New Frontiers Movement: Community or Cult? - With Philip Duncalfe

Hello and welcome to another episode. Of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast, I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-brannum.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Phil Duncaff, one remember of New Frontiers. Phil, it's good to finally connect with you and to talk about all things New Frontiers. It's fascinating to me to learn how some of this history has gone abroad, and I'm curious to know more about what it was like in New Frontier, so I'm very glad to have you. Maybe if you could start by just

telling everybody a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's pleasure to be here. My experience in New Frontiers is a small part of my life in the Grand Scheme of Things, but I grew up overseas. Some of missionary parents, Mission Aviation Fellowship is what my dad worked for. So grew up in public uni. He came back to the UK, studied at computer science engineering, and in that university town joined the church eventually. A guy's dating was going to New Frontiers, she'd grown up in New Frontiers Church. I'd not heard of New Frontiers being a missionary kid. I'd gone to whichever church my parents

were, and that experience was all sorts from Wesleyan to Baptist to Nazarene to being baptized myself in an Anglican church. So my background was quite varied, and then when we started dating we decided to go to the same church in the university town, and that ended up being this New Frontiers Church, and stayed there for the best part of, I think, 16 years until what were the scribes, the mess, but we ended up leaving about 16 years later. So my spiritual New Frontiers is a little bit of New Frontiers as a whole, is a little

bit of an ethereal thing, which I'll explain as we go, but that's kind of my background before I entered this church. Let's fascinating. As you know I've been studying all things Paul Cane and his connection to the New Frontiers movement. I'm told by a colleague of yours that Terry Virgo has been promoting Paul Cane, which that caught my eye. Like I said, I don't know that much about New Frontiers, but I do know Paul Cane.

And whenever there's a connection to Paul Cane, there's usually trouble that follows. As you know, I've been studying the history of his connection to Brannemism. He was Brannem's protégé, and he tried to, I guess, recreate Brannemism in the International House of Prayer.

So I've been kind of piecing together all of these connections to Paul Cane, and so that's really what I think led to us talking. I'm curious based off of the affiliation there, what was it like whenever you started attending New Frontiers?

What was the difference between some of these other churches that you had attended in the past? That's a really good question. My experience of the church, and I think many within sort of New Frontiers churches, in some ways, if you've experienced one New Frontier's church, there are some things that are similar.

But for me, going in, it was very much a community feel with an emphasis on the local town, on local people, and local church. There was some influence at the time I joined with talking Bill Hybles, and the local church is the way that God brings His Kingdom to the town.

And so for me, it was the emphasis on the local, it was emphasis on the community. There was very much a church family feel, because it was a church plant from another local nearby town.

And so where I'd been before I joined, I'd been part of a fairly large, very much a major church within the town. I didn't feel like I could really settle and grow in the bigger churches.

It was almost like I did wasn't needed. I was able to be a bit of a pew filler. And in this church plant, there was a real, just drew you in. You felt needed, you felt like you belonged almost instantly.

Not that the pastor wasn't accessible in the Baptist church, actually, he was particularly good at knowing my name even as a student, and just sort of a rival. But in everyone knew your name, suddenly, like really quickly, there were a few people, key people in that church that were very good at welcoming.

You became part of a small group, quite quickly, students were really emphasised, the young. I know that was a very heavy emphasis, and you found yourself being invited to people's homes very quickly, again, which is sort of unusual in British society.

You don't tend to go to people's homes really quickly. We like the pubs, we like the restaurants, and you go to someone's home a few a little while down the line. But in this church, it was very much like the home is an open space.

