Financial Secrets Exposed - The Lawsuit that Shook Faith Assembly

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-Branum.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 hopefully you're throwing out. We are here. Last episode I mentioned we had the big blizzard come through. We had a second one come through so it's insanely deep in my driveway but we have a

four-by-four and we're able to get around but hopefully you're doing okay in your neck of the woods. We are John. I think we owe you a happy birthday. Don't we? Then you can pass a big milestone. Was it what? 73 or what was the last one? 74, yeah, 70. I'm not gonna tell a letter but I guess my age. Everybody always guessed and they're either way too high or way too low which is the too high is really funny to me but the too low I feel a little bit privileged for but yeah so by

the time this podcast cast comes out it will be way past my birthday but I did have a birthday celebration and my brother and sister-in-law escaped the cult and their family comes over and they they're my family here so they come and celebrate and we we had a good time and you know almost as much of a good time as we're about to have talking about Hobart Freeman and the cults. Well what we've been looking at for a long time John I mean a long time are some of the signs that I mentioned back this fall that showed me that Hobart was just

losing touch with reality. I think as he was losing grip on reality the grip and control of the church became even tighter and I don't think he was going crazy or anything like that it's just he really saw himself and his church as something special something elite and they were really beginning to experience all of this difficulty in the fall the summer in the fall of 1984 and they hadn't had a lot of that before. I think whenever Bruce Kenzie has son-in-law who was second in command decided to leave that really showed some vulnerability a chink in the armor by Bruce

standing up to Hobart, yelling at him, saying you're wrong, saying you need deliverance, I was bombarding Hobart with letters at that time. We're going to play a clip from that in a future episode. And we've already talked about the change in laws in Indiana. Now, the state can actually go after some of these people and the halls and the burdenings were two of the first couples who were tried and convicted in regard to the death of somebody in their family.

So the walls were just closing in. I can say thankfully, when you look back on the time period of faith assembly, it wasn't that long. Not every cult leader goes down this quickly. I just think there were so many good Christian people under this ministry that if God didn't do something about the leadership and the direction, then so many more people would have been hurt and would have died. So over the last, I don't know how many months we've talked about just a variety of legalism. I thought I would just end it with this. You've heard of the Ten Commandments,

right? Moses came down from Mount Sinai with two tablets of stone carved with the finger of God and he had ten commandments. How would you like to have faith assemblies list of commandments? These are their commandments to be in fellowship with faith assembly. And I dare anybody to hold their breath until I get to the end of this. You can't watch TV, you can't go watch movies, you can't listen to secular music or join a club or be in a union or play sports or work in the medical field or the dental field or law or banking or psychology or social services or

education or government or law enforcement. Can't go to a doctor or a dentist or take medicine or wear glasses. You can't wear pants if you're a woman or lipstick or makeup or jewelry or have pierced ears or carry purses with shoulder-linked straps. Women have to stay at home, children have to stay quiet. No one can wear Nike tennis shoes or flannel shirts or white duct overalls or t-shirts with slogans or use abbreviations like condo for condominium or US Ag Department for United States Agricultural Department. The act of marriage is for pro-creation and conception only, not for pleasure, so no for play, no birth control, no boring money, no investments,

no college, no hunting, no holidays, no birthday celebration. Ten commandments, I don't even know how many we have right here. But this is what you had to do to be in fellowship with faith assembly.

the people that separate rather than unite, quarrel rather than love, pride over humility, denounce, fall in members rather than restore them, let's major on the minors and minor on the majors, be a good Pharisee like me and walk on the other side of the road.

And by all means do not touch God's anointed. Every time I think about the cults and I think about the 10 commandments, I don't know if you've seen the clip or not, but there's a Mel Brooks movie called History, The World Part One, and Moses walks out and he's got three sets of tablets instead of two, and he drops one, and he's walking out saying, and here are the fifth, and he drops it, start to say 15, and then he change it to 10 commandments.

Well, I always think of this one, I think about the cults, because they've added so many man-made rules. And the humor, I know a lot of people say that that's sacrilegious, but if you ever grew up in a cult like this that was so far based on legalism, they were making up rules to enforce the rules.

That's how bad it was. You can't help but laugh at that kind of humor, and I do, I laugh at it, so I know I'm labeled as sacrilegious by some, because I share it every now and then.

But it's exactly right, man. If you go to my website and you type in just the word rules in the search bar, you'll see everything that I went through one day, I didn't capture them all by no means, but I caught maybe 50 ridiculous rules.

It's everything from men can't wear suede shoes to women can't use dishwashers. And what I found, it was a good exercise. And if you've ever been in a legalistic cult that has the recordings, I say that you should go through that exercise, because you start to pick up on how they came to be.

These are ridiculous rules, and usually they come in the form of rants. The person will get angry and they get so full of themselves, and they're just spouting off rules for the sake of rules, which is, it's strongly tied to what we're talking about today.

You create this fantasy world, basically, and you're entering in the realm of a religion that is describing something that truly does not exist, but everybody's kind of morphed into it. And the psychology behind it, to me, is fascinating, because when it starts, everybody thinks it's a good thing.

