Manifest Sons Return: Dean Briggs, Lou Engle, and Dominion Now

Hello, welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my very special guests, Kevin and Barbara Siste, the host of Pellegrino Walk Podcast. Kevin, Barbara, it's good to have you back and to talk about the ongoing mess of the communion revival and all of the different intricate details that are behind that. We were sharing some stories before the podcast, some of which we can tell, some of which we can't, but needless to say

that this thing that we came out of was a mess and it is a mess that continues to become a bigger and bigger mess. Absolutely, John. Yeah, it's like I was saying when we were talking, I have got so much of that mess now in my head and to be able to get it out like this is certainly helpful. You know, I wanted to talk about kind of a, we're doing a wrap-up on everything great communion revival, communion America. The man of the great communion revival that we've been referring to, Luangal, Dean Briggs and Chris Bergland. And again, it's one of

those things where there's just so much to talk about. We'll have to highlight some things, but wanting to wrap it up, we just by looking at these guys and talking about them, we get into manifest sunshine, we get into dominion, perfection, all the things. So we've done like, I think 25 videos so far, highlighting these men from our relationship with Dean Briggs in the very beginning, which kind of put me on a rabbit trail, both of us on a rabbit trail in the desert. I personally don't like the desert, so it wasn't the greatest.

You know, I grew up there, there was lots of cactus where I grew up. I wasn't fond of it, but we stayed there and we were literally full time in the desert dwelling on this kind of stuff. So now looking at these men and looking at what happened, we just wanted to want to simply wrap it all up and summarize what what had happened. So yeah, and I think one of the things that I was noticing when Tabin It was kind of a total people, it was kind of Kevin's bag.

I felt like God gave Kevin some really specific things to talk about and to point out and highlight. But one of the things that I was really struck by and continue to be struck by is the levels of exploitation.

And it's specifically with Gen Z, as they've highlighted and put out that, and the exploitation comes in the form of they're the chosen, amazing generation. And it's revival has started and it's here. I guess I'm a little confused because I don't know what it looks like for a revival to be started and commenced when I don't see anything changing, it just seems a little contrived.

Yeah, it is definitely. Recently, I was digging into Robert Morris. I've been asked for by several people to tell the history of Robert Morris, how did he come to teach some of the things that Brandon was teaching.

And I started digging and you go down these rabbit trails, you find never ending rabbit trails. And one of the trails that I hit was, I think it was the year 1954, if I remember correctly, I'd have to go back and check.

But there were so many weird things that happened in 1954. You had William Brannum, who's working with the four-square gospel, Amy Simplman-Pherson's church. And this is the church, many of the Christian identity leaders were emerging from this church, mixing together doctrines of Christian identity with pseudo-Christianity to come up with this manifestant sons of God thing.

But also in 1954, President Nixon commissioned the evangelist of the laterane growing, what would develop into the charismatic movement with the notion that communists are invading the minds of our people, we need you religious leaders to wage that war in their minds.

So fight this battle of minds against communism with the people of your congregations. And if you look at the events that happened after this, this truly was a battle of the minds, but I can't really say that that type of warfare was good for the people.

It is as though they literally started to hijack the minds. And not long after that, or about the same time as this, the charismatic Pentecostal leaders were developing different scenarios of how they could scare people by showing atomic blasts or hydrogen bombs dropping in Houston, Texas.

This was printed all over the magazines and propaganda. They had alien invasions, they had flying saucers right on the cover of the Voice of Healing magazine and other articles. And you go through the news.

and they're all talking about this alien invasion, this weird thing that's happening, they weren't framing it like an invasion, they were instead framing it like, this is the body of angels, the host of angels that's coming to take us away, and we're going to go with them to our celestial bodies.

So deep within Christian identity is this idea that you had the spirit man who would be connected to the celestial being, and all of that weird theology emerged. There's so many different weird ideologies that began to emerge, and it all came about the same time as they were commissioned to wage war in the minds of the people of the United States.

And it's really interesting. It's like all of this stuff, just looking at the, where it's come from, what you were just talking about, and then how it's kind of morphed into, into what it is right now, which is a little bit different, and I'm sure within manifests on censorship camps, there's all kinds of different tweaks on it.

I'm sure of different kinds, different flavors. This one in particular, it's really interesting. One of the first things I noticed from watching the event, Communion America, is this idea that they were going to, I know from some of the videos that we did, we kind of highlighted Chris Berglund's teaching.

And he comes out right out in the open, even on his website, he says I'm a manifest sonship teacher. He teaches a lot of what Brannum taught and he kind of twists and morphs a little bit, but he brings that right out in the open.

And he's connected directly in covenant with Luangal, who is up on the stage during Communion America, talking about the revival that is coming now. I know what they actually mean. They mean they want to see the sons of God revealed whatever that means to them.

They want to see this perfection come. If I'm looking at Chris Berglund and study in him, he just kind of says it out in the open. They kind of expected this to happen or expect it to happen over the next six months to a year or whatever it may be.