things combined as a student, you look, you're kind of, and I was a freshman, Pupney Guinea, more fairly fresh by then. So just that whole level of community was really inviting and really engaging. And I think the emphasis on my story, actually, was there was a girl I was interested in as well, which is always yeah. So that all that in terms of teaching, the as I said before, there was an emphasis on growing leaders, especially young men. I at the start, I didn't quite realize that it was a male only eldership that kind of came in later through the

membership course. So there was a sort of emphasis in you becoming a member. I do remember finding that odds have not grown up in a male or older only space. And so I was uncomfortable with it at the time, but having my girlfriend wasn't she wasn't uncomfortable with it. That seemed to be at a biblical grounding in why they do that. I was 918 19 at the time. So I kind of went with it. As I said, even through the 16 years, there's never something that fully sat with me. But because there were people I trusted and respected in that

space, I kind of put it down to one of those things that no matter what church you're in is going to be some doctrine you disagree with. So is it is the community trying to live like Christ? I think they were. And so I stayed. And then the rest there's sort of its history. I started preaching probably when I was sort of 20ish, maybe it started off sort of a once or twice a year. I was then involved in various different rotors and serving. And then eventually when I was sort of 27-28, I was asked to be an elder and then I was an elder for six

years before it all kind of went down from there. So again, happy I'm sort of trailing. Trailing what's coming up in the conversation. But that's really what took me in. I felt called to be in leadership for a number of reasons in my history, whether that was young man arrogance or some people saw things in me that they wanted to give me the opportunity. Maybe it was a bit of both. And I didn't have the opportunity in the sort of set Baptist. I would have had to become a trained minister and I would have had to go

through school and things like that. So there was an attraction there in that I loved learning and I felt like I was called to be a leader but I wasn't called to seminary. So there's almost like this shortcut and better or worse. I wish we can talk about as we go as well.

Right. You know, it's funny because the things that you found appealing are usually the things that make it the most difficult for people to leave when they're in a destructive game. tight community. And you don't find it outside of the cults as much because I don't know about new frontiers, but some of the ones I've examined in the states, it's this unhealthy level of closeness. You're way too close. And somewhat in some ways, the way that you described them going into the homes, which was out of the ordinary custom, it makes me wonder how far

they went with that. But it is out of all of the things that I can say about my own escape from a cult. It was one of the more positive things was the close connections to people.

Some very, very good people are in the cult. And the theology from what I understand of new frontiers, and I've just skimmed the surface, basically, but they have a heavy focus of grace, over legalism. Is that correct? Other other key things are the side from male ownership. They try to bridge, and I think this comes from Wimbledon's influence as well.

They try and bridge that spirit, spirit and word balance. So there's in the history, very charismatic expressions of worship, worship is emphasised, very contemporary music, generally, lots of reminiscing about the particular start of the house church movement and a revival that happened there, lots of people talking about the movement of the spirit. If they were around then, I wasn't. And then a real hope from further revival, further moves of the spirit, speaking in tongues, baptism of the spirit. That's all really emphasised within the theology.

And I probably agree with much of the sort of emphasis that the spirit can speak today. And there's things there, but I think there was an emphasis there that could be misused. I didn't experience that as a misuse. In those early days, there was very much come and see, come and experience, come and question. And there was an affiliation or at least a desire to work with other churches in the area rather than exclusive where we've got the best.

And I think there was, to some degree, that's a testament to the pastor who was who planted the church. I know that some new Frontiers churches, again, I have to be careful here. You can't paint every new Frontiers church with the same brush. It does come down to the individual pastor, but some churches can be quite exclusive. And I don't really know, but the church I was part of, I would say I think they are a little bit more exclusive than we were when I was in the church in the early days. Yeah, so there's a lot of theology on the surface that

you're just like, well, that's orthodox. And that's fine. And again, I Yeah, so the close-knit community part from my experience, there was no signs of it being misused And there was no signs of the heavy shepherding which if you just search new frontiers and abuse there's People have stories. I think you interviewed someone actually in yourself Who that was their experience where the closeness was too close to vulnerability and sharing was then used against them um Down to I know I've even heard stories of people being told who they can go out with and whatnot and I would say that wasn't

My experience at all um But that close-knit close-knit soft community Does mean leaving has a cost um and I know many before I experienced it. I know that people left For various different reasons and found themselves having to restart rebuild their social lives um Just on that point I think One of the things that because it's a church plant and the sort of um There's an emphasis on serving and so you end up with your your life basically becomes part of the church in terms of Midweek group serving on a Sunday um and your connections become part of that so not necessarily saying that's a bad thing but it does mean if you leave