And as the rules keep coming and people start to realize, there's really no sense to any of this. The people start to get angry, but they're in that group thing that mindset. They actually, the people, have helped mold what it became.

That's the whole, that's the interesting part about all of this, it's fascinating. But then it reaches a point where some of the people start to say, hey, wait a minute, this is ridiculous. And the fight start to break out.

And we'll get into it more, but it's just fascinating to me. Yeah, thank you described it really well, John. I don't... And I'm sure I left out a lot of legalisms just from faith assembly.

You add in your group from random followers and all of these other groups. And, you know, I think you described it really well. It starts off innocently enough and people are excited about what they're hearing and learning.

And, you know, maybe there's a new little distinctive here like, oh, you're not allowed to do this. And they've never heard that before in their denominational church. And so these people are wanting closer walk with God and obedience to his word.

And it's appealing to them. They think, oh, well, here's something I missed in my Christian life. You know, and I need to be obedient to this. And then they find out later, it's not even something in the Bible.

It's just a man made idea. And you're right. The more of these that come, the more, uh, elitism enters that group because we know no one outside the group has any of this stuff and we have it all.

And so you feel really good about yourself and you feel not really sorry, but it's just too bad for all the people outside of the group that don't have your light and understanding. And then the minister sees he's got all these people in the palm of his hand that they're obeying him on all these little things.

And he comes up with some more ideas. And as you and I have consistently said, just go back to the New Testament itself and find what was the early church line? What did the apostles require them?

I mean, the number one thing was to walk in the grace and love and mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It wasn't to walk in all of these laws and legalisms. So that was one Hobart losing touch with reality.

I think losing touch mentally with reality, believing his own propaganda. One of the things that was going to lead to the downfall of faith assembly, people had begun to see some of the problems.

Only a few people were willing to do anything about it. Bruce Kinsey was one who left over the hunting issue. You know, I was just a person on the outside objecting to all kinds of things that I thought sounded like legalisms to me.

And I think there were people in the church that were uncomfortable with it. But, you know, what do you do? If you leave faith assembly, you leave Christianity according to Hobart's teaching. I mean, he literally said that.

And I think all cults teach that. You know, you leave us. You've left God. And so even the people that told me, well, I did not agree with the hunting mandate, no hunting. You know, I submitted to my pastor laid down my own thoughts and reservations and went along with it, which I've said before, that's the worst thing you can do to cave then to the false teaching of a cult leader.

You guys stand up to it. So a second thing was coming down the pipeline in 1984 that was going I began also the call's big problems. That's what we're gonna discuss today, John. And that concerned a civil lawsuit that was filed by a law firm up in Gross Point, Michigan, suburb of Detroit, up on Lake St. Clair, in February of this year of 1984.

The Fort Wayne new Sentinel newspaper did a story on it that people can look up. It was printed on February the 3rd of 1984 that began to give some of the details of this particular lawsuit.

It was filed as I say by a legal firm up in Michigan on behalf of a couple in Illinois, David Olsen and his wife.

They were the basis for the lawsuit and the reason that the lawsuit was filed as I say it's a civil one and not a criminal one was because this woman, David Olsen's wife, had begun attending Steve Hill's.

He was also a son-in-law of Dr. Freeman, married to Dr. Freeman's oldest daughter. Steve Hill had a big meeting up in Rockford, Illinois. Steve originally had the Friday night meeting at the glory barn in Northwestern, Indiana, but right after Bruce got saved, Bruce was a big draw.

He's an ex-marine sergeant, dramatic conversion experience. He was given the Friday night glory barn meeting and Steve I think really wanted to go up and concentrate on this Rockford Illinois group. So that's where he went.

And Mrs. Olsen began to attend that meeting in March of 1981.

So she has been there two and a half or three years by the time this lawsuit is filed. And what the lawsuit was over, the allegations were, I'm just gonna read some of these quickly and then explain a couple of them.

The allegations included fraud and deceit, false imprisonment, involuntary servitude, clergyman malpractice, negligence, negligent inflection of emotional distress, intentional inflection of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, violation of civil rights, and outrageous conduct. And you'd have to be an attorney to know even what all those things mean.

But that's the first time a major civil lawsuit that was after money. They said we're after money and we're after Dr. Freeman's assets. Of course, Hobart Freeman is still alive at this time. And so the Fort Wayne Payford did an article on that and they later did another article.

They gave a little more explanation of how the attorneys, what they were after in each of these allegations that they may. So for instance, with the fraud and deceit, and I think you'll find what they were after with each of these interesting. I quote, the nature of faith assemblies practices was kept secret from Mrs. Olsen.

The techniques of mind control and coercive persuasion were by no means made known to her. Well, of course not. I mean, no cult's going to say, hey, we're practicing mind control on you. Probably not. But these attorneys recognize from hearing enough of the cassette tapes, and by the way, we'll get to that here in a few moments. What faith assembly did not want entered as evidence at all at the trial, were any of the recorded messages of whole bar of free-minute faith assembly? I find that just very interesting and fascinating. I can't imagine the Apostle Paul saying, you know, I don't want you to read first Corinthians in court,

because maybe I said something in there, they'll get me in trouble. I mean, whatever he wrote, whatever he said, he stood behind, right? But not faith assembly though.

