The Fracturing of Latter Rain

Music 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.

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' last episode was so much work to put all of that together that honestly it kind of felt like taking a bit of a break for this episode, but we're introducing one of the more interesting figures into our series now, and this episode will quite frankly, it's going to be far more interesting than even the last one for a lot of people, just because of the name that we're about to drop.

But we have, if you combine all of the research over time for this one figure, it by far exceeds what we put into last week, so the sum of all of the research is, I guess, heavier if you would put it into a balance scale, but I'm so excited to get into this one.

I've actually been just waiting and waiting to get to this point so that we can introduce this guy. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too, John. We're probably just going to get to the very initial part of him coming in the door in this episode, but we're going to explain everything that's going on as the Reverend Jim Jones enters the picture.

Right. So in this episode, we're especially going to talk about the divisions and the splits that kind of started happening around William Brannum, beginning in the early 1950s up in 1954 that was affecting his inner circle.

And I think pretty well, all of our listeners are already aware that William Brannum and his message following ended up completely isolated from the rest of Christianity. But it was really a gradual process over the course of a few years up to a decade that really brought all of that about.

And today we're especially going to be able to look at some of those early divisions and how Jim Jones ended up intersecting with the message through some of those. To do that, I think we got to walk through some of the ways that the Latter-Rain movement itself was splitting up. Jim Jones was a Latter-Rain preacher at that time. And how it was splitting, dividing during the early 1950s, and how really all the Pentecostalism was going through a schism over the Latter-Rain movement in those years.

Because the splits and divisions in the Latter-Rain movement and the Pentecostal denominations, reaction to the Latter-Rain movement, really has a direct impact on what's happening here with William Brownham, with his ministry, with the people around him.

And as that goes on, you know, William Brownham and Gordon Lindsey and Earn Backster and quite a few other preachers all end on opposite sides of the splits that are happening. And that trend keeps happening up until William Brownham finally ends up being left with just the small following that will form the nucleus of people, fanatically devoted to him, that really begins the first phase of the message cult. Yeah, I think it's very important to point out for the listeners who were in the cult of personality.

You know, the rest of the world, from the outside looking in, just simply views William Brownham and his message sect, and it's various isolated splintering groups as this extremist form of Christianity that was at one time part of the bigger broader picture and then just kind of, as every destructive cult does, just kind of isolates itself and becomes more separatist and extremist and as other people put it just, you know, simply going off the rails.

But to the people who were in it, it's entirely different because, like me, for instance, I was born after all of that happened. And I knew that we were isolated and I thought this was a holy thing.

I thought, you know, this is the way it's supposed to be. God wants us to sever ourselves from other Christians. And I can remember, I was, I read my Bible a lot, you know, both before leaving the cult and after leaving the cult.

And I remember in the cult reading that passage about, you know, those that would come and sever the body of Christ and all of this. And the cognitive dissonance that went through my head when I read this, because I knew that's what we were doing.

We were doing exactly what it was condemning in the Bible. But we thought, you know, we were manipulated and unduly influenced to believe this was a holy thing. And the importance of that to somebody who left this cult is significant because it, you know, the way that they painted this picture was completely wrong.

They painted it as though William Brannum came as this quote-unquote messenger for the age and he was creating a separate people. But the history doesn't show this. That's not what happened. he separated because they basically booted him out and he wanted a broader fellowship.

He wanted all of this to be, you know, basically under his manipulation and control and like the kids playing in the playground, if you're not going to play our way, I'm just going to go play by myself.

That's a pretty good description. Yeah. You know, he, there's like the scripture in the Bible, let the tears and the weak grow together to the end, right, like is, you know, but William Brannum more or less jumped the gun on all of that, right?

And he more or less set up, this is the Doomsday, let's separate the tears and the weak. But I mean, this is what 75 years ago, the stuff at this point, clearly it wasn't the end.

I mean, it's, it's utterly manifest that William Brannum was totally mistaken at this point about just the very core thesis of everything that he presented. The end of the world should have happened, honestly, about 50 years ago, if, if William Brannum really was who he said he was and if the things he said was true.

But jump in ahead, maybe before we do dive into the splits, the, some resources, just to point to people too, if they want to look at some of this stuff. One of the things I would recommend to cover some of these things, New Cares Maddox by Michael Moriarty, just a few resources, The Healer Profit by Doug Weaver has got quite a good bit.

He, he's probably of all the people I've read, John decides, you know, people like us that actually left the message. I think he has the most, the most accurate take on some of the stuff that happened when this thing all blew up.

Another book that covers kind of how the whole Cares Maddox movement came out of the splits is The Healer Profit by Doug Weaver or rather David Edwin Herell. Also look in the Herell to Faith magazines, that's a lot of the ways that you can, Joseph Matt Simboze actually errors, he don't mind writing the dirty laundry in the magazine, right?

No, he don't. You can just read it. And last of all, if you look on Google, the, almost all the elders of Sharon orphanage, you can actually find the recorded testimonies on YouTube and they, they'll, they'll spell a lot of the stuff out for YouTube, exactly how, what happened.