You're no longer seeing the people that you thought were your close friends and your close feelings like your close friends Because you see them all the time because you're part of the same church. Yeah, and then you leave and then you lose that connection. So It's one of those things that it it's painful when you leave Whether that's because it's a cult or because it's a close-knit community doing the same thing And that's one of the Audities about this whole thing my experience wasn't as bad as some of the experiences of my guests whenever I was in

the Branham movement We had I've been to a wide variety of churches and we had some churches that were really good like you said Oh, there's not so good. I've heard stories of churches where the minister was the ultimate authority and Like you said who can go out with whom they They did dictate that in some some levels in some places and in fact I have a friend whose marriage was Basically, it was ordered that this is these are the two people that would marry each other But the irony of all of this is Whenever you have a

A group that is that close everybody is just in a really really tight community Whether it's a destructive cult or not when you leave that community. There's this loss that you feel and

You know the people who leave it's very painful There's just not a nice way to say that it is painful It's It's what happens after you leave that really determines whether what kind of group this is I know from my other the other guests that I had their experience was very good for the most part, and then they're towards the end, I think it changed. But what would you say for the, you know, not the church that you attended, but some of the others that you've heard of? What would you say it was like for the people after they left

where did they maintain the ties with the people in New Frontiers or were those ties severed? How did the cult, how did the movement react? It really depended. I mean, if they moved away, it was just quite, it's sort of, it was quite natural to disconnect. Those that remain in the area, I think it was quite painful for them, because no one would reach out and no one would, that contact. And that's for me is what I didn't reach out to some of them. I wasn't always close friends with those who left. And so some of that

was me just going, well, I don't really know them anyway. So you don't reach out and you don't ask questions. And I think I think that was some of some of it. There wasn't a natural curiosity on my part. If someone left, I think you'd just go, oh, they had their reasons and you kind of, well, it's not on my business. And I think that works within a British culture that we're reserved and we it's not our business. So we don't ask. But I do know now that there was quite a lot hurt for those people that are not all of them. So I'm going to let for their own reasons. But

there were a couple really messy relational breakdowns. And no one outside of the old ship followed up. And then any questions were directed towards the elders one on one. And rather than any announcement from the front. And I sometimes there were announcements from the front, which are fairly brutal. Looking back at them, but almost felt like, oh, at least they're letting us know that they've moved on and why. And you don't really, it's not that you're told not to question.

It's just like, well, you've been given an answer. And if you're a bit naive, like I was until I experienced it myself, you don't think they're spinning a narrative. You trust your elders. You trust the people at the front telling you the story of why someone's left.

And that's that they've left. And well, if it was an upsetting time, well, that's between them and whoever was upset and they'll sort it out. I don't need to get involved when maybe asking a few more questions might have been healthy. So I think that happens quite a lot in in any sort of church environment where someone leaves, but in a space where it's a close-knit community, you do feel it a lot more. And I think the narrative is managed a lot more

than a lot of people would like to believe. Yeah, and that's, you know, you can go on the internet and you can find searches of people who have left. And they say a wide variety of things, but you really have to be careful because even in some of the mainstream religions that are definitely not destructive.

You've got people who, whatever was their experience in their particular church, might have been painful. So you have to kind of weigh it in the balance. But some of the things that people are saying evidently is that there were a lot of, I don't know, discipline and they tried to control the information, which is one of the tell-tell signs of a destructive group.

Did you ever witness that? Did they try to withhold or change the information? So some of it, I think, is just naive leadership. I don't think in many of the new frontier churches, there's a partly because a lot of elders are so young.

I mean, I was 27 when I became an elder, what did I know? And I think you sort of, you act as an elder in the way that you've been watching it. And when you move into the elder's meetings, you end up having information that you didn't have as a congregation, and so there's a natural tendency to keep that information within that older ship, and you only share what needs to be.

I mean, elders meetings rarely have minutes that can be accessed by anyone. Within the congregation, it was almost, it is a need to know basis that elders sort of direct the strategy and vision.