False imprisonment. We are alleging she was restrained physically, emotionally, and psychologically. The alienation of affection, the defendants knowingly and willingly caused a division in the Olsen family, causing her to leave her husband. They taught a lot of stuff that if you're going to put husband or parents above Jesus, and Jesus means us, the church, then you can't be saved.

You know, you have to put God, which means the church. You have to put the church ahead of everything. And so she ended up leaving her husband. He ended up, this is a backstory, hiring a deprogrammer who had to kidnap her and deprogram her and get her back into the real world. And I don't know how many times that happened, but I'm sure it happened with some of the random followers as well.

I have some newspaper articles of it happening on the website. The interesting part is because my mind control is something that not everybody fully understands. The trouble you have in court cases, especially those with juries, is that the jury doesn't understand my control. They think it's a science fiction. You know, it's not real. But it is real. I am told by the legal experts that I'm working with that if ever there is a case and I'm involved in giving advice to the people who are in the case that instead use the word undo influence, because everybody

understands that. They not all understand my control. Yeah, my control sounds like a cult and sounds spooky. So you probably need a more legal, legally accepted term, which that sounds like a really good one undo influence. Involuntary server two, they control of her services and they prevented her from working. She had been a beautician before. Well yeah I mean women weren't allowed to work outside the home. Moments place is in the home the reason she has small feet so she can stand up at the counter and cook and cling all day. That's basically what those

people talk. Negligence we are alleging that faith assembly and all its ministers practice medicine without a license in strict violation of Indiana statutes. That they're also practicing the science of psychology without a license and without any formal education. And you know you probably aren't going to get I mean these are kind of vague charges that you know anybody could be guilty of so you're probably not going to get very far with this. What's funny is if you've read my book weaponized religion a critical examination of John Alexander Dowie. Those are the same exact charges that were leveled

against him and he went through so many court trials. It it got so there were so many of the newspaper articles it got to the point that I quit listing them in their references because he was getting hundreds of lawsuits and both criminal and civil and they were trying to stop him from a criminal standpoint saying that he was practicing medicine without a license because he was telling people to avoid their medicines just like Freeman was doing. But the problem is again you get a jury of people and they don't really understand that because without understanding the mind control they would simply ask the

people well why didn't you just ignore this man and go take your medicine. But in these groups it's not really that simple. Yeah I mean I wouldn't thank you to get very far. We've got to remember that this civil lawsuit was filed in the very beginning of 1984 in February and so that's before the Indiana State legislature had been able to get together and and practice our our past laws so that they could go after faith assembly from a criminal child neglect position.

That's where they knew they would be the most successful and as as we saw from the from the outcome of all that they definitely were because as I said a moment ago I mean you could almost charge anybody any church with some of these things and you know be totally way off base and you're right a jury is not gonna a jury's not gonna have the skill set because they probably don't have the background unless you picked everybody come out of Freeman and Brandon background they don't have the background to know the dangers of this but I

think at the same time though we could recognize that any normal church just the pastor loves the people for the most part I don't know their exceptions to anything you can say but for the most part he's in it for the right reasons and for the most part he's doing his best and for the most part he's just saying the Bible teaches, and for the most part, he's giving everybody the freedom to figure it out on their own. No one is, you have to obey this, or you just don't even have that in any of these

other regular churches. But you go to, as you know, a random church, or I know a Freeman church, and these things are just pounded into the people, pounded into the people. So not only was faith assembly, and Hobart Freeman, really it was Hobart Freeman, because faith assembly was nothing. There was no organization, no LLC, no incorporation. Not only was Hobart Freeman named in this civil lawsuit, but so was Bruce Kinsey, so was Steve Hill, so was Tom Hamilton, who was not even in Indiana, he was a pastor of a very well-known and recognized church in

Shelbyville, Kentucky, called Shelbyville Christian Assembly, and then there was one other local minister who I think was up in that Illinois area where this woman was attending. And so what what I saw happening, and the only way I was able to even know any of this was going on was I was subscribing, you know, to all these newspapers, because faith assembly had cut me off.

I couldn't find out anything from them, and I couldn't find out anything from people working in the office, the faith ministries and publications. Hobart obviously wasn't talking to me anymore, because I had written him a few letters saying, what about this and what about that?

So the only way I could find out, John, what was going on is I subscribed to the Warsaw paper and to the Fort Wayne paper. And so every time a paper would come, I got all their papers for several years. You know, most of the time it's just what's going on in Warsaw and Fort Wayne Indiana, and I don't care about that. I'd throw those away. I had to read everything to see, did I see the name Faith Assembly, or Freeman, or lawsuit, or anything like that. So you know, that's a lot of work. I ended up with all these articles and I have a folder over there,

just packed full of them. And so it was kind of like interesting for me to check the mail every day and get a newspaper from Indiana. I was living in New England then just to see, are there any new things happening in northern Indiana that I need to be aware of?

Hobart is still alive during this whole time. Hobart's aware of all this. So is Bruce and Steve and Tom Hamilton. And what I began to see happen is these guys, including Hobart, you know, you had just been preaching in your little church in a cornfield.