And so, so after that, let me just dive in. So, you know, if you recall back on episode number 16, when we did The Birth of the Laterane Revival, the Laterane had started up in Sharon orphanage in 1948.

And the orphanage had been created by the four square churches, Angiolis Temple was the headquarters. And the four square superintendent was actually there here at Colt when the whole thing started out. And I think he survived, he stayed with it to the end, I believe, I believe he died still member Sharon orphanage.

Yeah. And I totally missed that connection whenever I was writing the first book. I saw that four square church was involved, the heads of the four square church were involved with Sharon orphanage. But see at that.

time. I did not know what the four-square church was. I saw it out there as just this denomination. I didn't realize the significance of it until we started getting all of these other puzzle pieces and putting them together and wait a minute. This is Amy Simple McPherson's group and they're behind most of what we're seeing here. Yeah. And George Houghton, who they made the leader of the orphanage there, he had previously been in Pentecostal assemblies before he came over to the four-square guys, but he was running the orphanage there and more or less the leader of

that movement. And they started praying and fasting, looking for and expecting God to replicate what they thought they had witnessed in William Branham's meeting. So the whole the whole latter-rain revival started off as a group of people wanting to emulate what they saw William Branham doing. Like this is that really was the basis of the movement. What they saw William Branham doing, they wanted to do that themselves. Right. And so William Branham is central to to the latter-rain movement and and he's a hero to it. You know, he's a Godfather to it in a lot of

ways. And very early on two key churches, we've mentioned the stuff before, joined that movement, the Chicago Church, the Philadelphia Church in Chicago, Joseph Matz and Bosé's Church, and the Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit, which was a Myrtle Beals Church. And those two churches ended up becoming really the most important early hubs of the latter-rain message up through the 1950s. And over time, their two churches really ended up totally eclipsing Sharon orphanage in importance to the latter-rain movement and they became the largest most influential churches in the movement during the 50s. And as that's going on,

there's a series of splits and divisions happening in early latter-rain. And I think we need to explain just a few of those, especially the ones that directly relate to William Branham. So maybe we can jump into that next. Yeah, and it's also key to point out that as this thing was splitting, it was also growing, which is- Yes.

It's very complicated to understand that, right? Within the assemblies of God, which, you know, quite frankly, I believe the assemblies are the one who started the main split that just shattered the whole thing. But Indiana itself became a rogue state in the assemblies under the leadership of Roy Weed. Roy Weed was in the message. He was a message minister.

He was also a assemblies of God minister. And a key point to understand is when we say the word the message, today it refers to William Branham's cult of personality. Back then, and even as we found out this week, as late as 1965, the phrase suggested that it was the movement, the latter-rain, which included the latter-rain, included the voice of healing.

And it was a message that encompassed all of these ministries, not just William Brannum. We have Demas Shakarian and some other people, and recording, saying we support the message. And they weren't in the cult of personality.

They were in this broader scope of people. Right. That broader lateral umbrella group, even Kenneth Hagen was prophesying about the message and promoting the message, right? It was a much broader thing, you know, back at this point.

And with all those other groups, you know, apparently their terminology changed a lot over the years, whereas the message that we come from, held on to a lot more that original terminology. Yeah. So one division, I definitely want to point out to everybody that happened in laterane occurred in 1951 or started in 1951 anyway.

And it was actually pretty big. And it explains a lot of how it got so many splinter groups. So George Houghton was trying very hard to implement the fivefold ministry ideas at North Battleford.

And the fivefold ministry teachings, you know, as you go and you listen to all the testimonies and look at it all, that really was George Houghton's baby, you know, when laterane was cooked up.

George Houghton is the one who put fivefold ministry into the pot. That was his baby in all of those doctrines that laterane cooked up. And as he's putting that into motion and trying to implement it, he actually starts telling the other churches that they need to submit to him as an apostle.

Wow. And look to share an orphanage more or less as the leaders in the movement. And he would confront the other preachers directly, John, he would confront them, tell them to their face, you need to submit to my authority as an apostle.

And he was very direct about doing that. And things became very authoritarian, very quickly. And in 1951, he did that to Myrtle Beale. And he confronted her, told her she needed to submit to North Battleford.

But like quite a few other preachers that George Houghton did that to Myrtle Beale said, no, thank you. And so then she broke away from share an orphanage, right? And you know, and at that same time, AWS Musin ends up going back to the Chicago church with Bozay, the independent assemblies of God.

And you see at this point, as George Houghton is attempting to enforce and implement these fivefold ministry teachings that it actually backfires pretty badly. And it creates a lot of competing factions at that point where everyone would say, no, I'm the apostle and you need to listen to me.

No, I'm the prophet and you need to listen to me. And so really the first big division in Laterane, it was not so much about doctrine, but really it was more about who's going to be in charge.

Yeah. And Myrtle Beale and Joseph Metz and Bozay's church both emerge as important and influential centers as you come through those divisions and splits. Yeah. And I've been in contact with historians from different splinters of this and what's really interesting, Charles, is that each splinter group believes that they are the true splinter group.

They believe that they have the message. They believe that everybody else went off the rails and they stayed true to Christianity. Every single one of them, William Brannum's group, I'm going to go ahead and get this out of my mouth because it's going to come out before this episode is over.

