Behind Closed Doors - The Abuse in Faith Assembly

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Cheno Ross, pastor and the voice of the Understanding Scripture and Truth by Cheno D. Ross, YouTube channel.

Cheno, it's good to be back and to see your smiling face again. We have spent a couple episodes of just running me through the things that I didn't want to talk about. And as I said at the end of the last episode, I'm looking forward to talking about something that's light-hearted and uplifting.

And here you are, hitting me again with another topic. But on another related note, I don't know if you've seen it or not. I actually don't get on Facebook that much other than the support groups, but I don't know if you've seen it.

In my Facebook, I've been sharing these articles that are investigations from by the Lee Networks of News Media. They are publishing in collaboration with the Arizona Daily Star. I think it is a deep investigation into William-brandham, the splinter groups that emerged from it, which would have included, you know, Hobart Freeman's cult as well as others around the globe.

And they've actually tied some of them that we've mentioned, such as the Shakahola Massacre, where several people had thought they could starve themselves to death to get to heaven. They were using William-brandham's cult literature to program their heads before they did that.

And all sorts of things are coming out of this from the failed faith healings and the false claims of faith healings. One of them today was talking about William-brandham's most famous trips through Canada, wherein he claimed not a single person who went through the healing line wasn't healed.

So he made these boisterous claims, and the newspaper reporters could not find one single healing out of all of them. But they could find a lot of people that said, yes, I'm healed. But they couldn't find any verifiable healing claims.

But anyway, at the bottom of this, as they're starting to dig deeper and get under the covers of it, They're finding just widespread rampant sexual abuse, and one of the stories that they told, which is, I knew this one, it was on the research on my website, but while Hobart Freeman's cult was growing and developing after William Branham's death, the men that were in William Branham's inner circle, which Hobart Freeman would have known these men, they were with Branham almost everywhere, they set up a commune out in Prescott, Arizona, and William Branham blessed this commune

as being, he called it Goshen, which if you know what that means biblically, it's basically, this is the promised land, while he's there introducing this place as Goshen and praising the men who are leading it, the men are praying sexually and physically in all sorts of different ways, they're praying upon the children, and this was happening behind closed doors, you know, there's no evidence to prove that William Branham knew directly that they were doing it, he did know that they were both homosexual men, which was strongly against the cult rules of Branhamism, but this was basically the prototype for a Branham cult that started in 1965,

so this would have been around the same time when Hobart Freeman started shortly before he started his deliverance ministry event that he went to, Christ for the nations for, we talked about it with Charles, is around that same time frame that this is all being established, and the lead networks and the investigative reporters are digging into this, and they're just, it's amazing what they're uncovering with all of this.

I'm sure John, if you and I were up above in heaven and could look down on ourselves and all of our meager research, we would probably laugh at Smile and say, hey you guys are just scratching the surface, you know, if you only really knew, but we can only talk about what we know, and then you can extrapolate from that and say there's probably a lot more that we don't know, and some of it will probably come out, some of it's come out in some of the comments on the podcast. Unfortunately, again today, the subject is abuse, we've been talking about abuse

in general, a whole lot of what I would call clergy abuse by Hobart, practiced by him and his understudies, and I think this is where the pattern for the abuse starts. You and I talked in the last episode and you made a really good point and I had been saying the same thing just in different terminology that if you look at the way these groups have been set up and I mean they are all set up this way and there are dozens of them.

out there today that are set up the same way. It is following the ladder of rain, you know, prophetic stuff back in the forties and fifties. It is set up on the basis of authoritarianism.

And I don't know that people really have grasped that and understood what that means when you contrast that with the biblical pattern of a New Testament shepherd. When you look at Jesus, he had people thronging on and around him in his earthly ministry all the time. They were dumping babies in his lap for him to touch and bless. And even the disciples were saying, let's get some of these kids away. And Jesus said, no, bring them all here. And that's a huge difference between how Jesus interacted with the people and with their children and the way Hobart interacted,

where he slipped in, taught his message and slipped right back out. Most of these ministers because they're after this control and they are set in this authoritarian tone, there's no way they can understand or replicate the New Testament pattern, which is simply one of service. So in Hobart's clergy abuse, part of that, and one of the reasons I have spent so much time on some of these legalisms is because you see the long-range problems that it's produced.

He did not want the people to have friends outside the church. You had to love your church family more than mother, father, brother, sister. No higher education that normally leads to manual, lower paying jobs. You couldn't borrow money. You couldn't get ahead that way. The wife was not allowed to work outside the home. So you've got a one-income family and then you tack onto that, no birth control, which is where we've been the last couple of weeks. And I hope everyone can see we absolutely are creating a prison environment for these people. They don't have resources outside.