But we're seeing this from the stage on the national mall, right in front of everybody with double speak. So yeah, we're saying, hey, we want revival for America. We want you to come out.

We want you to lock in. That was Stignarelli said that, Mike Stignarelli. We want Gen Z to lock in, lock in, lock in. And what they're actually saying is, yeah, we want you to come up to this higher level and join us in this higher level.

We're the young people that Gen Z's are out there thinking, hey, I want to give my heart more to Jesus. I want to... want to fight for him. I want to live for him. I want to give my best to him, but they're manipulating Gen Z because they have this double meaning or semantics like we've talked about in our videos.

Well, and it's interesting what you're talking about with the 1954 thing because you know, listening to what you were just talking about and it just feels like this interesting culmination because studying some of the there's a couple really good books about Nixon and his link with Evangelical America and Billy Graham and and how they all kind of came together realizing that if you put the evangelical streams behind the politicians, certain ones will get in office and it was kind of a mutually like I'll pat your back, you pat my back kind of thing which is gross for so many reasons, but when you start to unravel that, I don't know if you've

read the family by Jeff Charlotte. It's a brilliant book, but some of the threads of that and one of the things that I found fascinating when you were talking is Amy Simple McPherson how to tie with she was very involved with Andy Bird's family. He talks about that a lot and he's running Y-Wam right now and and he poured in, he considered her like a spiritual mother for his family and when they were in Alaska and so it's just interesting to me how small the world is and you know, that was one of the conversations we had with Dean back in the day is you know, he was when Kevin

asked him about the militant language he was using and in some of his promos. Dean, very exact, was the act, the action he said well people are stuck on high center and if you

if you use the emotions fear anger or sadness you provoke response in any of those areas you can you can move people off high center and I was just a Paul I said you know, Jesus doesn't manipulate people Dean and and I think that's the thing and even this this group you know they would pan to the fresh faces of Gen Z and these earnest hungry on fire kids who aren't kids and they need to be treated you know, you're need to you're going to stand for the Lord and answer for how you saw him and how you learned about him and and you know people dancing around stage with

a Bible in their hands and you know it's a Bible revival Bible's not opened. This isn't enough it's so much hype and so much bravado and I'm like where's the real where's the real and that's where I'm scared is that you know, I hope Gen Z is not so cheaply bought that some flattery and you know, lots of attention is going to be enough for them to go okay this must be the Lord.

I really think more highly of Gen Z than that. personally yeah you know and it's for me it's like a cared on the string type of religion so this thing happened in 1954 the I won't go into details but there was a link between that and Robert Morris that's what led me down the rabbit trail but during that same year as all of this is happening you are building up to the 50-year anniversary of Azusa Street I think that was 1956 if I remember correctly so you've you've got this time span where they're building up they're

wanting to build up this hype and they're being literally commissioned to build up hype in the people's minds well that's 1954 is also the year that Paul Cain starts holding his massive revivals at Madison Square Gardens and Phoenix I think it is where Chuck Smith is his campaign manager so you've got that connection happening and not long after this weeks months I can't remember exact timelines but if you go through the voice of healing magazines you'll see it they get this commission to build up this hype in this interest they have all these new revivalists

starting and like Paul Cain is very very deep into the manifested sons of God theology by the time he's going to work with the Kansas City Fellowship he's basically teaching this Christian identity thing well they're building up this hype to claim by I want to say it was the year 1956 mid 1956 we're going to have a billion souls harvest in a worldwide revival because the end is coming the end is near they're all pushing that hydrogen bombs are going to be dropping atomic bombs it's all over friends the end is near we have to have this billion so harvest now and it seems that

anytime there is any type of global conflict that is what these guys do they want to build up we have we must have this big revival we must force it to happen because the end is near we have to save all these people and we have to do the work and that's the opposite of Christianity it's not a we thing it's what Jesus did but they want to take the power and put it back in their own hands and I think that's really interesting John because you talk of that that great harvest that billion soul harvest and you know following this a little bit of a rabbit trail here

as that develops I mean that even got into global missions some of this stuff is has really the idea that that even the that Christ getting carnated through the church that the church is going to be used in the last days that that it's going to be this mighty powerful army that's going to going to save the world but in essence what happens is the gospel gets dumbed down or reduced and other things are elevated yeah criticizing nations and coming into nations and transforming the political nature and that economic nature and and all of this stuff and it's just it's just crazy. So we we saw that even in the

Communion of America then because I mean they're they're right there on the national mall and And it's a it's a political movement. It's not just sure it's it's religious sure they're combining it But but this is about politics and this is about power and this is about dominion and it's about Takeover and they're I just personally And a lot of the videos I've shared I think what they want is is they want stakeholders They want people to to join in other words lock-in Lock-in Gen Z so so then we could have stakeholders in this whole