Every time I see the name, Myrtle Beale, she was called Maubeele. I always think of ductail as Maubeele, so I'm going to say it, get it out of my mouth. Now, now you realize if I fumble my words, Maubeele, I'm talking about Myrtle Beale.

I'm the opposite. I think Myrtle Beach. It's Myrtle Beach. Yeah. I've been in contact with historians over the years that came from Maubeele's splinter group and they believe that they have the true laterane, that William Brannum was just this side show for laterane, that Maubeele and her inner circle was basically the true form of the laterane movement, not realizing that William Brannum is basically, you know, he, not, not just...

We had George Houghton, so we had the guy that she said no to, right? Exactly. William Brannum, you know, he was one of two catalysts if you look at the historians' view of laterane, but if you study the history behind how it grew, he was far more than just a catalyst, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, but it was built off of seeking to emulate him. That was what started it out and he is influencing it with teachings and doctrines, you know, all the way through. So, you know, at the same time that that power struggle is playing out between George Houghton, Sharon Orphanage's and other churches participating in the laterane movement, pressure is also being applied by the Pentecostal denominations on laterane, right?

Simultaneously, Pentecostal assemblies of Canada, Pentecostal assemblies in general, assemblies of God, they were the first denominations that started fighting against the laterane movement. And in 1949, both of their denominations openly denounced laterane, I mean, we've got copies of the, you know, the minutes from their convention meetings.

They openly denounced laterane and more or less said, we don't want it in our churches, we reject this that and the other that they're preaching. And as they do that, that, they start an effort to try and stamp it out of their churches and that conflict actually ends up causing a major schism just across all of Pentecostalism.

People from Sharon Orphanage, they actually start organizing and plotting to overthrow the to nominal churches and Sharon orphanages, they actually start circulating papers with instructions for how to do a hostile takeover of the churches, you know, how to, you know, have votes, throw out the old leadership and get control of the churches.

And as that unfolds, they're trying to get control of assets, you know, properties and things from them. And it gets really nasty, John, it really does. And the laterane people were successful in taking over quite a few churches.

Mombiel, Mertle Biel, she took her church out and quite a few churches along with her out of Laterane, Sharon orphanage did the same. And a lot of churches exited and went with Joseph Matson-Bose in the independent assemblies of God at that point.

And so this went on for several years, but it's not really till 1953 that assemblies of God finally took the really radical steps to totally force and remove preachers that were friendly to Laterane from their churches.

And this is the point where we can bring Jim Jones into the story, right? Because Jim Jones was a Laterane preacher in assemblies of God during that period. And he ended up getting caught up in that purge.

And that's what pushes him out of assemblies of God and sets him on a course working with William Branum. And I know we are gonna do some full episodes where we deep dive all of this, but maybe you wanna talk a little bit about that here, John.

Yeah, and my research, you can actually find it if you go to johnstown.sdsu.edu.

There's an article, the full gospel origins of people's temple that kind of gives you a broad overview of this. But people's temple was created literally due to the split that assemblies of God was enforcing in their churches.

John's was a regular speaker at the Laurel Street Tabernacle, which was an assemblies of God church. And they were part of the message. They were not part of the message as we think of the message today.

They were part of the Laterane message, the message that encompassed all of this full gospel, faith healing, et cetera. They were part of this. They had divine healing services. And John's was a very limited fame, but in the early stages, he was growing fame for his divine healing.

I call it a stage act now, but they truly believed he was a divine healer. They believed that he had the quote unquote gift, just like William Brannum, the same discernment, the same power to heal, et cetera.

It's pretty interesting. He started doing that immediately after he met William Brannum. He didn't even know how to do it. He also met William Brannum. Exactly. So he's in this church. And remember, Indiana itself became a rogue state and supported William Brannum through Roy H. Weed.

Well, Weed is the one who came to dedicate the... tabernacle as a full gospel tabernacle. So it was literally dedicated into the message if you understand what is the message back then. And he'd held that purge off in Indiana from the late 40s. He was a he was the one who kept the laddering preachers from being purged in Indiana up till 1953 when central leadership cracked down so hard he couldn't resist him anymore.

Right. So Jones was a part of this and he was watching this, you know, this very, very rigid split in Pentecostalism. And he is taking the William Brandham side of the split. He and the rest of the church basically took the William Brandham side of the split.

Well, the assemblies of God came in and overthrew all the leadership and basically planted somebody in the church who was going to try and transition that church away from the message. Well, Jones and several people who, well, a few people who were with him at that church form what was called, I believe, is wings of deliverance and then that transitioned into people's temple. And he joined the message, but he joined on the independent assemblies of God's side of the split. That's the side that went with William Brandham. And he originally, the church there was originally called people's temple full gospel. Right. Right. He advertised, he was a

full, he was people's temple full gospel, which was not the first full gospel church he was member of, which I look forward to getting into when we, when we deep dive some of this stuff as well, John. Right. So yeah. So I know that is, that is super interesting stuff, John. I mean, it blew my mind when I learned, when I really grasped how deeply Jim Jones had been connected to the message. Our pastor had actually told us we, he was in the message years and years ago. So we, I'd always known like more or less that he had been in the message. The decades I had known

