Our Stories - Leaving the "Super Race" for Freedom

This story begins in the year of our Lord 1975. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico to two God-loving and God-fearing parents. By all accounts, my childhood was normal, but unbeknownst to me, I was born into a cult. My parents loved me and provided for me and my siblings and I never really lacked for anything. As I grew older and joined into society, however, I began to notice major differences from the other children my age. Here are a few of these differences:

• I was not allowed to watch TV. We didn’t have one in the house
• I was not allowed to go to the movies
• I was not allowed to interact with other children my age unless they were in the same church
• I was not allowed to participate in school activities
• I was not allowed to listen to music unless it was Christian music
• I was not allowed to play video games, card games, and only certain board games (never on Sunday)
• Want a girlfriend? Forget it!

Our weekends were often filled with church services. Sunday morning, Sunday night, and often special revival services on Saturdays. Let’s not forget Wednesday night services and sometimes a prayer service thrown in the middle of the week.

Even though I was a popular kid in school, I felt like an outcast, because I was different. I felt superior and sorry for the rest of the kids, because I was thought that I was a child of the King and that I belong to a super race. I was here on this earth for a short time and I was destined to rule and reign over the rest of humanity. No other church, no other ministry, no other people had the answer to life. Only our church, our group, our pastor. Why is this? Because we believed in the teachings of William Branham. He was our prophet, his messages were the final say on whatever we did, or rather our pastor’s interpretation of Williams Branham message was the final say on what we did.

As I grew older, I became more curious in the world around me. I often got in trouble because of my curiosity. When I was around 8 years old or so, I would sneak out and smoke cigarettes. I was caught and brought before the pastor, who in turn brought me in front of the church so that I may confess my sins. We had to ask the pastor permission for everything, or as they put it "ask him for advice and spiritual guidance" on whether we should buy a house or a car or go on vacation. Speaking of vacations, we did travel, but it was always to a convention somewhere, usually with a sister church from New York City whose pastor was the leader of a William Branham believing sect called the "Seven Thunders Inspiration". The people who believed in the Seven Thunders Inspiration proclaimed themselves to be the best of the best among the Branham believers; they alone could interpret the words of the prophet "correctly", but more on that in a little bit.

In 1988, my father became disillusioned with the local assembly and decided to move the family to Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the Tulsa area was another sister church that was consider a major leader in the Seven Thunder Inspiration movement. We made the move and settled back into the same routine as the church in Puerto Rico. We were heavily involved in all aspects of the church and served the church and its leaders without complaint.

By this time, I entered middle school and much to the dismay of my parents and church leaders, I started to play football, lifting weights, and wrestling. My parents reluctantly supported me in this endeavor and I was elated. However, once again I felt like the outcast. I could not fraternize with my teammates, I could not go to their houses, I could not attend dances, I could not attend school parties. We did not celebrate any holidays. There were no Christmas decorations, no Halloween. Labor Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July were spent with the church family. At least we had a TV, but it was hidden in the closet and seldom used.

As I grew older, I began to be groomed for service in the church, I was chosen as junior usher and began to learn about church order and other things under the mentorship of a well-respected member of the church. The well-respected member ended up being charged with sexual crimes that he committed while he was working as a jailer in the county jail. I was a good kid and followed the rules, but I longed to be like the “worldly” kids, to have freedom. Every time that I broke a rule, I would confess and suffer the consequences so I became good friends with the pastor’s son. Boy did I ever get my eyes opened! The pastor had a TV in the basement, WHOA!!! The pastor walked around his house without a shirt on, how sinful? The pastor’s son had many, many, many girlfriends and it was all kept quiet. One summer, someone snitched on the pastor’s son about all the sins he was committing and somehow, I found myself in the middle of a circle with the deacons and elders praying over me, because I was the "bad influence" that caused the pastor’s son to fall. In later years, one of my family members was working on the pastor’s son computer and discovered an immense amount of pornography. The pastor’s son was running an online shop selling all kinds of sex things, toys and such. The pastor’s son remained a leader in the "Message" cult and is even now a pastor of his own church.

By all accounts, our church was a normal non-denominational church. Our church services were full of worship, prayer, and we preached about the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, we did not fraternize with other non-believing churches. If you did not believe that William Branham was a prophet sent from God to "reveal the Seven Seals" and to foretell the second coming of Christ, then you were lost and not worthy of our friendship. We preached about the saving blood of Jesus, but only through the message of William Branham. We were the elite, we were the called out, we were meant to rule and reign, and as long as we followed our pastor blindly and without question, we were going to make it. Every aspect of our lives included William Branham’s teachings. We hung his picture in our homes, our conversations always included phrases like, “the prophet said,” his messages were played over and over in the house from cassette tapes. Want to get married? The prophet said. Want to buy a house? The prophet said. Want to….The prophet said. We didn’t read the Bible, we read what the prophet said.