Great Communion revival that's here in America right now, but it's gonna spread all over the world Even awakened the dawn had an advertising of a University that they're starting where they can disciple people into Manifest presence into the presence of God that's not talking about discipling people into Jesus anymore But to discipling them into into presence So all of these things are our concerns and again, we we want to highlight these in our video But we want to share with your listeners as well just as we we kind of wrap this whole thing up We wrap it up, but in a sense

This is ongoing. This is not going to stop. We're just gonna stop talking about this event for a little while So that mainly I could get my my brain cleared out Well, and I think that the connection that you brought up about this with the missions organizations That's kind of my that's my sweet spot in my wheelhouse and disciple multiplication movements and and the UU PD Unreached unengaged people groups that that was kind of my my knit for for many many years and and

Taking Jesus to the last the least in the lost which is you know, of course. That's what a Christian right bringing the gospel But but what started to kind of leak into that was this this community transformation Which again on first glance looks really great because you know, I you know, we're all part of communities where we want the kids safe and And the marriage is protected and you know the streets safe and all the things and and again, that's that's a great unto But it can't be the the focus and so this Christianization I think that's the nuance that that we keep

Beating this drum about is the act that Any Christian that I know if I once you know better schools for their kids and better water and better food source I mean there you go to any country in the world and you talk to parents and they all want their kids to have it better than they did that That's a universal thing that I found doesn't matter, what kind of culture it is. The nuance, though, is how that comes about. And what is the cause? Am I the catalyst or is Christ? And if Christ has changed a heart, then the

heart is going to move differently in the community. A husband who's saved by grace of God and is filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit is going to be a different kind of husband and father and business person and community member. But what we're seeing is this idea of we go into the community and we're going to make it better. You know, as part of a lot of them where it's like we just have Bible studies and we're going to, it doesn't matter if the people are saved in the Bible study, we're going to teach them morality

basically and teach them how to be obedient space disciples before they have the power of God living in them. And so I'm like, so how's that going to work? They're just going to be good moral people, whatever we've defined that to be, hopefully biblically, but if we don't have the discipling unto conversion. Right. And the fact of the matter is I was part of that for a long time. But when you don't have the Holy Spirit presence, it's basically, you know, it looks like the American dream to me where, you know, it's all man driven. It's about my power,

my will, my and again, I'll just speak for myself, frankly, I have zero power, zero will. And in my best version of myself apart from Christ, I'm a big train wreck that nobody wants coming into their community, frankly, marriage, household. I don't think you're trying to talk with. Oh, that's because Jesus. That's because Jesus is kind. Jesus has covered me. It is grace. Sometimes, right. You know, I've been to Mexico. I went to Chichen Itza and we had a tour guide that took us through all different cultural places to see. And one of them was a shaman camp, which I was

fascinated by. I wanted to learn more. But as he's taking to all of these places, he took us to a Catholic church that you could clearly see was kind of built. The blocks weren't quite as you would have expected. And he says, this Catholic church was once a pyramid. And they tore the pyramid down. The, as the Spanish Inquisition is happening, they come through Mexico, force converted the entire population, those who lived. And what you ended up with is shaman's who are preaching Christianity.

There was, it was just such a weird mixture of pagan ideas and Jesus name with it. And you look at what's happening in the New Apostolic Reformation. It's really not that much different. It's just more modernized. They're wanting to force conversions. But it's just simply for a number.

It's not really for an actual conversion. They want the billion hosts so harvest. There's no way they're going to just suddenly. Convince a billion people to become true Christians, but if they can count their name in that number now I'm counting that name towards the billion people and Something else that you said you were talking about how the manifest sons of God how it's It's really not it's not portraying the true Jesus. It's kind of demoting Jesus in a way Well, that that was the nature of this They when you mix politics with religion What you're essentially doing is you're trying to take very human problems and you're trying to alter

Biblical concepts to seem more human so in other words you're humanizing things at the very beginning of the doctrine if you go all the way back to Genesis They're humanizing the fall. They're saying that it wasn't that they disobeyed God and this was the great thing It was instead that there was sex and they created two bloodlines So now we have two physical Races of people that we can point to it's a very human problem. It's not a spiritual problem and that Led to the race riots of the 60s now they're pointing it fingers it

Races of people in classes of people saying this is the evil ones. We're the good ones. It's humanizing the problem But if you carry that forward not many people take it to its logical conclusion if you humanize it at the beginning of the Bible Once you get to the cross you have to humanize this as well Which they did they Robert more this is what led me down this trail Robert Morris is saying that Jesus was just a man. He was a human. I can't remember his exact words, but he was fully human He was fully human which is exactly what Brannum taught which is exactly what any of these manifest sons of God people are talking

They're trying to say that Jesus was a mortal but a mortal human being That a spirit came into and empowered him and you too can have the spirit you too can be filled with this power this manifestation of God It's humanizing the deity of Christ. It's no longer a deity They're taking it into the human into the human aspect that people can Visualize and conceptualize so that they too can feel like they can become Superman That's essentially what it is a doctrine of Superman So when you do this you're rewriting the DNA of Christianity Which gets really weird when you consider the people like Bill Johnson who is saying literally when you become a Christian it rewrites your DNA