They're not allowed to watch TV, go to the movie, read the newspaper magazines. They don't have friends. They are completely isolated. And it very much has created a prison environment. So you have these lonely families. You have these men struggling going every day to a probably a manual, not all of them, but many of them. A manual, low-paying job, leaving the woman at home with a gaggle of kids. If there is any kind of discipline involved with any of her friends, maybe a friend of hers, or her friend's husband has said something against the ministry that their ex communicated.

And once that happens, you're not allowed to talk to anybody that's outside of the cult. So I just can't even imagine some of the isolation that these people were feeling there. And in the no birth control, we've got women who are, I mean, Hobart was just so much wanting to follow technical laws.

I don't know that he ever put any thought into, is every woman cut out to bear a dozen children? Now, he was famous for saying, well, natural childbirth, that's the way that it's been since Adam and Eve.

Only in modern times has modern medicine alleviated any of the issues, but women have always given birth. That's what they're made to do. You know, that was a favorite statement. That's what God created them to do.

And that is true. They are the bearers of mankind. But it's another matter to just kind of assume across the board that these standards must be met by all the women. And so there was even competition involved.

You know, you don't have anything else to be proud of. So my wife is fertile, my wife has born me nine children. Well, my wife's only born me seven. You know, there were things like that going on.

And I don't blame them. And just because they're looking for something to take pride in. And I know for certain that some of the women who found childbirth not to be as difficult as some of the others took a lot of pride in just the number of children that they had.

And I even know of situations, John. I know of one particular case. You want to talk about how extreme this could be in the people's minds of a woman who was, before she ever came into this message, already had 10 children.

They came from a Catholic background, which also teaches no birth control. And they had a great family, had five boys, five girls. I mean, just you couldn't even plan it any better. They already had 10 children.

She's an older lady. She's past childbearing age. But she wants to get in on the fun. You know, when she sees all of these women, young women in her church having children, then she claimed by faith that she was going to get pregnant.

She was past childbearing age. But Sarah had a child, right? Past childbearing age. So God is no respecter of persons. Why can't I claim to get pregnant? She began wearing maternity clothes and believing that she had a baby inside her.

And of course, you know, the end of the story. No, she was not pregnant. No, she did not have a baby. And this faith formula, this, we are better than other people. Mentality is just creating some of these crazy ideas.

There was a guy that I've been told about when he, there was a pretty big contingent down there. Australia. A lot of people following Dr. Freeman's teachings down in Australia, and there was one brother down there early in his life, and let me just say I can hardly blame him, then I'll tell the story because what he did in practice was exactly what he was being taught to do by Hobart Freeman. But he knew the story that the Old Testament Israelites, when they left Egypt, wandered in the wilderness because of God's provision of them. Their clothes didn't wear out,

and their shoes didn't wear out for a 38-year period of time. And so he decided, why should I ever have to change the tires on my car? I mean, those are my shoes as much as the shoes of the Israelites. So he was just going to claim that he could, you know, get a million miles worth of wear on the tires of his car. And of course, that didn't work. I even personally know a man, when I moved to Kentucky, who happened to be a part of Tom Hamilton's church, who was famous for going around and embarrassing himself by telling everybody the gas mileage on

his car. It was like 450 miles to the gallon. You know, and this was an old beater car. This was an electric car. This was way back in the day. But, you know, you can have what you say, right?

Name it in claimant. Why not just claim? I don't have to replace tires on my car. And I only get gas whenever I feel like getting gas. And I get 450 miles to the gallon anyway.

Absolutely ridiculous story is being told. Yeah. In my mind, I'm picturing all kinds of men that I grew up with that did the same thing. And there's always that one guy, I'm sure that you came across him too, that they were, they were so proud of the name it and claimant empty gas tank thing that they would challenge God by letting their gas tank run low. And you never wanted to ride with them because you might be stranded if he did. It's just, you know, my, my wife last night, she convinced me that I needed to go see this movie Bonhoeffer, which I don't know if you know anything

about it, but it's about a German priest or minister during the rise of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I have very mixed emotions about the movie. I'm not a big fan of the movie, but I am a big fan of the story. It had a, the movie had a very heavy evangelical twist which that may be appealing to some, but I prefer the, I prefer the true history instead of the twisted history. And I feel a little bit subjected to manipulation when I endure that, but the premise was good. The premise was, it's a true story about a, you know, a minister who,

he came to America and while he was here, the Germans had basically taken can over the church and they were manipulating the minds of the people through the church. It was really difficult for me to watch that movie and not think about all of this that you and I have been talking about because there's so many similarities between what the Nazis did in Nazi Germany through the churches as to what is happening in these cults.

And you mentioned the Laterane hierarchy prior to this. Well, if you look at my research and understand what actually happened, many of those Nazi themes were coming into American churches through Pentecostalism. I found evidence that it's connected directly to Amy Simple McPherson's four square gospel church and that was deeply tied to Laterane.

