When Churches Become Kingdoms: The Dangerous Logic Behind Theocratic Faith Movements

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org and with me, I have my co-host and friend, Jed Hartley, son of a false prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer.

Jed, it's good to finally be back. I've mentioned this a couple times now. This is my third podcast after having the flu. As we're talking, if my voice totally gives out, it's because I'm fighting this thing that has consumed my body and man, it kicked my butt. I was in the bed for a week and a half or longer and family started getting it. I'm working through a voice thing but hopefully you can hear what I'm saying. It's at an important time because we have a lot of events both political and religious and some historical events that we can talk through.

It all seems to be tying together in ways that are really scary if you look at the world around us. I want to talk through that. I don't know that I've ever done this yet. We've mentioned briefly what it means, but in the history that I've been going through from Dauy to Brandham to Christian identity to IHOPKC, there's a theme that begins to emerge over time and you can watch it slowly emerge and evolve and it's this idea that we can create a theocracy, a theocratic state where one person has the supreme authority and the reason that's significant and important, which I'll let you talk about this,

but if you look at the Roy's report, the example she's giving on not just IHOPKC but all of these groups, they're like miniature theocratic states within themselves. They're governing in a theocracy. You can't touch the leader.

They're untouchable. You as a rank and fall member, you have no say whatsoever. We want to be fully submitting to this new deity that is the preacher behind the platform, behind the podium on the platform.

The level of accountability that is had within the sort of theocratic states is purely based off of the whims of whatever leaders are in charge. So we have situations in which someone like Forex, it will just get specific with Mike Bickle and IHOPKC.

It comes out that Mike Bickle is doing many of the things that we have talked about in the past, but abusing individuals, grooming young women, using prophecy to groom, young women, and the list, I mean, the list of his fences grows very long. And so there's a full investigative report that is given about this that is even from another organization that is in spiritual agreement with IHOPKC.

This is a organization that is made disagree on a few things, but is largely in sort of the same charismatic stream. I think that they are a messianic Jewish community that was doing it, but, you know, largely IHOPKC and Tukum, which did this investigation, our brother churches, you could say. And so even it was coming from within the sort of community, this was a report that was given that was should have been taken extremely seriously.

And not only did IHOPKC not actually engage in the investigation, so just back up a little bit, there was pressure from people like me and you and a lot of individuals online who pressure IHOPKC to take some accountability and allow an investigation, cooperate in investigation to investigate my, you can see, hey, what just was the extent of what was going on at IHOPKC. And so there was money that was raised and then Tukum launched this investigation, but IHOPKC, the leadership team of IHOPKC, refused to take part and refused to give their support of it. So it was an investigation of a ministry that wasn't participating

in that ministry. So you're not going to find a lot of information about what was going on there if the actual organization doesn't engage. Nevertheless, there still was so much information and so much testimony from people like my mother and people who had been formally abused by Mike and people who had once been in the organization. There was so much information they were able to put together this very detailed report about all of the offenses, not only that Mike Bigel was doing, but the entire IHOPKC leadership was a part of and was helping facilitate some of

the, I mean, just straight up sexual abuse and despite this investigation that was very specific, detailed and had all sorts of corroborating evidence to it. There was this report that was given and along with what was called a pastorial recommendation. So there was this report that was released and then there were several pastors and therapists and spiritual leaders. All again, this is within the sort of Pentecostal charismatic community that are very much on board with end times prayer movement and the larger

I hop agenda. All of these individuals are coming. They should be authority figures in it and this is a super roundabout way of getting into it, John, but I just wanted to give context of when we're saying there's an organization now that just has this sort of their own kingdom.

It really is. It feels very futile in a sense where you have these leaders who are accountable to absolutely no one outside of their sort of specific sphere because this report is main. And the recommendation is given. There's a lot to the recommendation that was given. I frankly don't think that was nearly strict enough in it, but I understand where this recommendation was coming from. But one of the things within the recommendation is that all of the leadership, the core I have leadership needs to step down because of just the level of deception that was

going on, the level of sort of coercion that was going on within I hop leadership to facilitate and have the sort of systemic issue at the core of the international hospital prayer for all the decades that it is existed. And by name, they mention in this report, Joseph Taylor, who has now become the sort of face of I hop KC, which there has been a rotating face since Mike Bickle departed. Mike Bickle and Alan Hood were, I will primarily Mike Bickle and then Alan Hood for some years. Those were the sort of faces of I hop KC when I was growing up and

well into, I mean, just three years ago, Mike was still very much the face of I hop KC. There would be different people who would speak. Then, of course, when Mike was sort of forced to step down and this scandal comes out, you've had different individuals who have kind of come up and been the mouthpiece of I hop KC. It was I- It's been it for a period of time.