He's rewriting the DNA of Christianity to rewrite the DNA of his followers Absolutely, and it's a you know, it is a very humanizing thing that they do Which which puts it all on us it puts it all in our lap So we get to do everything and and I've I've been kind of harping on this but It is especially looking into the details like Chris Berglins teaching, Dean Briggs, Lou Angle. It's all about us and it's all about now. I've written this down and spoken out, I don't know how many times. It's about dominion now, eternal now, perfection now, immortalization now, what's the kingdom

now, what's true about Christ, is true about us now, marriage suffered the lamb taken from the time of the end to right now. We're going to have that on the mall. There's a spousal paradigm. Christ is coming back through the church now. It's everything. There's a Melchizedic order. You had talked about humanizing from the time of the garden. So God looks down according to Chris Berglins and he says, this is my image bearer and I could create a Melchizedic order. So they humanize all that diminishes and take it all the way through Jesus, all the way to the end in Revelation. We have a man child company with a rod of

iron that's going to rise up. It's all about the here and now, but yet we know, and we talk about this all the time, that our citizenship is in heaven. It's not here on earth. It's not about the here and now. It's so interesting what you're just bringing up. When you talk about the humanizing, with all the things that you both were talking about, it absolutely sets up what you see in the NAR is that there's a group of people that know more than everyone else. If you don't know that or you're not experiencing the freedom and your health

or your finances or fill in the blank, then you're not one of the elite. But good news, they will tell you and you know, you can, for a small tithe, you can be part of their apostolic network and you can have access to the Apostle who is more evolved spiritually than you are. And the fruit of your life is proof that you're not as spiritually evolved because you have some bankruptcy or maybe you're, you know, you have arthritis or you have something that if you were, you know, trusting the Lord and standing in faith and

chosen, then it would look different. And so then it creates this dependence, this interdependence on this supersede group of people who have this fresh divine revelation. And if you're part of, you know, I, I think of the woman with the blood in the story all the time and that she was like clinging to the, to the robe, if she could just touch the ham of Jesus garment, she would be healed and she knew that. And I find this aspect in Bible, in the Bible, it's Oh, profound to me, but that picture is what I see when I watch people like it.

I hope they're they're trying to cling to the robe of these super chosen people who have told us themselves that they're super chosen. Like we don't know it because we've seen anything. We know it because they, they, they formed a group where they all acknowledge each other publicly.

So if we don't acknowledge them, then we're fools and nobody wants to be fools. So we, of course, you know, it's like the emperor was new clothes. I'm like, does anybody want to say that the emperor is naked?

Cause I don't see any clothing and everybody's like, the clothes are great. Art the clothes amazing. I'm like, this, this feels like, you know, I'm not crazy. I'm, you know, I'm not crazy. And I, but I think that's the thing when you start to humanize it all the way back.

Like you said, John from like the first, you know, introduction of man essentially on his own, all the way through, then it lends itself to an elite chosen group who's self professed and self anointed and self, you know, declared.

And, you know, I think when you have a system where you're not allowed to challenge or talk about them, and you're equated to Satan as the accuser of the brethren, which is Satan's title and revelation, but is applied to people all the time.

You know, and again, I go back to the question, who are the brethren? Because my Bible's pretty clear about the fruit. You'll know the tree by its fruit. And so there's so many layers.

And, you know, the Robert Morris thing is, is profoundly sad. But again, I think as we unravel, it's, it's the same ball of string. It might be somebody in Dallas or somebody up and readying or might be, you know, Chris, but I'm like, some reason and, you know, it all looks at it, and it all, and it all joins.

And even the global missions, it's all starting to, to join. And there's so much poop in the brownies, John, I don't know if there's any brownies. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

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

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

You know, when I go through the history, I keep finding names of people who are predators, who were historical figureheads that this movement would not have existed without. And you just go through name after name after name.

And the sad thing is, one day I sat down and I tried to compile a timeline of this so that people could see and understand. Because unless you're familiar with the history, you really just, you kind of glaze over.

You don't really understand how significant it truly is. The problem is, when you upload a video like this, YouTube does not like it. When you continually talk about people who are predators of minors, being careful and cautious how I say this.

Because you will instantly watch your YouTube video, either blocked fully or very limited. So I have to be careful how I do it and I have to bring it out in small pieces. That's why I do it in the way that I do.

But if you go back before the laterane movement, even existed and just look at the big figureheads that were involved with laying the foundation that would eventually develop into laterane. You've got bigamists, you've got polygamists, you've got people who are violating the man act, which is taking a young lady across state lines for the purposes of sex.

And I'm gonna stop there. I could go through another laundry list of things. But this YouTube video that we're doing would be blocked. And it just, it causes problems because there's so much evil in the history of this movement.

