(OPINION) Alex Magala, the aerial sword-swallower and acrobat who admitted he stripped for gay men and women as a younger man, says he is now a born-again Christian and called Pastor Mark Driscoll’s recent criticism of his performance at James River Church’s Stronger Men’s Conference in Missouri, an “uninformed” position.
“Pastor Mark Driscoll’s remarks about my act failed to recognize the difference between a male strip tease and a stunt performance rooted in art and sport,” Magala said in a statement posted on his Instagram page Wednesday.
“Only an uninformed person would draw a comparison between my act and an inappropriate performance. I feel that this danger act is perfect for the Stronger Men’s Conference. It inspires the audience and permission for them to reach new heights of what’s possible in their lives.”
Magala said he is a Christian and has “always aimed to use my talents to inspire and entertain audiences in a way that respects my faith.”
“The act in question was designed to be a celebration of physical human achievements and is aligned with James River Church’s purpose in bringing others into the light of God,” Magala added. “It’s essential to approach such performances with an understanding of their intention rather than reducing them to mere entertainment.”
A viral video clip of Magala’s sword-swallowing performance, which made him famous on family-friendly shows like “America’s Got Talent” and “Britain’s Got Talent,” followed by Driscoll’s response to it, has already sparked a wave of comments on social media and headlines in a variety of publications like USA Today. Driscoll insisted on Monday that the outlet misinterpreted what he means by the Jezebel spirit.
“Merriam-Webster defines a jezebel as ‘an impudent, shameless, or morally unrestrained woman.’ It’s a derogatory word akin to ‘tramp,’ and, according to the Jim Crow Museum, has ties to racism and anti-black imagery,” USA Today reported.
Driscoll, the outspoken senior pastor of Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, responded to USA Today.
“The Jezebel spirit is not a synonym for ‘tramp,’ and it’s got nothing to do with racism. The Jezebel spirit is a demon that has worked through men and women for centuries, from Queen Jezebel in 1st Kings to Jesus’s rebuke of the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2,” he wrote on X.
“This demon seeks to control and dominate, most often through seductive women but oftentimes through overbearing, domineering men. I literally wrote the book on this. I want to give it away absolutely free. I get nothing out of it; I want men and women to learn more about the spiritual war behind the war we see.”
In his book New Days, Old Demons, Driscoll presents a “prophetic study of sex, gender woke politics, and how progressive Christianity is just a rebranding of ancient paganism.
The same demons that were active in the days of Elijah are active today, castrating the men, mutilating the children, closing the churches, and silencing the Bible teachers.”
Driscoll objected to the performance in his critique of Magala’s performance at the Stronger Men’s Conference, which ran from April 11-12 at the Great Southern Bank Arena in Springfield, arguing that it embodied the Jezebel spirit. It was unclear whether he was aware of Magala’s performance before the event.
In 2016, while Magala’s star was rising as a family-friendly sword swallower on “Britain’s Got Talent,” a Daily Mail report revealed that Magala also worked as a pole-dancing striptease artist in Los Angeles and Las Vegas for women and gay men.