he was in the message, but I didn't realize how, how he became a pretty close confidant and worker with William Brandham for, for a period of time. It's, it's a big deal. When we escaped the cult in January of 2012, we started going to, you know, trying out different local churches and one of the churches we tried out, actually most of the churches we tried out had former members of the message sect. And one of them had some people who were involved with the local city government. And they informed me that there was a time in which my grandfather

and several other key figures in the message fought very hard to keep a certain book out of the Jeffersonville local library. And that's the Raven, which is by far the most authoritative book on Jim Jones. It mentions William Brandham and it mentions Jones's involvement with Brandham. And, I don't think when they wrote that book, I don't think they had the depth of research that we have now about it, but they knew enough to know that Jones was inspired by Brannum and held, basically, the William Brannum launch Jim Jones' ministry into fame at the Cato Tabernacle.

So the key figures in what became the message cult of personality fought to keep the message of Latter-Rain book of history out of the local libraries.

So I think there's another important division that we should talk about too, as we're looking at these Latter-Rain splits, and the second one is important because it's the split that will lead to the shepherding movement and earn backsters actually the one who instigated this split. We need to share just a little bit on this one. There's no way we can cover every split in the, you know, but the ones that relate to William Brannum and produce the central branches of Latter-Rain, I think we definitely got to mention. And so anyways, it's earned backster. It has started out. He went up to the Sharon Orphanage, and he met with the

leaders there, and he aired some issues he had with them. And a man named James Watt was one of the original elders, there are seven elders there, that was leading at North Battleford from the start of the revival. And James Watt really was in love with Latter-Rain. You can listen to his testimonies. That man was obsessed with Latter-Rain until the day he died. But he had some reservations about the manifested sons of God teachings, and earned backster encouraged him and influenced him actually to break off from Sharon Orphanage over them. And as that happened, he left Sharon Orphanage. He went to Minnesota first and passed her to church there, but as time

goes on, earned backster and he developed a stronger and stronger relationship, and he actually ends up introducing Jim Watt to Derek Prince. And Derek Prince was pastoring a church in Seattle at the time. And James Watt goes over to Derek Prince's church, which was called Broadway Tabernacle in Seattle, and they started working together. And it was, I think it's worth pointing out too, that Derek Prince was participating in William Brown's Revivals at the time.

You know, is that stuff was going on? In a large part of what Derek Prince preached and taught, he'd learned during those years, he'd learned from Jim Watt, and he'd learned during his time participating with William Brown. That is really when the core of his beliefs came together, was when he started working with these Latter-Rain figures, deeply influenced man by Latter-Rain.

Derek Prince was. He just ended up in a different Latter-Rain faction than William Brown. But that's the adult church that Derek Prince was pastoring. It ended up turning into the assembly of the body of Christ after he left. And they spread through multiple states.

multiple branches of their church, and they were even part of the shepherding movement for a while. But as that whole thing was coming together, Erne Baxter is working very closely with James Watts, Derek Prince, and between the three of them, they formalized the teachings that would ultimately become the shepherding movement there in that Seattle church. And Erne Baxter, he was from Vancouver, he had a church in Vancouver, but the Seattle church seems to be the spot where they were pioneering this stuff. And basically, they built that whole church from the ground up, based purely on Jim Watts' take on the latter-rained teachings. And they produced a whole lot of

literature and study materials there that ended up being used in the early days of the shepherding movement. And Derek Prince and Jim Watts were the author of most of that. And now, we know quite a bit about that Seattle church, too, through testimony of people who went there. For example, we know that that Seattle church topped the fully racial version of Serpent Seed, at least up into the 1970s. We don't have any evidence that Derek Prince himself taught it, but other preachers at that church definitely was teaching it. And the assembly of the body of Christ,

they're still in the news, John. They're still around. They turned into a really horrendous cult. And just about six months ago, here's one news article. Three other pastors were arrested for raping children on this July 2022. And this stuff, like you read these articles, there's all kinds of other things you can look at. This stuff was going on all the way back to the 70s, these cases were. So all the way back there, and this stuff was going on from nearly the beginning of this stuff. And this stuff is just really sad, John. These are cults. And when we call

these things cults, we're not just saying it's small beans. We're talking child rapes and things like that. This is what these cults ended up producing. And really, it was all the way back very close to the beginning of the launch of these things. But anyways, of course, Derek Prince and Jim Watts, they had done move on by the time that these things started. But it does interest me that these men have a pattern of starting groups that turn into horrendous cults. This isn't the only cult, Derek Prince is going to start. You know, this is I think cult number two for Derek Prince.

He's got at least one more cult after this that he's going to help build. And there's one phrase that you mentioned that I think is significant that our listeners understand for those who aren't familiar, the fivefold ministry. This doctrine, as you mentioned, was a very fundamental part of the Sharon orphanage. But deeper than that, it became a very fundamental part of all of the very splinter groups that emerged from it. And you have to be careful and cautious how you handle this doctrine because it is based off of a pattern.

from the Bible. However, the way in which they teach and implement this doctrine became the architecture for creating a destructive cult hierarchy. The doctrine simply means that to them in the last days God would send apostles, prophets, pastor, teachers, and evangelists, but the way in which they implemented it was a hierarchy. And as you said, certain key figures wanted to be at the top of this hierarchy, instructing the others. And so they were literally creating the cult pyramid where there is a man or specific person at the top and they have like this reporting structure all the way down to the rank and file members.