They actually funded the Sharon orphanage and as it relates to what we're talking to, it's the same exact thing just a different century. I made a comment either in the last episode or the one before John a quote from Hobart where he had said that he's talking about training up your children in the ways of God and he said, if you wait until the child is six months of age, you've probably waited too long that you've already lost them.

I've made that statement a couple of times. That's actually a quote from one of his messages and I'm sure child protective services would have loved to have heard that statement. That one and many more because a professional in that area, which I am not, a professional in that area, that one statement John is going to tell them all kinds of things.

Probably it's going to tell them everything they need to know about what is going on with this group behind closed doors. They would know we have a hotspot in northern Indiana for the potential of child abuse and child and maybe female abuse as well.

You did a recent interview with Garrett Richardson and he made a statement about the baby on the blanket and someone in the comments commented on the baby on the blanket and then asked after that, I get a message from someone who is an ex-member that told me more of the details of the baby and the blanket where this woman said, I'm cringing on this talk of crazy discipline.

I remember when Mrs. such and such and this person is a well, the name and the family is a well known long, long standing family at faith assembly. I remember when Mrs. such and such said that she put a blanket down at home and would train her baby on the blanket.

If the baby crawled off the blanket, any of its four corners, the baby... The baby, the baby, would get spanked. She said, as a young mom, I thought that was so crazy, like, how could the baby interpret that the edge of the blanket meant I'm going to get a spanking?

How could it have any concept of what that was? This woman says that was sickening to me. Today, their family seems to be a mess. I wonder why. Yeah, so that is a type of abuse.

We've talked about corporal punishment, and we're not talking about someone getting one spank on the back of the leg for something. We're talking about what evidently happened, although I didn't witness this myself, but there's enough information out there about it.

What evidently happened was far beyond an appropriate spank or spanking, it was a beating is what some of these people got. And it wasn't only the children, the wives were involved in this as well.

It's surprising, John. How much information is already out there, so I'm not even going to have to repeat it, and it didn't come from me. It's already out there on the social media platforms.

That Tomax 7 platform, it's on Children of Faith Assembly, and it's on the third one called Overcomers Online. And one of the stories with a lot of details, which I won't even take the time to go into, they can go online and find this himself on the Children of Faith Assembly site, concerned Hobart's youngest daughter, Becky Freeman.

Becky Freeman, the youngest of Hobart's three daughters, got married. She's on her third marriage right now, but in her previous marriage, there was alcohol abuse, not by her. I'm talking about by her husband. There was alcohol abuse.

There was... Let's see, there was... Someone was looking outside the marriage, and that was not her, as far as I know. And there was physical abuse. And the people who knew her said, look, I remember we lived right down the street.

And I remember my parents running down there, the night or a night, that something was happening in Becky Freeman's home. This person said, my parents ran down there to try to intervene and help protect her.

So this is going on at the hands of one of the top tier ministers, two one of Dr. Freeman's own daughters. And again, I'll go back to what I said earlier. I'm sure you and I, we would laugh at ourselves if we knew how little we know.

You know, they're... The little bit we know, wow, I mean, there just must be so many things going on behind the scenes of these poor people locked in this. It's just a, it's a prison cult is what it is and they have been so thoroughly indoctrinated that if you leave, you lose your salvation. If you leave, to leave this is to leave God in Christ.

And I don't even know how they were talked into that. And I know what Hobart said, touched not my anointing and said it all the time. It never affected me the way it affected other people. And the only way I know, the only way I can understand maybe it didn't is even though I heard him say those same things, taking all of this power and authority upon himself and William Brannum did it and so do all of these other cult leaders. Every single one of them either explicitly or implicitly have these open or veil threats of their superiority and what might happen to you

if you said anything against them. But I couldn't help but look at them up there on the stage when they'd say that and say, but you're still a man. You're still a man. You have to eat like I do.

Go to the restroom like I do. Sleep like I do. You have to do everything that I do. There's no way that you're not in some angelic figure. There's no way that you have some heightened superiority just by virtue of the fact that I should have to be afraid of. But that's exactly what all of these people were fearing. You know, along with the abuse is the cover-up of the abuse.

And the abuse is widespread. We've talked about it to some extent in the other podcasts that I'm doing with other people. But the cover-up is very astonishing. The cult does not want the people to know that there are problems among the members of the cult, specifically in the Brannum cults because they want to say the Catholic Church is the root of all evil and see the Catholic Church has all of this abuse. We don't have it. And so what happens is they cover it up because the abuse is widespread. You mentioned the blanket thing. That is a widespread thing also in the

Brannum cults. I don't know if you knew this. No. I have. I said widespread. I'll say it was a common thing. I won't say this widespread. But I have a family. I'm not going to mention their names or who they are related to me. But I have close family that their children, when they were babies, they would do the same thing. They put the blanket down. The baby was beaten not to go off the blanket.

