Our Stories - Faith Assembly - An Interview With John Schell

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org. And with me, I have my very special guest, John Shell, former member of Faith Assembly.

John is good to connect with you. We were talking beforehand and we're both Corvette lovers. I've got an old one and I've built several of them, rebuilt several of them. It seems like we share many things in common, more than just the cult stuff. But I wanted to get you on here and have you talk about Faith Assembly, so maybe if you could just take a moment and tell everybody a little bit about yourself.

Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. And yeah, so I'll give you a little rapid viral group in Huntington, Indiana. I went to church as a young person, believed the gospel in 1957 and was baptized and also became a junior deacon in Disciples of Christ Church.

Really came to conversion and really transformed life in August of 1976, which was, which was, be 40 years ago. And after my conversion in my bedroom that night, I had a man maybe a couple months later that was a part of the full gospel business men come and visit me at my business and had heard of my testimony.

And so at that point I joined, I didn't join the fellowship of full gospel business men, but I did start going to their prayer breakfasts and they did have once a month or whatever a meal and had testimonies of men, business men that had gotten saved.

So that was my introduction to what they call full gospel, okay. And then in 1977 went to the glory barn in January of 1977, my first trip to the glory barn with some friends.

The glory barn was about 40 miles away from Huntington, Indiana. There was a number of people from Huntington going to the glory barn and I was invited. And so that was my first taste of glory barn and exuberant music and the baptism, the spirit.

It's interesting you mentioned the full gospel business. and I have several people who have asked me, and we have yet, we're still planning to publish more, but have yet to go really deep with it.

But a lot of people don't realize this. The co-founder of the Full Gospel Business Men was he lived not far from here. I wanna say it was like 20 miles from here. And he attended the Brandham Tabernacle.

So there was a deep connection between FGBMI and Brandhamism and a lot of people, I guess, don't realize that, but they want to, they always want to know more about what was it like to be in one of those breakfasts and meetings.

Maybe if you could just describe what that was like. Yeah, these fellows worked on the railroad and number of them. And what was amazing, a friend of mine that got and saved

started ministering Christ to a lot of these men that worked on the railroad. And we're going back to 1972, 73, and what we would call the Jesus movement. And what was in Markville was some of these men actually got down on the floors of these dirty engines and repented and asked Christ into their life.

And there was actually a revival on the Erie railroad, the wet from Chicago to Marin, Indiana. And Punington was a place of changing crews. They were baptizing these men in the hotel bath tubs.

And so a lot of these men that then formed the full gospel business men, you know, were working on the railroad. A breakfast would consist of just coming together, maybe six, eight of us at what we would have in the Azar's big boy back in that day or something.

And they had a back room where we could fellowship and maybe some scripture reading. And there was one time a man came and gave a teaching on the baptism, the spirit, the dinners at night, which would be maybe once a month, there would be flyers sent out.

And we would have it at a big place where, you know, they would have a, where you just pass through the line to get your food and then we'd have a speaker. Maybe he was a businessman of a Chevrolet dealership.

Maybe he was a ex-Mofia person. And so I seen these men basically

try to pray for the sick and words of knowledge and things like that, which, you know, was starting to become a part of my theology and a part of my life. Interesting. And so faith assembly would not have been much different than that from what I understand.

And I think if I remember correctly, Chino told me that Hobart Freeman was even affiliated with this group, so maybe they were one and the same. Yes, he was. He spoke at many of them because of the baptism of the Spirit that he received in 1966.

Some of the business, some of the full gospel people started to shy away from him, having him come in when he got into the anti-medical and things. It was kind of humorous that his son-in-law was also being asked to come into these full gospel businessmen, dinners, and give his testimony.

He was sharing one time something maybe off the wall about anti-medical and there was one of the officers selling it back at him and he was shaking his head no to the crowd. And this young man of Dr. Freeman's son-in-law asked him to move his chair out front so he could watch him.