I don't know what happened with him. He is no longer, at least it doesn't appear like he is involved with IHOP right now. They had a, they hired a PR guy to come in.

His name was Eric. I can't remember what his last name is. But he came in and he was sort of the face for a few, for a period of time. But Joseph Taylor and his wife, Heba Taylor, are now sort of recording videos and it looks like they are the ones who are sort of pastoring the flock, so to speak right now.

And yet Joseph was one of the individuals who is named explicitly in this recommendation to step down. Because this recommendation is coming from a place of being like, hey, look, there is a systemic issue.

It's not just Mike is not just what happened with him. The IHOP KC leadership was systemically involved with protecting sexual abusers, not just Mike, there were several other individuals who are perpetuating sexual abuse within that community.

And that's not, it's not just sexual abuse. It's also deceit. It's also prophetic manipulation. It's, there's a whole host of things that we have talked at Nazim about in the past. So you have this very salient recommendation from a brother religious organization and yet, even within that context, there is,

what appears to be a campaign to sort of absorb the criticism, move on and rebuild IHOP KC. Like the entire IHOP web page has been washed of mentioned to Mike Bickel but still has all of Mike Bickel's language.

The way it actually reads super culty. Now, all of the conversation feels very culty now because it's talking, it's a whole lot of talk about nothing when they address like with Joseph and Habba had several videos where they sort of talk about the taken report and the pastorial recommendation that was given, and they just talk around it.

They don't actually ever really get into any of the details, none of the details about what Mike Bickel did, none of the details that he did. of what they're sort of doing to change the culture at IHOP, not having any salience around what is actually going on, but it's this very like, okay, let's move forward, let's repent, forgive, and heal. But with repentance, there's absolutely no actual specific mention of what they're repenting for or from what Mike would be repenting for or from what the what actually was the raw at the root of the situation. So it's this really cult. I think that if ever the term cult was

appropriate with IHOP Casey, which it always was, it is certainly still now because you listen to it. It's it sounds almost more like the Hollywood version of cults where people talk about it. It's like, we're just about love, forgiveness and peace and has sort of that new age vibe to of it now where you you could have them talk for 20 minutes and you're like, okay, nothing was ever said in that entire 20 minutes. Other than just sort of repeating generally phrases, just using invoking the name of God several different times to sort of be like as long as you worship

Jesus and I worship Jesus were on the same team and it's so intentionally nebulous in order to avoid any sense of accountability and construct this sort of theocratic little micro kingdom. It's so complicated to explain especially to somebody who's been in this.

Whenever your mind has been manipulated in such a way that you've got these blinders on, you can only see one direction. It's it's kind of like if you had a if you had a plug and you're trying to plug it into a wall outlet and the the prongs break off. So it's forever stuck in that outlet. Well, that's kind of how the cult mindset is. You can go try to plug it in other outlets and it's just not going to fit and it doesn't quite work properly in the outlet that is supposed to work in because the prongs have broke off. That's a lot how it is with a cult. They

have numbed your head where you can't really see outside of the problem that you you have a problem here. There's something wrong here. People who we've talked about the Seven Mountain Mandate and people kind of get that because they can see that yes, there are some serious issues with that type of philosophy. If I mentioned theocratic state, however, it's interesting because people who have been informed of what is wrong with Seven Mountains, they don't recognize that it's actually the same thing. Just it's a broader scope. It's a it's a more defining aspect of what this is. So theocratic state agenda basis.

is religious control of civil life, law, education, courts, media. Basically, we want to govern your civil life because if you submit your civil life to us, your supernatural spiritual authority, we will handle everything from God's law, not from man's law. That's the idea of a theocratic state. John Alexander Dowey, who created one of the biggest con artist schemes of known in the nation under the name of religion, when after he created Zion City and this massive commune of, I want to say it was like a hundred thousand people had came and signed one thousand year leases

in this place. They had so disconnected their brain from reality that they literally signed a one thousand year lease to join this commune, knowing that they're not going to live a thousand years, but being told that they are, so mentally they're doing this mental tug of war in their head.

After this, Dowey tries to attack the, he tries to go towards Washington. He wants to create a theocracy of the United States. So he's basically the prototype for most of this. But here's where it gets interesting. When I was in the cult, like, like I said, I was this guy plugged into the wrong wall outlet. I could look at all other wall outlets and see that they're not going to work, meaning I could see that I was in the brand of cult. I thought it was real. I thought I was connected and I could look at all other cults and see all of their flaws, every one of them.

So I could never plug into those. I still thought I was plugged into mine and thought it was the real thing, but there was no real connection between me and God. It was just me in this cult.