As I entered high school, I was getting pretty good at this football thing and was looking forward to going to college. I was becoming a bad kid and would have secret relationships with school girls. At the same time, I was learning more about the church and the core beliefs and I felt torn. There was something wrong, how could a loving God allow all the other churches to burn in hell. How could all these good Christian people be wrong? As I entered my junior year of high school, I was convinced by the pastor that I was destined to do great things for the kingdom. He talked me out of playing football that year, because Jesus was coming soon. I had also joined the police explorer program and I was talked out of that also, because it was not pleasing to the Lord. I wanted to be a police officer, I was told that the Lord did not like that, because I may have to walk into a bar or a house of ill repute and that those spirits would jump on me and I would become lost. I listened and I followed. I lost scholarships to play football in college and ended up attending a local community college, however I never finished due to the constant pressure from the church teachings regarding the evils of higher education. I didn’t even get to go to the prom, because it was a sin to dance.

In or around 1994, I fell in love. At first, she was a friend. She was older and was a friend of my sisters. She had moved to the Tulsa area and was a member of the church. I followed all the steps, first by going to the pastor and stating my intentions. The answer from him was a resounding NO. It will never happen he said. You may be asking why. She was white, I was Hispanic and the prophet said that the races shall not mix, it was against God’s law. The pastor embarked in a huge campaign against this atrocity, how dare I fall in love with a white girl. He brought all kinds of articles, and paper evidence of how interracial marriages were a failure and not according to the "Message" of William Branham. I countered with examples of successful couples, some of them members of the church. I was told that those couples had committed a sin prior to becoming true believers and that God had allowed them to stay together for the sake of the children and other kinds of nonsense. I was heartbroken, but I wanted to be good, so I moved on and went on a downhill spiral, trying all things sinful, but I kept it all hidden from the church. I went out into the world and began a career in Public Safety as an EMT in Tulsa. I truly learned the good and the bad that the world had to offer and little by little the fear of disappointing the pastor and the church began to lift from my life.

I will tell you that love triumphed in the end. My wife never gave up on us. Three years later, I asked her to marry me. I received the blessing from her parents and then reconciled with the church. It was quite different this time, I did not fear the pastor’s response and called a meeting with him. I told him that I was engaged and had received the blessing from the father of the bride to be. I then told him that he was going to marry us. He agreed and by all accounts, we became true members of the church again.

Shortly after marriage, we moved to the state of Indiana and to another sister church. Here, I rose through the ranks of the church and eventually became a worship leader, deacon, and elder. The more I learned about the message of William Branham, the more I became confused about the saving grace of Jesus. The church began to preach more and more about William Branham and his doctrine and less and less about the Gospel of Jesus. Doctrine included some of these topics:

• Serpent's Seed
• The stature of a "Perfect" Man
• Seven Thunder Blood
• Mini Messiahs Walking the Earth (Manifested Sons of God)
• Michael the Great Archangel
• Pyramids

It was a mess. The race was on as to which pastor in the Seven Thunder inspiration had the most up to date word from God. The pastor in New York proclaimed himself an Apostle and even began printing his own tracts of all his messages. Now it was no longer Jesus, nor William Branham, but Joseph Coleman’s message lined up with William Branham and then lined up with what the Bible said. He even proclaimed that the year 1996 was going to be the year of the second coming of the Lord.

I continued with my life and eventually realized my dream of becoming a police officer. By that time, I was an established leader of the church, but deep inside I wondered what was wrong. So, I started the research on my own. I dared not tell anyone that I was doubting, not even my wife. She was also searching on her own without telling me. We loved Jesus and we were devoted to the His teachings, but by doubting, we no longer walked the message path per se. We were meeting other Christians in our area and began to see the fruits of the Christian life in their everyday walk and realized that there was no way in the world that we were the elite. How could we be? These people were true Christians, servants of the community, loving people, that loved the Lord and we had been taught that they were totally lost. One Sunday, while on our way to church, I asked my wife is she wanted to go to another church. One that we always passed while enroute to the message church. She immediately agreed. We stopped and entered and to our surprise, we found people worshiping the Lord. We never went back to a message church as members of the cult. It was a new beginning for us. However, we still held fast to the teachings of William Branham and still considered him a prophet and a man of God.

In the meantime, I was also learning more about the message pastors that I used to call my leaders. I began to see their fruits. Fraud, tax evasion, sex scandals, living the high life while their parishioners suffered. One pastor moved the entire congregation to Tucson, AZ, where he lived in a wonderful house that was listed as a Christian youth retreat for his church. In or around 2010-2011, the sister church in New York, found themselves in legal trouble when six members of the leadership were indicted in a fraudulent investment scheme, resulting in a loss of over $12 million obtained from investors from the church. My own parents lost close to $100,000. Yet, the people accused remain in power and revered as leaders. I learned that when the conventions were held, it usually correlated with the churches needing more money to operate. While the faithful congregated, some of the younger leaders were having sexual orgies in the hotel rooms and parting it up.

In 2012, while doing all the research, I came across a news story by WHAS11 in Louisville, KY. The story took me down a path that I did not imagine I could ever walk. I was able to meet with others that were also searching for the truth. These people were from all over the world. We began to compare stories, notes, and research. The conclusion? William Branham is a false prophet, a fraud, a liar, his message does not align with Bible teachings, his followers are not the elite. Only Jesus saves.

I am forever grateful to my friend John Collins, for his work and research, for his time spent seeking the truth.