Yeah, the anti-medicine thing, it's really for me, it's fascinating. I know for people who are in it, it was very traumatic, but it's fascinating to me that it was allowed to go as long as it did. You had in the earlier years in Indiana, Dowey, John Alexander Dowey tried to push that well into Indiana and it turned into some court trials and they basically said, no, you can't do this, you can't let people die and prohibit them from having medicine. And then years later we find Hobart Freeman doing the same thing.

In Brannemism, Brannem pushed the notion that medicine was evil, you can find a few scattered comments, but he tried very hard not to say it in such a way that was incriminating to himself.

And from what I gather from Hobart Freeman, that line in the sand was crossed many times. Absolutely true. And you know, back in those days I did listen to William Brannem's tapes, I did hear him mention something about wearing eyeglasses and why would you be wearing eyeglasses when God could heal your eyes and that was a big one at faith assembly. There was still some people that wore eyeglasses. It wasn't an absolute church doctrine that you couldn't come to that church wearing eyeglasses or taking medicine, but it was from the pulpit. It was basically taught that,

you know, you were not taking it. It can available all God's provisions for you through Isaiah 53 and James chapter five, the paracet, and Mark 11, 24 was a big one, you know, what's the things every desire?

When you pray, believe you have received, and you shall have them and Matthew 18, 19, or two or three gather, or John 14, where you can ask anything in my name. So these scriptures were given a lot to reinforce

the message of divine healing and not the medicine route of the medical deities. Yeah, you brought back so many memories. I grew up, William Brandon would often say, Isaiah 53 is one of my favorite scriptures, and just exactly like you described it, there wasn't really this strong condemnation of people who used the medications, et cetera, but there was always this urge not to do it.

In other words, people came to the conclusion in their own minds, well, if I'm going to be a better Christian or have more faith, or I think in Brannemism, they call it rapturing faith.

If I'm going to elevate myself to having rapturing faith, then this is a thing that I should probably do is what went on on their heads, but if ever brought before a court of law and somebody asked William Brannem or any of the ministers, did you forbid the medicine?

They could easily say, no, I didn't. I just strongly discouraged it.

Right, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, he really, there was a rebuke once in a while. I remember, you know, we've gone back 47 years here. I remember a rebuke given not by name, but I know there was a wonderful man.

And, you know, to speak of all this, I met some wonderful people and brothers and prayer time and fellowship. It impacted my life, John. And in fact, when I left in night, you know, Dr. Freeman died in December 8th of 1984, I left in the summer of 1987,

it had impacted my life so much that there's probably not a month that goes by that I don't reminisce on this or think about it and process it even, okay? So there was a gentleman there that had Alzheimer's, he was taking some medicine and he was re-proved for that, not by name, but, you know, he knew, and then we had a great talented musician, Carl Sites, who was taking insulin for him.

his diabetes, and he tried to stop a couple of times, but things must have been getting bad, so we went back on it. But finally, he cut the line with the medicine, and this pressure for brother died. And yeah, it was very sad to see that happen. But one thing, John, at faith assembly, which I started going there full time in February of 1979, we were always fighting the devil, okay? Always needing deliverance. And I know you brought that up in other messages of people, you know, this deliverance thing. And so people dying at faith assembly,

we got desensitized to it to a certain degree, because the devil was fighting us, and

I don't want to say it became a common thing, but I think we were desensitized to it to a certain degree. Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. People who were never in this kind of movement, it's funny to me, I watch the comments and I can see what people are saying and what they're thinking. And if you're never, if you never experienced that to its extremism, people on the outside, they say, well, you know, in the Bible, they cast out demons. Are you guys not Christians?

But they don't understand what this is, is not in any way, shape or form, anything that matches the Bible. They hyper, they want to make you hyper sensitive to the world around you, and they want to make you think that there's a demon in everything. I was with a person who was driving through a parking lot and was just simply trying to find a parking space, and it became a spiritual war between heaven and hell, whether she got the parking space close to the door or not. That's how bad this is, and people don't realize it. And when you take a step back and you realize that

what they have created is a fantasy world that isn't even biblical, it doesn't really exist, and it's in the minds, it really becomes a battle of the mind. And for somebody who's on the outside, it's really hard to understand what I just said, but I'm certain that you probably get it.