When I looked at the other cults, I could see all of their flaws, but I couldn't recognize that that same flaw existed for me. If I'm plugging into the wall outlet, I can't plug into the other wall. It's because I have no problems. We also can't really plug into mine. So I didn't recognize that it was the same thing in different variations. Where it got really odd for me is whenever I learned that IHOPKC was really randomism 2.0. Yet I could look at IHOPKC and all of the NAR groups that were emerging while I was in the cult. I could see their flaws and not even recognize that they

had built on the flaws of the group that I was in. That was irony hitting me in the face, right? But more to the point, I could see that whenever some leader went rogue and did something horrific, like Bickel did, like many of the others that are on the Roy's report, I could look at those and say, well, those people should have really kicked their leader out. They just need to move on. I could honestly say this. And yet I couldn't recognize the same thing going on in the cult that I was in. That's the irony of all of this. And we have taken it so far to extremes in

pushing this theocratic agenda. So while I was down with the flu, apparently there was this mission to overthrow the... government and Venezuela. I woke up and we now run Venezuela. What kind of world is this in 2026?

And there are a number of people, I've scrolled through Facebook and you can see all kinds of my friends, some of whom support my website. Who support that? I think it's a great thing we have overthrown a government.

Yes, yay, we've overthrown the government. And rightfully so to some extent, I have some friends who are actually from Venezuela who say that this was a good thing for their country. This was a horrific regime.

I get that. But at the same time, two wrongs don't make a right. We have a person who's in power, who's running it like a theocracy, who is backed by all of these NAR leadership who is pushing a theocratic governance, who now says, I'm gonna bypass Congress.

I don't care if now I have no sway in Congress because the Democrats have taken over. I'm just gonna bypass our entire government system altogether and just go do what I want. You find people who run on the comment feeds, even some who support this website and podcast, who say, well, this is a good thing.

Look, you overthrow this government and not understand the consequences of what just happened. Picture the reverse of this, say that after Trump's gone, some liberal takes over office and he wants to completely overturn something that violates any of the NAR commandments.

And I'm just gonna bypass Congress and do this. I'm going to, I hate to throw something out. I'll get negative feedback and mail. But you know what I'm saying? If there's no boundaries and you allow something to happen, then what happens whenever those boundaries don't work in your favor?

That's really where the problem lies here. So take IHOPKC, what we're reading that's happening there. To the people in IHOPKC, if we avoid the civil law, if we avoid all of the prosecution that should happen because of our theocratic, our miniature theocratic state that we're creating in this cult.

And yet we will condemn the Robert Morris's or any of the other cults where severe bad things happen. We're so blinded that we don't recognize that the bad that happens outside is also happening within our own walls.

And that's because of this theocratic mindset that's being pushed. And it is the notion that there has to be a supreme authority, a figure that is above all accountability in our group. And we must shut down all critical thinking about our leadership and let them do whatever it is that they want to do.

Absolutely agree and love what you're saying. I think there's a couple of things that you were saying just there, John, that I want to respond to that have parallels in both sort of the microcosm of IHOPKC and the man.

I grow much more important and critical things that's going on with our nation. And I, not just our nation, but globally. But you said when you were talking about your connection in brannumism or the brannum sort of cults, you talked about there being no connection to God and the wall outlet like Nalj, what I think is really important to point out is that there is this idea of theocracy that a lot of people support and lash onto that I think is really scary and dangerous.

Whether or not it is even genuinely connected to sort of Christianity, I do not think that Christianity should superimpose its will on the nation because I believe in multiculturalism and want to see people who believe in different religions to have freedom of religion.

It's not just for the freedoms of our Constitution should not just be for me or for Christians and not true for other individuals. But even so, there are still probably a lot of people who have this sort of like, because they have such a positive relationship with their own religion, this idea of a sort of theocratic state, at least to some degree is very appealing to them because they're like, well, why not?

Okay, God more involved with what's going on in our nation. And that's the whole mentality between the Seven Mountains and Mandate, sometimes it's very explicitly Christian dominionism, sometimes it's more softly Christian dominionism and still Christian dominionism regardless.

But it's this idea because like, well, I love God. God loves the United States or God loves this church or God love you. So the more that we can get God towards the center of this nation, this organization, this church, whatever it might be, the better, more fruitful that's going to be.

But yet, there is not a real connection to God. I mean, this is the hard truth of it, is that it isn't Christianity, that IHOPKC is doing. There is a form of sort of like they're using sort of Christian biblical principles behind it.

It's a cult, like you said, random, randomism 2.0, it's its own thing. It has evolved the rules and regulations that dictate the IHOPKC world are just flat out different than the majority of what Christians do.

