Christianity Today August 8, 2026 12 min signal 2026-08-08

He scouted supermodels. Now he sells a Christian phone plan.

Archived text mirror, captured for personal reading when the Signal ran. Formatting is approximate — read the original at the source.

Christianity Today

August 7, 2026

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Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Unsplash, Google

On January 13, 2018, Paul Fisher’s phone blared with an emergency alert: A ballistic missile was inbound to Hawaii. “THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” the message declared.

Panic ensued across the Aloha State as local radio and TV stations relayed the news. People ran through Honolulu seeking shelter. Parents tucked kids into basements, bathtubs, and, in at least one instance, a storm drain. Rumors spread that North Korea had launched a nuclear attack.

Fisher recorded himself outside a storefront acknowledging it might be his last moment, accepting the possibility he’d soon be reunited with his late sister, Deborah. Hours later, officials clarified that the alert was a false alarm, claiming a state employee had accidentally triggered the message.

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Still, Fisher used the incident as personal and professional fuel, pledging to himself that no incoming missile—real or imagined—would stop him from completing his mission: finding “the most beautiful” girl and boy in Hawaii.

A longtime modeling agent, Fisher was in the middle of filming his own documentary, 72 Hour Supermodel Challenge, scouring beaches for teenage prospects. One of them, 16-year-old Summer Gaudette, later walked the runway at New York Fashion Week under his direction.

This was Fisher’s business. He made stars.

Today, Fisher is selling something wildly different: a mobile phone plan for Christians. He is the founder and CEO of Radiant Mobile, which launched this May as a “Jesus-centric” alternative to Verizon, AT&T, and other power players in the cellular space.

Now a father of two, Fisher is “not really proud” of the way he fed into the sexualized culture of the modeling space, he told CT in an interview. Radiant Mobile doubles as an attempt to atone for his past.

Fisher got into modeling in 1984 as an ambitious young man coming out of San Fernando Valley, California. As he told the Model Wars podcast, he visited bars and nightclubs across the country on drug-laced recruiting trips, scouting scores of young women for his boss at the time, Larry Lind.

Lind, whose modeling agency was once prominent in Miami and New York, was “unsavory” and a “maniac,” Fisher said. He claimed he once tried to escape Lind’s circle, only to have the man send armed “goons” to Fisher’s Manhattan hotel room.

Fisher eventually broke away to represent models on his own. A self-proclaimed “pit bull” with an addiction to splashy deals, he touted partnerships with the Hilton family and Vogue cover models like Naomi Campbell.

For all his strutting in suits and sunglasses, however, Fisher often wrestled openly with the nature of his career. While profiling one of his reality shows, People magazine called Paul a hothead—noting his frequent screaming at staffers and aspiring models—but also highlighted his team of drug counselors and parenting experts, who were employed to counter what Fisher called the industry’s “disgusting” tendency to degrade women. Years after calling modeling a “very damaging” profession for kids, Fisher hosted Lifetime UK’s I Can Make You a Supermodel and sold online modeling and influencer courses.

These were, Fisher now says, efforts to weave mentorship into modeling—to protect young girls more than monetize them, to celebrate their physical features as “blessings from God,” to be a “shining light in a dark industry.” He promised wellness.

So does Radiant Mobile.

Radiant advertises itself as the first Christian mobile network. Technically, Patriot Mobile holds that distinction—it rebranded as “America’s only Christian conservative” provider in 2016. Whereas Patriot is primarily concerned with funding political action, however, Radiant’s selling feature is defense of the Christian family—specifically through a network-level shield against what Fisher views as corruptive mobile internet access in an oversexualized world.

For $40 a month, Radiant Mobile customers get 5G service from T-Mobile’s network along with irreversible filters that block harmful websites. The banned categories are as follows: pornography, mature-content games, racism, Satanism and cultism, self-harm, extremism and terrorism, bomb-making, harmful drugs, and cyberbullying.

“If anybody wants to look at those types of things,” Fisher said, “we are definitely not the right mobile plan for them.”

Radiant’s filtering technology comes from Allot, an Israeli cybersecurity firm that also services Verizon. Rather than horizontal filters through apps or browsers, the blocks come from the network itself. They cannot be changed. This distinctive layer, Fisher said, took “a couple million bucks” of investment but is the company’s biggest draw to other investors, including prospective partners in Germany and South Korea.