And now it's like welcome to the power of the United States federal court system, you know, this is, this is not fun in games anymore. You know, you think you can sit in your little meeting and just spout off your nonsense, threatening people and saying, you better not go to the doctor if you go to the doctor if you've lost your faith and you have no place here anymore.

Now with a federal district court in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and that's why they filed the lawsuit there. They wanted it to be near faith assembly, but they wanted to be in a federal district court.

I mean, this is, this is the real deal. The real deal where you have a lawsuit and wow, you, you have to respond. Hobart lives all the way to the end of this year.

So during this year, he's having to deal with all of this, but still he, he's able, I think, to kind of suppress it in his mind. I'm going to save his comment about this lawsuit to the very end of our interview today, John, where we're going to play that clip and listen to what he had actually had to say.

So let's just say that he kind of endures this all of the summer and the fall of 1984. He's also witnessing the change in Indiana state laws regarding the neglect of children and dependents who need medical care.

He's watched several of his church members be tried convicted and sentenced to prison for following his teaching. He's watched Bruce Kenzie leave. He's got bombarded by me and I'm sure I'm not the only one, other people sending letters making comments.

It was a heavy, heavy load for Dr. Freeman. And by the end of the year, he was also very, very ill. That's a whole nother ball of wax that we are going to really dive into here in the near future.

He had all kinds of physical problems and illnesses from which he eventually died and we'll talk about that. But let me just skip over Hobart's dealing with it. We're going to come back to that.

Hobart dies in December of 1984. This lawsuit was filed in February of 1984. So let's turn the calendar page to 1985. And in May of 1985, the court sent an 80 question interrogatory to the home of June Freeman demanding answers.

And it went unanswered by June Freeman. And it's interesting that Hobart told you got to obey the authorities, Romans 13. You have to obey the local authorities. The court is represented as a legal authority. She's got this list of 80 questions and what the courts are obviously after are determining what are the assets and where are these assets located. That's what this trial or this lawsuit is all about. So she was sent this 80 question interrogatory and simply did not respond. So in the same year, on August the 28th of 1985, now everyone is back in

United States District Court in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the honorable Judge William Lee provided, presiding rather. And what the attorneys on behalf of the Olsins are asking for is a freeze of the assets of Hobart Freeman. You know, he passed away six months prior to this time.

They don't want these assets transferred or hidden or dissipated. They're wanting, let's freeze the assets until we can get to the bottom of everything. Some of the other things that happened at this particular court date, August the 28th of 1985, was that Bruce Kinsey was removed from the lawsuit because he had quit the church. So they took Bruce off the lawsuit. You're no longer under any investigation. They added faith ministries and publications and faith radio ministries to other arms of Hobart Freeman and the church, thinking that maybe there are some assets being hidden there or transferred one way or

the other. So what the judge was having a hard time doing is trying to figure out if there is no corporation, no LLC, no board of directors, if there's no legal entity, then I don't know what it is you're asking me to freeze because I don't know where the assets are.

So he actually denied that motion to freeze the assets because it wasn't like they were in a corporate bank account that he could determine that that belonged to Hobart Freeman and therefore freeze it. So what he did is number one, he ordered June, you have X number of days to answer those questions. And I don't remember he gave her a few weeks or something to answer those questions. And then in the second place, he encouraged the attorneys who had filed the lawsuit to go ahead and get an estate opened in the appropriate county court where Hobart Freeman had died and

where he lived. He said you're going to have to get the estate open there so that we can get to the bottom of How much money is there, which is very interesting as we will see how much money is there and where is the money?

I mean is it buried in a coffee can between his back porch and shoe lake where he lived where exactly is it and at the same court date Steve Hill and Tom Hamilton filed a motion for dismissal they wanted to be dismissed out of the lawsuit because they thought this doesn't have anything to do with me this is these people against homework Freeman but I think the attorneys for these people were smart enough to realize you know attorneys just like get a shot gun and just take a shot and hope they hit something you know you've got include as much as you

can to make sure you hit something because once you file you file so the judge did not dismiss but Hill or Hamilton from the lawsuit but asked him to provide some more documentation and so what again I saw happening at that time is here are two ministers who didn't want anything to do with a long arm of the law you know I felt sorry John for the people that were tried and convicted were tried had to go to court over the death of an infant of theirs under new Indiana State law they were not prepared for that and if we haven't said by the way faith assemblies teaching was no

attorneys no attorneys hiring an attorney is sin you know you have to simply trust God so you couldn't hire an attorney no legal representation at all and I I have been to court I have been through several court proceedings and I'm not an attorney and don't have any training but I know that's a lot of complicated stuff and you think you can do that on your own I mean you're probably up a creek without a paddle if you don't have professionals to help you in that area but again faith assembly was taught you trust God for everything and faith assembly looked at Hobart as though he

were an expert on every topic and and and he certainly wasn't he was going to be

up a creek without a paddle on he got to court I have some other things to say we'll do it at a later time but listen Dr. Freeman did not tell the truth before a judge in court at all and that is easy to demonstrate he did not tell the truth at all because he knew man if I tell the truth I'm going down so you just find a way to worm and weasel your way out of it and I'll save that for later whenever we go back to the the criminal case that he was indicted for we will get to that

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You know, the way that these groups have developed is really insidious. We've talked about some of the connections that Hobart Freeman had from the Full Gospel Businessman to the Christ for the Nations Institute.