Christianity has been historically, and how they interpret the Bible, like I was watching these Joseph and have a Taylor talk about they had this three video series about the future of IHA. And they would reference the Bible, but the Bible is just sort of a tool for them to make whatever convenient, political or sort of interpersonal argument

that they're trying to do. There isn't sort of Amy allegiance to a greater doctrine. There isn't an allegiance to other institutions that have been involved in this doctrine. I mean, it really is these theocratic states that are not some serving into a larger Christian

or religious doctrine. And I think that's absolutely reflected too with our president, too, where it's this, you know, it's one thing when you have a individual who is working on behalf of like a greater organization or movement, but when that individual gets to make decisions based on some degree of whim, and whether or not it's about protecting, I mean, in both cases it's about protecting finances.

Let's just be absolutely clear with IHAF Casey, they are trying to figure out how do we keep this thing alive and we keep donations coming in? The only reason that Mike Bickel was ever removed from IHAF Casey is because it was financially causing a problem for them.

There was donors, they were losing donors because there was this corrupt individual who is in the face of the organization. So they removed him from the face of the organization. But now, and I know this because you can hear it in the way that they talk about Mike in these interviews because they're having behind the scenes meetings with people who still support Mike.

And so they're trying to do this catch 22 thing where they're trying to be like we were removed Mike because there needs to be repentance. They never talk about what actually happens. They never show any sense of like pain or remorse towards the victims.

Not once have they ever mentioned any of the victims of Mike Bickel's abuse, right? This is Joseph and Hebub, but this is also true for Isaac Bennett and the different mouthpieces who have been at the helm of IHAF Casey.

There is no sense of accountability or engagement with what Mike did, not just what Mike did, but what I hopped in. So people very rightfully are recognizing on both sides individuals who are rooted in truth and see what Mike did and want accountability and care for the victims are recognizing the showmanship that's going on at IHOP right now. And it seems to me by listening to how Joseph and Heather talk about this. And I encourage people if they want to look up these videos too. There's three videos on YouTube right now from the International House Prayer that

so it's moving forward with repentance, forgiveness, and healing. This is the video series that I'm talking about. But multiple times they, Joseph specifically is referencing that he still cares for Mike and he still wants sort of restoration for Mike and they're working through that and it's very vague and how it's done. But you can hear that he is trying to also not lose the donors who they're who are going to give money to IHOP specifically because of Mike and there are still those people. There are still people who are multi-millionaires who are going to donate to the

International House Prayer because they are still bought into the cult personality of Mike pickle. And they are probably furious at IHOP right now for bending the need to the woke mob or whatever they want to call it of individuals who have called for accountability. And so that's sort of why you get this terribly tone deaf and very toothless conversation about what's going on from Joseph and Heather because they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want money. They need money. They need donors to keep coming in. They've sent several fun-raising emails out

and the fun-raising campaigns because they mean IHOP to start bringing in cash. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Brandham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper.

audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

On behalf of William Bramham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. I have some interesting conversations with my friends because in my mindset, whenever I was indoctrinated, I was trapped in a world that was basically the 40s and 50s. Yet the outside world was continuing. My mindset was like 40s and 50s. When I listened to music, when I was in the cult, I was listening to the 1950s and 60s type gospel songs. Like you'd seen the whole black and white films on YouTube, that's how we were living. We were dressing like the 50s. We had haircuts

like the 50s. We even had a poster when you walked into the Bramham Tabernacle. There's this poster board and it had this paper that said, these are modern style haircuts. You're not allowed to have them. And it had a picture of the Beatles. As I'm walking out thinking, who wants to cut the hair like the Beatles, man? That's just not. But that's how we were. We were trapped in this mindset.

So it leaves me with interesting conversations because people will talk about things that I have no frame of reference whatsoever. My mindset's the 40s and 50s. It's really interesting when I'm talking about music because music has gone so far beyond what I'm familiar with. When I started experiencing new music after leaving this cult, I'm listening to things like the birds, which most people have not even heard of the birds, but to everything. Turn, turn, turn. That kind of music, I love it. I love the late 60s and 70s and some of the modern stuff I just simply don't even understand

it. Where it gets interesting is it relates to this conversation. It's the same thing for me with television. I really love the old 1950s and 60s cartoons television, the black and white Andy Griffith, those kind of things. The lifestyle that's being portrayed in that era is so vastly different than this era. Where I'm heading with this is a weird direction that I hope I don't lose people. I've been doing these podcasts by myself to kind of ground some of the statements that I make.

This may be deserving of one of those if I don't pull this off. In the 1950s and 60s, you saw these television shows where a minority figure comes in. It might be a Hindu. It might be a Muslim.

