Polygamy in William Branham's Message

Music Hello and welcome to a very special 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 co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org.

And today we have with us our very special guest Naomi Wright, the founder of B.M. Bolden.com. And also she's our co-host on the free and clear podcast. Charles and Naomi, we've had such a good reception to these new podcasts.

And now that Naomi is recently famous, I thought I would take a moment and do a crossover episode and congratulate Naomi on taking the most difficult and most shocking subjects to the world. So you know John, there is just, on a serious note, there is something really beautiful and special and yet can be uncomfortable about having what was so awful in your childhood, be what then gains attention for an issue that's so important.

So it really is taking, I mean what got so much attention on Coltish, I know was the polygamy aspect of my upbringing, which was so awful. And yet that's what got people to pay attention to know about the mission that all of us cares so much about, which is helping people in situations like this.

So it's a really good thing, but there's something just kind of surreal about it at the same time. So if polygamy made me famous, well that was not my dad's intent. Well it was definitely crazy interesting, I just heard the second half of it today and oh my gosh, I knew this existed in the message, right?

Some of us knew, I think Charles, you also knew, but there's a vast majority of the people in the Colt following the William Brown that have no idea that polygamy exists in the message.

Yeah, that's so true, John, you know, and I'm really glad we're going to spend some time on this topic today, you know, over the past few months as we've heard more or people leaving the message is things like this come to light.

You know, this area polygamy is another one of the dark secrets of the message and it's a terrible issue. like others that no one in the message really wants to take ownership or responsibility that these things exist. You know, everybody blames the other guy is the other guy up the streets idea, they did it. You know, but the truth is it all goes back to the teachings of William Brannum.

Polygamy started while William Brannum was still alive. He endorsed it in his sermons. It was practiced in his church and he did nothing to correct it. And you know, when that's really what we're going to get in and talk to in this in this episode, John is about a polygamy in the message.

And so maybe I'll throw in a disclaimer real quick. This might not be an episode for kids. Some of the things we might say on here. So if you got kiddos in the car, maybe this is one you want to turn off. I think it's not a good episode for kids for sure. And there's some historical information. There are things that my family knew about how the doctrine came to be even though, you know, my family was not at all in favor of it. But we realized why it became and how it became because there's some history behind the sermon where Brannum introduces this that has been

somewhat covered up for decades. But before we get into that history, it might be good if we take a minute for those who aren't familiar with Naomi and let Naomi introduce herself and describe all of the wonderful things that she's got going on with being Bolden.com and with us.

I was raised in a splinter group of the message. I didn't grow up with the knowledge that it was really a splinter group of the message. I it felt so we were so isolated from everyone else that I didn't even really have much of an awareness that there were other message groups out there, which probably sounds crazy because there are so many. But that's how kind of elite we were. It was like nothing else was even going on. We were it. So my dad was the leader of that splinter group he founded it, so to speak. And something that was a little bit different for me in some ways was,

of course, the polygamous aspect. My dad practiced polygamy as it's some of the other male kind of sort of leaders in the group. It wasn't mandatory. People didn't have to, but they were able to, too, if they wanted. But all of this was going on while I was attending public school, and my mom worked for the school and I've heard you prominent role. And so I had a very duplicitous life and lived in quite a bit of fear and tension of always hiding the truth about what was going on in my home, what was going on in my family, what our beliefs were, and always performing to the

best of my ability in school and anywhere else in public. So I didn't draw any negative attention to our family, positive only. So fast forward that to now, I can be a bit of a workaholic because old habits die hard when you're raised in something like that. And I have funneled that energy into being bold and over the past couple of years. So being bold and launched about a year a half ago, we've been a 501c3 for we just had a year in the month of May and we have a variety of services that we're offering already but again we're babies so we're growing. We offer one

on one mentoring services to people who are suffering from not only cult abuse but religious abuse in general so it could be from a mainstream church where something unfortunate and harmful happened and somebody is seeking help and support and we offer groups we have three launching this fall which I'm really excited about to or brand new so brand new content for people.

We have a podcast called Reclamation as well as co-hosting on the free and clear podcast which is just a super fun aspect because I'm not focused on William Brenham everywhere and so it's nice to have a place to focus in on this aspect that connects to me so personally as well as blog YouTube you know things like that and different trainings and things coming in the future speaking and stuff so we are really excited about where we're headed and just providing a hub where people know they can go for trusted research and trusted resources to get help as well as

prayerfully prevent as many of these stories from happening. Yeah and I first met Naomi I actually Charles I think you're the one that showed me her videos on YouTube which if you haven't seen them the Naomi story videos are really really well done and long story short we connected and Naomi has been helping with support in many many areas like she said not just in the William Brenham message called and we have the free and clear podcast where we're trying to generalize the issues that are common among all cults through the support groups that we work

with but Charles I'm interested to hear you came from a different sect or different splinter group of the message I was in the main sect and Naomi came from yet another splinter group of the message so I'm interested from your side how you are familiar with the polygamous doctrine and how it was introduced basically the history behind what William Brenham said why is it in the message how did this thing come to be? Sure so polygamy has been in the message since the 60s and if you actually have gods generals so this is one of the you know the premiere books so called it on

the life of William Brenham right this is actually one thing they get right in this book if I'm just going to read from you from the book Robert's Lairdon here says on page 340 he says according to Brenham since women introduced men to sex polygamy was brought about women had to be punished so men could have many wives but women only one husband And Robert Slaredin actually captures and encapsulates William Brannum's polygamy teachings here in this book.

And the sermons that that comes from is a set of sermons he preached in 1965 entitled Marriage and Divorce. And in that sermon, I'm going to read a couple, I'll just read a couple quotes from that sermon, John, and then maybe talk about what that did when people heard it.

One of them, he said, is said, now it's a covenant with nature. He sets another order by sex, the second covenant, one male, many females. One buck deer, a whole herm of doves. Is that right? One bull, a whole herd of cattle, cows, one rooster, a yard full of hands.

Is that right? One David after his own heart with 500 wives, with a hundred children born to him in one year of different women, a man after God's own heart. One Solomon with a thousand wives, but notice now it wasn't so at the beginning, but now it's after the beginning.