But the level of control in this family was very severe. I can remember coming over to their house. I was probably five years old or six years old. Now one of play with the kids. Well, here they're approximately my age. Here are the kids on the blanket at age five and won't go off.

And when they play Legos, the Legos have to be on the blanket. It can't go off in the cars and the toys. And I looked at my parents kind of funny like this is really weird, man. What's wrong with these kids? Well, that level of control continued throughout their entire lives. The younger son, the one who is my age, whenever he was not adhering to the cult rules, they would, it'd be a hundred degrees outside and they'd lock him in this travel trailer with no air conditioner and basically imprison him in in this little tiny travel trailer for weeks at a time.

And he events eventually years later emancipated himself from his family and had all kinds of problems. He never was able to mentally get all of the abuse out of his head and the cult out of his head.

Even with his new family and long story short, he ended up years later, he blew up a house by create. He was building a meth lab and he blew up a house. The all of this time, this is a respected family in the cult.

The cult, the cult leader who just at that time happened to be my grandfather and all the people around were praising this family for the way they raised their kids. Most of the public did not know that the childhood emancipated himself. Whenever he blew up the house, my grandfather from behind the pulpit, knowing that it was a meth lab, said he got in a motorcycle rack and please pray for this, pray for the brother who is the son of the family member.

So this whole time, it swept under the rug and it's, it's a, you know, it's a widespread problem to cover up of abuse. And that's just one of I could probably talk to you for 10 hours of examples of abuse that I've heard.

And then take that to the levels that, you know, beyond that and the support groups, there are so many cases of people being abused physically, sexually, mentally, emotionally. It's just so widespread. Well, someone in one of the comments on that video mentioned that the blanket idea had come from Bill Gofford, and I don't know because the blanket idea was something new to me, but I do remember Bill Gofford back in the mid 70s and I think Bill Gofford may still be alive today, but he traveled around Christian evangelical minister doing these.

I think he called him a basic life institute seminars is what he would do. But when I saw, and I don't know whether that the blanket thing came from Gofford or not, but when I saw his name, it reminded me of this, John, in the mid 1970s, there was, and maybe it was because of a movie that had come out called, I am third and had to do with Gail Sarge and Brian Piccolo, who were two players on the Chicago Bay football team. And I can remember there was a big, there was a big hoop law back in Christian

circles in the 1970s, mid-70s wanting to rank relationships as far as God, church, and family. And there was always arguments over that. Well, it definitely will put God first. But then, who do you put second? Do you put church and ministry second followed by family? Or do you put family second followed by? And you know, people argued about that to know in. But I remember I heard a message just recently, an old one of Dr. Freeman's, where he got involved in that same debate. And here's what he said, God first, your minister, your church second, and then your family

third. And that's exactly the way things worked out there at faith assembly. So, you know, when you mistreat your wife, you mistreat your children, you know, it's no wonder that you're going to have the mess on your hands that they ended up having. And they definitely did. So, if we can progress one further step here, John, and that's the sexual misconduct. And I'll spend the rest of our time together today talking about this. The sexual misconduct, you know, there was what you're going to find in any group of the size of faith assembly. You're going to find some adultery.

You're going to find some hanky-panky going on. And as I said earlier, there's a surprising amount of information on these public website where you can find what other people have had to say. But you have, you have the sexual misconduct between consenting adults, doesn't make it right, way different than child abuse, but at least it's between consenting adults.

And I have heard stories recently, this year, from women who are ex-members of faith assembly, who simply have tragic stories to share that their husband, who was a recognized pillar or figure at faith assembly, was running around on her with multiple other women. One woman said there was even a group of men in the church, and they were all adulterers. And they kind of laughed about it, but because you have this, you know, no divorce, and wife must submit to the husband, these women are simply in a terrible situation. Their husband was fooling around with someone else in the church,

and they're stuck at home with all of these children. I've also heard from more than one person that one of the people involved in an extramarital affair was just about a high up as you could get at faith assembly back in the day. And that was Bruce Kinsey.

We talked a lot about Bruce, my affinity for Bruce at the end of his tenure at faith assembly, simply because of all the ministers and most of the people. He was the only one willing to stand up to Hobart and leave, which he did. But prior to that, I have been told that Bruce was involved in an affair with another woman. I'm not exactly for sure if she was part of the church or not.

I'm sure there are people in our audience out there who know more of the details of this story. And I'm definitely not excusing Bruce, but just because that happened obviously doesn't make faith assembly a false religious cult. A church that size, you're going to see a lot of this behavior happening. I think the problem is faith assembly is so much prided itself on.