Yeah, right. You know, by 1980, you know, before I went to faith assembly full-time, I was listening to Dr. Freeman's tapes. And, you know, using the scripture, I mean, how could you argue with a doctorate degree in theology and Hebrew and Greek and all the book cities wrote? And here I've only been saved, you know, maybe four years. And so how could I debate him? But as I have walked now, my 48 years, I have come along quite a a while ago, I come to see that scripture was taken out of context, that Paul talks about

rightly dividing the scriptures, and in the second Timothy 2.15 he talks about rightly dividing, and I think that that was one of the major problems at faith assembly, taking scripture out of context. I remember in, I believe it's in Philippians or Galatians, Paul talks about the works of flesh, and he mentions fornications, sorceries, witchcraft. Well, anyway, word sorcery in the Greek language can be put as pharmaceutical or pharmacy, and so they really jumped on the band with that one right there. Okay. And again, I was fully in in 1980.

The worship was tremendous. Again, brother Jerry, he did such a tremendous job of worship, and why I continued to go there is, I wondered surround myself with people that I felt was having a serious walk with the Lord, and people were coming from all over California and a precious brother and Malcolm from Australia, and we had great times together praying and just fellow shipping and, like I say, really impacted my life. But the medical, there were some red flags. There were some red flags that I thought that had come to me when the preaching was

going on. But again, who am I to say, you know, with the little knowledge that I had or was trying to learn, you know, right? And it's often hard to detect too, because many of the changes that happen in a group whenever it becomes destructive, they happen very, very gradually over time, and there's a lot of building blocks to the theology that becomes destructive. So you may accept a small piece that's a breadcrumb to another piece to another piece, and over time what you end up with, you probably, if they would have told you where you were headed, you probably would have

rejected it immediately, but because they gradually brought you there, many people fall into the same trap. And I noticed that towards the end of my being in the Brannum movement, whenever I started critically thinking about some of the doctrines that we had, and just taking myself out of the picture and thinking, what would it look like if I were a Christian, and I- I saw this, what would I think?

And that simple thought unraveled many things that I grew up with. There's no way that I would accept some of this stuff and yet I did and I look at my own life and I was in it for 37 years, approximately.

So for 37 years, I was gradually brought to this understanding and I don't, you know, as a grown man, I would never have made many of the same choices. Yes, correct, you know, it was amazing and within the body there at the new building, there was professional people there.

We had some nurses that had left the profession. We had a doctor or two, a dentist. We had people that were, I don't know whether we had any lawyers or not, but there were people that were educated people, okay?

And, you know, one thing with the medical is I remember certain statements that Dr. Freeman had said, and especially it was about Gideon's Army, Joel's Army, Elijah Company, and all the new apostolic reformation, and I didn't know what it was at the time, okay?

But as you have shared how that goes way back, you know, and I remember him making a statement that about Gideon's Army, you know, Gideon was gonna start out with about 32,000 people to defeat the Midianites, but actually God won the 300.

And so that number, Dr. Freeman used for our church too that God was going to get this, bring us down to a razor's edge. The overcomers were gonna overcome in everything, and they were, God was gonna bring us down to a razor edge if we were gonna receive this in time and planting and all these visions and prophecies, which, like I can say, is people beware, beware of visions and prophecies because most of them do not line up with the word of God, and most of them are self-proclaimed.

And I remember Tommy Hicks's vision in Argentina, he's seen this big vision and all this in-time work and many A.A. Allen and all these guys who I had listened to. This stuff is false.