But the characters that I'm just naming mentally visualizing as I'm saying the things that I have came across in history. They are such significant figures that without them, if you take any one of them away, this house that they have built completely starts to crumble.

And each one of them that is doing this is bringing with them not only with the crimes that they're committing, they're bringing doctrines for political or for financial reasons of their own. They're bringing in doctrines to support their agendas.

And the sad truth is when people get convinced that twisting the Bible to fit their agenda is a good thing. And they start defending the leader. It builds up this model where the leader is untouchable.

And eventually, I don't know if you saw it, but I put out some of the history of Chuck Smith. Chuck Smith came into the same exact type of issue. Some of his leadership was becoming involved with things that I'm not going to say because we've probably said the word too many times, but very bad things.

I'll say it like that. And he declared openly, well, we have... the Moses model. The people are not to judge the leadership. It is only God that can judge the leadership. And we're talking about predators, but the way that you silence all of the victims, as you say, we have a Moses model, you can't touch Moses. And he set the pace and set the standard.

When I came across that, I thought, well, oh my gosh, that's where this came from. But then you go back in history further, you find another guy who did the same thing and another and another and another and another. As far back as you want to look, there are people who are doing this.

And literally it comes down to people who are committing crimes, do not want the people who is funding their agendas to know that they are touchable. They want to be untouchable. Because if you can keep the people silenced, you can keep your movement intact. And that's really the history behind this. Well, I think that's one of the things that I, you know, I haven't started talking as robustly as I will in the future. But the misogyny that is woven through, along with the racism, lends itself to, you know, there's a difference between women submitting to their husbands as wives, biblically, and what the biblical context of submission is

versus how it's used to control and to squelch and squash a certain population. And, you know, I've always been pretty vocal with Kevin about, you know, this is more than 50% of the population, our women. And we don't really talk about it in the church. And we're supposed to keep our mouth shut and sit quietly. And I'm all about respect. I'm all about honoring the leadership and the structure that Jesus put in place, biblically, absolutely. I'm going to submit to a man who lays his life down as Christ does for me all day, every day, if I'm a very intelligent woman,

because that's a harder, harder role. However, what I notice is this because, you know, certain demographic of people, 50% of the population has basically been relegated to a, a, a, a plaything or, you know, somebody that's, you know, the head pat and we're to be tolerated and, and, you know, like, I mean the plaything. It's just, and we're supposed to kind of wait to be taken off the shelf to be valued. And, and so when you see a demographic of people who have been raised to believe that maybe they don't have the same voice, they don't have the same, shouldn't

have the same level of respect and honor and integrity between the community members, because they're a lesser demographic. Then, I mean, I, I've even been so saddened by some of the, the women, uh, pushing back against victims and it it is a function and a reality of a cultural norm where misogyny exists and thrives and so much so that even the victims of it perpetuate the problem and I think that's that's something that I'm seeing is is every every cultural evil is being exploited and perpetuated in some of these things and and through some of these men and their

leadership and I it's just devastating and it's not Jesus and and that's what I tell Kevin all the time people are going to be fleshly and awful but but if you're going to stand on a platform and do something in the name of Christ that is evil and dark I can't abide that and I won't stand by quietly and watch you trash Jesus um you know it's interesting you say that because we had talked we talked at the time passed about the million women march and and so so before this event of communion America they they had the million women Esther March that marched

on Washington uh right before Trump was elected again when we had our first conversation with Dean Brakes um it was of course about math lessons of God and teaching that but along the same lines he was there at the Broadmore Hotel fasting with Luangal concerning the Esther March the million women march and we we pushed back pretty hard on that saying okay what is this is this another way to get a political advantage here by by using technically using women to to do that and and we we pushed pretty hard weeks before the election and it's funny because that when

Luangal was on the stage during communion in America he used that event he said that event kind of birth this event it helped in the whole scenario and and so it all ties together right what you're saying John what you're saying about about racism uh identity uh misogyny it all it all comes together and I think what we've tried to do and certainly what we're trying to do on on this podcast as well is just inform people that understand where it came from I mean a lot of this stuff goes back and you've done this so well Steve Montgomery has done it so well goes back to Nazism goes

into mysticism goes through Jane lead I was reading Jane lead the other day and I was like oh my goodness this sounds just like Chris Bergland and uh through the latter reign all the way to to current and we've got a man standing on a stage Luangal that's almost crying because he was there 20 years before that And now is saying now we're seeing revival revival is starting it is starting now and then the the the other younger folks from awaken the dawn saying we want new angles mantle we want his mantle so what he's passing down

you've got to understand has all this history so many people they will talk about going into ministry and they want to study theology I want to study history because the history informs all of the theology and and so when you start to understand where it came from with lo and go this this older man that's on stage looks very very humble in some at some points and and he's actually wanting to bring

