“Duck Dynasty” has become a huge, breakout hit for A&E, with the bearded faces of its stars gracing everything from t-shirts to backpacks and the stars themselves commanding a pretty nice salary per episode. But the show doesn’t delve too far into the family’s faith, even though they are all active members of the Whites Ferry Road Church of Christ in Virginia; brother Alan has been a pastor there for over 20 years.

“We can’t get into spiritual matters on the show too much,” family patriarch Phil Robertson said. “That’s a little much for the production company. They say, you know, it’s not the Pat Robertson show.”

Despite that part of their lives being downplayed on the show, the family is still deeply religious. Robertson himself delivered a powerful sermon to the congregation on Sunday, talking about our country and how everyone needs to repent.

“I’m not the only one that needed to repent. The whole lot of you needs to repent. All the rest of America. Right? Yeah,” Robertson said. “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure? ‘Oh, we’ll always be here. We’ll always have our freedom. We’re America, the greatest country on Earth!’ Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?”

When Alan Robertson announced he was going to be joining the show, he spoke about how he would have to give up part of his duties with the church and said he and his family thought long and hard about how the move would impact the children involved. But in the end, he felt he could reach a bigger audience through a newfound fame.

“My children are grown, but all of my brothers’ children are teenagers now, so how is this crazy world going to impact them?” Alan told the New York Post. “We think about John Luke and Sadie, who are such a big part of the show and they’re teenagers, you know? They need to be just normal teenagers. We pray about that. Any person that’s an evangelist, that’s what you want to do, so I had to give this up for something possibly bigger.”

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