The woman has done this and then she just becomes what she is now, see that that's one of the quotes that gave rise to polygamy in the messages we know it. Another one, I'll just read real quick, says, if God could have give his son any better thing than a wife, he would have give it to him, but she's designed to be a sex act and no animal is designed like that.

No other creature on earth is designed like that. That's the reason you see polygamy because of that. That's what brought it in. Now look, the final analysis. Look, there is one Jesus Christ. Is that right? One man, God Emmanuel. Do you believe that?

But the members of his wife are many, see thousands of thousands. Is that right? His wife, the bride, the church. Do you understand now? William Brown, I've said those quotes, John. From that stem polygamy as it was brought forth in the message churches that we know.

It gives you just a deep, warm feeling inside, right? To hear how the women are treated in the main sect. This is not even a splinter group. This is the main sect of the message believes this.

Our families, you know, when this was preached, we sat there and it was, it was just a horrific thing. I think a lot of the people didn't even, some of it just, some of the people just glazed over. They didn't even realize this was being said, Charles.

My grandparents were sitting there when he preached that sermon. A lot of all the old, most all the old timers I knew sat there when he preached that sermon. My mom was sitting there, you know, when he preached that sermon, you know, on their lap.

And you sit there and wonder how in the world could they sit there and listen to this stuff. And, you know, that's not even the worst things he said in there. He said some horrendous, horrendous things in that sermon.

That have led to all kinds of problems and it's hard for me to understand why my family did not run screaming out of that building when he preached that sermon. But they didn't and you know we were ended up raised multiple more generations in the message.

And you know within I'll say to within one week within one week of William Brown and preaching that sermon. People began practicing polygamy at the tabernacle it was taken up by multiple families there at the tabernacle and you know I can share stories of the old timers tell in a certain people coming around and starting to try and recruit into polygamy.

And not not of course the mainstream not everybody except the majority rejected it right but there is enough there that the people who wanted polygamy. Got a hold of what they wanted and they started running with it.

Yeah and it was widespread overseas in America it's you know it's illegal so whenever these people took on the polygamous doctrine they just simply went underground and you can find them in the hills of Kentucky or Virginia.

We actually recently posted one from the West Virginia I think it was we found and I'm just curious Naomi what was it what was it like in your sec did you listen to the marriage and divorce sermon at all or was this something that was taught as as he teaches it.

It's so interesting john to look back at these quotes because yes marriage and divorce was a significant teaching in our group but we weren't regularly told in my household so this is specific within our household my dad spoke about polygamy as a blessing more of old testament style of okay we can grow the population.

We can raise more believers he would talk about and he would actually tear up about how he always wanted to have a big family he wanted a lot of children and this is a way for this to happen and how it was a blessing and he never spoke of it in this way that it was just what women were used for and that's all they were now he said a lot of horrible things about women.

Leave that out, but it was this was more of it was supposed to be a good thing that the women would also want and that was one of the kind of thermometer checks for the woman's heart is if you're right with God ladies you're going to embrace this.

If you're not happy about it and you're bickering there's dissension in the ranks, then the ladies have an issue in their heart. So it wasn't as it wasn't painted as directly ugly as this is I mean this state these statements are so inflammatory right that you asked if it makes me will feel you know deep and warm like it makes feel deep and hot actually but when I get past that and I which is hard to do but setting.

an emotional and inflammatory response aside, what he says is so contradictory because he talks about how this is happening after the fall, right? This is that after not in the beginning, but then he talks about how women were designed as sex objects. Well, but they were designed before the fall. So again, in and of himself, he's not making sense and this shouldn't be new to anyone who's following William Brennan. I mean, William Brennan is notorious for not being consistent and making sense, but I want to point it out just right there in it in and of itself. Like,

we couldn't have been designed how we were in the beginning and then suddenly been designed as sex acts, but had that be different, something else changed if that was the case. So again, even within his own argument, it falls apart. Yeah, William Brennan, I mean, you know, that's a great observation about what he said. In this particular sermon on marriage and divorce, one of the most unusual things that he said in this is that women were not part of God's original creation. Like God did not make women in the beginning with man. And he goes on to say that

woman was actually created by Satan. Yes, designed by Satan after, you know, after Adam had already come into the world and he goes down a really unusual line of reasoning in that sermon, which is part of the reason I wonder, you know, how people didn't run out of the building screaming, you know, when he preached it. Yeah, there's a little bit of backstory that my family knew behind that sermon. I don't think even William Brennan, I don't think that he ever really intended for it to go where it went. There were, there are very clear signs of mental health issues towards

the later years of his life. And there may even be some minor hints at dementia, but he does have a lot of internal conflicts in this one particular sermon. I don't think it is dementia or mental health based on the backstory, which we'll get into. He was very angry when he preached this particular sermon. And he was uncontrolled. And when you mix mental health issues with anger and uncontrolled, it goes all kinds of different directions. What's really interesting is that in the same contradictory, contradictory statement where he says there's no greater gift to man than a wife. And she's the lowest form of evil designed to be a sex act who's going to lure you

into sex. In that same contradictory statement is the root of several doctrines that were built on top of this, from coast to coast, that were also conflicting. I've, like I've mentioned before, I think to both of you, we, I grew up in churches from Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between. And I would, not just one church, but many of them, I would sit in a sermon And I would think I really thought about what the pastor was saying. I really paid attention. I wanted to learn more I actually wanted to help other people save them because this is the end of the world. Why would I not save those families, right?

and These these preachers would preach these sermons on how the woman is God's greatest gift to man and when William Bramham makes these very derogatory, very insulting statements He's referring not to the Christian women in not even Christian, but the cult women in the you know in the message cult He's saying literally this applies to everyone else and They build doctrines on top of that within those same exact churches They also take the other side of the contradiction in the same church and by the same preacher and They'll say the women is the weaker vessel because Satan designed her for sex to lure men into sex and

Whenever you see a woman who's got a little bit of her ankle showing if she's got even a slit in her skirt this big She's trying to lure you into sex so you watch brothers when you see a woman walk into this church I've actually heard this they called them scandal skirts So the same pastor is actually contradicting his own theology because at its core it's built on this very problematic conflicting theology it's really just a Terrible thing that William Bramham put together, you know with this whole thing and you know I know at our church John wheat we still held to the teaching that