There might be a little bit of middle leaders' discussions, but oftentimes it's elders direct and sort of the information flows down. Any information that flows up, it doesn't come back down again necessarily. So there's a natural controlling of information, which when things go wrong, gets messy very, very quickly, because there's only, well, in the church of 120, that was part of those three elders and those three elders, the ones in the know, and what it became was to two people's word against one, when one leaves and starts writing things online, because that's how the only way they're able to get the information out, it's very easy for the two to say

what they're bitter and hard to work with, and therefore you can, and they can just spin the narrative, which if someone's writing online, you just have to take that cost. Like, I know what they'll say about me, but this is the only way I've got my information, the elders can go, well, look how bitter he is, he just wants to tear this church apart.

And so I think some of that's unintentional, but it's an unhealthy, unintentional, that comes quite vicious very quickly, because no one's willing to reflect on who controls the information and is that a healthy thing or a good thing.

Yeah. The thing about the group that fascinated me, like I said, Paul Kane was the tie that bound all of this together once I learned that, but I began, I began some email conversations with people who had left it.

More than one person had sent me information about Paul Kane connected to this group. and they began to describe the structure of the group, which very closely matched the structure of the New Apostolic Reformation here.

And the hierarchy of the leadership. And I just had this conversation. I guess it was yesterday, it was in a podcast of recording. And we were talking about just the word apostle in the Bible, this is, the word literally means somebody who is sent, like it could almost be a missionary even, it's an ambassador, somebody who is sent forth.

But in the New Apostolic Reformation, Apostolic means like the king of the game of thrones of the churches here. What would you, how would you describe the leadership in this movement? Yeah, and it is an interesting one and something I didn't reflect on early enough, I don't think.

So the way it works, at least my understanding of it, because as I said, it's a little bit of an ethereal structure. It's sold as a structure with accountability. And so in the church, I was part of, we had small group leaders and then we had, and leaders of teams, then you have your eldership.

Now every church in the UK is a charity and under charity rules, you have to have trustees. You have a trustee board, which is, they don't have spiritual roles. They just have functional roles to oversight, make sure it's meeting financial and charity regulations.

So when people donate, you get a 25% added on from the government. There's a financial incentive to do that. And so from just looking at that, you think, well, the trustees will help people accountable in terms of everything, but generally, that's not really true.

They're friends with the elders. They're friends with people in the community. They're not necessarily an external and independent. And yeah, that itself is a funny relationship between elders and trustees. Some churches, the elders are trustees.

Some churches, that's separate. And so that's a little bit of, with the new frontiers, there's difference of opinion how that works. Then outside of the church, new frontiers, when Terry Virgo stepped down, can't remember what year that was, we're talking probably best part of a decade ago, instead of it being one person who saw the whole of new frontiers, he handed over to about seven or other men, seven or so, and they became spheres.

And so there's these spheres within new frontiers and new frontiers itself isn't really,

I'm not sure if it's his own organization, he's still, I think it might be, but it's more like an umbrella that ties them together, but the real apostles, so to speak, are the heads of these spheres, which aren't.

geographically based but relationally based and so you'll find these spheres many of them will have several churches within the UK but they'll then have plants around the world and they'll still be technically new frontiers but you might have a commission church in Texas or can't remember their plants but I think there was one in Texas and then you'll have a catalyst plant somewhere else in the states and you'll have commission in India and you'll have commission in some African countries but then you also have new ground and these other names also in different countries and sometimes they communicate well together sometimes they almost look like they're competing

in different geographical regions and so that's where it becomes a little bit

well a little bit it just feels generally quite messy as to what new frontiers is and so the person whose name is tied to new frontiers at the moment

from my communication with him it's almost like he's more an administrator rather than an apostle they put apostolic authority technologies over these different spheres and then that can shift and change as well as to who the apostle is and their actual authority when it comes to the local church really is minimal

it's again and this is something as a young elder I was and even coming into the church oh this is great there's this whole structure of accountability we've got trustees we've got commission we've got or it wasn't commissioned when I first started but we've got these people that we can go to if there's an issue just below the apostles there's also these sort of hub leaders that are and again it's relational it's not really clear why these people are in these roles but they sort of oversee a group of churches within the sphere itself and so when there's

