Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle

Okay Well Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend, Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org.

And together we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Charles I am so excited about today's episode.

We by pure accident, we stumbled upon a newspaper article that completely changes the life story, at least the story that I grew up with, about William Brannum's history as a minister in Jeffersonville, at what we thought was the Brannum Tabernacle as his first church.

And you know, through the course of our research we've learned it was the Billy Brannum Pentecostal Tabernacle. But the key words that I usually use when I'm searching William Brannum in this time period of his life was not pulling up this particular newspaper article because of a typo in the early print of the newspaper.

They actually had a typo that changed, you know, these newspaper articles were not coming up in the search. And lo and behold, whenever we started putting our research together and we, you know, started learning new facts about William Brannum that we did not previously know, this, it changed everything because I was searching a new keyword.

And a newspaper article that I had never, ever seen before came up and lo and behold, here is William Brannum in his first church, which again I thought was, you know, the church on the corner of 8th Street and Penn Street in Jeffersonville and lo and behold, this is not his first church.

So I'm so excited to get into this and today we've got a great episode ahead. And today's episode, what we're going to be talking about is the, the start of the Brannum Tabernacle. We're going to talk about how William Brannum took over Roy Davis's congregation, started the Brannum Tabernacle and really just kind of kicked off those early parts of his...

ministry. And maybe before we dive into what the newspapers and government records and things say, let me first maybe share the official version that we get if we were to read, you know, the different official versions of William Brandon's life story, like a man sent from God, supernatural, and God's generals.

The Asab's fables version of the story. So in the official version, it goes something like this. So after William Brannum had finished having the tent meetings that we talked about in our last episode, he attracted a huge number of people, they loved him, and they wanted to build him a church. And so they build him a church that fall in the fall of 1933 there in Jeffersonville. And that was the start of the Brannum tabernacle.

And then when they built the tabernacle, there's a really famous story that Brother Brannum would tell a whole lot when he talked about the construction of the building. He explained that when they laid the cornerstone of the building that they put something kind of like a time capsule sort of a thing into it. And into there they inserted just all kinds of stuff. William Brannum personally claimed that he put a Bible into the into the time capsule, his own personal Bible. And on that Bible was wrote his famous 1933 prophecies, which we'll talk about some more at another time. And all kinds of stuff was just put into this this thing that

they put into the cornerstone. Even even people from the neighborhood came and put things into it in the story, right John? Like the Catholics came, he said Catholic person came and put rosary beads into the cornerstone even. He was so against the Catholic church and yet they decided they would help celebrate the founding of the Brannum tabernacle with their beads.

Right, right. So he told us all kinds of stuff that ended up buried into this cornerstone, including rosary beads, right, including his Bible with the 33 prophecies wrote in it. And as all this was in the cornerstone of the of the Brannum tabernacle when they built it in 1933.

And so as as we go on through this episode, John, we're just going to talk about what what really did happen, what we can tell from the historical records about when this building really was built.

And what the congregation, who they who the congregation really was. And also what was in that cornerstone when it was opened up years later. Right. And this ties very strongly to the past episodes that we've been talking about. The building of the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God's sect, of which Roy Davis was the, I don't know what you'd call, call his position. It was like he was the Pope of the sect.

and he was appointing his series of bishops and they were building an entire denomination of faith, not just a single church. And in the last episode, we talked about William Brannum, the famous baptismal service that he claims was tied to this dedication of ceremony of the church.

He said as many as 10,000 people, they're on the banks watching. I mean, we're talking hundreds of people. So if you listen to the Asob's fable version of this story, you're thinking that there's this massive crowd of people who are suddenly coming from the shores, the banks of the Ohio River, and they're coming to the tabernacle to say, hey, let's start a church.

Let's lay the cornerstone and let's build this place. Right. And the truth though is somewhat different. If we listen to these official biographies, William Brannum tells a story there, but there's another version that William Brannum tells on tape that's a little more close to the truth.

And the version that he tells that's a little more close to the truth is that he continued to be Roy Davis's assistant pastor until his church burned down. Right. And in that telling of the story, after Roy Davis's church burned down, then his congregation gets some assistance and they go and then build the Brannum tabernacle.

And the problem is the version of the story where Roy Davis's church burned down and they then build the tabernacle does not line up with the tent, they had the tent meeting and then build the tabernacle because these happened in different years.

Different stage personas, right? There's this stage persona that its history cannot coincide or even be compatible with this other stage persona. Right. So there's no way both of those stories are true. And the one that seems to be more true is the one that he continued as Roy Davis's assistant pastor and built the tabernacle in a later year.

And when you look at the Brannum tabernacle building, they have this marker on the corner of the building that marks the cornerstone. And they say it was dedicated in 1933. And it is a fundamental part of the message for people who aren't familiar with the ministry, the cult following of William Brannum's message called.

This date is so significant because this is the date in which he was allegedly given a series of prophecies that foretold the end of days. He, this was tied to his, you know, the in-time messenger stage persona, right?

This is God telling the people that these things are gonna happen and you will know that this is my prophet, so listen to him. It's strongly tied to the 1933 date. So that's so significant that this date be on the church.

yet we're starting to understand this date is not at all accurate. Right, because kind of the way William Brannum sets it up in the official story is, you know, he has his baptism, the light comes down, and he's announced as the messenger.

Right. And then in the same period, he also then has his 1933 prophecies, which kind of vindicate him as a prophet. He has this great seven visions of things that are going to happen.