Woman a woman was a byproduct of man because that's actually a quote William Bramham woman's a byproduct of man She wasn't created by God and the original she wasn't part of the original creation, but she was just a byproduct of Man, and you know that has a That has a bad impact on people, you know When you really follow that through to its conclusion it ends up having bad repercussions On down the line and I you're you're right John too about the fact that I don't think William Bramham This is my opinion. I don't think William Bramham introduced polygamy on purpose

I think I've heard the same kind of stories William Bramham was not in a right state of mind He was angry when he preached that sermon over situations that were going on at the Bramham tabernacle and and marriages and And he I believe the saying I believe he introduced polygamy by accident, but the thing is He failed to ever own up to it He he knew and they knew that the week after the sermon people went in and started being practicing polygamy That's a well-known fact that got back to him and he didn't do anything ever to try and correct it

To try and walk back his statement or anything He he let it linger and then he died and it just kept carrying on after he died There's just a even to this day There's a refusal by leaders in the message to just own up to the fact that People started doing this because of what William Bramham Ed in that sermon.

Naomi, this comes back to something you and I talk about often as the narcissistic personality disorder of these cult leaders, they're not going to give in. They're not going to retract a statement and say, oops, I made a mistake.

Exactly. No, they can't do that, right? Because they look imperfect and they can't look imperfect and be God's mouthpiece. They can't be speaking directly from God and make a mistake. At least not that overtly, right?

We do see where there are, you know, persona changes and things change, but you kind of hope that gets lost in the shuffle and in the mess of it all, but to come out directly and share a retraction. I mean, that would just be completely incongruent with the personality and the agenda.

But something I wanted to ask you guys, so because this is interesting for me, I don't know all of the history. I know what it's like to live it, but I don't all know all the history of it. And so Charles, you're saying that literally within a week of this being preached men already knew the second third whatever woman that they wanted to become one with. They had already, and within a week, they fell in love. And they decided this is the other woman that I am destined to be with and provide for and provide for the children

for and help raise them and that quick. And yet, I'm sure they weren't lusting before, right? Because that's right. Right. Right. Right. Well, so one very, we're at one very prominent story that was passed down to us was actually by the by a minister who who preached and went to the brand of tabernacle. And he passed down that the week after this happened, a certain other minister at the brand of tabernacle came and attempted to recruit them into this new polygamous group of thought and actually began suggesting that this mother minister take another wife, the week after. And

his wife happened to over here, what was going on, the polygamous recruitment going on. And she shut it down like immediately and ran him out of the house. So there's there's stories like that that have come down to us that this took immediately after the sermon was pushed. Yeah. It did. And I'm just surprised. I'm sitting here picturing the woman back then. I mean, if I were to picture me attempting this, my wife would be shaking her head. You will not do this. I can't even imagine. But if you look at the history of it, this wasn't

new to the message. This wasn't new to William Brannum. William Brannum's proto J, the basically the most famous faith healer in the United States. He actually had a ministry far bigger and more more widespread than William Brannum was John Alexander Dowey. And we've talked about him a few times in confidential office as we're researching Charles, but we're actually planning to get into more of that in our And the rest of our podcast, but there are two key figures of the message that everybody who's in the message culture familiar with that were in Dauy's sect. There was FF Bosworth who was Dauy's

band leader and in charge of quite a few things. His brother BB Bosworth was also I think maybe a treasurer and Gordon Lindsay who everybody also is familiar with came from the Dauy's sect and Dauy's Zion cult, I think it was called the Christian Catholic Church, was just very widespread. He had grown to a national, even international presence before he died.

And like William Brannum, before he died, he also started showing signs of severe mental health issues. He started claiming that he was also the return of Elijah. He was nicknamed all throughout the country as Elijah III, similar to what William Brannum claimed. He was also the faith healing, everything that William Brannum did in his faith healing revivals was basically a clone of what Dauy did and he learned, Brannum learned that through Bosworth because Bosworth, after Dauy died, Bosworth started his healing ministry and then he transferred and started teaching Brannum and some of the others. Well, towards the end of Dauy's life, he's

made a heck of a lot of money, a million, hundreds of millions of dollars. He's claiming to be Elijah. He thinks he's showing signs of narcissistic personality disorder severely and he claims that he has predicted the date on which the world will end. It's interesting because there are also ties to William Brannum's in date in that alleged prophecy that failed. But right about the same time, he also introduced polygamy and he tried to, for himself, try to take additional women and his wife did like my wife would do. You will not do this. Wasn't Dauy was planning seven wives,

wasn't it? That was his plan. I think it was seven. I don't think it ever worked out but what happened is when he died, this, you know, like William Brannum and any other cult leader, any central figure, they are an authority on doctrine and scripture. Whatever they say goes, they could tell you that it is wholly divine by God to rob banks and therefore let's go rob some banks. And these people will go do it because they're trained to believe that he is the divine authority. Well, at the end of his life, he introduced polygamy and just like William Brannum's message

cult, there were a number of men who accepted it and like today, you know, they went underground. So polygamy is actually widespread in what became, you know, Dauy's cult became a fundamental building block of the Pentecostal faith, the Pentecostal religion in America.

So within Pentecostalism is this separate underground of polygamy. It's illegal, and the main, the core sect of Pentecostalism denounces polygamy. Just like the core sect of the message denounces polygamy, but yet it exists, and it exists because the leader is the one who said, it's okay, let's do it, and I'm the divine authority on Scripture.

That's similar to what happened here with William Brannum and the way that he developed this polygamy doctrine in my opinion by accident. Charles, you and I have been researching though recently, there are also some ties to the fundamentalist Mormons in the message, which also tie to the polygamous doctrine.

Right, because besides his connections to Alexander Dauy, and William Brannum went to Zion Illinois, he preached in Alexander Dauy's church. Like you said, he was directly supported by key men from Alexander Dauy's community and fellowship.

They were key men in his organization. In addition to that, he also has some unusual connections to fundamental Mormonism. And it's something that we don't know a whole lot about, other than some comments that William Brannum's made to let us know those conditions, those connections exist.