an issue these guys come in and give advice but if it all goes wrong they're not really tied to the organizations in names so they can kind of give the advice make make it better sometimes but in times in times when they make it worse they're not really accountable and it either falls on the elders or it just people get pushed out the church and yeah we just hope it get silent so they work just to sort of compare they came out of the back a lot of new frontiers came out of the Baptist movement as well so there's a bit of a Baptist influence in this church structure

but where Baptist would vote on things elders drive vision and make decisions and sort of expect the church to follow and there's not really any voting at all or accountability upwards to the church though there is in word there is an indeed and so when the congregation started telling elders that things were going wrong the elders didn't want to know they could stone wall people left and they just tell They held the stone wall until enough people left that they could then move on and no one really knew what the story was anyway.

Wow. So that's a very brief overview. That's also my experience of it. I'm sure if you talked to someone else in another sphere, they might have a different experience altogether now because it's become this kind of like, even some of the theological things that make new frontiers, new frontiers.

I've talked to people in other spheres and some of those things seem to be a lot looser, more loosely held. And so it really depends who you've got in your eldership, who you've then got in your middle oversight and then who you've got as a possible as to how tightly they hold to these theology, to these doctrines.

And from what I understand, it also really depends on what years they became a member of new frontiers because in the early years, it was a much more rigid structure of leadership from what I understand.

I wasn't there, but... No, I'd agree with that from my understanding of it very much so in this sort of an old school. That's kind of tied to that. And even in my experience, the older members of the church, when things were needing to be, though when the elders needed to be questioned, it was very clear who they sided with very, very quickly.

And they weren't hearing any other side. And that was very much the theology of basically don't touch God's anointed kind of stuff. Right. When I hear the early years of new frontiers and I hear the touch-knock God's anointed, that kind of phraseology, it very much reminds me of what was created here in the States with the New Apostolic Reformation.

And as I understand, I can't remember what year it was, I read, but maybe 2010, 2011, they sort of changed the structure. And I'm almost wondering if it wasn't because there was so much backlash for having the authoritarian structure, the pyramid of control, if you will, with Terry Virgo at the top.

But I don't know if that's the reason. I am curious, though, with the connections back to Paul Cain, is there a focus on taking dominion over the... Basically, they call it the Seven Mountain Mandate in the NAR, they call it the taking over the government, the entertainment, there's seven spheres.

Does that kind of theology, does it flow through new frontiers at all? No, explicitly that I've heard. So just to kind of go back to my experience where I'm talking from, it didn't come in explicitly at all in the local church that I was part of, nor did it come in when I was an elder, and nor did it come through the, so I did a leadership training course for two years called Foundations, and that's where many...

of those of us in commissions here would do our, do some theology, is mostly theological training. And it was, I think, pretty neutral. I think there were some issues when it came to the more controversial topics of particularly women in eldership, but generally it was a very broad reaching course that didn't explicitly go, this is our doctrine, and this is what you need to believe. And none of that came into what I was taught, whether that's what, as I said, the old school, took on board. I didn't experience that being taught. So I can't speak into that

from my experience. But then again, the frontiers as its structure was open to the influence from from some of these sources, but I personally didn't experience that. So in my last conversation with the couple who had left New Frontiers, they, they mentioned and hinted at the fact that it was, like, it was very similar to the prosperity gospel here. And the prosperity gospel from, in my aspect, from the history that I've studied, the health and the health gospel was very closely tied to the wealth gospel. It began as a prosperity through health and then transitioned into

prosperity. If you give me your money, that kind of thing in the States. What did you, what was it like for you in that aspect? Did you see anything that was that resembled either the health prosperity or the wealth prosperity? I saw what could easily move towards health and wealth prosperity gospel. The emphasis on the Holy Spirit often led to people

being expectant that God will heal now. And stories of people being healed now were often held up as as evidence that this was the right theology. I personally don't have issue with God healing now. I still have my faith and I still am okay with the spirit of God moving in in ways that he chooses. But it would raise questions within visitors. It would be a common discussion point of does God heal today? And why am I not healed? And it would almost be, I know it would regularly be people praying for people to be healed at the front after a service