into the current and lay it upon a brand new generation for hungry for God maybe hungry for something and they're going to get something that they didn't bargain for one and the true difference that is the thing that I feel like when I pray about it that I see so clearly that the Lord is showing me is Jesus Jesus model that the greatest will be the least that he's come to serve and so Jesus laid down his life and was crushed for my sin and my transgression and hung on across for me which is contrasted with I'm going to crush other people so I can be more powerful I'm going to stand on the next and the backs of different races and and women and I'm going to crush other people under my feet so that I can be powerful

and the contrast is profound Jesus was crushed and and then you're contrasting it with leaders who are crushing others you know it's it's okay that you know some of the clergy abuse we're just going to nod and wink at it because if this guy goes down then all the people who salaries depend on him or all the people who have networked with him instead of routing out evil and modeling Christ we are perpetuating it and and I can't buy it and any true Christian who reads the word of God who sees who Jesus was and watches how he stood and just took it while his beard was pulled out in a crown of thorns was matched on his head and he was beaten within an inch of his life unrecognizable and then hung on across a perfect sinless God man who was perfect in everything

and yet he did that quietly he didn't defend himself he could have you know anybody that in the whole history of ever Jesus was the one person that had a defense and he didn't take it it's so powerful and different than what I see on the road stage. The hype is so gross. When you look at the cross and Jesus, you know, I'll never forget the moment. After we left the Brandham cult, the period of time went by where we were adjusting, but after the adjustment, I'll never forget walking into the schoolhouse holding my wife's hand as she was able to vote for the first time in her life. In the Brandham cults,

the women were not allowed to vote. And to your point of understanding history, let me take a side story here and talk about this a bit. In the 60s, whenever president, president-elect Kennedy was, when he was running for office, presidential candidate Kennedy was running for office, there was this notion that because he was, quote unquote, such a good-looking man, that the women's vote would sway him and he would become president. And this was outraging all of the white supremacists. Brandham was in the camp of the white supremacist. So he introduced a prophecy that said that the women voting would cause the destruction of the United States.

It was literally a prophecy injected into the doctrine for political purposes. So he injects this prophecy. He said that he actually had it back in 1933, which he never mentioned it until that moment. But think of that from the 60s all the way up to, it's now 2025, there are women, a large portion of women in this cult are not allowed to vote because of this. And the men just revel in this because the women are supposed to be subject to the husbands, just like you mentioned.

And the problem is, whenever you start to understand history, like you were saying, Kevin, if you understand the context of history while you're reading the Bible, you understand what the Bible is saying. In the context of that passage from, I think it's Ephesians, Paul is speaking to the men, the women, to the households, but he's speaking in a time in Greco-Roman history where the men was to rule over their household. That's the way it was established.

That was the government. That's the way the culture was. But Paul actually broke out of the norms and addressed the women specifically, radically, by giving them their moral agency if you continue reading that passage. And actually, if you keep reading, it says submit to each other. And those who fall into this submission camp, they always fail to read that last verse. I think it's verse 21 if I remember right, where it says submit to each other. And there are other places where he even becomes more radical. And he says, there is no male or female. There is only one in Christ.

So Paul was being very radical for his time. And yet at the same time, he was respectful of the customs. And when you read that letter, you can see... he's being respectful to the custom. He's not trying to introduce a doctrine of hierarchy.

He is actually trying to address the custom as it exists and address the women specifically and talk about the free moral agency. So this is a completely different passage than the way it has been twisted. But for political purposes, they have twisted the history, they've twisted the context of Scripture. They've even twisted the way that men and women are supposed to look at each other just for a political motive. And that pattern that Brannum established, it was widely accepted.

There wasn't... I have yet to find a single minister out of the hundreds if not thousands of evangelists who denounced this. They just widely accepted it because this is working. We're actually swaying the public vote. Let's let him continue. Yeah, it's phenomenal. Just the joining the church in the state, as we look at history, which I was just talking about, if we look at even the Catholic church and how that came about in Constantine, and all the bloodshed that has gone on throughout history, just from the joining of the church in the state, the political with the religious.

And you know, you would think that we learned. You would think that we'd be able to go back and say, okay, well, yeah, we've learned this from history. And like Barb, you just so eloquently said that about Jesus. As you look at Jesus as the model, and if we were truly to follow after him and first John 2.6 is to walk in the manner as he walked. If we were to do that, why are we trying to Christianize? Why are we trying to take over? Why do we have that motivation in the first place?

If we look at Matthew 5, the sermon on the Mount, blessed are the pure and heart, the meek, the gentle, those are hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are persecuted. We're not the ones that are on top, we're the ones that are being persecuted. And so we've turned the Bible completely upside down. We've got a brand new narrative like you said, John, from beginning to end, diminishing sin, raising up humanness, or you could just call it humanism, to a certain extent.

And now we have that in Christianity. And now, this is on the national law, it's in the mainstream, and this is, I think my point that I always, always seem to be bringing up, is that this is all like out there where people want to become a Christian. Like I said, I think I said it the other day.

You know, you want to go witness your faith on the, maybe on the street or talk to somebody who's downtrodden or whatever, and you're going to go up to them, you're going to talk to them about Jesus.