Actually, I think Charles discovered it was still Brandhamism and it was Brandham's Deliverance School that he and Gordon Lindsay were doing, but they teach the theology. And whenever you think about how all of this grew, you're thinking that it grew solely upon men teaching other men and women theology, and then spreading this as a New Gospel.

But there's more than that. They also spread the strategies to protect themselves, to evade the law, which is insidious man, because after the issues that happened with Dauy, Dauy was not the only one who got in trouble for this type of faith healing.

There were faith healers going across the nation just scoundrels pedaling whatever it was that they could sell. Some of them with good intentions, but some of them just purely scoundrels. And over time, the groups developed the ways in which to skirt around the laws.

And one of them, like you mentioned, there was no organizational structure. There was no corporate assets, et cetera. A lot of these groups, if they do have a corporation, the corporation is not connected to the child entities.

And that's the way the Brandham headquarters, in fact, recently, I've been putting on the website and on social media. But there was a year-long investigation from the two-son, Arizona Daily Star, I think it was, Tucson.com.

And they investigated the corporation, the different groups. I think they went to 30 different subsidiary cult groups, right? And there was no connection back to the top. And when they asked the people in headquarters, basically the answer was, can be summed up as, we don't tell them what to do.

We have a do-what-down-wilt religion. Do-as-dow-wilt. I don't know if you caught that reference, but these groups don't want the legal connections. because if something happens in one of these groups, then the headquarters gets in trouble.

And, you know, Brandon's dead, so he can't get in trouble for it. But while Hobart Freeman was alive, breaking all of those chains of legal responsibility was in his favor. Yes, I'm hoping you're gonna get to interview someone, John, I'm trying to hook you up with and I don't think y'all made the connection yet, but he's got an interesting story to tell.

I'll let him tell it, but he concerns Tom Hamilton. And it also concerns what you just talked about. If the ministers ever get called on the carpet, you know, they had this disclaimer, oh no, we didn't teach the people to do this.

You know, we just read some Bible verses and they did whatever they wanted to do. And that's exactly what Hobart tried to pull in front of the judge. You know, oh no, I didn't teach any of that.

I have my own beliefs and every person gets to have their own beliefs. But that's not what he taught at all. He taught this is the way of God. And if you don't do this way, you're sinning.

Now, is that the same as saying, you must do this? I think it is. You know, I think it is. When you say, if you don't do this, you have sinned and lost your salvation.

Well, that's a commandment. You know, whether you verbalize it and say, I am giving you this commandment when it is couched in those terms, people understand that. Just like they understand thou shalt not kill.

They understand thou shalt not go to a doctor and thou shalt not go to a dentist and thou shalt not wear glasses. And even though Hobart would never say thou shalt not wear glasses, he would mock you if you put them back on and say you failed your faith test.

So, you know, it's just a lot of wrangling over words, but yeah, we know exactly what they're saying. So, at this same hearing, August 28th, 1985, I thought I would just, Steve Hill was one of the people at the hearing, as was Tom Hamilton and others.

And I just thought I would read some of the things that Steve Hill said. Steve Hill was Hobart's son-in-law, the oldest son-in-law married to the oldest daughter. He became after a few years, the pastor of faith assembly, but not to begin with.

We had to get this legal stuff behind us first. And that's an interesting story in itself, which I think we can begin to see here, even in 1985. During the hearing, Hill said, I'm reading from the newspaper article that faith ministries and faith publications and radio ministries were two names used by Freeman.

When questioned, he said he believes the funds generated from these two entities are deposited in the same joint account that had been used by Freeman and his wife, June. Commenting that he has limited knowledge about the financial affairs of faith assembly, Hill said he assumes that Mrs. Freeman continues to pay the church bills.

We have no leader now," Hill said. He added that since Freeman died, a few ministers took turns delivering weekly sermons at Faith Assembly and added that he speaks once a month on a Sunday at the building near Wilma in Noble County. It's no surprise they don't have a leader.

You know, and I'm sure what they would say, and maybe they would have said back then, is, well, we were waiting on the Lord to show us who the leader was going to be. There might be a little bit of truth in that, John, but I would warrant the reason they didn't have a leader is because no one wanted to have a target on his back for what was happening with this lawsuit.

They were all smart and say, I don't want to be the pastor because now I'm in Hobart shoes, now everyone's going to come after me. So we call that cowardice. That's just a lack of courage.

You'll maintain that Faith Assembly is not an organization, and noted that it has no board of directors or officers. Hobart was famous for saying, we are an organism. The body of Christ, the local church is an organism, not an organization. So we don't have a board, and we don't elect a board, and we don't have a president. This is a theocracy, ruled by God, i.e. me. This is a theocracy, and I'm the head of it, and what I say goes, and that is exactly the way Faith Assembly was patterned. Is that true with some of these other random groups too? Absolutely. Any time that

one of these groups spins off and creates a destructive cult, it's usually because some leader has got the notion that God is speaking through him and his voice is special, and all of the people need to hear his voice. It's the way it works, right? It's a pattern. But then they go off and they start their own structure, and it's much the same way. They do not present their organization in such a way that can be legally conquered. It's just a movement. It's spontaneous. They like to use words that much like Hobart did. It's an organism. The random cults would say, we have no organization,

but yet they all followed the same strategy. It was like an imprint from cults act to cults act. They all looked to random as a central figure. There was a hierarchy, clear hierarchy, but while they had that hierarchy chain, they did not have that hierarchy chain on paper, so because it's not on paper, the legal system can't do anything with it.