And this all happens, this happens right together as they're built in the tabernacle and kind of helps inspire this congregation to believe he's the prophet. But, you know, the truth is, the truth is that William Brannum, just like we mentioned in the last episode, it was I think 1951 or 1952 by the first time that he ever mentions a voice saying anything at the river.

Right. He started making up that element of the story, not until the 50s. And the same thing, these 1933 prophecies, he also never mentioned that they even existed until the 1950s either. Right. The earliest we've found is in the 1950s.

Right. So there's no mention of a voice speaking to him at the river in any of his versions of the story. The mention of the 1933 prophecies until he starts to kind of reinvent himself in the 1950s and try to, and starts to introduce some of these aspects of his ministry.

And it's at that point in time, you know, they remodeled the tabernacle and kind of redid it in the 1960s, John. I'd have to look to get the exact date, but they remodeled the tabernacle and they added this at that point.

This was not on the original building. The original building did not have a dedicated in 1933 marker on it. In fact, the original tabernacle building looked like this. Right. It is such a small building.

If you think in one of the versions of his story where he tells about the people at the baptism, there's 10,000 people. And if you try to imagine 10,000 people fitting into that tiny little building, there's just no way.

I mean, if these people truly wanted to come help him establish a church, they would have been donating money, hayless, build a building big enough for all of us, not just part of us.

There's no way that they could fit in that building. Exactly. And this is a small building. And this is only about a third the size of the present tabernacle building. Yeah. You know, when you look at it, it'd be hard pressed to think that this could hold much more than 100 people.

Yeah. If you look at it, maybe 150. And when you build a new church, you don't build it just for the people that are your current converts. You build it with room to expand and grow.

So that little tiny building looks like it may have fit the handful of people that the newspaper articles mentioned, but not 10,000 people. And another, if you look at the history... Yes, yourself. Why would I change my backstory about my church? Remember in the 1950s, whenever he starts telling these stories, that's about the time that Roy Davis becomes very, very public with his white supremacy, Ku Klux Klan. He's actually holding debates in the Ku Klux Klan. So here's William Brannum, who is in his church. Well, he has to backdate his story so that it looks as though he had a competing church with Roy Davis and was not part

of this in Jeffersonville. Right. It's to try and make them look more separate than they actually were. When the truth is, William Brannum's church really was just a continuation of Roy Davis's church. So when Roy Davis's church burned down, it burned down in 1934. And I've got the newspaper articles here. Let me just share them real quick. So here is the very last newspaper article advertising Roy Davis's church having services. And this is from February of 1934. And there's an article here where Roy Davis's every week, every single week, Roy Davis ran an advertisement in the newspaper saying, this is what we're doing at church next time. And so we know we have

actually a pretty good idea of everything that was going on at Roy Davis's church at a high level because he ran it in the newspaper every week. And so those advertisements continued every week until February 1934. And then they suddenly stopped. And then in the month of May, we find this newspaper article where Roy Davis's church has burnt down, is telling us, and the city is refusing to let him rebuild his church. Yeah. We'll probably talk a little bit more about why the city wouldn't want Roy Davis to rebuild his church, right? But the city is refusing to let Roy

Davis rebuild his church in 1934. And that is the point in time, which the brand of tabernacle comes into existence, right? Because just the same brother, brand, or William, brand, was run in advertisements in the paper for his services as well. And we can find very regular mentions of William Brannum's church and what's going on there once his church gets going. And the very first mention of William Brannum's church in the newspapers is right here, August 15, 1934. And to the people who have been following my research, this is a fact that you won't have

seen before. This is almost what two weeks old, I think, we found this. You'll notice that it says Brannum, P-R-A-N-H-A-M instead of Brannum, whenever I was looking for the information that went to the Billy Brannum Pentecostal church at that time I was searching for Brannum. And the newspapers had a typo. This time we were actually looking or another street that held the Pentecostal Tabernacle, which we'll explain why in a minute.

And when I search Pentecostal Tabernacle, low and behold, here is his church. And what street is that? That's on... Right, his church is on Pratt Street. It's on Pratt Street, not Penn Street. The current Tabernacle today in Jeffersonville sits on 8th Street and Penn Street, not Pratt Street.

Right. And so this presents this kind of interesting thing, because 8th and Pratt Street, that is the site where his tent meeting was held in 1933. Yes. And but it'd be like the parking lot of the current Brannum Tabernacle.

And it seems like after Roy Davis's church burned down, they've went back to their tent on 8th and Pratt Street. And one thing we still need to do that we haven't really looked into enough to figure out is who owned 8th and Pratt Street?

Who owned that lot? And because it seems like someone affiliated with Roy Davis and his church there is probably the people who owned 8th and Pratt. Because Roy Davis and his church had been using this lot for tent revival meetings for years at this point.

Yeah. And it seems like when Roy Davis's church burned down in 1934, we know for sure the city would not let him rebuild. Right. And if we take William Brannum's testimony on tape rather than what he put out in his books, it sounds like when Roy Davis's church burned down and he was the assistant pastor, that at that point, the congregation started looking for a place to build a new church because they couldn't rebuild it at Roy Davis's spot.

So that's when they move over to this spot, they move over to Pratt Street. They go back to the same spot where he had his tent meetings. And they're most likely in a tent even at this point in time because the church owned a tent, the tent that William Brannum had held his revival meetings in.