But there was a Mormon sect that was based in Missouri, and they're called the Church of Christ with the Elijah message, right, John? Elijah must have been a polygamous cult framework, right? Yeah. And William Brannum talked about being approached by someone from their church at one point, who's trying to basically recruit him, with what he tells the story, he's trying to recruit him into his fundamentalist Mormon sect, and shares with him a prophecy that their Mormon church had made about a particular William Brannum, right?

And so that's another just an unusual connection of William Brannum back to groups that have polygamy in their history and in their roots. I'm actually curious a bit, Naomi, because so in the main sect, you had William Brannum who wants to be the Elisha to Dauy's Elijah, he even says this on tape, Dauy died on one day I was born in the next, and he's saying this to the people in Zion.

He is also referencing this alleged Mormon prophecy about him, which literally if you think about it, he has created the message called the Authority on Scripture and doctrine. He has made it by his statements an extension of Dauy's religious cult, but he has also made it an extension of the Mormon sect.

In other words, they had a prophecy, I'm... I'm coming as the restore for the Mormons sect, and the Mormons practice polygamy, Blatterday Saints. So I'm especially curious to your sect of the message mention any of this, the dally stuff, the Mormon stuff.

Did you even have any similarities between the Mormons? No, other than people always think I am one, or I was one. So anytime someone hears polygamy, they think, oh, where are you Mormon? I'm like, well, first of all, that's unfair to the Mormons because LDS and FLDS are different.

LDS is not practice polygamy in a long time. Right. But no, there wasn't anything within the group that I can recall that was connected to Mormonism. Again, it was so, we were so separated.

And of course, this is common, right? Because each of your churches thought that you were the right one and the best one. And so we all have that. We should all arm wrestle at some point.

So none of us wins, but we all lost, guys. But that was such the focus that there wasn't really that, oh, let's link up here, let's kind of collaborate here, your partner here. It was like, no, we're it.

And if we stole something from someone else or we're borrowing from someone else, we're even really going to talk about that because this is ours. Yeah. I know one, one Mormon thing that's in the message, John, I don't know if you know this or not, that is very, very, very Mormon is a certain phrase that we use in the message.

Put it on your shelf. Oh, really? That is a Mormon phrase, John. It is. And, and yeah. And so there, somewhere there is a Mormon influence into the message that we really just don't have documented very well.

It exists and there are certain things in our beliefs which are direct imports from Mormonism. Yeah, I've been told where that comes, but I don't have documentation to prove it, so I don't mention it.

Usually I have to have somebody who's also a witness. I'm going off script here a bit because I'm just still so fascinated with all of this. It's, we didn't have this in the, in the main sect of the message, but I knew it existed.

And it's interesting because your sect Naomi was, from Ohio, right, that you were from Ohio or you had, I wasn't specifically. That was the hub though of our sect. So my wife, my wife was in Ohio.

She was not polygamous, but she had actually encountered your sect, which is crazy interesting. And I've actually met other people who have encountered your sect from other states. So your dad evidently got around, but I've, no pun intended, right?

Exactly. I've actually come to the conclusion that every sect within the message, even the main sect, every one of them is a spl- Because none of them are exactly what William Brannum was when even up until the point he died.

Even if you take it back a few years whenever he was displaying the mental health issues, if you go back to 1963 or before, there is not a message set today that matches what William Brannum was in his ministry, not one.

So each one has become a splinter group. Add to this, all of the many things that William Brannum said had to happen before he died. There were prophecies that were given a specific timeline.

Things that, you know, before he died, the nation of Israel would be saved. In other words, converted to the message. They did not. All of these prophecies that were supposed to have been fulfilled before he died, they did not.

So what happens within almost every splinter group that I have examined so far of the message cult? As they splinter, they try to get their version of what they think was the original message before he died.

They try to become purists like FLDS. They try to become the purists of the message, right? And then they realize that these prophecies cannot come to pass in the way that he said it.

Unless there is a central figure of our sect who is the authority on Scripture, who is the voice of God, who is the one who is going to, you know, be they fulfill the scriptures of the angels or the cult leaders or the messengers or however they weave it in their minds.

So every single splinter group develops this person who thinks that they are God's ultimate authority on Scripture. Charles, I think you and I have talked in your sect. I think Jackson believed this or to some extent taught it.

I'm curious, Naomi, if your dad raised himself up to that level. I don't know. I did not have the experience that you just shared. And it's possible that it happened before I was born that my dad had a period of time where he was trying to kind of figure out what is the purist, what is what do I do with this these things didn't happen.

How do I, you know, what do I do with this information. It's very possible that happened. I know he spent a number of years studying the Bible and William Brenham's teachings kind of living more hermit style, honestly, just kind of off the grid on his own.

And that was where a lot of this quote unquote revelation and that he had came from the version of him that I know and remember was the version of him who believed he had received the special revelation.

And so he was the one who could properly interpret William Brenham's teachings and conjunction with Scripture to then pass on to everyone else. He was in that last prophet who was required. is William Brennan having been the last prophet. My dad was the last prophet. So there weren't that kind of eliminated the issue of anything that was incomplete, anything that was inconsistent. It was just, Oh, no, you don't have the understanding. I'm going to bring it to light for you. And then what I say goes that actually matches the transition that I see within these

sex, they become that. And then if they live long enough, it's possible, maybe your dad died before this happened. But if they live long enough, you can't really take everything that William Brennan said and make it all be fit your sex. There's just no way because it's all contradictory and internal contradictions. So then they arise, they rise up to their own superior authority, some of them even claiming to be Jesus Christ. Charles is that is what Naomi described what you see in the Jackson sect. Right. So in our sex, so of course, William Brennan preached so many contradictory things, right? One

sermon, he says, the week of Daniel has seven years left. Another sermon, he says three and a half, one sermon, he says, the woman of Revelation 12 is Israel, another sermon, he says the woman of Revelation 12 is the church, right? Like he would preach these entirely contradictory and compatible things.