And one thing that I can bank that on is I remove, remove, start removing myself from the charismatic Pentecostal church. I really got into the Apostle Paul's teachings and the epistles. And one thing that really caught my eye was, He was given, in Romans 16, it says he was given the revelation of the mystery and he spoke of the body of Christ and the church and he never once, he laid it to anything of an in time move or visions that he had of any time move or this healing revival or anything I went through that same exact thought process as I was making my escape. It was reading through

the New Testament and it's very clear when you read it that Christ was the mystery fulfilled and yet I went back and I started thinking through all of the many times in which we heard sermons even with that title but they would project a notion that there was a greater mystery yet to be fulfilled along with the mystery fulfilled and I was suddenly asked myself the question well why is this if Christ was the greatest mystery fulfilled for the Apostle Paul why do we need something greater what could be greater than this right but these guys want to create like you

said these prophecies I think that they're just pulling them out of a hat I really don't believe many of them actually have what they say but like you said I came to notice that many of those prophecies in some way shape or form promoted themselves and I never saw the Apostle Paul do that in fact you read through any of the Old Testament or New Testament people none of them wanted to become better than what they were they wanted to diminish so they could you know make God greater make Jesus greater so I was faced with that question and then really that's when I realized

that what we were in wasn't really Christianity yes you know I did not hear this prophecy but someone shared it with me that faith assembly was going to be the hub of the wheel and everything was going to come out from us you know people at faith assembly there was many microphones in the new building and they had the liberty to share testimonies they shared prophecies they shared visions and a lot of the prophecies was God was going to vindicate faith assembly you know we were so we were under some type of persecution but it wasn't like the early church where they were

persecuted for believing on Jesus as the Messiah we were talked about and persecuted because of the deaths and things like that in the body the children always had kind of a heart for the children there was nothing there for the children they John they they had to set and endure two to two and a half hours worth of singing and a message and the parents wanted them to stay still. My heart went out to them. I seen some children. I don't want to say being abused but maybe spanked reasonably hard, okay? Yeah, I just that really bothered me. Faith

assembly, here's here's another thing you know the kids at school they couldn't participate in any of the parties they had to go to the office because maybe they were having a birthday party or Christmas party or something like that so the children had to go to the office they couldn't participate.

Which at that time it didn't bother me as much as it does now, okay? And so I've seen some children mistreated to a certain degree and yeah, I don't know what it was like at the Brandham tabernacle but did they have Sunday school? Sunday school was not a scriptural they said.

So at the Brandham tabernacle did they have things for the children? You have just described the Brandham tabernacle to a tee Sunday school at the Brandham tabernacle was the service before the service it was preaching it was not Sunday school and interestingly at the Brandham tabernacle they took two sets of ties you had the tie then the tie before the tie but one of the things that really bothered me even when I was in it just like you when you walked into the Brandham tabernacle you walked into a foyer and then to your left or right were the two restrooms men and women's

and if you're a visitor coming into the Brandham tabernacle this is the way it went you walked up to the door you're greeted by a Deacon who is standing at the door basically to guard and make sure that no ladies came in who were dressed with blue jeans or anything like this. Then the first thing that you heard when you entered the building where if you came mid-service was kids being spanked so hard they were screaming to the top of their lungs please don't beat me please don't beat me and I would never do this to my kid this is I I differ from you slightly and I think

this is child abuse this is wrong what they did and I know that I know I'll get feedback from that but you don't you don't even treat a dog this way I'll just say it like that so I would often take my son if he if he got tired of sitting there I would take him outside and we fortunately the Brandham tabernacle had a short radio broadcast of the same service so I could just sit in my car and he could romp around and get his his energy out in the car but many people didn't they would

beat their kids and force them to sit through like you said to, to and a half hour sermon sometimes, it was horrific. As a child, this was torture. I, I, I, I re-framed from using the word abuse because I don't want to gain railing against me for that. But I, I seen unreasonable, spanking and the way children were, were treated. Yeah.

Uh, you know, back to the anti-medical. It even came to a point, John, where if you had pets, now again, it wasn't church doctrine. I know they handed out a sheet with maybe 10 or 12 uh, things on there to agree on to fellowship at faith assembly. I remember, I don't remember any of them. I don't think anything was tremendously out of line. But again, the anti-medical even came into having pets and, uh, not taking them to the veterinarian. And a good friend of mine, who had a little bit of land to farm had about four or five cows. And I don't know anything about

cows getting a disease. But anyway, his four or five cows died because he did not have the veterinarian bring them out. They went out and they sang songs to them. They prayed over them. But all the cows died.