And remember, in the Bible, a tabernacle was a tent. So this wasn't unusual to advertise this way. And the big, you know, the ceremony of starting the tabernacle could have been literally starting the tent and erecting the tent on the location.

Exactly. And again, we know that it's 1934, not 1933, and they're at Pratt Street. And so what we did earlier, John, is we went back to the pictures where they're building the tabernacle and erecting something there.

And we're trying to, we was trying to figure out what it looked like in the pictures, John. And so here is a picture of William Brannum standing at the cornerstone of this building, they're building.

So I grew up fully believing that this, you know, this Brannum tabernacle that I went to was William Brannum's first church. And I believe that it was all... ways, the William Brannum, Brannum Tabernacle, because why would it not? That's what he told us. That's what he said on recording, on tape. And I sat through sermons where my grandfather talked about, you know, this was William Brannum's first church. This is where the angels lie in the walls of this building. This is where the prophecies are buried in this building, right? And when I learned that it was the Billy Brannum Pentecostal Tabernacle before

the Brannum Tabernacle, I was really shocked because, you know, they completely changed the life story as I knew it, and there were significant problems with that. They are in the parking lot of the present Brannum Tabernacle. They're at eighth in Pratt Street, they're at the address given in this newspaper article, the same site where his tent meetings were. So they're not at the site. And there's another photograph where you're seeing the side view of that church. And if you look at that side view, that dedicated in 1933 inset is not there. Actually, that's the one that I started to look at when we began. So Charles is holding up the front

view. And you can see there's the Brannum Tabernacle and in front of it, it looks like there's this dirt road, and you can kind of see the width of the road. Then there's another side view that we were looking at earlier. And the side view, I'll throw it up into the video, but you can see that there is the church, and then there's a curved dirt road that goes to the front of the church, a very small road. And you see this gravel road off to the side that is eighth street. And if you zoom in on the corner of that building, that inset dedicated in 1933 is not

there. Yeah, so there's definitely a discrepancy here. And the newspapers clearly are saying, so here's the thing, the newspapers ran these articles because the person at the church submitted it to them to run. So this is, if not William Brannum himself, someone at William Brannum's church has given this to the newspaper, right? They're even saying their churches on eighth and prayer street. So it's not like the newspaper made a mistake, you know, and went out and guessed the street, but they told this is the address that whoever submitted this to the newspaper to run this classified ad, basically, gave them that address, right, John? And I think we should

pause here for safety concerns, Charles, because we don't want the Jeffersonville police department to have extra work. William Brannum said that he buried his prophecies in the cornerstone of the church. And people have for decades, you know, wondered, are the prophecies under the building an eighth and pinned? I can just picture all of these fanatics, these hardcore message believers going and trying to bust up the concrete and dig down. Keep listening to the episode because you're going to find it.

doubt that they're not even in there anyway. There's no need to. There's no need parking lot of the Brandon Pavanagh. You're not going to find any prophecies buried there either. Yes. Oh goodness. Yeah, it's what what really seems like happened, you know, when we put when we put together the pieces, it seems like after Roy Davis's church burned down, they they already owned as part of Roy Davis's church. They owned this lot at Pratt Street because they were already having tent meetings here. And when the city when the city refused to let them rebuild their church on Watt street,

which of course, there's plenty of good reasons that they wouldn't want them to rebuild Roy Davis to rebuild his church, right? They they go over and they're probably at first just using the same tent that was already on Pratt Street. But then at some point along the way, they acquire the lot next door, eighth and pan. So they didn't own eighth and pan in 1934, right? We actually have the deeds. Yeah. This is when they purchased eighth and pan here. Yeah, that's what November, right? 1936, I think. Yes, John, it's November, 1936. Right. And so they've they've bought the

the eighth and pan, you know, at that point. And somewhere somewhere in there, they have they've rebuilt the tabernacle or they've built the tabernacle for the first time. I should say at eighth and pan. And the very first newspaper article explaining or saying that the tabernacle is eighth and pan is actually in August 17, 1935. Right. So prior to this, the newspaper articles are used in the Pratt Street address. But here it changes to the Penn Street address, right? And this this fairly closely coincides with that deed, purchasing the purchasing the eighth and pen for the tabernacle. And the title of that church, the name of that church is significant in that

exactly. If you notice in all of these articles that were holding up even the eighth and Pratt one, you know, from 1934. And I'll just say these are just just a few of dozens of articles. William Brandham ran very fairly regular advertisements in the newspaper for his church. And all the way into the 1940s, the name of his church was the Pentecostal tabernacle. The Pentecostal tabernacle.

So the name of his church even in these in these articles is a huge problem for the message because William Brandham was supposed to be a Baptist at this point. He was supposed to not even like the Pentecostals. There's just a bunch of Holy Rollers and I was scared of them. I didn't want to go around them. But the truth is, and we're going to get into more of this deeply in the next episode.

William Brandham's church was a Pentecostal church from day one. Yeah. From day one. And to people who aren't familiar with the message folklore, this is so significant that the cult appears to go to great lengths to cover this up. Because if you don't have a Baptist church, then you don't have the key element of his life stories, which was that he was basically, I mean, there's even sermons with this title running from the presence of God and what not.