Yeah, and it's the same faith assembly, and I think they planted that way. Hills that I attend there, we have no membership per se. What do you mean no membership per se? I mean, you know exactly who's regularly showing up.

You know, at the very end they had gotten so tied they could spot who the members were and who they weren't So because they're not on an official register or role You know, they were just they were experts at this Phariseism of splitting hairs You you could say you don't have membership because you don't have a membership role That's actually written by a church secretary and stored in the church office But you still have a membership. They said we don't have any rules here that you have to follow But they had this requirement sheet of 10 things to be in fellowship with faith assembly

But then whole part would say now that's not a list of rules Those are just requirements for fellowship to face assembly You know, what's the difference between a rule and a requirement? They were just experts at trying to split hairs over things, you know, I drove you nuts trying to listen to them They like to take a single word and find another word that is exactly the same and use it instead when there's an argument But what you find is kind of funny because so they don't use the word rule if people started saying regulations

Then they would flip back to rule so it's always the circle that you I don't know have you seen Have you seen these things on the internet you're supposed to click the button and it moves over here and you click over here It moves back. That's the way they do. They there's that dodgy with their words Well, he said so he said while while Freeman was alive He used a love offerings which was money placed by members in a box at the rear of the church to pay bills and then acquired the funds that were left over for his personal use

Since Freeman's death the funds are given to June Freeman He said nothing has changed even today Mrs. Freeman continues to pay the church bills according to Steve Hill. This is all in this You know before a judge the judge is trying to get to the bottom And I can't appreciate how he's having difficulty getting to the bottom Because everything is so slippery You know if you don't have a legally formed corporation and I know a whole bar was just radically opposed to that Um, but I don't think there's anything wrong. I think you have to live within the sciate within the society and which you are

And in order to protect the church and its entity and its assets because Although it is an organism. It is also an organization. I mean it it you don't have to be one or the other You can be both and I think that's what the church today has to be you are an organism Where every member is in relationship to the other but if you have property and a building and People that are paid a salary um, and you know you have expenses you have light bills and A property taxes then you have to have some kind of real lead

full structure and organization there. Remember John, back when they built the new building, Don and I just said, hey, you guys can throw a building up on my farm. I mean, it was incredible.

And they built this huge, basically, just metal shop building, we showed pictures months ago of what it looks like today and what it looked like back then, just on somebody's farm. And I don't remember hearing any, I don't remember hearing any, not a single objection or question whenever that was happening.

That started back in 1977. They finished the building and moved in in the winter of 78. And I think they're all praising God and rejoicing. But nobody is thinking unless there was a CPA or an attorney with that and they're back around there in the building saying, wait a minute.

What if someone falls and breaks their leg here? You know, you're on Don, not his property. That's who they're gonna go after because the rest of this is just a glob called faith assembly.

It's no legal entity at all. And so what happens when all of these people, John, from literally all over the country, made contributions financially, there were whole construction groups that left Ohio and went there and poured all the concrete at their own expense for that building.

You know, they're donating this to the church, quote unquote. But there is no church. You know, who holds the assets? Once you donate it all this, it belongs to Don Nye and his family.

And I'm not saying that there's anything evil about that. I'm not saying Don Nye is an evil person or that Don had any evil motives. I'm just saying, I'm just asking, where is common sense and reality?

What if push comes to shove in the future? And it always does in churches. Push comes to shove eventually. Then who owns what? You know, if Don and I got really mad, which he didn't, he stayed in agreement as far as I know with Hobart to the very end, he could have just said, this is private property.

And everybody get off the property. And he owns the whole building and the speakers and the sound system and all the chairs and everything, not that Don did or would ever have done that.

I'm just saying, that's crazy. That's absolutely irresponsible and immature and crazy for a grown man like Hobart Freeman to accept and encourage a situation like that. And it was equally crazy for everybody else in the church to go along with you.

And it just goes back to the same point I made at the beginning. It's a fantasy world that they've created, but the people have helped to create it. It's not just the cult leader.

Everybody's joining into this fantasy world. So they're building this empire. that somehow defies all logic, right? But the people see logic in the illogical. That's the other interesting component of this. Psychologically, the people are manipulated to try to find logic in the illogical.

And in the end, there are nobody wins when you're in a cult like this, just absolutely nobody wins. No, no, they don't. And yet, there are still people clinging to Hobart's teaching, which just, you know, absolutely blows me away.

Just a couple of more things from the end of this article, pointing again back to Steve Hill. According to Steve Hill, he said, this Mrs. Olson only attended his meetings in Illinois on and off for about one and a half years.

So you notice what he's trying to do is distance himself from any relationship with her and therefore any liability. He said, he never counseled her. She, this is a quote, she was just a face.

