign of Russ

9:38pm, still no sign of him, so I checked his FB page again, and he was live. Not in front of Farmers, but further down Queen Street, in front of the McDonalds at Britomart. So, I hurriedly made my way down the street to catch him live.

Now, I'm no marketing specialist, but I'd have thought that if you wanted to get your supporters along, you'd at least turn up at the stated location, rather than 500 metres further down the street. It's almost like he knew nobody would turn up.

Anyway, I arrived just in time to hear some of his standard preaching stuff, calling out homosexuality, sex before marriage, abortion etc.

Rather than being accompanied by 15 Samoan guards, there were about a dozen people from one church, exclusively Polynesian, from what I could see, who were there to support him. No crowds, no hecklers, just a few bemused random people who quickly moved on.

Russ with a group of his supporters, all from the same church

I had my big camera with me, as well as my phone, so I sat down to take a few photos. Spotting me with my camera out, he came up to me and asked if I was with the media, was I from NewsHub? He seemed pretty disappointed when I said I was with a very niche organisation, not the mainstream news media.

Me, camera out, caught on his Facebook live

Surprisingly, he finished his preaching about 5 minutes after I arrived. I'd have thought if you'd travelled all the way from Christchurch, you'd be spending more than 15 minutes doing your preaching. But, the night was getting late, with not that many people around, so maybe he thought it was a lost cause. I'd call it a flop.

Russ, preaching at an empty Britomart square

Anyway, I got to talk to him for about 10 minutes after the event, and put a few questions to him.

• On abortion (which is legal in New Zealand). He said he wanted it to be illegal, and that the woman and doctors should be executed, such was the severity of the moral crime. (Which is puzzling, as I understand that all sins are considered equal in the eyes of god.)
• I pointed out that even murder is not punishable by the death penalty in NZ. He was of the opinion that in the next 50 years, a more right wing government will likely be installed. I said he sounded like he thought that totalitarian governments were a good thing. No pushback on that. I pointed out that our country was becoming more secular, and moving away from religious belief.
• I asked him about the donations thing, and whether he had a job. On that, he said he was working, but wanted to keep details of that private. On asking for donations, he bizarrely went on about how much people could give and him not being subject to IRD restrictions on the size of gifts. (As I understand the IRD rules, gift duty applies to individuals giving in excess of $27,000 in a 12 month period. In his case, where he's advertising/begging for donations via social media, it's likely that these would be treated as income and therefore taxable.)
• On the way he spoke about the LGBTQ community, he used the often heard line that he had gay friends and had no issue with that. I pointed out that demonising marginalised communities is harmful to them and that he should consider that in his future preaching.
• He told me he believes in predestination - the concept that God knows in advance who will accept him, and who will not. In that view of things, preaching seems a bit pointless, though I guess he could argue that his preaching might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, causing a pre-destined soul to finally accept Jesus.
• He claims that nations are “blessed”, and ours isn't because of all the sinful lifestyles. He claimed that Auckland's recent flooding was punishment from God, and that more religious nations in the world have fewer natural disasters. (A claim easily disproved - or God has extremely bad aim! Oh, and look at the tragic situation in Turkey and Syria with the recent earthquake; nations that are far more religious than New Zealand but a death toll of 33,000 and climbing.)
• On the existence of God, he claims he's absolutely certain of it. Not surprising really.

I'd have liked to have continued the conversation and talked to him longer, but it seemed that his group were waiting to leave, and so he had to go. To be frank, in our largest city, with a population in excess of 1.6M, the turnout was dismal, and as I've said, consisted mainly of a group already friendly to the Christian message - literally preaching to the converted.

It's been difficult to piece together the story behind Russ. He's given a few interviews, and has made various videos on his TikTok channel (which is @athiesmsucks) and Facebook. He's also given a fairly in-depth interview on YouTube, and, as I discussed above, I got to talk to him on Friday night, and I've talked to a few others about him.

He says he grew up going to Destiny Church, and had religious parents. In his late teens he rebelled. It would seem that that was probably the time he got his tattoos, and likely experimented with sex and drugs, as many do at that time of life. (I find it ironic now that he wants to make sex before marriage illegal. Fine for him, but should be denied to others!)

From some I've talked to, it seems doubtful that he does have a job, with some saying he's on a benefit, and is continually begging for money.

He's also made claims that he can cure people of illnesses - and has claimed to have cured somebody of cancer - certainly a dangerous claim to be making without evidence. And, people are easy to manipulate in a "faith healing" situation, though the traditional faith healers usually steer clear of making claims as major as curing cancer. Even if this were confirmed in a particular case, we know that there are cases of spontaneous remission. But I think the likelihood of the story being true is fairly remote.

I do think he has delusions of grandeur, as evidenced by his expectations of the turnout on Friday night compared to the reality. He's also revealed that he expects to die a martyr. From a YouTube interview:

“When I say that there are thousands of people that want to kill me and are equipped to kill me… the only thing that's stopping them from doing it is the tremendous security team that I have who are well equipped and prepared and trained to handle these situations."

Reflecting on the experience, I'm aware that some will think we should just be ignoring people like Russ, and not giving them exposure. I think it's worth calling them out, and I'm fully in support of people pushing back on obnoxious and harmful ideas being spouted in public.

In my assessment, he's craving attention, whether for some psychological need, or simply to garner more followers and thus be able to attract a flow of donations. But, having been brought up constantly exposed to Destiny Church would likely have an effect on anybody's psyche, as far as I'm concerned.

Skeptics have traditionally shied away from criticising religion - people should be allowed to believe as they wish - especially if it's not actively harming others. But harmful and ridiculous and disprovable claims should be called out. (Speaking of which, one of his associates - Sonya King - can be seen in a video at 1:26, makes the completely debunked and easy disproven claim that men have fewer ribs than women!)

I'm hopeful that Lincoln Russ will fade into obscurity, or perhaps be exported to more fertile ground, such as the USA as the likes of Ray Comfort and Ken Ham have done. Until then, it's useful to at least be aware of his activities.

In an amusing postscript, Lincoln Russ has now followed me on Twitter. Apparently he had a great turnout, and my photo of him preaching to a deserted square was just “media spin”.