It's a religious pyramid scheme, basically. Yeah, I know we talked about that and the fivefold ministry stuff quite a bit when we did our manifested sons of God and our latter reign episodes. And maybe we should do a full episode on the history of the fivefold ministry teaching at some point, but at its core, if you anywhere, I'm going to say something that I think I think everybody probably knows if they haven't listened. If not, this be a eye opener pretty well anywhere in Christianity today that uses the term fivefold ministry is using the definition that was created by George Houghton in the latter

reign movement. Right. Right. Every where that uses it, that term fivefold ministry. And I have not seen a single place, they're using the definition created by these latter reign people. That definition did not exist before the latter reign for fivefold ministry. The term fivefold ministry was used here and there before latter reign, but they are the guys who took it and defined what it means in charismatic Christianity today. They're the ones who modeled it. They're the ones who pioneered it and put it out as it is. And one of the very key differences in what they did with it with

anything that went before is they turned it into instead of viewing the fivefold, those five offices, I said it right there. Instead of viewing them as gifts, they view them as offices, right, which is a dramatic departure from even what the Pentecostal churches they were part of believe.

Pentecostal churches looked at them as gifts. They did not look at them as offices. And the churches before them all viewed like the authority of a possible authority of profit. So if we're invested in the corporate church, whereas they took it and they invested these in singular individuals, right? Even the roles are significantly different. And I'm trying to flesh this out so the people who are listening can kind of grasp how important this is. Even the roles are different.

Whenever in the book of Timothy and you know different passages in the Bible, when it talks about the pastors, when it talks about the ministers, The word used is literally the same word that is used as a deacon.

It's basically a servant, it's a shepherd, it's a person who isn't controlling but is teaching people under their leadership to become leaders. In other words, we don't want a central figure of a small group who are reporting to him in this building.

We want to spread this good news of the gospel to the world. We want each person to become this. We want servants to lead people and help them understand how to lead other people.

How this was established, but this lateral rain version flipped it upside down. We instead want a gatekeeper and the ministers become literally a gatekeeper and more than that, a taskmaster that is controlling the flock.

In other words, he is the walls, if you look at the shepherd example, they're building these massive walls of structure around the sheep so the sheep can't look out beyond the walls. Yeah, what they did and what they still do to this day.

This is what gives it its power. They take the verses there where it talks about that these fivefold ministry is for the perfecting or the completion of the saints or the church and they more or less completely usurp the role of the Holy Spirit in the church and they more or less set them up.

I am God's gift to you and you can only be perfect and complete by submission to me. I'm saying that really plain, but that is the tired gist of the document of the belief.

You cannot be perfected. You cannot go in the rapture. You're going to stick around and be cannon fodder unless you obey me because I'm here to get you ready for the rapture. That then gives them this complete power where they are now in utter control of the people who believe that.

That's very important to understand that as we move on to the shepherding movement because think about it Charles, even the name, the shepherding movement, what they created at the shepherding orphanage, they wanted to take that power that they created and put it on steroids.

That's what happened as it transitions on to these other movements. The manifested son of God piece of that, I guess we can recap some of our manifested son of God pieces. The manifested son of God aspect of all of this is what sets up this thing that we all got to get ready for the rapture.

I'm sure if you're in probably NAR, our groups, John, that phrase, let's get ready for the rapture. Did you ever hear that? That is what we've got to get to people ready for the rapture.

That is a ladder rain. concept. That did not exist before ladder rain. And that also flows out of manifested sons of God, the whole idea that there's a certain people got to get to a certain state so that then they can finally go in the rapture. That is ladder rain. I mean, all of this is ladder rain. Like the whole, the whole concept that there's got to get this ministry, this got to get this people ready. So then we can have the, you know, end of day scenario that is ladder rain. And, and that, that went far and wide, John. I mean, that went far

and wide out of this stuff. Another phrase they use is we're living on borrowed time. In other words, we're, the church is not ready to be raptured because we haven't got the church into this state of perfection, which all, all cult claim that they can bring their people into this, you know, cared on a stick style, perfect, perfection where they're, you know, they give them something that can never be achieved. But they, they teach that we're living on borrowed time because the church has not reached this. So we have to perfect ourselves so that Jesus will come instead of we're looking forward to the return

of Jesus Christ. Yeah, I think if I keep going, I'm going to end up preaching discernment.

So kind of dialing it back to, to earn backster and, and, and this stuff. So anyways, looking at this ladder rain splinter group, I pointed this one out with, with Derek Prince, with Jim Watts, with earned backster because earned backster was very involved with these guys at that time. And this is happening at the same time as his relationship with William Brannum was starting to deteriorate that he, he, he, he kind of diverges off on this path.