Wow. I'm reminded of what the woman said who was a part of Jeff Barnett's church in New Whiteland for 10 years. She said, we were just a face. I saw him after that. I was there 10 years, she said.

He didn't have a clue who I was. These people who had given up everything, laid down everything, deposited everything in the offering box, just a face. And I don't know this woman. I don't know her.

I don't know the story, but I know that it sounds suspicious to me for all these ministers whenever push comes to shove. They will say, well, I didn't say that or I don't know the person instead of banding with this person.

Yes, I did teach this. Yes, this is my conviction. And yes, this person was a faithful member in our church for X number of years. So after all of the legal wrangling is over, John, we finally end up, we finally end up in January of 1986.

The court had all their information. They were able to release because it was public knowledge by this time and they are trying to deal with this lawsuit on January the 16th of 1986. The courts finally had in their hands the financial records that they needed and this is what the conclusion was that Hobart Freeman's personal financial worth was put at 341,198 dollars and 84 cents.

And the business entities connected to Hobart Freeman were totaled up to be valued at 584,186 dollars and 17.

sense. You total all that up, you're just shy of $1 million. And then if you do the math on it and today's money, that's $2.5 or $3 million. So Hobart was a millionaire. He had a million dollars. He'd come a long way from from having nothing, just trusting God. He'd come a long way to now have a net worth of a million dollars. And I'm not saying because it's not my place to say whether that amount is too little for him, too much for him, you know, that's not my place to say.

But it is interesting that he was worth a million dollars and yet we saw the majority of the people in his church rubbing two nickels together and end up with a dime. And no, he did not have a house in Long Beach and a house in Miami and a house in Monte Carlo. He did not have a big garage with a fleet of collectors cars. He did not live in a place you'll mention. I will agree. He did not have all of those things, but he was very well all financially. Did he deserve it? That's not for me to

decide. These simply are the facts that he had. He was worth a million dollars or close to it. And it just seems to me like there is a huge disparity between what he had and even what the average member in the church had. Did he earn it? Did he deserve it? Was he worth it? That's for all of the people who contributed to his ministry over the years. They can look back and they can answer that question. But I know that he was living in butter as were the main ministers. They had everything they wanted and then some they had it all paid for. And I just what I object to is not what they had,

but how they got it. They misled the people. They said, we just trusted God. We obey Matthew 6, 19 to 34, where five times Jesus said, take no fault. We didn't take thought. We just trusted God.

Rather than saying, you know, thank you people so much for your continued financial support of my ministry. Because if it were not for you, I would not have what I have today. I don't remember ever, ever John hearing any of those ministers make a statement like that. It was always this super spiritual God has blessed me and God did this and God did that and never focusing on, yeah, it may indirectly have come from God, but it came through the sweat and labor of those people sitting in those chairs out there in front of you. And there needs to be some appreciation and

some give and take for that. The people I'm so appreciative of you as my minister and the minister. I'm so appreciative for you as the people who have come here to listen. You know, it's kind of funny because I have Adam who co-hosts some of the NAR series of the podcast with me and he is an accountant and he goes absolutely nuts when people start talking money because the cult leaders pitch it one way and they talk like it's just this meager amount. But when you do the math and you sum up all the assets, there's a heck of

a lot of money there. When William Brandham died, people thought that he was dirt poor and they were giving him pennies to try to help him out. In the aftermath, we learned years later, there was a guy named, what was his name, Gerald Lee Walker. Gerald Lee Walker was the son of, I think, Orville Walker from remembering the name correctly, a revivalist in the Laterane movement. He was deeply connected to the full gospel businessmen at the top and he did an investigation into Dima Shakerian and the leader of the full gospel businessmen because the money

just didn't add up and a long story short, it turned into this big scandal of full gospel businessmen because this money is just going, who knows where. Well, the same kind of scandal was kind of emerging in the Brandham cults and he became the attorney for Sarah Brandham, which was William Brandham's daughter. And she said that when William Brandham died, he had what was it? $3.1 million, I think, in a bank account. And nobody knew this. I mean, this was just shocked to the world. And it was exactly the Hobart Freeman scenario. You look at his house and

you think, well, this man didn't have any money. And he drove these cars that, yeah, he did have a Cadillac, but there were a lot of fancier Cadillacs out there. You could not tell by looking at him that he had this much money, but there was a heck of a lot of money there. And the problem is the people, when they're manipulating them about their own money, rather than just be open and honest, and here's the audit trail. You can go look at how our church spends the money and uses the money like any other church out there. They want to conceal where it goes. And in the end,

they end up with a lot of assets. And I think people miss it because they're presenting themselves as poor. This is a meager ministry. We need all the help we can get, give me your money. And I'm going to go put it in a stock somewhere. Well, I have one final thing, John, I want to wrap this up with.

