'Traumatized' Former Members of Evangelical Christian Group Teen Mania Recall Being 'Days from Dying' (Exclusive)
- - - 'Traumatized' Former Members of Evangelical Christian Group Teen Mania Recall Being 'Days from Dying' (Exclusive)
Lizzie HymanJuly 9, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War revisits the evangelical Christian youth organization Teen Mania and how it left many fearing for their lives
“You were blindfolded, put in a van. I was days from dying,” one man recalls of his experience while involved with Teen Mania
The second season of Shiny Happy People premieres July 23 on Prime Video
A new season of the documentary series Shiny Happy People revisits the evangelical Christian youth organization Teen Mania and explores how it made many former participants fear for their lives and left them questioning whether they had been in a cult.
“What a ride it’s been,” Amy Duggar, who appeared in the first season of the docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, says in the newly released season 2 trailer, shared exclusively with People. When producers for Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War — which premieres July 23 on Prime Video — ask if they’ve heard of Teen Mania, Duggar’s husband Dillon King responds, “It’s like Coachella for youth groups.” Duggar adds, “It’s a great place to meet other Christians.”
But not everyone remembers the organization, which ceased operations in December 2015, so fondly.
Prime Video
'Shiny Happy People' season 2: 'A Teenage Holy War'
In the beginning, the experience was thrilling. “Acquire the Fire was the thing to do with your youth group,” one woman says in the trailer, referencing Teen Mania’s annual youth conference featuring concerts and worship. “Music’s playing, fire’s shooting off,” another woman recalls. A man adds, “It was wild.”
Ron Luce, Teen Mania’s founder and president — referred to in the trailer as the “ringmaster” — is seen riling up massive crowds, pumping his fist and calling for excitement. “We believed we were changing the world,” one former member recalls. “But then, it gets weird.”
As images of teen members walking with lit torches appear, someone asks an unsettling question that many former members still ask themselves: “How do you know you’re in a cult if that’s your normal?”
What began as a mission-driven organization aiming to send teenagers on mission trips — “to go around the world and save people for Jesus,” as an alum explains in the trailer — eventually evolved into something much more extreme. “You’re working 15-hour days, sacrificing yourself for this vision,” one former member says. Another adds, “It’s exploiting these kids.”
"I was a teenage telemarketer... for Jesus," yet another says.
Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post via Getty
Teen Mania founder and president Ron Luce in 2006.
The group quickly shifted from religious fervor to political messaging. Initiatives like the Battle Cry Campaign — aimed at “taking America back to being a Christian nation” — and the boot-camp–style ESOAL (Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of a Lifetime) program pushed teenagers to their physical and emotional limits.
“They’re creating soldiers,” one woman says, as footage shows teens in helmets, covered in mud and crying while carrying large wooden crosses. “It’s time for war!” Luce shouts to a crowd in the footage. “I’m looking at an army of young people who want to speak up!”
Clips in the trailer for the three-episode season show teens rolling on the ground as if in military training, and items being set on fire — and it's just a glimpse of what participants endured.
“You were blindfolded, put in a van. I was days from dying,” one former member recalls, his words paired with a photo of a teen in a hospital bed bearing a large wound across his abdomen. “Your life means nothing compared to the greater purpose,” another alum adds. A third person who experienced Teen Mania firsthand now says she remains “traumatized.”
“The most valuable thing you could ever do is die,” a man reflects in the clip. At the end of the trailer, when asked if she believed she might die while involved with Teen Mania, a woman responds, “I never thought there would be another option.”
Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War premieres July 23 on Prime Video.
on People
Source: AOL Entertainment