Some minority figure comes into the picture and they feel out of place. They feel out of sorts. Somebody in the old 1950s dress and black and white would go make them feel good. It was a feel good show.

This person, maybe they're a Muslim, they worship God, we worship God. They don't understand our God, we don't understand their God, but that's love each other. Let's do have an anti-griffest style dinner and bring them to the table.

That was the mindset back then. You had shows like Johnny Quest cartoon where you've got Haji. Haji, I don't know what he was, he might have been Hindu or something, but even the name Haji right now is offensive.

I don't know if it's because of the show, but the world has changed significantly. People were respectful of other people's beliefs and religions, and whenever you thought about God, you thought about God in the way of being a creator.

He who created the heavens and the earth. So I'm a Christian, I believe that my God created the heavens and the earth. Well, this other person who's worshiping God, they also believe that God or God's created the heavens and earth, they just have a different understanding of God.

And that was the mindset back then. By and large, there were some extremes, but by and large that's how it was. Fast forward to today's world. You have the evangelicals which have risen from minorities to some extent, or there were a lot of evangelicals, but the idea that we should eradicate all other belief systems, that was not a prevalent idea in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

Instead, what you had was let's show them love, let's show them what we believe, because maybe if we love them enough, they will join our religion. That was the mindset back then. Today, it's let's eradicate them.

Let's wipe them out, let's push them out of the country. And the further this goes in time, what you start seeing is as the minority groups become no longer a minority. In other words, in today's world and in the United States, there are many, many different Muslim Hindu, different groups, and you're starting to see them no longer the minorities status that they were.

Well, now those who are indoctrinated to believe that we must eradicate, now they have a growing threat. And so that growing threat is rising up, right? At the same exact time that all of this is happening, the cult groups which were in a minority, if you look at the NAR today, they're by far, they're no longer a minority.

You might even say that Christianity, they may not be a majority, but they're getting very close. And so what happens is if you're in an IHOP KC, or if you're in one of the Bethel or Robert Morris's gateway, any of these different cult groups, what you start to see when you look outside of your box, you start to see something that is no longer a minority.

Our belief system is quite common, so therefore it must be the right one. And whenever you have leadership who are bypassing the laws, so that they can stay in a status where they are beyond.

any accountability whatsoever, well, if I looked outside of my group and looked to the other group, well, their group also, their leadership is not accountable. And so what has happened is this weird shift where the minorities have now grown into a semi-majority, not quite a majority, but the people who are indoctrinated to think that they can live in this wrong way, now see others who are living in the wrong way.

And so it makes people like Julie Royce who's doing the Royce report, where do you stop? I mean, you can go all through all of these different groups that have grown and developed from this, each one thinking they're doing the right thing, and yet not seeing how wrong it is.

Well, and there's a separation between the leadership and the people to, even within these organizations, like I think it's, so you have IHOPKC that is developed,

came into being in the 1990s, in 1999, and I was alive during this time, and my family was a very big part of this. And here, let me read it specifically, right now on the website of the International House Prayer.

Here is the way, in their sort of who we are section, they have a statement on how it began, how it all began. And this is verbatim reading that straight, this is what they have written.

On a Christmas day in the fall of 1999, a small rag-tag band of worshipers and intercessors gave themselves to a ridiculous, beautiful dream. Hour by hour, day after day, sometimes in an empty room, men and women, young and old, all races began to gather with a vision as simple in its essence as it was extraordinary in its scope, unceasing prayer with worship.

So, a couple of things that are wrong with that. First of all, it was not a small rag-tag band. IHOP got launched from Metro Christian Fellowship, which was a mega church. We, the current,

like the building that we were in at Metro Christian Fellowship is the same larger building that IHOP has its Sunday services in, which is where forerunner Christian Fellowship now resides, which is IHOP's sort of Sunday service arm.

That was a whole thing. Like there were thousands of people who were coming every Sunday to Metro Christian Fellowship. So this idea that it was a small rag-tag band, I think does, it's just rewriting things.

I don't know if it changes it for the better, but it's just this sort of retelling of the story to make it sound like, man, we had very humble beginnings. They were not humble beginnings.

It also didn't start. In fall, it started in summer and there was several, like it didn't start at 24 hour prayer. It was, you know, first 10 hours and then 12 hours and they sort of worked it up.

And even after the way that IHOP has talked about it in the past is like, oh, there was a prayer service that started in September, I think 22nd of 1999, that has lasted not least. There were several times it stopped in between. There was different, you know, it wasn't, there wasn't enough people who were on board, on staff, like committed to 24 hour hour house prayer. Despite there being a very large movement behind this sort of thing and having a lot of funds and everything like that, it was just, it was difficult to pull off, which again, I don't actually think that it really means much that it's this difference.