He's basically a Baptist minister who, quote unquote, listened to his mother-in-law and kept his daughter, her daughter, his wife Hope out of the Pentecostal church until after the 1937 flood of the Ohio River. And he claims that that's whenever God killed his wife Hope and she died because he, quote unquote, avoided the Pentecostal call or whatever. So Pentecostal is significant in this, in this issue because if he is already Pentecostal, then there's no need for God to kill Hope and all of this backstory. So when searching for vindication.com, first started publishing their information. One of the articles that they published had the city directory. And I wanted a copy

for myself. So I go to the library. Remember, they had just been to the library. They had just started publishing. They had a copy from the library of the city directory. By the time I went, someone had actually torn the page out that had brand them in the city, city directory. So I went to the librarian who managed the Indiana room and she said, oh my gosh, I can't believe they did this, not just in one book, but every city directory, the page had been torn. So she said, thankfully, this isn't the only copy we can order more books. We have copies of it in the state archives.

So she replaced it. I just went back earlier this year. Someone had again ripped these pages out of the books. Yeah, it's something else, John, because I've seen those same things. Somebody, somebody somewhere is selectively ripping the William Brannum related pages out of the public records, the public historical documents, the public library documents, the courthouse documents, and destroying those records on purpose. If this is the truth, why would you want to cover up the truth? Of course, we know, because we've found copies of the pages that were ripped out, they're being destroyed. One possible cause is because they actually disproved the stuff that

William Brannum has said. Just like we pull up that deed from the county courthouse, where the tabernacle was originally registered with the city as the Billy Brannum, Pentecostal tabernacle in 1936, not 1933. Right. And keep in mind, so we showed the photograph of William Brannum standing on the corner of the building. And this is...

For ceremonial, this was not just a photograph of him standing, saying, look, I can balance myself. This was specifically a ceremony because it was a Masonic practice to basically dig a cornerstone and it was a ceremony of erecting the building, a very Masonic practice and for what we're about to get into, the Masonic ceremony is significant.

Right. And that ties back to the reason that they put the stuff in the cornerstone and everything was all tied to that Masonic practice. And if you remember, I'm just going to read a couple quotes at John. When William Brown talked about the clan paying his hospital bill, just let me read that. He said, the Ku Klux Klan paid the bill for me, Paws, Masons. I can never forget them, see, no matter what they do. There's something that stays with me, what they did for me. So William Brannum connected the clan and the Masons as the same

people. You know, obviously they're not the same organization. They're two separate groups. But he's saying here in his area, there was overlap. The members were part of both of those different groups. And then he goes on in other sermons, he says, a quote like this, this is from Be Not Afraid from it is I from 1961, William Brannum says in this sermon, all my people are Masons. All my people are Masons. So in one sermon, he's saying the clan or the Masons who paid the bill for me. And another sermon, he's saying, all my people are Masons. Right.

Right. And this is very similar, John, to the response. I know we have both got from different ones when we when we've asked them and they'll say, well, we was all in the clan back then.

Right. It was all in the clan back then. And so when William Brannum says, all my people are Masons, you know, it kind of leaves me with this question. What, you know, what does he mean is that he's talking about all of his church was Masons, all of his family, all his, but all his people was Masons. Right. He says that. And he also says the Ku Klux Klan paid the hospital bill for me. Pause Masons. Yeah, there's a few points that I want to make here. And some of it's embarrassing, right? Because whenever I began this research, I knew nothing about the Ku Klux Klan or the

Masonic order. I had no idea really what this even was. I knew that the clan was white supremacy, but I had the common misconception that it was just anti black, but that turned out not to be the case. But they were two completely separate fraternal orders. One was a white supremacy fraternal order. One was a cloak and dagger secret history. They're basically free masonry is what he's talking about here, the Masons. And if you study the history of the Masons, it's quite incompatible in many ways with Christianity. So it was a little surprise when I got into this, but the way that he

He says the Ku Klux Klan Paws Masons two completely separate groups. It would be a good example would be like me saying I see these people at the park and they're playing basketball. These people who play basketball pause people who shop at target. It's two completely separate things but by combining them you know that these people in the park that play basketball also shop at target. Ridiculous example but that's the same level of you know separate entities that he's talking about here. The other point is that we do have research that he was accurate.

We have the death cert the the obituary of Delores Branham and she was in the Masonic order of the eastern star and the eastern star is also significant to this story because the early pictures and I'll pull one up for the for the youtube version of this podcast. The early pictures of the Branham tabernacle actually had a pentagram above the door a satanic symbol in most you know in most people's view but this was the order of the eastern star had the you know the the pointed down star that was you know tilted slightly to the right the pentagram was above the building

the Branham tabernacle on the door. Yeah and you know as far as mason's go obviously people were more shy to admit that they were in the clan back in those days but people were kind of proud to be mason's and people would open a lot of people would openly claim to be mason's and I know at our church john I am aware that a fair number of the old timers were indeed masons right people going back to tabernacle day so you know I I can confirm that you know for sure there was masons in that in the Branham tabernacle of going back to Roy Davis's church as well and like I said I

know I know people who knew the people who were in Roy Davis's church and I personally know people who were in Roy Davis's church too and so I know john they were definitely connected to white supremacy and there's definitely masons in there as well and of course there those are two different orders but yeah William Branham we can basically we can understand why he's performing this masonic ritual right and that fact and that fact also kind of helps establish to us through his sangs through his own admission that there were clan people in his church right and we know

that key figures in his early church which one of them will get into a little bit later through the newspaper articles the advertisements we know that certain members key members of his church were also in the masonic order yeah something else something else and so as we as we go on john you know when when they did this when they buried this stuff in the tap in the cornerstone right? They put it all in there. They did, they did their thing. William Brannum talked about it being in there. You know, I think I already mentioned that he, it wasn't until

the fifties that he started, he started sharing that story and it's such a crazy story when you think about it because the clan was very anti-catholic and he mentions the Catholics putting the, you know, the Catholic beads into this cornerstone and why would they do it, right? He's, this is a man who's working with the, you know, the second and command of the Ku Klux Klan who hate the Catholics. Why would they join in the ceremony?