We are the overcomers. We are a pure people receiving a pure end time message. And so with that being the backdrop, then to find a lot of adultery in the church is a huge problem. And to find second in command in the ministry in adultery is also a huge problem. But here's the point I want to make about that, John. I want to take that one step further. What's even more alarming to me than that? What's more alarming to me than the fact that Bruce had an adulterous relationship with another woman while he was still a minister at the church? Is this what another minister,

ex-minister at the church told me? And he said he hadn't confirmed by Kathy herself, Bruce's wife, that Kathy knew about it and that June knew about it, and that both of them conspired together to keep this information away from the ears of Hobart Freeman. Because they knew Hobart would not play favorites. I would definitely give him credit for that. Had he found that out about Bruce, there would have been serious consequences regarding that. The person, one of two people, who's told me this, who was a minister in his past among several of the faith assembly

satellite groups, said that he actually went to Kathy herself and asked, is this true? Is did you and your mother keep this information from Dr. Freeman and Kathy's response was yes? I can't verify that in the other way. If that is true, that is very, serving. You know, this is what we call a cover up. This is the classic example of a cover up.

And if that is true, it's very disturbing in my mind that whole arts wife and his daughter would have done that to protect Bruce and his ministry. And if there are people out there in our audience who have more information, preferably firsthand information on this, I hope they'll come forward and I hope that we can get to the bottom of this.

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 Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Branum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven 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-Branum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You know, I mentioned the quote-unquote little ghostian where they were setting up the commune and they were abusing the children and I mentioned the movie Where the Nazis were taken over the church. One of the things that I found just so similar to what was happening in the

message cult churches in the commune where the children were being abused. And this, this is on public record. This is not rumor. You can actually, in the newspaper and he was only, you can read most of it right now. But it also made it to the California Supreme Court. This commune did and there are court documents on my website that you can read. But the cult had manipulated the men and the women of the commune to such an extent that they were physically abusing and some of them sexually abusing their children. The physical abuse was coming down from the top.

They were training people to physically abuse and they would hold these large gatherings whenever they would suspect that a child had a demon. And some of the stories that people are telling are just unbelievable, you know, children. Doing children things, they would call it a demon.

They would gather the child into a room filled with all of their peers, stripped them down. And the men would beat somewhere between 100 and 200 lashes. The men's arms would actually tire and they would have to pass the belt to the next guy to continue and there's a book called The Serpent's Tale which actually has the story about the lashes but in the court documents it said there was evidence of sexual abuse in the commune. Now I grew up with a lot of people who are children of the families who came out of this and I knew some of the families who came out of this.

What's interesting is just like you've said they've all covered it up and for them it's even a deeper darker reason many of them were participants but because of the cult manipulation what they were doing to their heads they're both a victim and a predator so then you get into this weird area well how do you judge this because yes they did these awful terrible inhumane things but they're trained to do this and they were brainwashed while they did it. What do you do with this?

People if there was sexual child abuse and there was a faith assembly the only way we would know that would be we're hearing about that years later so we're talking about adult women now who are telling very unpleasant stories of their childhood it's very unlikely John they would be telling those stories unless those stories are true it would be very very unlikely for anyone to craft a story. I don't have expertise in this area as I have said repeatedly because I want to distance myself from people who are professionally trained and they know all the ins and outs of this but one

thing even as late people know is it is unlikely that women are giving false reports you know there's probably some statistic out there that people have where false reports have been given I think that is so rare you know whether they were raped or whether and you know as an adult or whether they were abused as a child it's so unpleasant and so damaging and so horrific that whenever I have read accounts and stories and I have on social media then I just tend to believe that that's probably what was going on there so if there are people listening to these podcasts who have been

abused it would be a wonderful and unintended happiness for you and I just to let them know that we believe what they're saying because I think that's what happens in these cult groups you ought to to the out you've got this child who's been abused but to the outside world you have this big mega church where everything is beautiful and perfect and there can be no wrong and here you have this child curled up in the corner screaming without saying a word I wished everybody else knew how bad this place was.

I know because I've experienced it, but nobody else does. Well, I think that we do know, and I think even if we don't have, if I don't have the actual timeline, and I don't need it or want it, by the way, of someone's abuse, I can tell the way the church was set up with Hobart's legalisms that it was creating a very, very ripe environment for this to possibly happen, and then I think eventually it definitely did happen.

So I have come up, John, just with a short brief list of factors at Faith Assembly, which made it such a ripe environment, and which I think would be easy for everyone to understand.

First of all, factors that made it a ripe environment. First of all, there's simply a very large number of very young children being born all the time, and they all require what, a whole lot of babysitting.

I mean, you are just creating an environment right here. I know that the older daughters of the families bore a huge, inordinate amount of responsibility, and I feel sorry for them, some of them lost their childhood, because they were the oldest daughter, Mommy and Daddy went on to have a gaggle of kids behind them, and let's face facts, the mother couldn't handle all of that.