But the idea is that they're just retelling the story. And what I find particularly offensive is like, it's also my story. As much as IHOP Casey, I am not a part of IHOP Casey anymore.

I'm not on the leadership. Don't want to be a part of it. Don't want to be a part of the congregation of it. But it is my story. I grew up there. I was as much involved in the creation of IHOP Casey as most other individuals, obviously not as like Mike or probably even my parents. But I, it was certainly a formational part of my identity. And I was a part of that rag tag band of worshipers and intercessors. I was nine, but I still like, I lived there.

I put, I spent more time at the early IHOP than probably anybody who is currently at IHOP Casey, almost certainly for the first like five, ten years. I definitely spent more time in the prayer room than a lot of them. A lot of them weren't even there. And I think it's really interesting because there is now this group of people who are talking about what's best for IHOP and they're trying to be like, well, we must hold this. If you pulled all of the people who were there at its sort of inception or even within the first five years, I think that you would have

an overwhelming consensus to shut it down. Because so many different individuals, especially if you pulled the children who grew up in it. If you pulled the truth, I would venture a guess to say that 95% of the children that I grew up with at IHOP are like shut that, shut it down.

And I'm not just throwing that number out. Like realistically, like I realistically think that the greater majority of those who grew up in that community want it shut down. But yet, I don't have any agency, not back then, not now, not ever.

or on the direction of Ahop Casey, because it's cool, and because I'm not among the co-leaders of that organization. It isn't a democratic church. It isn't a church at all, because a church has the body of church when you are a part of the church, you assume a sense of ownership of that organization.

And I never had that. Alan Hood was one of the, I mean, he was the most important voice, at least, in the international house prayer, besides Mike, and he was on this sort of, he was one of the leaders of the advocacy team that was helping, exposing all of this information about Mike and calling for accountability.

And he has been completely extricated from that entire community. I know for a fact that he was totally shunned by the community that he once was part of. And if you look online, too, there's all sorts of propaganda that is being used and targeted against Alan, which I feel bad for him.

I also, like, he also was part of maintaining a cult for a long time. So, you know, I think that this is, he has started to reflect on the fact that, like, he was helping create something that was really insidious in a lot of respects.

So it's a complicated situation. But anyway, like, I hop should not exist anymore. The people who created it, either created it in extremely insidious intentions, or were complicit within a larger thing that they were not aware of, like me and like my parents and like Alan and others, and have now recognized the sort of rot at the root of it and have called for it to be dismantled.

And yet, it keeps going because it's profitable for people, people make money off of it. And the apparatus can exist with the soul being totally pulled from the organization and be replaced with another thing.

I mean, it's not a coincidence, and we've talked about this many times, that they target young adults. They need young people to come in who, and they specifically tell them, don't go online, don't listen, don't research these things.

This is not me being hyperbolic. If people watch the videos that I was talking about, they quite literally are like, talk about it being sort of sinful to investigate further about situations like this.

I'm trying to remember this. exact words, but hella Taylor talks about we need to move forward and there's this sense in which if we, it is a lie from the enemy that getting more information about what is going on will settle your soul.

And the reason why she was telling it is because she's like, don't research, don't read the report, don't read the report. I mean, you're free to do it if you want to, but don't read what's being said online for God forbid, don't go on to John Collins podcast because, oh my goodness, all sorts of problems with that.

But it's to keep people away from finding out what is going on so that they can be used exploited, burnt out, and then chucked to the side. Charles calls it the ebbs and flows.

If you listen to the Revival History series, he talks about the cults, they grow in power, then something happens and there's this boom and bust, he calls it the boom and bust cycles. They'll suddenly grow up and they'll bust and then it'll fade back down and they'll grow up again.

And what he's really talking about, if you understand it, history keeps repeating itself. Whether you're talking politics, whether you're talking about religion, we start to see the same patterns emerge over time, over and over and over.

And it'll build up so much that people will suddenly recognize there's something really wrong here and then there's a shift. The wrong is kind of eliminated for a period of time, then those that don't remember history repeat it again and just keeps happening over and over.

As I said earlier, what makes this more insidious is the fact that a lot of the people who are more extremists who were a vast minority, now they're rising up into levels that we've I don't know that we've seen in the history of the United States, literally we're talking about movements that have been underground who are now emerging as mainstream religious organizations, which is scary when you think about it.

But it's that boom and bust cycle, eventually what's going to happen, there'll be enough Julie Roy's out there that will say, this is wrong, let's walk away from it. People will suddenly walk away, hey, we do not want a person who has this history with young women.