What’s permissible on Radiant Mobile—and what’s capable of sneaking past the shield—is a little fuzzier. Porn may be an obvious foe, but Sherwin Zadeh, Radiant’s chief technology officer, told CT that the service doesn’t block specific images, posts, or accounts within social media feeds, only on mobile browser searches. That means explicit content on X or other platforms is accessible unless users—or their parents—specifically blacklist those entire sites.

Explanations about blocked categories also invite subjectivity. Cyberbullying, for example, encompasses any sites “that promote harassment and hate of any type.” Fisher, who built his modeling career in a culture rampant with harassment, said it’s possible Radiant will ban more categories down the road, while noting there is a “slim to none” chance any existing blocks will ever be reversed.

Then there are 120 optional categories inside the Radiant Shield. They range from seemingly innocent (books, cycling, nature, pets) and potentially addictive (American football) to polarizing (abortion, anorexia). Some of them—like LGBTQ and transgender content—come automatically blocked but can be manually unblocked. Others, like dating, gambling, piercings, and tattoos, begin as blocked categories but only for teens and children.

“We’re not anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ,” Fisher said. “We’re giving freedom of choice.”

One public relations adviser warned the Radiant team that “it’s a slippery slope limiting what a kid can get access to,” COO Chris Klimis told CT. Both Fisher and Klimis say Radiant isn’t a network hiding content from customers, but rather customers choosing better censorship.

Fisher believes there’s legal precedent for this level of filtering, which Radiant also hopes to offer for wireless routers, extending the firewall to household internet. In 2000, Congress enacted the Child Internet Protection Act, requiring K-12 schools and public libraries to use internet filters for harmful content like pornographic images. Fisher said Radiant is bringing the same standard into peoples’ pockets.

“There isn’t a bar or strip club on every corner, but there is on the internet. It’s like a free-for-all, the Wild West,” he said. “I guess that’s cool for a lot of people, but when you have children, I want some control.”

Parents can also pull the plug on their kids’ mobile internet altogether. Radiant’s parental controls can induce instant or regularly scheduled disconnections. If Radiant senses kiddos are trying to hack their way around the protections, their phones are flooded with “Amber Alert–style messages” and the network “throttles their data bandwidth,” Zadeh said on a demo video.

Tony Reinke, author of 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, believes there is biblical backing for more internet filtering. Since the Garden of Eden, God has charged mankind to resist temptation.

That duty, however, cannot end with signing up for Radiant Mobile. “Jesus said the root of my sin problem is already inside my heart,” Reinke said. Digital safeguards are no substitute for parenting. “Because at some point those children will no longer be children and they will step out of the protected Garden into an unfiltered world.”

Another Christian author, who declined Radiant’s invitation to promote the company, is more skeptical. When contacted by CT, she asked that her name be withheld but said she worries that Radiant’s filtering could block content potentially helpful for Christians wrestling with questions around LGBTQ issues.

Derek Schuurman, chair of computer science at Calvin University, believes any Christian on the fence about content filtering must weigh the call of Psalm 1—do not walk, stand, or sit with the wicked—against Jesus’ call to be salt and light and engage the world. A church or an elementary school is a different place to witness, for example, than a college campus. Regardless, Schuurman argued, “we shape our tools and our tools shape us.”

Klimis, who’s also a worship pastor at the nondenominational Orlando-based Nations Church, is firmly behind Fisher’s method. Radiant Mobile’s COO first connected with the former reality TV star over a shared concern that their kids would be overexposed to sexuality.

“Is anyone gonna do anything to stop this?” Klimis said. “Or do we just have to pay for it in counseling? If being way too fundamentalist is saying, ‘I’ve got kids from 5 to 18, and I want to determine when we talk to them about girls with two mommies,’ then so be it.”

Gen Z may be helping lead a resurgence in churchgoing, but 74 percent of Gen Z men also report porn is a problem for them. “Being in church isn’t fixing the issue,” Klimis said. Jesus is the ultimate answer and Radiant is a tool, he said, and he remains committed to his local church.

But, Klimis added, his top priority is the mobile company. “Jesus is very important to me,” he said, “but not more important than providing safety for families, whether they’re atheist or Muslim or whatever.”

Fisher said that despite their very different backgrounds as a model scout and a music minister, he and Klimis are united as “conservative men” with a shared heart for “love, protection, safety, and the core family.” They argue that early media reports focused too much on Radiant’s optional filters related to LGBTQ and transgender communities—even as Fisher has highlighted such coverage as evidence that “we have hit a nerve.”