So that fell on the eldest daughter, or the two oldest daughters. But then beyond that, you still have a lot of children, and what happens if those two daughters aren't available, it's gonna require a lot of babysitting.

So number one, number two, they lived in very close confines. Don and I owned a trailer park. A lot of the people lived in that trailer park. A lot of them got to go back to no education, no higher education, low paying jobs, just a depression that all of that brought about.

You've got families piling up in houses together in order to save money on the rent. Nobody's able to build a house. Nobody's able to purchase a house. I mean, that's few and far between.

That would be for people who happen to come into this with a professional education and job and kept it, and had the income to do it, or the tier one ministers who have so many followers, they have a large enough yearly income that they could go out and buy a home or build a home.

But for the other people, they're living in very tight quarters and very close confines. A third factor is simply the authoritarian nature of the teaching. We're talking about child sexual abuse. Authoritarian... in teaching when you're being told that children are to be seen and not heard

that women or second-class citizens. I mean we've already documented all of that in Hobart teachings in the past. What can that help but lead to among some degenerate people? Some type of abusive manipulative situation and relationship. A fourth factor is the anti-diverse teaching. You could simply could not get a divorce. In Hobart's mind there was one ground and one ground only and that was the Matthew 5 fornication calls, the exception calls for for fornication. So if you can't prove your husband has committed fornication all you have is he's beaten you and molesting your children. That's all he's done. He hadn't fornicated yet

outside the marriage but he's a child and wife, beater and abuser. Guess what John she's got to stay with him. Stay with these abusive men who are predators and this is not just found in faith assembly and this is not just found in charismatic churches. This is found in any of those groups with this kind of authoritarian rule. The men simply seem to think they have it their way and if it comes to abuse of life or abuse of children that is not beyond them. A fifth factor that made this a ripe environment was that the leadership did not have the professional training

or equipment to deal with it. You've already set yourself up in a very bad situation by the style of leadership you're modeling and by all of these legalisms that you have taught. Now you have created a very ripe environment for child sexual abuse to happen and guess what you have degrees in Hebrew and Old Testament. You don't have any degrees in marriage in the family. You don't have any professional equipment and training as far as child sexual abuse goes and let's be clear John that that is a very very specialized feel right there. That is not just child and adolescent

growth development maturity and psychology. This is abuse. This is abuse and I think because enough of it has come out in the open all over the country in the last five or 10 years not just in faith assembly but everywhere. So much of it has come out in the open even us lay people have received a lay person's education and a lay person's education really says this to me, that I cannot even comprehend or grasp the complexity of the damage done if you have been sexually abused as a child. That is way beyond my pay grade, way beyond my ability.

I don't even know that you can grasp how damaged a person is who's gone through this. So we have leadership in these churches just kind of blowing it off. It's, you know, not that big of a deal.

They did not realize this is lifetime damage done to a five-year-old or an eight-year-old or an 11-year-old. This is something you do not get over by just going back to church and reading your Bible. You do not get over it that way. You need extended, professional counseling by people who are trained in this area. And then the sixth and final factor that makes so much sense to me to see what a ripe environment faith assembly was and all light churches is faith assembly operated as a closed society. They were opposed to outside help. They did not want outside help.

They maligned outside help. They discouraged the people from seeking any kind of medical, obviously legal law enforcement consultation or help. They did not want that to happen. What they felt is that we are God's ministers. This is God's church and we can handle everything here on the inside ourselves. And they couldn't. So here's what would happen. You can see the steps.

So you've got a person who has been abused. I would say probably most of that John just went totally undocumented, unrecognized, probably unreported. The poor child didn't know what to say or what to do about it. But if they decided to do something, then they would simply report to their parents. If their parents were decent parents at all, they would go to the minister. They would start there. And then the minister would call the person accused and what they would deny.

So you've got the word of an adult male against a five year old young girl. So what would the church do? Well, the church would quote, unquote, investigate. They're not qualified to investigate. So they investigate and they don't really find any grounds and so it's dropped. Or if they do find some grounds, they simply don't recognize how serious it is. So they say, well, we need to suspend contact between a busie He and abuse are like that's going to, it might prevent something in the future, but like that's going to do anything for the person who has already been abused.

And then sometimes they would take that next step and then go ahead and disfellowship the person for several months or so and then allow them back into the church. So here is this big ripe environment we have with many women in bondage, with many children being born, close confines, close society, no outside contact, no professional training.

This is the mess, John, that we have on our hands with faith assembly and the abuse that was happening there. And there's a big one that you missed that is largely untapped and that is the psychological effects of being erased in a hyper conservative religion.

You can find some studies out there, but there's not a lot of them because a lot of the people who are assessing such groups have no idea the doctrines and what they mean. For example, you've mentioned I think this podcast in the last, you talk about the Jezebel and the Jezebel spirit.