That's how ridiculous it was getting. That's terrible. And that's animal abuse when it comes right down. I never heard any doctrines about the animals, but the way that they would push it on the people, they would try to build up your faith that you were healed already, even though you still had the symptoms. It was, you know, it was basically, it was the early version of the name it and claim it prosperity gospel, but it was prosperity through health, not through money.

And you had to positive confession. You had to confess that you were healed whether you were not, whether you were suffering. We had one, uh, one of the churches had this gentleman who was in a wheelchair and he was given a prophecy. I pretty sure it was directly from William Branham that he would rise up out of the wheelchair one day because he would say the right thing. Years later, after when he, when he died, I'm certain on his deathbed, he was wondering, well, why could I never say the right thing? Because he, he died as a cripple in the same way. But the whole time he's in

a wheelchair, he's having to tell people that through positive confession that I'm healed and I can walk, but yet he's in a wheelchair. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Brandham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Brandham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. The positive confession, yeah, got out of hand, of course. And one thing is if you claimed something by faith and you believe, according to Mark 1124, that you've received it, then you will confess what you received by faith. Now,

if you made one negative confession, then that kind of wiped that prayer all out. And God is shaking now his head. No, I've heard you. You've made a negative confession and what you prayed for.

And you've been, been, been believing for for five or six years now. It's all canceled out now.

Yeah, it's, it's just awful. In the end, for me, it's really telling, it's teaching people how to lie, how not to tell the truth. Yeah, and we were all guilty of that. I heard some people's feelings by you know, maybe they would say something and I would say, I don't receive that. They didn't understand any of this anyway, but there was, there was some things hurt in family members by using the positive confession. Man, you would never ask anybody at faith assembly how they were doing. You wouldn't ask them that question because everything was positive. Everything was just

praise the Lord, praise the Lord this and praise the Lord that now I'm healed by Jesus stripes and you know, I heard it all and so sadly to say to be a part and did not be suspicious of you had to conform. Absolutely. And that's the same, not just Brannemism, but this movement, this faith healing movement created many numerous splinter groups and they all have the same sort of internal structure because of the positive confession. They have to dance around it very carefully because they internally know they're lying and I know I have seen it in many different groups. Yes,

somebody how they're doing and they can be near to death's door and they say, I'm doing fine, I'm doing great. And whereas when we left this and we started answering normal churches. If somebody was truly sick and you asked them how they're doing, they would tell you exactly what was going on with them. And you know, it's, it was better out in the open because if they needed help, they could also ask for help.

But in the Brannum cults and all of the divine healing splinter groups, you didn't even ask for help because that was denying your positive confession. So if you needed somebody to come, you know, even bring you food or help you or with chores mowing you lawn things like this, there wasn't a lot of that that happened because it denied your positive confession. Absolutely. I know of a brother that needed a battery for his car. And another brother said, Hey, I'll be glad to buy you one. He says, No, I'm just believing God.

So I don't, I don't know what he meant by that. Okay. Whether God was going to supernatural recharge his battery or one that was going to drop out of heaven. I know brother Freeman said once that if any did live off the box in the back, I admire him for that. In fact, he made a statement once that he did not take any money from the tape ministry or his books or anything. That was the Lord's money. And he lived off the box in the back. And he says, if there's not enough, God will rein money out of heaven. Okay. Now, maybe he said

that facetiously, I don't know, but I know another instance carrying this to the extremes of Jesus, you know, at the marriage of Canaan, you know, making the wine. A brother didn't have enough gas, I guess, to get to church. So he got the water hose out and filled his tank with water. I think, I think he never gave the testimony that he made.