We want somebody who's respectable, who's going to be a godly man in our church. And so they walk away from it until they forget that that happened and then it cycles again. It's a boom and bust cycle.

At some point, however, people need to really take a step back and think that if you're in a religion that has no boundaries or guide rails, that you have leadership who are pushing you that we don't have any accountability in the leadership, you're not allowed to question our authority.

If you have that framework, whether it's a good person or a bad person, eventually if it's a good person, you're not allowed to question our authority. and eventually that person may not be the one behind the pulpit.

Eventually, somebody else who is a wrong person, who is somebody who is a predator, might get behind the pulpit, you have to understand the framework of religious systems that allow evil. And when I look at IHOPKC, and I see a rebranding of branemism, branemism which did allow quite evil things to happen, you can look through some of that history in the books that I've written, but we have a systematic structure for the religious system that allows bad things to happen.

And we've not corrected it for all of these decades. And finally, somebody rebranded it and called it in a New Apostolic Reformation. And Wagner fully admitted, this is something that already exists, I'm just naming it.

Well, he's naming that system that allows all of the bad things to happen. Why did he not stand up and say, here's this thing that already exists and it looked at the devastating things that it has caused in the religion.

Well, didn't he say that instead? Because he didn't and because he wanted to further expand that bad thing. Now we have what we see today and it has led to people like Mike Bickle, who there is no accountability to his supreme authority within that group, but yet they will condemn other groups.

That's the funny part. They will condemn other groups that have just as bad things happen because it's a different leader. It's a different authority and they don't submit to that authority. Yeah, they, I mean, even with my dad, when I, I, in case he had no problem posting publicly being like, what, Bob Hartley is no longer welcome on the premises because it was bad for optics.

And there was no major donors that were Bob Hartley fans that they were gonna lose by saying that. So like there's, it's the idea that they care about restoration or they care about, they care about money and they care about authority and they are co-opting this sort of vehicle that was built by me and by the people I grew up with and by the community that I was raised in who has largely recognized the thing that we built was, was off.

And it isn't just about because Mike Bickle was, sexually abusing people through that apparatus. That is the thing that is the smoking gun. But it also was about the prophetic manipulation. That's why I always hammer a thing, the central premise that Mike Bickle used prophecy, prophecies about the death of his own wife to manipulate and groom young women.

So like his spiritual authority, the same spiritual authority, authority that he was using to construct the very identity of this organization, the same spiritual authority and spiritual revelations that became the bedrock for this entire movement was also intermixed with these and used to exploit and abuse young women with prophecies about the death of his own wife. I mean, as corrupt as it gets, and beyond that, to all of the prophecies of Phil, there is no Joel's army. That was supposed to be something that happened. That happened in this generation. It was specific about my generation and

the generation kind of right above me, the sort of like young genxers and old millennials that we were to be the ones who were supposed to lead revivals and we're going to usher in the end times. I mean, the end times was supposed to be happening by now. There were supposed to be signs and wonders in the skies in 2015. There was going to be solar flares that knock out every single satellite in the world. Like these were prophecies that were made by Mike Bickle by Bob Jones and by other prophets that were within the IHOP community.

And that was the prophetic history of IHOP was built on this idea. We are going to be that, you know, that small rag tag band of worshipers and intercessors were for these specific purposes.

None of them came to fruition. So IHOP doesn't exist anymore. Like that, the end times prayer movement that we created or that we were sort of trying to initiate, be a part of, like has common gone. That cycle is done. And I think if this is part of the problem with the sort of way the criticism around IHOP goes, of course, there are not people like me who are going to critique the entire structure of the movements who are still going to have a voice within that community because people like me have been long excommunicated from the organization, you know. And even people

like Alan Hood and whatnot have spent most of their life really building this narrative. And so it is hard at this point to be like, no, fundamentally, this entire movement was built on shaky ground and that this entire thing is corrupt. And built on deception, let's not forget the fraud that has gone on, um, web.

or through my father for Bob Jones or from Paul Kane or these different prophets who outright just lied and made up stories in order to build this whole allure.

And it's quite clear that the leadership at IHOP is not even remotely trying to contend with that fundamental structural issue with the entire movement being corrupt. They are trying to cut out and then probably cut out so that they can then put them back in, but they're trying to cut out the bad press around Mike Pickle and then insert them back in.

That's all they're trying to do. And I think it's cowardly. I think it is corrupt. And I get so worked up about it because I care for the kids who are at IHOP now, whether it be children, whether it be 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds who are getting sucked in, who look on the IHOP KC webpage and who read about how it all began and think that they're joining something that started in a small rag tag worship, serve prayer, it started as a Bible study.