And for a person who has actually read the Bible, like you properly mentioned, Ahab was the guy to blame. Ahab was bringing in all of the pagan worship and the foreign gods. He was doing it because of Jezebel, but it was a union, right?

They were both like this. And then Jezebel, right before her death, she painted her face and she prepared to die with dignity, like as did all of the royalty. Well, for whatever reason, fundamentalist Pentecostalism chose to think that that meant that you could not wear makeup because she died, she prepared herself for death, which was common among all of the royalty, right?

But worse than that, there's this topic of Jezebel spirit, which is not in the Bible whatsoever. But that Jezebel spirit is associated to sexuality. For example, we in the Brannum cults, we constantly heard how if a woman were to wear pants or shorts, heaven forbid, she had a Jezebel spirit and she was whoring herself to the eyes of the men in the public.

So when you're a child, especially a male child, being raised, being taught to associate women who wear pants with horrors, with harlots, well, then what happens when you go to the grocery store with your mom and dad?

Mentally, that's in the back of your mind, right? And it continues. The sermons were so, I actually, I did weird studies whenever I left the cult, but I actually went through... Just what I could remember in my mind of the topics of sermons across periods of time while we were young up.

And there were so many sermons that were focused on sex. It was like they were, and ironically a lot of the, not a lot, but some of the men who were preaching the heaviest had the worst problems with sex, as you know is a common problem too.

But what it does to a child who's being raised like this, it really messes with their minds. And in the court documents that I mentioned in the California Supreme Court, the climax of this was that a man went on a killing spree.

And he targeted places that sold pornography and sex objects. I can't remember exactly the whole spree, but he killed a bunch of people. And it was because in the back of his mind that had just tormented him so much what was programmed in his head that he started killing people.

He couldn't take it anymore. And you know, not to say that everybody who's raised like this becomes a killer. But the men who are raised like this and can't find balance for whatever reason, whether it's a mental health issue or they just simply were indoctrinated so heavily, they have huge problems.

And you can find some psychological studies, like I said, but most of them are unaware. If I were to go to a psychologist and say, I was raised to believe that if I went to the mall women had a Jezebel spirit, they'd have no idea what it is not saying to them.

Yeah, they would want to psychoanalyze you for a statement like that. Well, there's just so much misogyny in all of this in Hobart Freeman's ministry and his underlings opposed to women looking at track.

It's a psychological projection. Man, if a woman looks to attractive, that may cause me a problem. That's your own problem. That's not because she's pretty. It's because you have a problem. Don't have anything to do with her.

But they somehow wanted to project it on her so protect themselves by having her, you know, where a burlap bag for the rest of her life to make sure they weren't tempted. But you and I know when, and it happens out there in the world in general as well, a woman who is an attractive woman and maybe she wears a pair of shorts or whatever and she gets raped.

She's not raped, John, by a man because she wore shorts. She's raped by a man because the man is an animal. The rest of us men might could see her in shorts and say, oh, she's really a pretty lady. And that's as far as we go.

So her shorts isn't what did it. You know, her dress is not what did her in, her makeup, her hair, her jewelry. That's not what did her in. What did her in is a darn animal.

That happened to come across her path. The rest of us men would just say that's a very pretty woman And you know, that's as far as we would go. I Got an email here recently from a woman who attended one of the satellite groups One of these strong were still Freemenite groups still going on in northern Indiana. She just attended here a couple of months ago and Kathy Kenzie was also there. Hope our middle daughter who is still holding to the message and there was another person there and This person was a known long-time child abuser

At this little small house group meeting this guy was there. I don't know him. This is simply the story that I've been told She said that this guy for years will show up and disappear. He's actually from one of the southern states But he just makes his way around this woman's father actually had firsthand knowledge from years ago They brought this man and his Situation to one of the ministers. I think the minister with Steve Hill. Nothing was done I've also heard there was a case just like this in Bruce's meeting over in Lafayette, Indiana

Nothing was done and This man it was very disturbing to this woman to see him there and it was disturbing to Kathy because she talked with Kathy afterwards like He shouldn't have been here and I'm wondering Where are the men?

The leadership what are you guys doing letting a guy like this travel around in your midst? Corning this woman this man has claimed that he has a ministry that God has given him But it's a ministry to boys. Well as soon as you hear that you know, that's not a biblical ministry and we need to do something about it So let me close and sharing a personal anecdote John I was a pastor for a number of years of a of a small church when I say small It did not compare in size to Hobart Church faith assembly at all and

I'm Embarrassed to say That we had a case of child sexual abuse in our church and here's how here's how it went down and here's how I dealt with it I was in my early 30s and a Young woman 15 14 years old. I don't know exactly how she was with a friend of hers came to my church study one day To tell me what was going on in her family. She had parents. She had a younger sister It was a second marriage for her mom. So this man in the marriage was her stepfather and

The family had been a part of the church for a pretty good while. I always thought of them as a little bit of a fringe family that kind of lived on the outside of the church.