It's okay, but he probably had some repairs to do there. But that's some of the silliness that was not actually corrected from the pulpit. Yeah. You know, I don't think I've ever talked about this on on the podcast, but there's another problem that goes with that. And I've seen it happen many, many times. I've been into several different churches. We're variations of this would happen. But because they focus so heavily on miracles instead of scripture, they tell you these fantastic stories, many of which are, you know, you take a step back and there's no way it happened like they said. And they will say things like, and the brother was

driving. He was on vacation and his, his gas light came on and he was able to drive on fumes from Atlanta, Texas. There's, you know, some ridiculous thing. You're a mechanic. I'm a mechanic.

You know, this is not possible. Right. So they say things like this. In fact, one of the more absurd ones, there's this, there's this intern. at joke that goes around from time to time.

And I caught a leader of the brand of movement using it. But the sergeant was saying that they were just railing this private. And the sergeant was saying, I want you to go bring that truck or else.

And I'm gonna be really hard on you. And he goes down there and somebody's working on the truck and the motor's not even in it. And prayed to God and the truck somehow with no motor in it started right up and drove up to the sergeant.

How did you get that here? That kind of thing is told from behind the pulpit and it's just absurd stupidity. There's no better way to say it. But to the people who are indoctrinated to believe in this positive confession thing, it makes them think that it's real and worse than that, it makes them want to rely on this rather than common sense.

And so people will drive with their gas tanks near empty. So because they can prove to the world that they have the faith to give their gas tank running on fumes from Texas to Atlanta or whatever, that's a real problem with this movement.

Yes, you know, even in the ministry, we're all, we know we're all broken from Adam. We're broken people, you know. And even in the ministry, you have many ministers that are broken, they have bipolar conditions, they have maybe some mental health conditions.

And that's sad. But again, from the pulpit, they say some crazy things that because it's super natural, the people want to believe it, you know. And John, I checked point a lot of what's going on nowadays in other ministries and some of this stuff is very bizarre.

And to probably go and tell some of these peoples that you're being misled, you're being deceived, that this is not really happening. I would say a lot of them wouldn't take your advice, they're gonna have to see it for themselves and some of them never do.

You know, I had, after faith assembly, I did go to a Calvary Chapel for a while and was a part of an evangelistic outreach there, which was great. I then, my wife, who I met in 97 and she passed 14 months ago had, she had pancreatic cancer, but she went to Israel to the Holy Land of Institute to study, you know, Israel and Judaism and all that.

And she was a born again Christian. She did live with Derek and Ruth Prince for about a year. She was their housemaid. And so when she came back to the States and I, married her. She had a lot of Derek's literature and she made me read the book Blessing and curses, you know, and so she Was right there with a lot of all that that at that time we agreed on, okay, but as time went on as I started to get my eyes open She got her eyes open too We left the Pena Costal Church

Which in within that group there was minty little splinter Going on you you had your you had your people that were on with Kenneth Copeland and and Bethel and the Walmax and the Hagans and I just They these are good people, but I I just couldn't have good fellowship with them. So That was the last time that we It's probably 2017 that we actually severed our Association with Pena coleslaw charismatic churches, you know Yeah, and it's really hard to because of the way that many of those churches are structured When you leave the church to them you've left the religion altogether you've left Christianity

It's not that way in every Pena costal church, but many people who've have left similar and have sent me miles They say it matches the same structure even though they weren't in the Brannum cult or anything close But it's a real problem because a Christian should see another Christian as a Christian and they should agree each other as brothers and sisters in Christ But there's this dividing line we we feel that we have more power through doctrine and scripture than this other Christian because they believe differently For me, that's problematic and I Look back at my escape from the Brannum cult and watching

Friends who you know, I thought these friends were friends for life many people who I have known all my life but Then whenever you reject the cult and the cult and doctrine nation and say I literally told this one person I Am leaving this, but I still believe in Jesus Christ and I still want to spend time with you and I was fully rejected because I I did not Believe in the prophet anymore. So therefore they cut me off and that was hard to go through that Yes, that rejection You know one that was one thing at faith assembly is if you left you

Was even told by one minister take yourself through deliverance for your association with that person or that family and they were rejected and they were shunned and I

remember in 1987 when I did leave faith assembly. I love the body of Christ there. I truly did like say brother Freeman had died in 1984 so I stayed on three years because I really wanted to see what was what was going to happen. And so again at this building they had a lot of microphones and to leave that church. I just had to get up and share how my place at faith assembly, my fellowship with the brothers and sisters there and the ministry and I got to go know a number of them.