with the expectation that they would be. There are a couple of times I saw

the standard thing that I'm skeptical of of people's legs growing that I can't okay. Yeah. And that generally in my My experience of the church was rare and often invited in person rather than a member of the church, but we would still pray for people's healing and occasionally people were, I think, genuinely healed one way or the other, but I think most of those were more subtle than wheelchair moments and gradually as I'm the father of disabled daughter, so my own theology around healing has shifted significantly and around the healing ministry, but it was my

experience was that because it was balanced by John Piper's theology being an influential piece at the time that I joined, which if you know anything about John Piper, he's definitely not your health, prosperity, preacher, in fact, he's quite interesting having this kind of juxtaposition of John Piper's theology with revivalist theology in the same space, which I guess is kind of where New Frontiers tried to be, the balance of word and spirit in that way.

But yeah, again, it comes down to some people, I would say definitely had a prosperity gospel edge to them as a church and what was taught, I think the leaders in my experience at least did their best to balance that, and I would say actually my experience later on in New Frontiers would be, or they say their charismatic and believe the whole spirit will move, most of the people I interacted with were very heavy on the word rather than the spirit, so I don't know if that's a general shift across New Frontiers as whole or just where I was at, but a lot of the newer generation

of leaders within New Frontiers haven't experienced a revival, may talk about expecting it or wanting it, but they're living off the memories of spiritual parents or parents or grandparents. From what I have seen in the groups that practice the health and wealth gospels, and especially those that have the modern day apostles, that type of structure where there's some sort of a hierarchy, and I understand New Frontiers has shifted away from that, but it did have that hierarchy.

I'm curious, did that impact the group in such a way that the leadership had more, I guess, authority over the members than you would expect in a normal church? Yeah, I think, so my experience was two different, I'm going to call them paid elders, so in theory, in the teaching elders are equal, and they work as a team, that's the theory, generally what happens is you'll have one or two paid elders, and one of those paid elders will be leader of the leaders, and so what happened when things started to go wrong in my experience,

it was a new leader came in, they talked the talk about us all being equal elders, we'd all been the way you become an elder is put to the church to, we think this person's going to be an elder if you have any issues, let us know whether or not the church has issues is kept within the current eldership, so you don't actually know if anyone's said anything other than the usual like congregational talk, which would maybe come under gossip, who knows, and then you find out that person's an elder, generally speaking, I would say

99% of the time that person's going to be an elder once they've been put forward to the church, so for me that felt like the church had voted me, it had had a say and they put me forward whether or not people said I shouldn't be, I don't actually know, but I took that seriously from myself that I was at least affirmed by the church and most of the people, and I took that seriously and I don't do generally think that they did affirm that back over the course of the six years I was. The other elder, when things started to go wrong, he was sort of a

parachuted in leader, so he wasn't really voted in with the community as such, and it became very quickly when there was problems that he became the leader of leaders, and his say, should be the say that we should all follow, and me being a volunteer elder very quickly became secondary and easily negated, especially when it came to people that were meant to be the overseers, and so my stepping down from eldership and the issues that I was raising at the time, which were involved bullying and some other things, including an NDA on a staff member that I was

pushing against, my story can be shit, also on my blog which I'm happy for you to put on the show notes, but in that front it became very, very messy, and myself and extrastees that were involved in trying to make this a little bit more sensible, backtracking from the use of lawyers, I've always became very much secondary to the paid leader that was brought in by those who were meant to be the oversight, and it became very quickly, this guy can't be wrong.

Wow, all the everyone else must be, and so that's why I say in theory, there's all elders that equal, but when things hit the fan, it generally becomes one person as the leader, and the accountability, as I said, were involved in some of these decisions.

including getting the lawyers involved, but they don't have the accountability because they're not on the charity legal sheet, so they could do their thing and then wash their hands of it. And so, yeah, there is an authority, and again, it comes down to the local church, how that eldership authority is utilized, and then whether you get the accountability or help from outside is whether or not the oversight choose the right person to back.

And in many cases, they back the person that they know, and that's not always the person that's in the right. I've been hesitant to use the word cult with the group, and what you just described, it's hard not to go there, but the way that the accountability is structured in some of these destructive groups, really, there's no accountability because everything is kept secret, and whenever there's a problem raised, that's whenever you start to watch people change in their attitudes. So, you mentioned attorneys, and I'm curious how far this went, but, and don't say anything that you wouldn't normally say, but what?