Yeah, it's part of they just invite anyone in the community to come put stuff into this cornerstone and, and of course, John, you know, in the, the cornerstone has been open multiple times to try and find the things that William Brannum buried in it and I'll share one of the stories. So, you know, it, William Brannum's funeral. So William Brannum died in, in December 1965 that they kept him on ice until April and then they finally buried him and had his funeral on Easter Sunday, I believe it was in, in April 1966. And so, well, I know,

I know lots and lots and lots of people who were there that day when that happened. My family was there that day of the funeral. My pastor of my church was one of the men who officiated William Brannum's funeral that day. So, I know all kinds of people who were there that day, John.

And, you know, of course, William Brannum was supposed to raise from the dead, right? I mean, that was what a whole bunch of people were saying. Yeah. My grandfather believed it, Perry Green, who is one of William Brannum's right-hand man. I mean, they're, they're both key figures of the message. I believe they all believed it. I don't know that they believed it now, now that I look back and I know some facts, but they promoted the idea. And if you think about it, the prophet just died immediately a cult implodes when this happens. But how do you hold them together?

You tell them that he's coming back. And so, everybody, well, let's don't leave now. Let's wait and see if he comes back. This was literally a strategy to keep people from leaving after he died.

Yeah. So, they put him into the ground. They bury him. And guess what, John? He didn't resurrect. Right. Imagine that. Right. And so, so there's a man there. And, you know, I want to say a little bit of concern starts to set in the crowd. He was supposed to resurrect, right? That was what some people's expectations had been set to. And there's a man in the crowd. His name is Ben Bryant.

He's well known in this area, you know, as a message believer. He's passed away now. And he had been a World War II veteran. And in the war, he had sustained an injury that left him with some some mental problem. So, he was, he had some mental difficulties, okay? And so, as the funerals ending in William Brannum has not resurrected.

Um, he has the idea that the answer to why he's not resurrected. The answer to what comes next must be buried in the cornerstone. Right. Because that's what William Brown. I'm sad. Right. And so he had, I, you know, how I guess he just carries jack hammers around in the trunk of his car.

I don't know. But he had a jackhammer that day, John, unbelievable. Yeah. And so, and so, you know, the tabernacle and the cemetery is pretty close. So they, they head over, they just, you know, a blocks, a couple block difference and they're over at the tabernacle.

And he jack hammers open the cornerstone. And there's a large crowd has came with him from the grave site to witness this. And there's lots of people there. I have known multiple eyewitnesses of that were there this day.

And so he jack hammers up the, the cornerstone, they, they, they carefully, you know, pull it apart, open it up and look inside the cornerstone. And guess what they found in there, John, the prophecies, nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing about the Catholic, what about the Catholic beads? Right. No, not even the Catholic beads, right? So what, what we did in our part of the message, and I, I don't know what maybe you did in, in your part, but so the way we explain this was William Brown.

I'm said, if you don't believe me, go look in the cornerstone. So we said anybody who looks in the cornerstones and unbeliever. And so, and so we just completely shut it down, right? You look in the cornerstone, you're an unbeliever, right?

So we didn't even, so we never even had to engage the question of why it was empty. We just, you're an unbeliever, William Brown, I've said you're an unbeliever. You looked in the cornerstone.

So, so we just completely shut it down, right? But so we never had to answer the question, why was the cornerstone empty? Oh my gosh. That explained. So whenever I was at the restaurant and I saw Raymond Jackson for the first time, and he looked at my grandfather and I mean, it was like the Seinfeld episode.

Hello, Willard. He thought that Willard Collins, my grandfather was an unbeliever because my grandfather was also there and saw that it was empty. I've known that it was empty for a long time. Yeah, yeah.

But it wasn't until recently that I could have somebody else who testified to that it's empty and I could publish it. Yeah. So it, it was empty, John. And here's the thing, you know, a block of paper, you know, okay, maybe paper could, could rot in decay and go to, you know, go to nothing, right?

But there's, William Brannum gave all kinds of stuff that was in this, in this cornerstone with it. And some of that stuff like rosary beads, rosary beads shouldn't rot away. Rosary beads, they don't decay, you know, glass beads don't decay, right?

They should have still been there. One of the common, it sounds so ridiculous when you think about it. But I've even got a video of this. I'll probably link through it in the description.

But one of the ways in which the primary sect, explains this away is they say, well, the angels of God came down and they would not let the people see it because it was holy.

So the angels stole it out of the capsule that's in the cornerstone. And the question is, well, did they steal the Catholic beads too? Because Catholicism, according to Branagh, was evil. Yes, people. Right.

So did the angels take Catholic rosary beads to heaven? Right? Like, it doesn't, that don't add up either, right? And at the end of the day, it's all just explanations to avoid facing fact, William, Branagh, misled us about all this.

This is not what happened, you know? That's the thing about all this stuff, no matter how you shake it up, maybe we don't have all of the facts lined up, maybe quite right when we look at these newspaper articles.