Brother Don Mechler who talked there we became friends and Hank Platt who was one of the first members there. I was very close to him and Jerry. So I just didn't want to walk away. So I did get up and announced to the whole church. I think I was about maybe one of the first ones to ever do that that I was leaving and going to another church. And afterwards some people came up and embraced me and blessed me and said God bless you and you're endeavored to do whatever God wants you to do. But there was other ones that definitely didn't want anything to do with me that you know

even that day you know. Yeah. Which was hurtful? Yeah it isn't and it brings back a lot of painful memories. I still from time to time I mean I love these people I really did so it is hard. So you were there doing the worst of it whenever the medication turned into a real problem for the church and the church itself was sort of imploding but you were able to get out at a good time.

Did you see anything any signs from any of the other people during the time and which leading up to the point in which you left? Did you see signs where other people were critically thinking about the medication doctrine or the doctrines in general and thinking about leaving?

What was it like? Yeah that's something you kind of kept to yourself but my good very close friends we had discussed that and you know it wasn't working okay the prayer of faith for healing for the most part wasn't working. In fact all the years I was there I never seen any miraculous healings now that that's what I seen. Maybe there was some miraculous healings but I personally never seen any myself. I had a friend of mine very close he moved up here from Missouri and he met his wife there. She was going to have a child she wound up in the hospital. He told me he said I'm just

not going to let her die. Okay, and she was at home and one of the former, one of the, a gal at Faith Assembly who was a former nurse came and she was gonna help deliver the baby and it was having some big time problems.

And this gal said, Al, you gotta do what you gotta do. And he immediately took her to the hospital. Now he was approved from the Pope, but also you might become Pope at Bay as we called it.

He was not approved by name, but the person that approved him from the Pope, but I knew who he was talking about, you know? And, but he's glad in the later years that he took her than having to go through that he just left her to die because of the message.

Yeah, that's a very difficult position to be in, especially if you're indoctrinated in this. I know from people looking on the outside, they're thinking, well, how could you even think of this? I mean, your first priority should be your wife, but when you're manipulated to that level, it's very difficult, it makes it a very difficult decision.

If you could go back in time and give yourself some advice of the things that were going to happen to you and how to get through them in Faith Assembly, what advice would you give yourself?

Well, you know, becoming a Christian and, you know, I went to the denominational system which I'm kind of a person that likes excitement. I've always kind of been on the adventures side, okay?

Not a daredevil to speak of, but, you know, I was kind of, that's one thing that drew me at Faith Assembly was the extravagant worship. I mean, it just fit me to a tee, you know?

Anybody that is being led or, you know, thinking about this, all this prosperity and prophecy

and healing, or I can say, and I would say to myself, I gotta be very careful, but, you know, back in this day and those days, August was printing all kinds of books about all these so-called miracles, you know?

And Robert Tom, the new wine is better. I don't know whether you've ever heard of that book or not. The new wine is better. Robert Tom, he was from South Cape, California, Africa. That was a very interesting book of all kinds of miracles that was supposedly happening.

We had the AA Allen tapes showing supposedly all these miracles happening in his tent meetings. I actually contacted Jack Coes' wife and talked to her and Jack Coe Jr. and... Just I wanted their perspective on what they've seen and I even contacted the brand of tabernacle you know talk to some lady there so you know to that this realm of the supernatural is always exciting, you know, and so I think that's another thing that drew me to it was the supernatural aspect of it.