What I mean by that is they were not front row cedars and all involved in everything going on the church. They were just kind of, they were there every time, but they were on the peripheral outside of the church.

This young lady came to my study. I was her pastor and teacher, and the news she had to share with me was that I am being raked by my stepfather.

You know, I'm not prepared. You know, I'm a Bible teacher in a Theologian. I'm not a sex counselor at all. I was obviously shocked that it was happening in my own church. I was very disturbed by it.

I knew it was going to be beyond my ability to deal with all of this, but I first of all needed to find out is this true. So I set up a meeting with her parents, her mother and her stepfather.

To one evening, it was in the fall, it was dark, it was cold, it was in Vermont. Set up a meeting over at their apartment with them, and the purpose of the meeting was just officially, was just a chat and catch up.

So I showed up and they were polite and sat down in the living room and just had small talk. The mother kind of sat in the shadows and I really wanted to address, talk to the father anyway, which was her stepfather.

And so I just engaged him in small talk, you know, how things going, what's the family like, how's your job, how's life treating you? And the only thing I knew to do, John, I had this thought in my mind, I wanted to get the truth and I wanted to get the truth out of him.

And one way I thought that I might could get it is by the element of surprise. You know, sometimes you can just be chatting along with someone and all of a sudden you ask the loaded question, the whole reason that you're really there.

And I mean, it was a gamble on my part, but I was willing to roll the dice and see if I could catch him off guard. I didn't want to give him time to prepare and think through everything, catch him off guard and get him to give me a truthful answer.

So in the middle of our conversation of the weather and sports and church life, family life and his job life, I said, so when's the last time you had sex with and I named his daughter?

That was the next sentence that came out of my mouth. and you know it worked. I caught him by surprise he was shocked that I would use that language and and ask that kind of question right there in his living room and he absolutely confessed. And so and I I suspected that he was guilty because I just could not picture that young lady come into my office and saying what she did as distraught as she was. So I got it to leave and I said well you know there's going to be serious consequences you know this is a very very serious

matter and there will be serious ramifications from this and I left and I had to collect myself to figure out you know what am I going to do because I also don't have the training to deal with all of this and I'm leading to probably the most important point we can say to everyone John who's been involved in child sexual abuse. So I was I think the next day I was pondering pondering what my options were. I'm the pastor of this group. This young lady has come and made herself very vulnerable to me and she's almost put her life in my hands and what am I

going to do that I need to do something about this and I think it was the next day back in my study we had a we had a church in a building and on the left side of the building I had a long rectangular office where I had all my books in my desk and and that's where I did all my study it was not in my home it was actually in the building in which the church also took up like two-thirds of that building and then there was something else on the far right side of the

building so it's it's it's late it's a fall it's dark and I get a knock on my door and I go open the door and there are two Vermont state police officers and I was actually very happy to see them I didn't call them I'm not for sure who did I don't know who the tip came from I didn't ask them but they said or you know you brother pastor General Rawls yes you're the pastor of this church yes I said may we come in yes you're welcome to come in they came down and sat in

two two of the chairs in front of my desk and they and I don't remember all of what they had to say they had a lot to say and I didn't ask you know who tipped you all but where we were headed with this they said well look you know we have a tip and it's a pretty it's a pretty credible allegation that's been made and you being the pastor of this group we're wondering if you have any information but at the same time be realized that you have this patient clergy confidentiality and you know we don't we're

not asking you to you know we don't we're just we're just here to talk to you you know they didn't know what my response would be because there is some kind of confidentiality involved there but I look those two Vermont state police officers right in the eye and I said there's no confidentiality agreement when it comes to me and something like this. I said anything you need to know all you got to do is come and ask me and I'll tell you what I know and when and if this gets to court and you need me you can count on me being

there. I did receive a word from this young woman she did tell me this I went and confronted her stepfather he did confess to it that's what I've heard from both of them and if and when you need me you know where you can find me. Long story short the the man did end up going to prison for that so my point John to say to everyone is those in ministry this is beyond our pay grade and this is a crime this is a crime this isn't a something you've done against a church you violated some church legalism some church principle this is an actual crime on the books of the

United States to sexually molest a child way beyond our pay grade so way beyond your confines that needs to be turned over to the proper authorities that child protective services and that is local in state law enforcement and just let them do their job. I agree it should be turned over to the authorities and immediately this is not something that we play with this is this is terrible what they're doing to the children. I usually say if you enjoy our show but I'm not I'm going to say that this time Chino if you if you have been listening and you agree that we should protect

the children and want more information you can check us out on the web you can find us at william-branam.org for more 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 Horrible