And by 1955, earned backster and William Brannum have totally turned on each other, right? Earn Backster stopped showing up at the revival meetings he scheduled to preach at with William Brannum and they end up on opposite sides of one of the ladder rain splits. And earned backster, Jim Watts, Derek Prince, that little group that they've already started, you know, and there's more than one church in that little group. If the Seattle churches were they're formulating the key stuff, that ends up producing the shepherding movement when you get a few more years beyond that.

And it's arguably John, I think it, the shepherding movement is arguably one of the main branches of the ladder rain as well, because just like, you know, the main message group, the, there's Sharon Orphanage elders, you know, and the hot, you know, in the direct line of succession through to the shepherding movement as well. So, and as they break up, you know, that's when William Brannum starts spreading the rumor that earned backster is a drunken womanizer. And earned backster starts hitting back. And I, I didn't get it off my shelf here I should have, but earned backster

ends up, you know, saying that William Brannum's miracles were hit and miss and that the percentage of people who was healed was embarrassingly low. That's a direct quote. And so they just start throwing all kinds of mud at each other.

time goes on there. And that's really how this thing rolls, right? When they turn on each other, the mud flies, right? Yeah. For the NAR researchers that are listening, a good way to think of this is if you take the original message, the original thing that existed that William Brannum was the leader of it produced children. And two of those main children, the Shepherding movement and the main Brannum sect, their brother and sister groups. The NAR becomes grandchildren of this. And it's not just that there are these two children. There are literally, I don't know how

many of counted Charles. There are probably hundreds at this point of different child groups that were emerging out of this thing that was at one time called the message. And it included laterane and included the full gospel and included all of these other things as quote unquote the message. Yeah. So with those tensions going on in the background with Earn Baxter, the next, the next really big thing I think we need to mention happens in 1953. So in 1953, the assemblies of God actually breaks off the relationship with voice of healing. They cut them off financially

and they actually start boycotting the revivals in 1953. And it largely has to do with the laterane influence that was still seeping into their churches through the voice of healing men like William Brannum. And let me just read you a short quote here from Doug Weaver's book. This is on page 92 of this book. But he says in this book, with the centering of its most powerful evangelist in 1953, the assemblies demonstrated clear opposition. Cooperation between the churches and the revivalists became rare indeed disciplinary sanctions were threatened by the denominations if churches supported some of the radical evangelists. The revivalists defended their ministers

and labeled the Pentecostal denominations as backslidden. Gordon Lindsay and Donald Guy work diligently to affect reconciliation between the warring factions, but the breach proved irreconcilable. So when this happens in 1953, the money stops flowing, John. It's not flowing nearly as freely as it had been because prior to this, especially assemblies of God and some of these others, they were the main sponsors for these revivals. And this is where Gordon Lindsay starts to have his conflict with William Brannum. And Gordon Lindsay is trying to hold everything together. He's trying to keep voicing healing operating. But William Brannum is one of these

radical evangelists that's being targeted. And being threatened by the denominations with sanctions. And Gordon Lindsay here and the more moderate side of voicing healing evangelists, they start pressuring William Brannum to distance himself from the latter reign. And the voicing healing fellowship actually gives William Brannum an ultimatum in the sem- in 1953 and you can actually read William Brown's got personal accounts out on this. They give him an ultimatum that he needs to stop going around the latter rain groups. And you can actually read his account in Herald of Faith magazine. And this is the path that's

going to end up creating the message called John. I think they've got the pictures of it here. Yeah, here is from Herald of Faith magazine. Here is the William Brown's own account of what happened to how he was told that he couldn't go to Joseph Matzenboze's church anymore by the voice of healing man. And Joseph Matzenboze actually takes up his defense and starts publishing articles. Basically it ravaging and attacking the voice of healing people for how dare you do this to William Branham. How dare you. And he calls them flat out pretty well, calls them dishonest and

un-Christian. Like it starts turning nasty very, very quick when that happens. And basically what's going on there is William Branham refuses to break it off with latter rain. And voice of healing, you know this John, maybe you want to speak to it a little bit, but voice of healing actually completely severed relationships with William Branham at the end of 1953 last for about three or four months. As all of this drama unfolds, he's disinvited to his face. He shows up at one of these revivals to preach and he is sat down and actually barred from preaching at a revival he

shows up to in December 53. And then they don't let him preach for several months. And these are the sanctions coming out of assemblies of God and stuff that's doing this. It's funny to me, Charles, you know, the cult headquarters, they put such emphasis on the how they believe every word that the quote-unquote prophet said is of significance to the extent that they'll even publish these recordings that are only a few minutes. And they'll give it these strange, you know, index keywords that have like XX or some some weird index title, but this is a this is a statement,

not a sermon by William Branham, and it may only be a few paragraphs. They stress the emphasis that everything that the quote-unquote prophet said is important and we should preserve it. You don't find these things published by cult headquarters. There are, we have identified so many things now, even actual recordings that they don't publish. And this is most of it, it seems like has to do with William Branham's relationship with these other guys, the stuff that's cut out.

Exactly. And if you think about the way in which it formed a cult of personality, I can argue that the cult of personality didn't fully exist until after his death. because I watch men like my grandfather who are controlling and limiting the amount of information.