That basically I never seen you know, yeah, I agree I in all my 37 years I never saw a single miracle and many people who I've talked to none of them have seen one, now if you talk to some of the old timers who went to the tent revivals et cetera, they'll tell you they did because they have all these healing lines and, the question always comes back to me, I realize that people can be healed I'm not denying that, if there is a fake which we've proven there is, why do you need a fake if there is a real and why do you need a healer on a platform to begin with when you can go directly to God for your healing according to the according to the Bible that I read so I'm the same way in fact I just had this conversation with a gentleman I guess it was last week we were talking about the miracles that was one of the most appealing parts of this is the miracles that's what keeps people in it if you leave they say well what a

little bit about the miracles they always ask you that but you never find a single example of documented proof for example if somebody raised from the dead they'll tell you that they raise them from the dead and they'll even sometimes they'll have a doctor who just happens to be present who doesn't go through the proper medical procedures to pronounce death that will say yes this person was dead in the raised but there is no evidence of it there's no support of this but these ministers like William Brannum would boast that we have boxes and boxes of these testimonies from doctors showing that before they were healed this was their diagnosis and afterwards none of them exist in fact I don't think to date I don't think I've seen one single true example of a miracle that can be documented so the question for me is is there even a miracle I know that you know people say that I'm denying that God can heal it's not the case

God can heal it's according to the Bible but this thing that they did to me it seems more like a stage act than anything I think that I've seen that sometimes in a a Allen's a miracle services in his tapes because I've watched a lot of them I had showed even a number of people William Brannum's tape taped in 1956 at the full gospel business men meeting in Washington DC of the little girl what was she 11 years old and from chambersburg pencil Vania and You know, I've been out in Pennsylvania quite a bit and when I'd get near Chambersburg

I often wondered that this little girl was still living but that come to find out Through a newspaper report and I did not know this that little girl died what eight or nine days after she was prayed for Yeah, not long. We have the paper actually on the website if you go to the William-brand.org and type in I think it I think our name is Carol Ruth Strubler if I remember correctly But yeah, she pronounced healed go home tell everybody healed and yep, yet she died Yeah, wave at the crowd and You're going home to be made well. I still remember the exact thing. He said you're going home to be made well

From Chambersburg even given their address, you know and far as raising these people from the dead I mean, there'll be some people that listen to this podcast. We'll know who I'm talking about we have a false man out there that has Said that he's raised more than a hundred people from the dead I don't know whether he knows anything about the Bible But he's been invited into a lot of these prominent places like Bethel and Sid Roth and things like that and yet I Personally know a friend and I talked to him about this who was with this man that there is not one

Documented case of Anybody being raised from the dead and he was with this man for a year and the bottom line is if they make these boisterous claims the proof of evidence is on the person who's making the claim Not the person who's being duped and I use that word openly people were duped into this thing I strongly believe that but yeah But anyway, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for joining and for sharing your story I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people who were involved with this movement Thank you John and like I say this movement this church setting the people that I knew the people at fellowship with impacted my life

I love them and like I told Chino I've prayed I have prayed for the people of this movement for over 40 years now and a lot of more hurt and devastated and by the loss of a loved one by all they went through and I'll say this some of the things that the people went through at faith assembly could have been avoided very much and and but they'll always be in my heart they were a part of my life and Thank you so much for letting me share and God bless you and you're endeavor to continue to

bring truth. Well, thank you very much. I've I've talked to many people who have escaped not just this type of movement, but many others. And one of the things that the cult members always say is this, what happens if you who are leaving our group, what happens if you're wrong and I'm right?

If I'm wrong and I believe this, I've lost nothing, but if you who are leaving this group are wrong, you've lost everything. But when you have examples like you've just given, clear evidence from everything that we have seen is what you're saying is accurate, you stand to lose a lot when you're in one of these destructive groups.

And like you said, I still have the burden for the people who are in it. I have a strong burden for them. I wish I could help every single person escape this. But as long as I have breath to breathe, I try to help as many people as I can and even if it's just one.

But thank you, thank you so much for doing this. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org.

For more information about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Soon, Audible.