And yeah, he saved me. He changed me. Look what he did with me and and the person's going to go, well, that's great But are you are you talking about the Jesus that I see in nationalism the political Jesus the one with the American flag wrapped around his His waste is that the Jesus?

You know, do we have to now qualify the Jesus that we're talking about when we actually evangelize? And so these are the issues so anytime there's that joining together and We're just in reference to the million women march. You know, that's what we felt like they were trying to do and we push back on that saying You can't do that. Well, that's the thing with the the million women march. I still confused very confused why people want to be David or Esther or like, you know, they David and Esther were amazing people in the Bible who were flawed and human just like the rest of us, but

You know, God wants me to be me and let him change me So I've never understood that that didn't you know growing up Lutheran. I never heard that as aspiring to be but but what I took Offends to and again, whatever but when when I saw the tagline for the Esther march, it was but you know I can't remember it now and that's kindness of the Lord But it was so offensive because it was it was basically like if you really care about your families women If you really care if you're a good mom, wife, you know person

Then you'll be at this march because we you know who knows if you haven't been risen up for a time such as and it's like It's such a gross misapplication and and and and to use To use women and what they care about and what they're wired to love as as mothers and wives and women To manipulate emotions and to to to imply that if you don't do this what kind of woman are you And then to get to the event and it's all men on stage Where are the wives? It's all men and unfortunately the one woman that was on stage talked about how

If people had trauma god wanted them to let go of their trauma And if they couldn't let go of their trauma, maybe they needed more faith So you already have a group of people that are traumatized by their story as a as a marginalized Demographic in culture as women So horribly, you know, it's like I think that the latest statistic is more than two out of every four women have had some sort of Physical and and it fell in the blank trauma Um, and now you're telling them that if they can't release that trauma and leave it there

They don't have enough faith so you're going to spiritually beat them up as a woman the only woman It's just and again that's that That's to me a symptom of a bigger problem that when people are buying into some of these things and perpetuating trauma and perpetuating this abuse because it's coming from a platform, you would think certain demographics would be like, I've had enough of trauma and abuse and I'm not going to perpetuate it.

But that's the nature of trauma and abuse is if you can align with the predator, then maybe you'll be safe. Maybe you won't be traumatized and victimized anymore. Maybe that's the safest place to be.

And that is vile and that is purely from the pit of hell. That is definitely Satan and the father of lies is well and good alive and that is sickening to me. And I just, Jesus, look at Jesus, look at the cross, read your Bible in context and do whatever it takes to get all this gross stuff off that's not anything about the Jesus of the Bible.

It's not the Holy Spirit. It's not the fruit of the Spirit that's in Galatians 5, 22, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith on this self-control, goodness, gentleness. I'm not seeing these qualities, I'm not seeing this fruit.

And it's all really a result of the hero worship. Here's a book I've mentioned a few times or a series of books by Eusebius, who is the father of church history. And he talks about the results and the consequences of hero worship, how somebody, some human did some great thing and over time the village started to honor him and eventually he's a deity where you're sacrificing your children to.

This is the results and consequences of hero worship. Well now we're in a world where the hero worship or in many cases, not all, but in many cases the heroes are actually predators. And so you're even a step worse I think than many of the ancients who some of them did some really good things who became gods.

But the hero worshiped, also twist the Bible in such ways that even reading the Bible, the people don't get the right picture of Christianity. And I know I'm going to offend a lot of people by saying it like this, but I'm going to anyway because that's my nature.

How many churches who are in this movement will tell you, we need to strive to be a better person. Jesus is our example. All humans are below Jesus. There is Jesus, there is everybody else in Christianity.

We need to be a better person than even the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was human. We need to strive to even be better than him. We may never achieve it because we're human, but we need to be better.

We need to try to do better things. We need to try to be better to people. All of the fruits of the spirit that you're mentioning, you won't hear this because they have turned the Apostle Paul in my opinion in many of these churches they've turned even Paul.

into an idol. He's untouchable. He's more than human. I was in a non-cult church, mainstream church, and they were trying to use the Apostle Paul as though he were a governing authority and how he could have pulled out his Apostle card and just demanded whatever he wanted, but he was humble. He was your humble servant, Apostle. And they completely misunderstood the relationship between even the Apostles and Jesus. That's not how it is. There is Jesus, then there is everybody else. How many churches will say that the best thing that you can do to be a Christian is to

do things to help other people, to be a servant. You mentioned the list of the fruits of the spirit. There are multiple lists, if you go through the New Testament, and one of the things mentioned is servitude. You need to be a better servant. And even Jesus said that one of the greatest things you can do is to help one another become a better person by helping other people and helping them in their situations. But that aspect of Christianity is taken away with the hero worship.

Instead of becoming a better person who is a servant, they want to become a better person who is a Superman. We just actually had a big conversation about this with one of my former spiritual father mentor types who has unfortunately decided to walk away from us recently, which was very painful. But part of the conversation we had that really offended him was I just kept talking.