But one thing is 100% sure, right? What happened is not what William Branagh said in his official biographies. What actually happened is not what he told us. He misled us about all of this stuff.

There's no way to take the facts and line them up with what William Branagh said, right? So he definitely made this stuff up and and the cornerstone was empty, John. It was empty. So funny story about Ben Bryant, the man who dug it up, my family knew Ben Bryant.

He was regular attendee at the tabernacle. And like you said, he did have some mental handicap issues, but he, we actually set right behind him often whenever I was a kid and he would get excited and he would stand up and kind of dance while they're listening to this recording of William Branagh.

And one time he grabbed the lady's wig in front of her and pulled it off of her head and padded her head and put the wig back down. He had some issues, but it also, it's kind of funny because he was, he was also well respected in the message.

He also was kind of a key figure in a way. He was. There is another cult in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It's the cult called Christ Gospel Church. When Christ Gospel Church was Bernice Hicks, William Branagh's, William Branagh had a female Sunday school teacher, which in the Branagh tabernacle, that's like a preacher.

She split away, she started her own cult and her church actually started out west. I think it was Los Angeles. Ben Bryant was sent to help her start the church. Branagh mentions this on recording.

And when William Branagh was buried, that pyramid that sits there today was not always there. And there's a funny story worth telling on this episode, Charles, that you know of why the pyramid is there.

Yes. I'll tell that story. And Ben Bryant, yeah, he was, he helped Brother Jackson, Raymond Jackson, set up the first faith-simply church in New Albany as well. So yeah, he, he helps set up a lot of message churches. But yeah, so Ben Bryant, you know, shortly after William Brannum is buried. So, so here's the man he was disturbed. William Brannum hadn't resurrected. He digs up the cornerstone that's empty. Well, before much longer, he gets the idea that a telephone should be installed in William Brannum's casket so that he can phone out when he resurrects, right? Because they might,

I guess they might have to dig him up so he can get out of the casket, right? So yeah, one, one night, Ben Bryant starts to dig to install a telephone into William Brannum's casket.

This is before the big pyramid was over the grave, right? And part of the reason they bought, they made such a great big gravestone was so that, you know, you could not possibly dig into the grave, right? You know what I mean? Without, I mean, that thing falling on you, right? So yeah, that's, that's part of the reason they did such a really big massive thing over the grave because Ben Bryant had tried to install a telephone into his casket. I always wonder what the people in Jeffersonville think of this place because it's well advertised that they believe that

he was going to raise from the dead. And if you mention I went to the Brannum tabernacle in Jeffersonville, everyone, their first response is, oh, you mean that guy that's going to raise up out of the grave, the pyramid, right? And, and you hear these stories like this, I mean, this had to have been common knowledge. This would have made the news, hey, some guy had just tried to dig up the prophet's grave. It's unbelievable. And here's the thing, you know, like, there's a lot of people in the message that have mental problems, right? Like Ben Bryant. And,

you know, we kind of excuse that, right? Ben Bryant, you know, wasn't, he had some mental problems, right? But the people with these, they're just acting out what their leaders have preached to them and told them. And they, they fully believe it. And they're acting out in accordance with what, what they've been told, right? And there's people that will do crazy and have done crazy, even dangerous deadly things because

something in their mind is maybe just not right. And they're listening to what these people have told them, right? And that's all Ben Bryant was doing. He was just acting out according to what the, the leaders in the churches were saying. If you think about it, this was a faith healing cult. And so there are a lot of people in the United States, then now that have mental health issues. And like my family, mental health issues runs in my family as well. My, I've got direct family members that have been hospitalized. So I have no problem with people having mental

health issues. I understand that it's no different than diabetes or whatnot. You just need, you know, medicines or whatnot. But people who had, this condition would go to the healing revivals, looking for a cure. And unfortunately, they were more easily susceptible to this kind of thing because they had some mental health issues.

Yes. And what's really sad, John, I know you and I have talked about this, like the, there is a really high rate of mental illness among message people I have known, right? And I've often wondered, you know, just why that is. And maybe that's something for another episode, but there is a high rate among the people there. But anyways, maybe kind of coming back to the the tabernacle construction.

So we know, we know it was not built in, we know for sure that it was not at its present location in 1933 or 1934. And the people that were sending it to the newspaper run of the advertisements were saying it was at Pratt Street, not Penn Street. And it wasn't until, you know, roughly 1935 that they then have constructed the building at Penn Street. And I think, you know, we just say again to the, you know, what's going to happen, John, is the next time we drive past the Brano Tabernacle, do not dig up the ground. It is not there. We're going to see the parking lot

under excavation, right? Trying to find these prophecies. Because so here's the thing when they when when Ben Bryant Jack hammered up the cornerstone of the day of the funeral, that's not the only time they've dug up the cornerstone, right, John? They dug up the cornerstone a second time in the 1980s.

There was an act a car crashed into the same crashed into the Brano Tabernacle again right on the corner. So in the 1980s, when when when it had that structural damage, they opened in the Tabernacle cornerstone again, John, and a crowd of people came for that as well to open the the cornerstone the second time. And guess what they found in the cornerstone that day, John? The prophecies.