Even while marketing Christian principles and working to redefine his legacy, Fisher clearly sees Radiant as a business opportunity.

Patriot Mobile founder Glenn Story once said his company’s sales grew exponentially after the service publicly aligned itself with Christianity. Similarly, Fisher told MIT Technology Review that he turned to the growing mobile space after advice from Bernt Ullmann, a celebrity brand specialist who admired how Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile “made buying a cell plan feel less like dealing with a utility and more like choosing a brand.” Fisher said he was searching for an audience when he had a late-night revelation from God to do something “faith-based.”

Tech executive Roger Bringmann led the investment pool for Radiant Mobile. Bringmann, who has lamented a lack of defined ethics in the practice of training AI chatbots, also funded Austin Christian University, a new Texas school for Christian business leaders.

Radiant Mobile’s website declares the “lordship of Jesus Christ,” and the company’s X account has reposted announcements featuring illustrations of Jesus, including one with him holding an iPhone.

Publicly, though, Fisher has also championed the Kabbalah Center, a Los Angeles–based nonprofit promoting Jewish mysticism. The “PhD” program offered through The Paul Fisher Method modeling course, which is still listed online, promises a Zoom call with him and Rachel Schwartz, an astrologer who advertises Kabbalah lectures along with services like natal readings to “explore past lives.” Fisher has also promoted Kabbalah influencer David Ghiyam, who currently offers “soul correction” and AI-driven spiritual coaching.

Fisher didn’t confirm, when asked by CT, whether he aligns more with Christianity or Judaism. His entrepreneurial efforts extend across both religions. Separate from Radiant, he’s also aiming to “take back the internet” for Jewish families with The Dome, another mobile network that uses the same technology and is named after Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. His executive assistant there, Pallavi Gungaram, is a former Miss Universe pageant contestant.

Yet Radiant Mobile is also selling engagement. Its pitch isn’t to reduce screen time so much as redirect it. “We’re a streaming platform inside of a firewall,” Klimis said, pointing to a library of “Jesus-centric” video content that comes with the phone plan.

Some of these videos are recorded interviews and testimonies. Others are AI-generated. This includes adult-oriented shorts like The Story of St Sebastian, whose bloody teaser trailer resembles the video game–like AI Bible stories proliferating on YouTube. Then there are animated kids’ tales like Noah’s Big Ark Adventure narrated by Snow White, Pinocchio, and other fairytale characters licensed through Los Angeles–based Elf Labs.

Radiant dangles trivia games and monthly cash giveaways to incentivize kids to watch. Adults are also promised special perks for using Radiant, including VIP meet and greets with “Christian stars.” One deal visible on Radiant’s tech demo: a 25 percent discount for VLS Beverly Hills, a luxury eyelash line.

It’s unclear how much these offers are winning customers. Fisher claimed ahead of the company’s May 5 launch that his team was inundated with early sign-ups, then later praised an “overwhelming” subscriber response. CT was unable to verify or speak with any current subscribers through repeated correspondence with Fisher, Klimis, and others on the Radiant team. John Gray, a South Carolina megachurch pastor who promotes Radiant on social media, did not respond to requests for comment.

Four different bloggers who published promotional reviews of Radiant alongside Amazon gift card giveaways told CT they don’t personally subscribe to the service. One, Susan Braun, said she connected with Radiant through the Momentum Influencer Network, a collective of 1,100 “faith-forward bloggers” that works with clients like Netflix, Angel Studios, Lifeway.

Another blogger, Clarissa R. West, told CT that she’s considering switching to Radiant after promoting the company. She and her husband have used Verizon for decades, but they plan to get a smartphone for their 17-year-old child this fall, and Radiant “seems to be everything I was looking for.” West has three other kids who will use phones in the coming years, she said, and she’d probably use many of Radiant’s optional filters—including for gambling and LGBTQ content—on their plans. She wouldn’t be so strict with herself, preferring to engage on even divisive topics with fellow Christians: “I consider my online presence to be a form of ministry.”

On the flip side, she said wouldn’t encourage her children to engage with Radiant’s Christian content. She “wasn’t very impressed with the AI aspect” of Radiant’s videos, and she avoids giving her kids access to Bible stories without checking them against God’s Word. She has no plans to personally use their devotionals if she tries the service.

And as for Fisher himself, the man whose unconventional journey led to Radiant Mobile’s existence, West wasn’t too concerned about his background in modeling or his motives. “If he’s able to provide a service that Christians want and need, I am in support of that particular service.”

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