I know of incidents, so maybe I should clarify that. So, the NDA was stopped in the sense of it wasn't carried out, but the threat was there. Got it. It was basically something that snowboard should have just been, maybe a bit of HR.

There were people within the church who had had enough experience to handle the grievance, but the inexperience of the elders, myself included at the start, ended up being amplified by advice that was bad from those who should have been the oversight, and that bad advice then turned into getting lawyers, which turned into more mess, and NDA, a severance, and 90 people eventually leaving the church of 120. So, and on your point of the cult, there was sort of an information control, and that kind of, I can't remember the acronym for spoiling a cult, but there's

one of them is information control, and there was very much narrative being pushed, and if people tried to press against that, they were just stonewalled. And then they just were like, well, I've tried to raise this, I've tried to raise this in a God be way, I've tried to respect my elders, I've tried to like honor the church, but I'm getting stonewalled, so all I can do is leave, and most people were just met with, I hope you find a nice church somewhere, and many of us, myself included, had been part of that church for over a decade, and some of those people had been part of new frontiers

for even longer, had even possibly been part of the church plant, at the beginning, and accountability, oversight, friendship, or just went out the window. And I do remember, so one of my friends, I was on a Bible study.

with them. This is sort of just after COVID, so we started an online Bible study and I was telling them what was going on and her response was, are we in a cult? And I just remember that and go, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but I've looked at the markers of the cult and we have some of those markers and that's what we were trying to clarify, like what's going on, why are we finding ourselves outside of this space because we cared for this community and that's where it went for me.

And it's one of those weird things, like it left a mark, but I'm very glad I'm out, but I think that goes for most people that leave cults, it doesn't leave you that hurt.

You mentioned the acronym, Dr. Stephen Hassan uses the byte model, behavior control, yeah, behavior control, information control, thought control, or manipulation, and emotional control. Would you say that it fits each one of those categories?

I think my experience dropped into that. I think the way, with a couple years on over and on reflection, I think some of those things are a natural reaction someone moves to when they're out, they need control and they're out of control. And so they have to try and, and that probably is the sign of a cult when someone's in that space, but I'm not sure, I'm not sure I could label the whole of the movement a cult, but there are times when they've amplified male leadership, they've amplified young male leadership, which means you've got inexperienced men who are told

that they are God's authority to the church. And the moment that's challenged, where are they going to go? I mean, to use the acronym, they're going to bite down. They sort of, and I think that's what happened. There was someone who was given bad advice, and he had to control an narrative to get through it, and that became where we were going, this is weird. Yeah. So that's kind of, there were elements that I think can drift into the bite model. I'm not sure if that's a unique thing to New Front is. It's definitely something where

you've got, as we've already discussed, some of the things where you've got close-knit community, you've got leadership that can be authoritarian or at least have the control of the information, because that's how the audition works, that those are markers of something that may be healthy, but can quickly shift if it goes wrong. And that's my experience, is it went wrong, and no one was willing to reflect on that. Right. The irony is, whenever I left the Branham movement, I was out for a few months whenever I was interviewed about it, and I refused to use the word called.

Because I couldn't I could not come to terms with the fact that the group as a whole was a cult and I knew that there were some sex within the you know within the movement that were a cult-ish But I they asked me and I said I will I will do this interview if you do not use the word cult and the funny part is then they Did it anyway? And so I'm faced with it and I'm faced with all the backlash and the irony of all of this is It was the backlash that made me realize that it was a cult

Because the news had used the word cult and then they you know, I was watching people lash out at me And I thought this is not normal. This is not normal human behavior, right?

So I started digging and I uncovered all kinds of things that I never thought I would so I'm curious what's going to happen with new frontiers as all of the people keep digging. What are they going to find?