And this may not have anything to do with William Brandham, but it was pretty big with Hobart Freeman. And that concern, Hobart Freeman's teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Hobart Freeman was very well known for teaching and talking about the Sermon on the Mount all the time. Like, where are the only ones? I'm the only one who takes the Sermon on the Mount literally, and I'm the only one who understands it. Where are the only ones who...

practice sit. And he was big on not taking an oath in court because the sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, let your yea be a and your na na anything more than this comes from the evil one. And just other parts of the sermon on the Mount. What people don't realize is that Hobart came from a dispensational background with his eschatology. And one thing that the dispensationalist believed was that the sermon on the Mount was a kingdom ethic that was not for today that could not be realized today that was for the millennial period. Hobart

comes along teaching that we are to obey Matthew 5 to 7. These are the principles of Jesus kingdom by which we are to live right now. What people don't understand is that is one of the Hallmark beliefs of the Grace Brethren Church where Hobart was trained. He did not get this business of sermon on the Mount teaching and not taking the oath and non-resistance and not serving in the armed forces. He did not get that on his own. He got that because that was where he was trained. And that was a huge belief of the Grace Brethren Church.

So one of the things taught in the sermon on the Mount, if I can just read these couple of verses, I want to read these verses because these are huge because they were favorite passages of Hobart. And then I want to play a clip from one of the sermons. So I'm reading in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 39. I say unto you that you resist not evil. That's where they get their doctrine of non-resistance. But whosoever shall smithy on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away

thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain, give to him the asketh of thee and from him that would borrow from thee, turn not away. Let's look at that 40th verse again. If any man takes you to court in a civil lawsuit and sues you and is trying to get your coat, then not only should you give him your coat, but let him have your cloak also. So in a message that Hobart taught in title, Comfort for Trouble Times, he taught it from Romans chapter 8 and it was actually

believe it or not, the last message Hobart Freeman taught. He taught it on October 24th 1984. October the 24th 1984. 1984. This lawsuit had been filed in February of 1984. Dear friends, people are giving up the faith message and giving up faith assembly over finances. And I refuse to give in or give up or compromise. I don't compromise with the media. I don't compromise with the state. I don't compromise my position with the seminary where I taught to keep my job. If I'm not going to compromise over those things, why in the world would I be concerned about losing some money? I'd never compromise

over that. I'm not confessing anything. I told him, I don't think you'll get a dime, but it wouldn't matter. Somebody said, what would you do if the court said $5 million was what had cost you? I said, faith doesn't say what if. Why would I confess that? Even if I had $5 million. You can't get blood out of a turnip anyway. I'll leave it to you.

Well, as I say, if you can smile with it, you can live in it. Or smile in it, you can live with it either way. But dear friends, I would die for what I believe. I don't know if you're ready to say that yet, all of you. I would die for what I believe. So what's a financial lawsuit or a threat of prison? This is almost one of the last sentences of his life. This is what is so amazing. He's in this civil lawsuit. This is the last message he teaches. He is so ill after this. He does not return to the pulpit. And he dies the second week of December

of this same year. And he is basically bedfassed for the whole month of November. And so what does he say? He's talking about the lawsuit as we just heard in the clip. And here's what he said. I'm not confessing anything, but I told them I don't think you'll get a dime. I'm not the first and only one who has objected to that statement in light of Hobart's rabid commitment to the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot take the oath. You cannot serve in the armed forces.

A whole lot of what you cannot. And one of the things you cannot hire an attorney to represent you in court. And one of the things Jesus said here is if they sue you and try to get some money from you, according to Hobart's view and Hobart's teaching of this, give them the money and then give them some extra to bless them on the way out. But when push comes to shove, what happens with these people? He said they're not going to get a dime.

In other words, I'm not giving them any money. Well, that's contrary to what Hobart always taught That Jesus said in the sermon on the Mount and that's just been a big problem for the people who have Recognized that inconsistency and remembered that Hobart said that Not always John can people figure out this would be how I would close this for everyone whether a minister is right or wrong Based on biblical teaching because maybe you just yourself just don't know the Bible well enough. That's okay

It's one thing to look for faithfulness to scripture which I encourage everyone to do But there's another tactic you can use and that is just look for internal consistency In the message of the minister himself Even if you can't figure out I don't know if the Bible teaches that or not I'll tell you it'll go a long way in helping you if you can just look for internal Consistency that was the first thing that began to trouble me with Dr. Freeman I saw so many internal inconsistencies you said this on this tape then you contradict yourself on that tape

I think if people will look for that it'll help them out in the future I think you're will too. What's funny is you can carry that actually a step forward If you're reading the Bible after you've left one of these groups and you find some passage that just looks totally opposite from what you believe and You're you're bringing into your mind different passages that argue with this a lot of times you go back and you'll find no What the Bible actually says is a little bit more cohesive than what we were taught because what we were taught was so far off and

I've had it happen time and time again. I'll Something I'm reading. I'll look at it and I think what that just doesn't make sense That doesn't fit and then I go back and I'll reread all of the things that were programmed in my head and Find out they just totally twisted it where you cannot Make any sense of the Bible if you believe these teachings and this is the reason why whenever I'm talking about these movements I say it's really an anti-biblical movement It's not even extrabiblical. They're teaching you things that make the Bible fight with itself and you can't you just can't live like this

Man, especially if you're an intellectual person and you like to think They don't like they don't like this at all. They do not want you to think so Well, this has been fun. There's so much more we can get into I guess next time We'll we'll go a little bit deeper But 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 about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR Available on Amazon, Kindle and Automal