To the extent we've just identified this week through some of your research, Charles, that they're actually the blank spots in tape. They're cutting key figures out of the recordings so that you don't see the broader picture.

All you see is William Brannum and you think he's bringing the message and this recording is the message. And you don't see that he's on the platform with many, many other men and they're all saying the same exact things he's saying, but they cut out all of this critical information.

A lot of it, it's like when he says nice things about them when he's supposed to hate them. Yeah, it's really, really, really. Like he, we found that he's holding revivals with oral robberts and oral robberts was one of the bad guys, Charles, whenever I was in the message.

He's doing holding revival with the angel from Sodom. I mean, like, exactly. No wonder they cut it out. Yeah, but so what's happening? And this is way broader than we can explain in this episode.

It would, it would take three or four episodes to fully grasp it. My research is also published on the Jonestown site under an article, Enemy in the Camp, the inside story behind Jim Jones 1957, prophecy of death.

You can kind of get a broad overview of what's going on, but as all of these men are limiting William Brandham's involvement, Gordon Lindsay is shutting him down. Hundreds of ministers are saying, we will not let William Brandham bring his heretical self-promotion into the churches.

That's basically the essence of what's happening here. Well, what happens is Mats and Bosé goes up to bat for William Brandham and he sends introduction letters to William Brandham saying, here's this guy, Jim Jones, he can help us.

Here's his contact information. I'm gonna give him your information. I'm gonna tell Jim Jones how to bypass your screening people for incoming mail. I mean, it's a big deal. Jones is literally becoming a not just a message minister.

He is becoming the right hand man, one of just a handful, who are standing by William Brandham as this whole thing is just imploding. Right, because as you come into those years, so FF Bosworth is elderly and he's to the point he's about to pass away, so he's not able to preach so much anymore.

William Brandham's lost earned backster to a split. William Brandham needs to replace these figures to do his opening stuff at these revivals. Jim Jones becomes a figure that comes in and actually starts being the earned backster replacement on his team for a little while.

So we'll get into that stuff more. That'll be a good episode, John. And so, you know, for me, I think it's pretty obvious, you know, when you look through this split, kind of what's driving this one with Gordon Lindsay.

Gordon Lindsay, and at least a small majority of the voice of healing guys, they're willing to yield to the denominations and step away from ladder rain in order to preserve their relationships with assemblies of God and so forth.

But William Brannum doesn't want to give up ladder rain movement, right? And this is this is really what is driving this, right? So they can they can choose the established groups, which is larger, which has, you know, that's where the, I say that's where the money is, that's where the biggest crowds are, that's where so they can choose that or they can choose this emerging crazy groups on their way to create creating all kinds of cult.

And William Brannum chooses the crazy side of things on their way to creating all kinds of cults, right? Yeah, so that that's happening. And you know, it takes a few months, but by the summer of 1954, Gordon Lindsay and William Brannum kind of end up at making a truce after that first dust up.

And William Brannum does start working with voice of healing again a little bit, but earn back during these guys gradually are not they start stop refusing to ring with him, you know, by 1955 earn back to or won't tour with William Brannum anymore.

Yeah, so he's he's he's just going through this period of where it's just gradually getting worse relations are deteriorating. And it's really not until 1957 that it finally totally enters this point where there's a complete severing.

So, but it's between 54 and 57 you have this slow moving deterioration and and what is at the root of it is Gordon Lindsay and the majority of voice of healing wants to go with they the assemblies of God, a penicostal assemblies and keep relations there and William Brannum don't and that is the that's what drives this division.

And it's when this happens, John, this is when William Brannum goes overseas and meets Paul Schaefer, right? This is when William Brannum brings in Jim Jones, right? This is when things start taking a dramatic turn as William Brannum is bringing these really disreputable people into his into his circle.

Yeah, I think it's also important to point out like every situation, it's far more complex than just a black or white. This is what happened and why the finances behind this thing were significant and the fracturing of all of these different splinter groups from it was taking was impeding the ability to bring in the massive amounts of money that they once had before.

Remember when this thing started everybody joined in and they thought this is this is it, this is the rapture that we're all going to heaven and you had a all these, even some means, to some extent, some mainstream denominations of faith joining into this thing.

Well, then once they realize, wait a minute, this is just another cult. This is the framework of how a cult starts. All of these groups started backing away, well, with them, back to way, their money.

And at the core of this, there was so much money coming in that the key figures, Gordon Lindsay and some of the others, they had to find ways in which to keep the revenue so they had to find ways to attract people, but not just that, they had to find ways not to dissuade people.

So if they brought William Brannum into the picture, well, this entire sack of Pentecostalism won't come to the show. So they have to tell William Brannum, you have to either control your mouth or we're gonna control the money.

Now, in the message, this slowly developing split started in 53 with Gordon Lindsay and Boise Ealing. It is a central element of the message is mythology of its history, right? This is, this is when William Brannum was supposed to get the revelation that the bride of Christ needs to come out of the denominational systems and start preparing for the rapture.

I could start, come out of her mind, people, that you be not partakers of her stands, right? Like this is when William Brannum supposedly got all of these revelations, right? Which he was supposed to have had all along and this was supposed to have been his plan all along.