And so in our part of the message, we formulated the belief that, and I say, we, Raymond Jackson formulated the belief that there was a prophecy about John the Baptist and the Elijah anointing that he would purposefully be allowed of God to preach things incorrect on purpose. And that these incorrect things you preach on purpose would be used to separate the elect from the non-elect, right? And then Raymond Jackson, of course, had the revelation and would be able to help show us by the Bible, which statements were the correct statements, which was the correct version of his ministry in teachings,

in which was the wrong, right? And so then we would, we would look like at your sect, John or, or probably Naomi's if we had encountered you and say, well, clearly, you're believing what William Brennan said, but you have believed the false statements. So God purposefully allowed William Brennan to mislead you to protect us, because we are the elite elect, and, and one of the one thing too, John, you know, kind of coming back to the polygamy subject, one of the things that William Brennan did that made this, this polygamy thing blow up in the way it did is multiple times William Brennan was

asked, you know, what are the seven thunders, you know, the revelation of the seventh seal? And multiple times when William Brennan was explaining what the seven thunders was, he said that his sermon on marriage and divorce, the sermon where he preached these things was one of the seven final mysteries, one of the seven thunders, this revelation that was contained in this. So he, he actually multiple times held this up as the pinnacle sermon, the pinnacle revelation.

of his ministry, right, at different times. And it just, it's bizarre, you know, you look back, it's crazy, it's, but somehow he did that and people swallowed that hookline and sinker. I don't know that my grandfather ever said it publicly.

I think he did, actually, but we believe that too. We believe that this was, I don't think we called it the thunders, but this was one of the divine truths or whatever word my grandfather used for it.

This, the Christian identity doctrine, which he called Serpent Seed, that was one of the fundamental truths. He said that was one of the thunders too, yeah. Yeah. So we had, so how did, how did your sect get around the verse that says God is not the author of confusion?

Because it sounds like that whole doctrine was, God is the author of confusion and I, Raymond Jackson, know how to get around the confusion. I know. So I look back now and I, I cannot reconcile in my mind how that we believe this our entire life.

But that for us was the glue that allowed us to believe the message because we were always kind of straightforward. Like, yeah, William Brownham said all these things. And yeah, these are lies and, and this is wrong.

And that, that's how I know so much of this stuff, John. We were pretty upfront about it. Like even, even Jim Jones, right? Like we were upfront about Jim Jones being in the message and stuff.

And we would always come up with these, God did this on purpose to cause this particular problem on purpose in order to, like Jim Jones, okay, so I'm off topic a little bit. Like our preacher told us that Jim Jones was a scarecrow and God put, you know, a scarecrow in the message to scare away the birds to protect the true seed, right?

Wow. And we eat this stuff up, but it makes, it makes absolutely no sense once you're on the outside. It's, it's, it's lunacy, right? It's the most ridiculous stuff you ever heard, but when you're on the inside and you've heard that your whole life grown up, it just sounds wonderful.

I mean, it sounds amazing. It's, it's great until you, until you wake up. And not only is it lunacy, right? It's horrifying to say that about Jim Jones. He murdered hundreds of children. Yeah, I mean, this is horrifying.

And to think, I mean, the theological mess that ensues. So we're saying that God or God's anointed, God's chosen, God's prophet, whatever insert the blank of the title that you want can intentionally lie to lead seeming believers astray.

Yeah. So that they're not saved even though they did believe so that just, you know, you can make it and you can make it and I can make it. And what is God's character?

And honestly, is that even a God anyone wants anything to do with? Like if that is really who we believe God to be, why on earth would we even trust him? Like am I really saved or are you really saved?

Yeah. You know, it just, it all falls apart. And suddenly, there is a no, there's a nothing we can. and count on it anymore. And then I land out, I mean, what is true is just, is truth even a thing.

You know, it's totally philosophically even unravels. And so it's a theological disaster and it's a humanitarian disaster as well when we think about the harm that is being done even to children. Right. And kind of put my creature hat on John, you know, when the possible Paul even goes this whole line of reasoning that you can't use a lie to advance the truth that you can't make a lie compatible with the gospel and God cannot use a lie for anything.

So, you know, the whole premise that God could use mistatements, mistruths and myths, you know, things that are clearly false to advance the kingdom of God is just so far, you know, beyond the realm of the gospel, but that is exactly what, in my sect of the message we had done in order to hold everything together.

I'll put on the closest thing that I have to a preacher hat because I'm definitely not a preacher at all, but this is very hard on people. Like Naomi said, I suffered severe trauma leaving this cult.

I actually suffered severe trauma leading up to the point at which I left. And the, I think I've mentioned this on our podcast, Naomi, I had a cousin who literally saved my life, talked me, talked me through living.

And I asked him one day because he grew up in the message like me, I was still in the message. And he, you know, he's saving my life. And I had severe depression. And in the message sect, if you have depression or anything similar to this, people avoid you like to plague because you've got a demon.

They don't understand that, no, there's, it's like diabetes, you need medicine or something, you know. I've even read studies where sunlight helps depression and the had they just give me sunlight. Maybe I, you know, who knows?

But my cousin is helping me through this. And I asked him one day, why don't you believe the prophet? And he said, John, I believe the cowboy religion. And I said, what's that? And he said, love God, love your neighbors that aren't trying to kill you and be kind to animals.

And at the time, I thought he's going to hell because William Brannem was not in that. And we were trained that we had to have Jesus Christ and William Brannem's message to get into heaven.

And the further I get away from this, it matches what Jesus said. What is the greatest commandment, you know? Love your neighbor. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. What we see, the point I'm leading up to now, when you talked about the character of God.

Charles, you and I are experiencing it just a hint right now, but it's going to grow as our podcast continues. The message sect would actually, there are people within the message sect, not by and large, but there are several people.

that wish you to die. If you raise up against them, if you speak out against the prophet, even if you say what the prophet said, William Brannum, I should quote that, what quote the prophet said.

If it contradicts their sect theology, they would rather you die and stop talking about anything that would contradict their theology than to actually try to save you and persuade you into the right faith so that you could make it into heaven.

It's a huge problem because we had, you probably had this too Charles, we had this phrase called cannon fodder, which if you know the history of this phrase, it's basically in the war, it's the people who went in, who you knew were going to die by the cannon, but it was necessary to advance your troops.

They're worthless in the sake of the battle, they're cannon fodder. We had this phrase that referred to other Christians, they were cannon fodder, they were the Christians who exist to, for whatever purpose of whatever sect is talking about them, the Christians who exist to die basically.