So many people refer to the heroes of the faith. Heroes of the faith. There are no heroes of the faith. There are no heroes of the faith. There are men and women who in God's gracious kindness scandalous mercy and grace used in spite of us. God spoke through a donkey. I mean, that's the model. And again, you know, people are like, oh, Barbie, I have such low self-esteem. I'm like, no, that's how highly I esteem the God of the universe, my creator. This is who he is. He's perfect and holiness and beauty and kindness and goodness. He's perfect. I am not. And so

to call people a hero in the faith, you know, and I was really shocked by the response by someone that I had been in relationship with for 22 years. And he was so offended when I was like, the only hero of the faith is Jesus. He's the hero of the faith. There's no one else. Everyone else is just bumbling men and women who maybe get it right sometimes by God's grace. But the only reason we get it right is because of God. It's never us. He's always the initiator and and everything good is Christ. That's what scripture says. Everything good is Jesus.

And so, you know, it shouldn't be offensive if we don't call him heroes of the faith at, you know, they're just people and I think the problem is when we're so busy trying to become a hero and build our personal legacy, this looks more like the American dream, this warped version of what we want to be like, you know, this doesn't look like laying lives down and being, you know, he must increase, I must decrease. I don't know how that's him increasing if my name splashed on my ministry. I don't get that. I just don't get that.

Yeah, and the idea of hero wars, you know, I mean, that's that's technically what we do with life, life, people now too. But I know our time in the desert, and that was part of the hard, the hard part was actually, we're starting to see these so-called heroes topple. Every time we're finding out more and more and more researching and we're going, oh, no, not this one, no, that one, we thought they were going to stand. And so when we started seeing this and all these men started falling, it changed our perspective. And so we wanted to look more at history. And what Barb

saying is so true, we just, you know, as humanity, we want to elevate people and we want to, we want to put them in those positions so that we can create idols and worship. But that's the thing is if we just let them be human, if we just let them be human, then if I'm not expecting my leader to be a little god, if I'm just expecting him to be a broken, fleshly man who has found Jesus, no, actually, who Jesus has found, and he said yes, and he walks with a limp because he rustles with

a Lord regularly like everybody else who's trying to stay on this planet and walk as godly as possible by God's grace. If we stopped elevating people and we stopped making people so fantastic, you know, to Dean, if you're listening, an ant is just an ant. There's never a place where an ant is more than an ant. You are only a human being. I am just a person getting perfected. No, enough because Jesus is enough. I don't have to be a god because I know who is god. And if I let him be god, he, I cannot follow in those footsteps. He's perfect. Why would I even try? Why do I want to

try to take his deity or take his disability and steal it from him? Yeah, it's appalling. He's brought me into relationship with himself. That is audacious and scandalous and so kind and so ridiculously just. That's what you're talking about today. Yeah, and just like the other day, we did a video. Yeah, it's not true. And I mean, I just...

when I talk about Jesus and then I look at human beings, I'm like, just let people be broken. Because then maybe they'll get the help they need and maybe because we don't expect them to be on these pedestals, maybe they'll get help sooner when they're making bad choices off.

You know, we were, you know, I told Kevin, we were so stunned by Mike Bickle and I said to Kevin a couple of weeks into it, I'm like, I don't know why because honestly, I, you know, I've been in a couple meetings with him, but I've never talked to him really one on one.

I've never seen him in his house. I've never seen how he treats his wife. I don't, I don't know any of his fruit besides what I see in his public persona. So for me to go, oh wow, I'm so shocked. I don't know why, I don't know him.

I've seen him on stage a bunch of times, but that's not the same is like, you know, what happens when the dog, you know, pees on the rug? How does he act then? And how does he act if his wife is, you know, struggling and needs extra help and having an emotional crisis?

Let the reader understand. This was a little discussion yesterday. That was yesterday. Yeah. You know, I recently did a podcast with Bob Scott. He convinced me against my will to open up and tell a little bit more of my own story. I guess he was getting some people who were just begging him to hear more. And there's a reason why I was against it. I don't want people to do to me what these leaders are promoting themselves as. I don't want any part of hero worship.

I'm just one of the, I'm one of the common people. We've talked before the podcast. I'm just, I'm not much different than you or anybody else who I have on the show. And I don't want to be seen as different than anybody who's on the show because I'm, I'm the least among you. I'm, I'm not anything special. But I can't imagine a world where it would be different than that, where I would want somebody to see me as different. See me as better than them. It just goes against my whole, my whole being does not want to be like this. And yet that's what they're doing from behind

a pulpit. And there's just simply no place for this hero worship needs to go. It needs to be out of here and to sum it up. And aunt, like you said, an aunt is just an aunt. And whoever wants to understand what that means, you have to go back to the podcast we did previously to learn why an aunt is just an aunt. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having us.

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-Brandom.org and Pellegrino Walk YouTube channel. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

... ... ... ... ... ...