Nothing. Right. Right. There was nothing, nothing in there again. You know, that was one of the things I found along the way. I found several things that tipped me off that my grandfather was aware of these things and had been for decades. But he, as the pastor at that time of the Brano Tabernacle, was also there for the first digging up of this cornerstone. He knew that it was empty. But he allowed it to happen again, meaning that he wanted to act surprised when it was empty a second time to pretend that this thing happened. So he had to

have known he was definitely in on it. I know. When I've heard the story of the second time that it opened like that always perplexed me like, because I know those guys were there. Some of them had to be there the first time it was open. Like why are they? Why didn't they just admit to the people that it's empty or whatever? Why dig it up? Yeah, it didn't make any sense to me when I heard that, you know, they'd opened it up.

the second time, but anyway, so that happened. And so there's no, there's no prophecies buried in the cornerstone and nothing that William Brenham said was in that cornerstone was there. And that kind of, again, just proves to us that he was making this stuff up. He's just making this stuff up as he went along. He always said that it was this church, it was this Brenham tabernacle. They're buried in this building. He is talking about this building.

So again, don't go dig up the street or the, you know, the Pratt street address. He said it was here. He said it was in my church in the Brenham tabernacle. Right. So, so we've, we've a established the tabernacle was not built in 1933 like we were told. Certainly not the building that that's there today. Two, we've established the stuff that William Brenham said he put in the cornerstone was not there. And, and the third thing I think that that's an important point that we make is that William Brenham kind of led us to believe that his congregation was basically these, this vast

number of new converts that he made at the 1933 baptism. But that's not true either. William Brenham's congregation was almost entirely Roy Davis's congregation moving over after their church burned down. Like that is that was Roy Davis, that was his congregation.

His congregation was the Roy Davis congregation from, from, from his church. And, and like there's, there's things about that because you remember the William Brenham talks about when he first went to Roy Davis's church, George DeArc was there preaching racist Christian identity theology, preaching that black people were descended from apes. Right. He talks about George DeArc preaching that when he went there. And William Brenham of course says well, I never believed any of that. Right. That's all, that's all hogwash. We don't believe any of that. But here's the thing when William Brenham started the brand of tabernacle, the

same man that he told us was preaching racist Christian identity theology at Roy Davis's church. It's just so hard to fathom that he would say something like this. I mean, here's George DeArc, the guy that I'm telling you has this racist white supremacy theology that I, William Brenham, do not agree with at this time. Now, I'm going to agree with parts of it later and you can ignore that. But at this time, I do not agree with it. And yet still, I'm going to make him an elder in my church and even a trustee at the Billy

Brenham Pentecostal tabernacle on the D. Right. Right. How does that make sense? So Roy Davis, he or George DeArc preaches that black people are descended from apes. And I don't believe any of that. That, that don't add up. Right. So clearly, clearly something there don't, the dots don't connect the way William Brenham tells the story. His congregation was a continuation of Roy Davis's congregation. Here's what I wonder. So George DeArc was preaching Christian identity theology at Roy Davis's church.

I wonder why he was preaching at William Brandham's church when it was the Brandham Tabernacle? I'm certain. I mean, if you think about the structure of the message, the notion is that this is a divine message sent by God that we must know in order to have rapturing faith.

And here's the messenger, and I'm going to give him these prophecies that he has, and he buries in this church, and this is proof that he is the messenger for our age. And one of these key mysteries that we're supposed to believe is this mystery of the serpent's seed. And if this was the case, if this were the case, and God had given this message, it would be a consistent message through time. Right. God gave me this, but William Brandham and his early versions of a stage persona pretended, I think he did believe the serpent's seed doctrine, but he pretended that he thought that

Adam and Eve were the mother of all living. Right. When you listen to how he did kind of disagrees with George Diark's stuff, he does it in a very clever way, such that his version of serpent's seed differs a little bit, right? George Diark's version. Yeah. And as we go on, just want to reinforce the point, William Brandham's congregation was Roy Davis's congregation.

It was the same people. And here's a picture of Roy Davis's church and some of his congregation. And these same people ended up coming over to William Brandham's church. The preachers in Roy Davis's church came over to William Brandham's church and continued to be preachers.

The congregation came over and continued to be part of his congregation. The people he said, all my people are masons, right? We have newspaper articles confirming he was being truthful. They were masons. They were free masons. And some of these masons that were in Roy Davis's church transition door to being William Brandham's church. This connections to Roy Davis do not end when William Brandham starts the tabernacle. Roy Davis's congregation just moves over. And another very important evidence that I know we're going to go into deeply down the road is that the Jeffersonville church was not the only church Roy Davis planted in this area. Roy Davis

was starting a domination. He planted other churches as well. And when Roy Davis left and William Brandham, you know, started the tabernacle and the congregation moves over to the tabernacle, the brandham tabernacle, Roy, William Brandham also takes the pastorship of other churches besides the tabernacle that Roy Davis has founded, right? There's another church for sure that we know William Brandham took pastorship of. So it wasn't just the Roy Davis congregation in Jeffersonville that William Brandham took leadership of, but other churches that were connected to Roy Davis and that he had planted, William Brandham becomes their pastor as well. So he is succeeding Roy Davis as he

this area almost like a district superintendent or a bishop sort of a thing in this area. Yeah, and when you think about that, combined with the newspaper article that you just held up of Catherine Davis, this is so significant. This one piece of evidence is so significant, because if you think about the timeline in, you know, in the early 30s, what was it in 1934, he was on the Pratt Street, Pratt Street Tabernacle. Roy Davis's church was imploding. Roy Davis actually, he angered half the town of Jeffersonville. He was involved in this horrific scandal, where he stole the inheritance of the family of a very wealthy widow in Jeffersonville.