And so when you're a child, you raised in this mindset, your image of God is completely different than the God of the Bible. You really want people to be hurt who don't believe what you believe, and my personality is the opposite of this.

I'm very altruistic. I can't be like this, right? So when I would see people like this, it created this big internal conflict for me. Am I supposed to believe the God who hates people?

Or am I supposed to believe the God who loves people that I'm reading in my Bible? Which God is it? In our part of the message, we had such a messed up,

we had such a way of looking at things, those very bizarre, you know, I look back, like our idea of the millennial kingdom, right? Our preachers told us we'll basically rule over the earth and we'll kind of be like God's Gestapo.

And we will go around, you know, to all of the people that are on earth and we'll enforce God's rule. And it'll be our job to make sure that any people that are on earth not living up to the rules are executed, right?

Like we're gonna make sure the kids are taken out and stoned when they disobey their parents and stuff. Like that was our view of the millennial kingdom. Like it's just an entirely different view than what I think is appropriate and really what you get from the Bible when you step back and read it with honest eyes.

So with that, back to the subject that we started this podcast for,

you know, it is a different God. It's, you've got the God who loves you or the God who hates you, which one, God so loved the world that he sin has only been gotten sun.

The same applies to this polygamy doctrine. You have... of a spiritual leader, in this case William Brannum, who claimed he's the divine authority on Scripture, and all these people believe him, who comes to church very, very angry, makes some severely heretical mistakes in his sermon, with no intent whatsoever to correct it.

And if you understand the reasons why he's angry, it reminds me of the Jim Jones statement that you just made. You can say some bad things, some bad theology, that leads to people dying.

When this case, he made some bad statements that led to polygamy, which led to a whole array of problems. I mean, we're talking sex trafficking, grooming women for sex, all kinds of really, really nasty things, because he was angry.

Polygamy just kind of spread throughout the message and among his followers everywhere that the teaching went. We know about here in the United States, there's a group in Virginia, for example, who's been in the news multiple times.

They've been involved with marriage to minors, that the police has even went in and raided them for violating bigamy laws. There's different news pieces where polygamistives come into the news in different ways. So there's definitely polygamists in multiple different states around the United States, practicing polygamy.

And I know your grandfather, John, was one time interviewed in connection with polygamy to the message. Yeah, in fact, this is a crazy story because this was back before my website became William Brandham historical research.

I actually had a website believe it or not, where I was trying to prove William Brandham was true. And once I realized that's not possible, I eventually shifted. But I had this website called Seek the Truth.

And this message sect, in some part of Africa, I can't remember which one it was, they actually sent me the interview. And it was really weird because this was near the point of transition where I knew William Brandham was not a prophet and I was very open, very vocal about it.

So here are these people in the message who realize that I'm not at all in favor of the message. And they send me this video of my grandfather, my grandfather, which is very damning.

I mean, very, very damning. And I've often thought about why they did this. I think one of the reasons a lot of people even in the message, especially the cult leaders, they realize that the work that I do with people like you and people that I'm working with, we research to the letter.

We try to make sure everything we put out is correct. We don't always succeed. If we find an error, we will correct that error, we will apologize and move on in the interest of furthering truth.

There are... many, many cult leaders who realize that if it's true, I will say it, and I will document it, no matter what, if it's in favor or against. And I think this group realize that I knew that William Brannum taught polygamy.

I think at that point they probably knew that I knew why he taught polygamy, why this marriage and divorce sermon, because I think I had mentioned some of what we're about to say prior to this.

So they sent it to me, I published it, but these guys literally came from Africa to the United States and confronted my grandfather, William Brannum's sons, voice of God, recordings, the cult headquarters, everybody.

Why are you not preaching what William Brannum said and why are you against us when we're supporting what William Brannum said in the doctrine of polygamy? This was a crazy, crazy time. You know, there's so many examples like we've on my website, I think you can look, what's the guy's name, Robert Gumbura, I think his name is, you can, I've got a whole research page on him, he had many, many wives, and when people who aren't familiar with polygamy and how it works, I think I'm going to stray from our script a little bit now to bring

Naomi into this conversation, because it's very important that people grasp this. I was raised and did not know much about polygamy other than multiple wives. And my only reference to this is like King David had multiple wives and David was this happy, go lucky, wonderful figure in the Bible and he had multiple wives.

I don't think people grasp all of the negative that goes with that into today's world. It's not just the multiple wives, but the grooming of children to become the wives in a world where this is illegal, living under the radar, I think it would be good name if you describe just a bit about what is polygamy, how is it different from what the average common perspective is?

Sure, and I'm glad this is coming up because I think there are people in our culture, and American society at least, I'll stick to the United States for this, who would say, well, if a man wants to have more than one wife and the women are okay with it, what's the big deal?

I'm going to put that elsewhere, I'm not going to put it on the shelf because it shouldn't stay there, but I think it's a separate conversation. So if anyone's listening and maybe that's the view they would hold, they're really unfamiliar with polygamy and what it really looks like and what we're talking about here, I would say, let's have a separate conversation about it because it's a different conversation to have.

What we're talking about is women who have been told that they have to, to achieve whatever it is. virtually they desire to achieve in the afterlife. So for example, if we're looking at FLDS, they actually needed a minimum of, I think it was three wives to reach their celestial kingdom.

And so they're actually pressure on the men as well. Like if a male really just wanted one because he had a handful, he couldn't stop at one. He had to have more than one.

So it actually say there could be pressure even on the men depending on what they're being taught about the afterlife. So we have people who are being coerced in a very stressful way because we're talking about eternity.

That's beyond forever. We're talking about never ending. The belief is this is going to affect way beyond me living in this body right here, right now. So that's the kind of pressure people are under.

And they're being told you have to meet these qualifications. You have to hit these criteria. So these are not people of their own free will and they're being all their authentic selves because none of them are operating from a sense of authentic selves.

They're all operating from a cult self. They've all been very heavily indoctrinated and influenced. Being told you have to do this. They probably, honestly, if I asked any of the girls I grew up with if they wanted to or not, I would have gotten two answers.

I would have gotten a very secret like no, other than one specific girl who would have been very loud about it. And I hope she listens to this and she knows who I'm talking about.