And then suddenly the presence of God has like sustained the movement for years and years and years so that it has lasted 20, something 26 years. And that's just not what's happening. That's never what happened.

It is not what's going on there. It is in the front to my testimony, my life that I grew up with. It's in a front to everyone who was sacrificed on the altar of the international ounce of prayer and on this sort of legacy that was built on our young backs

and only to like spit us out and replace us when we started asking questions. I mean, that is the structure of this organization and it's gonna happen again. And there are gonna be people who find me or find others who are talking about what is going on at IHOP KC.

There's gonna be people who find it 10 years from now and they're gonna be like, man, if I had just heard this in my teens or 20s, so much of my life, all of that suffering that I did in the per room, having no money and giving what money I did have to the organization and hearing about how we were being attacked by demons and whatnot.

And hopefully, I hope not this, but the sexual abuse that I suffered at the hands of leaders there. all could have been prevented if I would have just heard the warning signs and recognized the actual fruit of the community that I was a part of, but I hop is so good at situating itself above and outside of the very real criticism and point of criticism of its former community members. And so, I mean, this happened with Ernie Grooom in 1991 with the larger KCF community where someone tried to raise the alarm about Mike Bickle and Bob Jones and

the predatory nature of the sort of prophetic movement that was going on. And I remember growing up and hearing illusions to that event and the way that it was contextualized and the way that I thought Mike Bickle was just so humble and so forgiving in this attack that Ernie Grooom.

Like, I remember hearing the narrative being like, oh, wow, he was attacked by this, you know, the range demonic individual who wrote all of this slander, but yet he was so humble he didn't fight against it and he listened and tried to improve. And that is not at all what happened.

That is just not at all what happened. And instead, he went and tried to groom several other teenagers during that time and they could cut Ernie Grooom out and slander Ernie Grooom too, because that's a whole different story. But I mean, that's exactly what's going to happen now.

I mean, there's people who are being fed just the most obvious lies, but it is an obvious in the moment because they aren't connected to their just disconnected from the rest of reality and they're disconnected from voices by mine and yours. And Julie Roy is another who have kind of seen it and been like, here's the rotten fruit of the community. They are completely cut off from that and it has become a virtue of the organization that they are sort of lotting and trying to evoke within the community is to be disconnected from the internet,

being disconnected from other voices. Don't do don't go research, don't look into what happened, don't listen, forgive and move on. And it's like, what are we even forgiving? It was hard not to thank back to some of the movies that I've seen while you were talking.

I know this is a weird tangent, but give me out, I'll end it with this. I love a good crime story. And I love, especially the superhero movies. And if you think about superhero movies, there's usually a supervillain.

He's usually an egotistical maniac. In those stories, they take people under their wings and they try to give them this elitist mentality. And the way that they do it is they try to pretend like their humble.

And so they have this humble presentation. And they give the people who they're a con artist, they're part of the con, they're part of the scam. They are the Ragtag army. You are the elite ones, you are the ones you're more than the other people.

You know what I'm saying? They try to give you that, I don't know, that persona that you are, it's not just that you're saved, you were chosen. It's that type of mentality, right? And then through the course of the story, there's usually a part where the leader falls.

And if it's a con artist, he has done some con and he got caught, well, the people that he's convinced that he's humble and he's doing the right thing, even though he's conning people out of their money, they try to pick him back up and they help him up.

And then at the end of the story is the big, massive, long con that is the climax of the story. And in the end, when they all get in trouble, there's that person who is coming up head to head with the bad guy saying, I'm nothing like you.

And he says, you're just like me. And that story keeps repeating itself through movies. Well, there's a reason why it does. Think of what you're describing, think of what the people in IHOP KC are going through.

They have been convinced that they're not just saved, they're chosen. This just didn't just save them. They were the Ragtag army, that's, they're the elite ones, they're the big ones, right? And our leader, so humble, he would never do anything that we wouldn't do.

He's a sinner, just like us. Eventually, somebody like you, and hopefully many others in the future, will rise up and say, no, I'm nothing like you. I did not use my authority to groom people for the purposes that you did.

I'm trying to keep it G rated here. I'm nothing like you. And you can see that story in Hollywood. You can read it in the books. And you can read it in the cult.

It happens time and time again. But what happens is the leader will fall. He has convinced people that he's this humble figure. They lift him back up. And then suddenly he does the same thing again.

And oh, I'm so surprised. He did the same thing again. How could we have been so blind? But it happens again and again and again. And it will continue to happen until more people like you stand up and say, no, you're nothing like me.

I'm nothing like you. You're purely evil. And I don't want to be like this. So thank you for standing up. Yeah, my pleasure. 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. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponize Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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

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