Will they will it be the same way? And as with most movements there are very good people in there who are trying to Do good things within and they are aware that it's highly flawed and and they're trying to change it from the inside I know that the some people did stay at my previous church with that mind They were very clear to me how you've been treated is wrong I feel like God's called me to stay here and see if we can do something from the inside That's fine That that's one honorable place to be but I think it's also

Possibly enabling a movement to continue where where maybe it shouldn't And I think if someone's very very defensive over Whether or not their movements are cult maybe they need to reflect on why they're defensive

And Again, whether you call it a cult that's up to you I think as I've said there were times where yeah, I thought we were moving into that area and people questioned whether we were in a cult because they couldn't They couldn't question the leader and see change um My and I do know my experience is not unique um To my to the church I was part of and so there is There is a warning there. I think for for other new frontiers churches to to check And that's that's kind of as far as I'll go with that

I completely understand Well, like I say, you know, not all groups are a cult and the funny part for me is I have seen after examining so many different movements It's hard not to associate the word movement with the cult Why is it a movement? Why do you need a movement, right?

And I understand that there are there are legitimate cases for it But generally whenever Some group tries to just separate ourselves from everything and call ourselves a movement There's something going on usually So for me, it's hard to make the distinction now I bite my tongue.

Yeah, that's fair. I think once you've heard these stories, it is very hard to, yeah, to not see what you will. Let's say that somebody is in one of the groups that they do feel that is very much like a cult.

What advice would you give to them if they're in that situation and new frontiers? Keep asking questions. I think one of the best pieces of advice I think came from my dad actually well before I was involved with any new frontiers church.

And I think it was even before I was a student, which was any church, you've got to have the ability to question and the moment that your questions get shut down or people were offended just by a question, get out.

That's not a safe place to be. So if you're finding that your questions aren't being answered or being deflected, especially if it's questions around behavior or attitude or how someone else is being treated, then those are red flags that you really need to pay attention to.

Get in touch with folk outside of your church and find ways to talk. And I have an ex account called Old Boundaries. I'm happy to receive messages on that account. I've got a few stories there, everything's confidential and I'm happy to just hear your story and if I can help in any way coach you or even just to signpost you to people who work with victims and advocate for them, feel free to reach out there.

I don't use it to tweet that much anymore or ex or whatever you call it.

But that's a space. And I think it's really important to find someone outside the movement who can give you a bit of friendly advice. And I think for those in it that are in leadership, I think one of the things that I've on this side of things, I look back and I recognize all the times that people were sort of maybe again unintentionally, but it's hard for me to not think it's intentional.

There've been people who highlight things that are going wrong are often seen as bitter, angry, want to destroy the church, want to hurt the leaders, get their own back, all that sort of thing.

I think if you're a leader and that's your few of those of us on this other side who are critical, please hear that it's not at least not on my part and not on many of our parts.

We want to see what we believe to be actual Christianity and actual gospel lived out and hierarchy, hierarchy and structural control of people's lives in that way on healthy and it's hurting people. And so I just sort of challenged that narrative of everyone who's left New Frontiers clearly, just wanted to go sin.

Yeah. And clearly has an an ax to grind that's not not the case we may be hurt we may be bruised and and some of us do Hold that pain fairly of it obviously, but That's not to say that we we don't want to see people change and see people who actually know who Jesus is So that that would be kind of Where I'd like people to go for and and again if you're a leader and want to In any frontiers I'm going to challenge why I said feel free to get in touch on X as well

That it's not hidden who I am on that account I'm quite happy to to chant these things through and if if there's any way I can help one way the other then we have to Awesome, I think it's very good advice anytime that there is a Reason to stop people from questioning. There's usually a problem because questions are how we learn man It's like you go to church you have questions that continually arise and the preachers are there to Teach you and help you grow and that's how people grow they ask questions and The moment in which questions are suppressed that's for me. That's where it gets really destructive. So

Thanks very good advice and I will I'll take the information that you have where people can contact you and put it in to the description Of this show. Thank you so much for doing this You I've asked you more questions. I think then you usually had to in the in the episodes But I wanted to learn more about it and I wanted to pick your brain some so thank you Yeah, no pleasure. That's this kind of how I was hoping it would go So I'm very very happy that you did ask those questions and take the lead. So yeah, thanks for your time

Well, 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 from more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation Read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR available on Amazon. Kindle and audible

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