But and God bless her for it because she's a great role model and that way for the rest of us. But or people would have been like, why don't know? Because we didn't even know if we would want something or not.

It's just what we were supposed to do. So we're not talking about two women and a man saying, this is what we're choosing to do. We're talking about a man and two women who are told, this is what you have to do.

That's a very different conversation. So that's why I want to separate it. And then you're absolutely right, John. We're also talking about young girls who are being taught. This is what you're for. And this is, again, this is beyond what we saw, you know, even back in the 50s, 40s, 60s, you know, until we started having more of a cultural revolution and as time went on of women being told, you're supposed to get married and have kids.

This is beyond that. This is what you said, Charles, in that quote about, you know, you're a sex object, you are to procreate. That is your point and you're not even special enough to procreate on your own with one man.

He's gonna have other women that he shares his bed with and maybe has a rotation throughout the week. Maybe my dad traveled back and forth. Now, in my life, that was a saving grace because he was so highly abusive that when he was with his other wives, he wasn't with us and I got to breathe.

So in a way, I'm thankful for it. Had he been with us all the time, I have no idea how much worse, how much more messed up I would be. But so I had breathers.

We all had breathers because he traveled. But we're talking about feeling so insignificant, so devalued, so worthless that you're literally just a no- and bring your own household, and you have to conform. And again, this starts at childhood because it is harder to convince a 20-something year old woman to get into this.

Now, it can be done, just like women can be trained into sex trafficking and be abducted. We have all kinds of horrific things that happen in the world. But for example, I remember, and I've told this story elsewhere if people have heard it, but I was about 78 years old when a man wanted to claim me for marriage when I was a age.

Now, generally speaking, that was 17 to 18 years old. Really young, right? Yeah. Not illegal, but barely not illegal. And he started buying me gifts and would have me sit on his lap and would just give me hugs and be so sweet and affectionate.

I'm a physical touch quality time person. He didn't touch me in any inappropriate way. It was his intentions that made it inappropriate. Now as I'm an adult, but otherwise, there would have been nothing seemingly inappropriate.

But I remember having such a fondness towards this man because he was so kind to me and he treated me so well and everyone treated me like crap. So we just stood out as a really nice guy.

I didn't realize that he was actually trying to stay claim and I heard that directly from my parents as I got a little bit older that that had been his intention. So I'm not inferring it.

I know for a fact because they said so. But this is the kind of thing that is happening to young women is men are saying, oh, I want her when she gets older because of whose child she is or I can tell she's going to be pretty or whatever it is.

And we also run into the young men then and we saw this for sure again, reflecting back to FLDS because they had such a public big blow up eventually. So they're easy to refer to.

We have young men who they don't even have anyone to marry and then the older men are trying to scooch them out of the community because they want all the young women. Yeah. And so that becomes a problem.

So now we have young men who don't have anyone to marry and we've got older men who don't want to disciple the young men to grow up and be good men. They want to kick them out because now they're competition.

So this whole thing gets really, really messy. And again, no one is taught that I have a choice in what I want this to look like for the rest of my life. Yeah, like I said, I've been to several different churches from coast to coast and it's interesting in the way that you said that there are some smaller churches that have been to.

Remember, this is the elite children of God type cult church, right? The other Christians in the city are not Christians by their view, they're the cannon fodder or whatever that particular sect called. Some sects call them the serpent seed.

Those are the Christians that are the serpent seed and we're the good Christians. And when you're in that elitist mindset and you're training your children to be that elitist mindset, it doesn't just affect the boy, the girls, it affects the boys also.

Because the boys then become elitists and they think there's pride in being elite and condemning of other people. But it creates this weird problem because what if there are not a lot of girls in the church that you're going to?

I've actually been in churches where this was a problem and I have seen older boys, you know, at this point they're men, you know, in their 20s, sometimes late 20s, who are actually grooming small children.

I don't I don't think they ever became the wives or at least they did. I wasn't around when they did, but I watched it and it was just, I mean, to me it's kind of disgusting, right?

It's not what you would normally see, but I had been in larger churches where there was a bigger, much bigger pool of women. Some of the churches are affiliated with other churches and other states and they have these camp meetings and, you know, children can go meet each other in the cult and they can, you know, find mates, but not every church was like that.

Some of them were so isolation, so secluded that they literally had to groom the women with or without the polygamous doctrine just because of the heretical theology. And Charles, we've actually not got to the to the reasons behind this accidental theology but I think we've mentioned a few times in this episode William Brannum was pretty angry when he preached this and the story behind it, you and I have actually not talked about this a lot, but I'm seeing in the responses that you're giving that I think we're going to have the same exact testimony.

Yes, I think so, John. So there was divorces and remarriages going on in the Brannum tabernacle and particularly even among William Brannum's own family that instigated him to even preach this sermon, right? In one aspect, this whole thing was to justify the divorce and remarriage of certain people who are still alive today and maybe we shouldn't say their name, but to justify what some of William Brannum's own family members were doing in that time, that is what caused this sermon to be preached to begin with.

Yeah, that's exactly what my grandfather told in private to my father and a few other people. And what happened is so after William Brannum preached the sermon, he had a private meeting with the preachers and so the pastor of our church along with other ministers, our church, no doubt your grandfather was there.

