William Branham's False Theology Resulted in the Jonestown Massacre

Of the many doomsday predictions made by William Branham throughout his career, the Chicago Bombing prophecy is the most disturbing due to the series of events that would occur as a result of this prediction.  What began as misinterpretation and/or re-interpretation of Old Testament prophecy appears to have strongly influenced Jim Jones to lead his Peoples Temple cult to the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.  

After being abandoned by Gordon Lindsay, Ern Baxter, and others for a difference in doctrinal opinion and working closely with Joseph Mattsson-Boze and Jim Jones, William Branham introduced a doomsday prediction to his stage persona which he alleged to be based on Biblical prophecy.  According to Branham, the Old Testament prophet Nahum prophesied destruction upon Chicago.

That great eagle called Nahum, four thousand years ago, went up so high in the Spirit of God until he seen Outer Drive in Chicago, four thousand years later. Said, 'The chariots shall rage in the broad ways: they shall run like lightning, they shall seem like torches, they’ll justle one against another.'[1]

The Old Testament book of Nahum explicitly states that the focal point of Nahum's prophecy was the ancient city of Ninevah.[2]  Nahum described the frenzy of activity in Ninevah and then declared that Ninevah would be destroyed.[3]  William Branham disagreed with Nahum and the Old Testament, claiming that these verses were incorrect, and should have instead stated "Outer Drive in Chicago".  Branham then began claiming that Chicago could be destroyed by a hydrogen bomb, and over time transitioned the "could be" into "would be" — while changing the bomb type from hydrogen to an atomic bomb.

And going through those places, and there they could time that bomb and throw her into Chicago, and blow Sturgis plumb off the map with the same thing, and never leave Moscow. It’s all laying right in the hands of sinful, Godless men tonight. That’s right. And there no need to try and run; ain’t going to do you no good. One of those hydrogen bombs (We’re in the direction on it, and you have, here, your—your air watch and things.) when that bomb hits, fifteen miles each way, it blows a hole in the ground a hundred and seventy-five feet deep for fifteen miles; that’s thirty miles square, any way it falls, just one bomb. Then it’ll go out yonder for miles and miles and miles beyond that, busting trees, and tearing things, and just turn it back to dust and back to cosmic light. That’s what’s happening.[4]

"Now, Father, we’re once more again in this great crossroads of the world here tonight, Chicago, Illinois. How people has longed to say, “Oh, if it could be shook, if it could be shook…” O God, that atomic fodder running out there on the street will never be shook. It’ll be shook with an atomic bomb.[5]

This prediction made a significant impact on Jim Jones, as did William Branham's UFO theology.[6]  Jones began repeating Branham's prediction to Peoples Temple followers and claimed that Chicago would be burned to within just miles of Indianapolis.  When Jones began seeing similar visions of his own, it became core Peoples Temple doctrine.

In October 1961, Jones apparently was “hearing” what he had told Ijames were voices from extraterrestrial beings. One day as he strode into the house and started up the stairway, he had wheeled around suddenly, holding his eyes. He had seen a big flash of light, he told his people: a vision of a nuclear explosion in Chicago that burned down within miles of Indianapolis. Indianapolis too would come under attack. To religious people, this vision of apocalypse summoned up terrible images of hell on earth, of the judgment day, of fear. Coming from Jim Jones, one who had healed and revealed so expertly in the past, the warning assumed prophetic proportions.[7]