And the family tried to get the money back, and Roy Davis basically ends up suing half the town. There's this massive lawsuit of everybody against Davis, and then mysteriously his church burns right after this event. So William Brannum is involved with Davis at that time. So the whole scandal was Davis and his elders, which included Brannum. And then there's this weird period of time where the church for Davis transitions to Brannum. William Brannum mentions this on recording, but the members inside the church seem to, you know, they realize that there's something wrong with these guys. Roy Davis is, I think, you know, he was actually headed for prison. He went to

Arkansas prison. He was defrauding members of the church, stealing inheritance, all kinds of dirty things, had an underage girl that he was, now we know he was sleeping with, and all of these other things. So they split, and they created their own branch of the Pentecostal Baptist Church sect. So the question is, did those people become the legacy of Davis's church because Davis was building a denomination? That key piece of evidence says, no, Davis's daughter, the one who was in the Jack and Granny radio show with Davis, nationally famous, Jack and Granny, her daughter married,

who was it on the paper thing is Henry Brannum. Henry Brannum. So William Brannum's brother. So we know that Davis was on the Brannum side of the church as it imploded. So Davis is rising up to be basically the Pope of this new denomination. And he needs bishops to oversee. And William Brannum, there was other churches that William Brannum was the leader of. So he was like a bishop to Roy Davis's Pope. Yeah. And it really just establishes, like you said, John, that Roy Davis was still aligned with William Brannum coming out of this thing. And it seems like the people who continued

on with the Pentecostal Baptist Church and God group, which they eventually, they went defunct within a year or so. It seems like those were the people who had been cheated and defrauded by Roy Davis, right? Who were...

trying to go their own way. Whereas the main core of the group, the leadership under Roy Davis, like George D. Arck, like William Brannum, like Roy Davis' family, they all are over with William Brannum, going to the Brannum tabernacle at that point.

So yeah, Roy Davis, we understand, there's certainly a good understanding of why the city refused to let him rebuild his church, right? He's a bad guy, they want him out of town. And the whole reason his church burned down too, right?

Is very suspicious. You know, Roy Davis had a history of burning down his whatever before he left town. Like that was a pattern with him. And it's also possible that people got so angry at him that they burn it down for him, right?

Like this, Roy Davis is church didn't burn down on accident. I think that's a pretty safe assessment. And so it's burned down and the city denies him the ability to rebuild. And this is actually what necessitates the creation of the Brannum tabernacle, they need a new church under new leadership that the city will give a permit and let them build for, right?

Because they're, the city has had enough of Roy Davis. And they had tent meetings, they had a tent tabernacle on the spot. So it was the most likely location in the city. Right, they already owned that spot, they already had a tent, they could easily move there.

And then it just took some time for them to buy the lot next door where the tabernacle is built today, the eighth and pen lot. Right, it's an amazing story, John. Amazing story, there's so much stuff here to look at, there's so much to go through.

I'm really looking forward to the next episode when we can start to, the next episode we're gonna start diving into this whole aspect of William Brannum was actually a penicostle and what was going on in that period of time because William Brannum was continuing to work with Roy Davis in his denomination, certainly up through the 1930s, even after Roy Davis leaves town.

We'll talk about that some more next time. And we have a lot of listeners who were never involved with the message sect, with the William Brannum's cult of personality called the message. And it's probably good just to do a basic recap of the significance of this one episode because to be quite honest, this episode when you consider the message cult theology, this is the one that is really the beginning of its unraveling because if you don't have a Baptist preacher, if William Brannum was not Baptist, there would be no need for God to kill his wife and daughter

in the 1937 flood of the Ohio River to convince him to turn to Pentecostalism. We have those city directories that the people ripped out charos. It is so significant because it's not just William Brannum at the Brannum Tabernacle.

Hope is mentioned as it's William Brannum and hope at the... Pentecostal Tabernacle. So she was a Pentecostal at the time, you know, in 1936 at minimum, probably earlier than that, because she was in Davis's Pentecostal Church.

Yes. And she was preaching. And she was preaching Pentecostal Church. William Brannum's first wife was a woman preacher. Yeah. Which contradicts his story. Remember, he said one of the reasons why he left Davis's church because of female preachers, will then he takes the female preacher and marries her. The next episode is going to be great, John, isn't it? There's so much there. Let me, let me just end with a show on this again.

Here is the man Roy Davis. Here's the guy who ordained baptized William Brannum's sponsor, the 1933 tent meetings, who is the man whose congregation follows William Brannum over to the Brannum Tabernacle. This is the man who recruited the initial congregation of the Brannum Tabernacle and set Brannum as their leader. He is the Pope of the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God's sect.

He is the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, the national leader of the Ku Klux Klan. By the time you get into the 1950s, the 1920s, he had been second in command as we've already talked about. And at the time that these things are happening, he's been trying to form a new white supremacist organization and this denomination that he is building is serving as its religious front end. And William Brannum is here taking this key position as he's building this organization.

It's so significant because if you understand the history of what's going on besides the religion, you start to realize that this was not really a religious cult. This was actually a political cult that was operating behind the scenes or under the disguise of a religious political cult operating as a religious cult. And there's just so much here. There's more than we can talk about in one single episode. So let's cut off here and we're going to get into some very exciting stuff next week. If you've enjoyed the episode and you want more information, check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-brannum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org.

And for an overview of the historical research of William Brannum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Join us again next week. We've got a great episode coming.

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