William Brannum had a private meeting and in that private meeting, he explained the things going on behind the scenes that caused him to preach the sermon and of course those were then passed down to us along with all of the other Brannum, brother Brannum's private teachings you know among the core leadership here in Jeffersonville yeah and it's something else you know and as as you talk you just you realize all the damage that was caused by this because you know like Naomi you're not the only message polygamists that I've had the opportunity to met either there's other people you know in our age group that I've met and one common thing I've

known from the ones I've known which most of the ones I've known are from Africa you know polygamy is very destructive to their families right to grow up in that environment the wives end up embittered against each other when as the husband get older they're end up fights over the inheritance and things of that nature and it leaves the children and the families very broken up very damaged you know as a result of these things and it's it's a it's a terrible road to go down you know especially after you get you know a generation or two seeing the effects of

what it brings and the church that I came from so you know we actually our pastor started attempting to normalize polygamy views the last number of years I was there and this is one of the things that made me very uncomfortable the last the last number of years he took a prophecy from the book of Isaiah and began to he's and and he preached this and the whole congregation accepted this that at a certain point in the future God was going to reinstitute polygamy on the earth right and so we we we were we were living with the belief that there was a point in time in the

future that polygamy was going to be reinstituted and would be an acceptable practice again yeah and and you know as they do things like that they're they're setting up for something to come down the road you know and when I think about that and I think about the way that you know William Brandham taught that that this revelation of a marriage and divorce was one of the seven thunders you know it just you see where it's going and you know I'm glad that I've I've got away from it thank goodness you know how bad it could have been for the family to stay in that

environment yeah my grandfather was very close to what you just described he he mentioned the situations now that we know some of the history behind what's going on behind the scenes which ties directly to the Jim Jones aspect of this Charles you and I've discovered just this year William Brandham's ministry was imploding and the shocker that will be coming soon is it looks very much like Jim Jones single handedly well combined with one of the minister saved William Brandham's ministry literally lifted him back up after everybody else had left him he was suffering so many defeats William Brandham and he was very very hardcore fundamentalist

against remarrying after divorce and if you ask any message believer in any sect they will all tell you this. William Brannum, if you are married, it is until death to you part, you cannot get remarried. That's what William Brannum said. But as you mentioned, people very close to William Brannum, including his own family. There was a family member who he actually mentions on tape. He says that he got it annulled. That actually wasn't the truth. They actually got divorced. William Brannum was starting to see people within, under his own ranks, who were defying his own fundamentalist doctrine. It was hurting his public image. He actually

reversed course. He said, no, there's a doctrine of polygamy. It's in the Bible. This is actually what he was driving at with this marriage and divorce sermon. He was saying that because there was a doctrine of polygamy in the Bible, these people who are getting married, they happen to be men. These people who are getting remarried, they all happen to be men who were, William Brannum was defending. He said, it's okay for them. One man, many females.

And he's saying basically that it doesn't matter. There's one phrase where he specifically says it. He can, but she can't. He says it explicitly, just like that. And what he's trying to say instead of introducing a polygamy doctrine is that these people, which are making me look like I can't even control my own crowd and my, it's really hurting my public image, it's okay for these people to get remarried. And what he told my grandfather, and I think for you, the man in private, according to where my grandfather told it, is that God sent him this new revelation on quote unquote marriage and divorce, which is weird. He flipped the

words. It should be divorce and remarriage. God sent him this as a message that these people are forgiven. And he lists the names. I actually know the names of the people he mentioned. These names have been forgiven because there's nothing to forgive. One man, many women, you know, it's horrific. You're exactly right, John. That's exactly how the story was, has handed down to us at our church in Jeffersonville as well. William Brannum was actually preaching this sermon in an attempt to authorize remarriage after divorce, not to not to introduce polygamy, but the way he went about it was so, you know, he was a, the truth is, William Brannum was a terrible

preacher. And instead of just, instead of, you know, appropriately, you know, scripturally presenting remarriage after divorce, he accidentally introduces polygamy, you know, and it's, yeah, it's awful, it's awful. It goes back to, I mean, we're getting through this in our history.

Dorical Podcast, but you know, when you tell a lie, and when people find out, you have to tell another lie to cover up the first lie. And that lie has to be bigger because it has to cover the first one.

And then the next one has to be bigger than that because it has to cover, it grows and it grows and it grows. The same thing happens with theology. If you have a theology that you yourself don't even believe and you don't care, so you introduce this other bad theology to cover up what you didn't believe in the first place.

And then you introduce bad theology to cover up whatever it is. Then you have to introduce more and more bad theology on top of it until what you end up with in no way, shape, or form even resembles Christianity.

And I think, you know, there are some, there are very clear signs that William Brannum is introducing bad theology to cover up events in his ministry. Right. No, as we, as we kind of bring it down to the end, maybe we could give a Naomi opportunity to talk about resources and different things that's available to, to women that are coming out of these situations and maybe have some clothes and remarks on this topic for us.

Sure. So I think what I'm sitting here just feeling struck by is the destruction that someone can be comfortable with in exchange for securing their pride. I mean, this destroys lives. And in a mass number when we're talking about multiple women per men, lots of kids way more than a woman would typically be having on her own.

And all of these families being raised in this situation. And to know that William Brannum basically said, well, so be it. They'll do what they'll do. I'm not going to retract my words. Like that is just talk about the character of a person.

And what kind of person do we want to put our trust in? What kind of person do we want to live our lives? My son, who do we want as role models? And so for anyone listening, I would just say, please consider that.

I mean, is this the character of someone that we actually want to be paying a lot of attention to? Yeah. And as far as closing remarks for resources, please reach out to us. There are, there are some things out there for women who have had these kinds of experiences, like safe houses and things like that would be happy to connect to you.

We are currently doing another overhaul on our website. We just continue to as we continue to grow. And so we do have a resource page coming. So you wouldn't even have to reach out directly.

You'll be able to find different, you know, other options that are out there. So again, we're hoping to just be a hub where people know they can go to you to get started. And then they can link off from there to other organizations that are doing great work.

I would say in regards to knowledge of polygamists. experiences specifically, there isn't a whole lot out there. So it's not that there's nothing but there isn't a whole lot. Because like you guys have said, groups have done a really good job trying to keep it quiet, keep it under the radar.

And so because of that, I don't think our culture realizes how big of a problem it might be. And so we're not equips to serve it as well as I would like to see us equip to serve it.

And so that is something being bold and is striving towards. Well, this has been a heavy, heavy subject. I don't want to end feeling down because of what somebody else did. I don't want them to rob our happiness.

I can assure both of you that as we continue with our podcast, we're going to get subjects that are even heavier than this. And I always try to make it fun, even though the subject matter is just really, really creepy.

You know, in this case, it's just creepy. Why would anyone allow this and yet people do? But we're, you know, we're going to try to tackle the hard subjects and we're going to try to tackle the fun subjects and everything in between.

So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org, ChristianGospelChurch.org, and bmboldened.com. For an overview of the historical research of William Branum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examine of William Branum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Join us again next week and we've got a great episode coming.

So, have fun.