No, it was not. Okay, like it's when all of these people start turning on him, right? He's literally saying, come out of their group. They're not taking my side, come be in my group.

Don't play in their sandbox. I want to play with you in my sandbox. Yeah. And all of the people who lined up to oppose William Brannum through those years, William Brannum totally demonized them.

The message totally demonizes these people for rejecting the messenger and the message. And the people who heard William Brannum and obeyed his message and separated from the denominations, right? They became the elite. They became the true bride of Christ, right?

And everyone who sided with the denominations we believe were cannon fodder for the tribulation, right? So this split that starts in 53 is critical to message thinking. Message, I'll use the word theology, theology is evil.

The message don't have theology, right? Right. But yeah, right, of course it does, right? They just don't like the word. But message thinking, this splits form the backbone of message thinking in a lot of ways.

And contrary to what people say, William Brannum actually invented this revelation to leave the denominations after the denominations turned on him, right? He wasn't leading his people out of the denominations, the denominations were pushing, pushing them out because they were nuts.

Yeah, I mean, that's the truth. Well, you and Brandon didn't lead people out. Really, Brandon, the nuts were pushed out. Yeah. What's interesting, you know, again, the cult has controlled this information. They've cut this stuff out of the recordings.

We've got some of the live recordings that are not cut. And you've got, you know, these men who are in this and they're calling this thing the message. Even in the late 60s, they're calling all of it the message.

It's not just William Brandham's cult of personality. It's Baptist. One of the one of the shocking things for me was hearing Dema Shakerian, who's on the platform with William Brandham. And he's, you know, he's got Derek Prince.

He's got Kenneth Hagen and they're talking about the message. And after William Brandham speaks, they talk about a person who was saved under Billy Graham's ministry. And William Brandham is there, you know, he's with a little Roberts.

He's, you know, or Roberts and Billy Graham were the bad guys, Charles. I know. But he's there and under this united presence, it's all the message. Billy Graham's, you know, part of the salvation of the message.

Yeah. Something else. And you got to remember, it's 1953 comes and the denomination start enforcing this purge, which again, it starts with assemblies of God it grows. By the time you get to the late fifties, every single significant Pentecostal denomination has banned William Brandham, right?

It just starts here in 53 with assemblies of God. And this has happened. There has been multiple investigations by multiple of these denominations into William Brandham at this point, right? And there have already been, at this point, significant failures of some of his, thus say, the Lord prophecies, which all kinds of people know about.

I mean, King George died, right? Okay. Do you think that the same people didn't notice that? Right. They had to notice. Okay. There are people who have, you know, common sense that are not under William Brandham's, you know, whatever.

Yeah. And that's one, that's part of our loaded language, Charles. I think it's, we've mentioned thus say at the Lord and we use it as a verb. When we say it, I think to the listeners who don't understand why we're using this as a verb, thus say at the Lord, literally means that I am about to speak, but it's not my voice, it's not my mind speaking.

God is channeling through me as God's prophet to you. So this is, what I'm about to say is God's word speaking and yet they failed. Yeah, yeah, William Brandham, when he would say that this is equal authority to the Bible, this is the word of God being spoken, right?

It's, it's supposed to be the voice of God from, you know, and that's why voice of God recorded, right? It's supposed to be the voice of God when this happens, right? You... and all through his humble profit.

But, no, it's failing, right? And remember, 1953, this is the, this is right, the same frame that he's gonna say. And when I get to India, you're gonna hear hundreds of thousands being saved, did happen, right?

Like, these prophecies are failing. And like that one, they've no doubt fundraised a boatload of money off of this. I'm going to India prophecy. You don't, you don't you think that these groups of people, he was fundraising off of notice that this stuff fell through?

You know what, the funny is part of this is Charles. And I hold this back a lot, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna let this out right now because I can't contain it. I know William Brandham's family that took over this.

My family knew the family. My family was very close to the family. We know them intimately. We know and we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're cutting parts of the tapes out.

Whenever something isn't right, whenever a healing fails, just do a search for blank spot on tape. You'll find thousands of them. The family doesn't either doesn't know or doesn't care enough to understand the things that William Brandham said because there are large sections of these, quote unquote, thus say at the Lord that they've missed when they cut the tapes.

They literally are not studying the tapes enough to know what to cut out when they cut it out. And that just boggles my mind. Yeah, it's something else. Right, you know, the way that the message looks at this is entirely the way that William Brandham spun it to them.

Right? Like William Brandham, you know, like never suggested these guys cut me off because I was associating with these really radical preachers where that was producing all kinds of child molestation and stuff and he was.

The preachers around him were child molesters, okay? We'll get into that in other episodes. That didn't have nothing to do with it according to the message, right? The fact that a bunch of people he's saying thus say the Lord is healed is dying.

Well, that didn't have nothing to do with it. The fact that he's given thus say at the Lord prophecies and fundraising off of it and the prophecies are failing. That didn't have nothing to do with it.

It had to do with his divine revelation that everyone needs to separate from the denomination. What a load of hogwash joy. And I cannot believe that I can't believe my grandparents fell for this junk.

I mean, what in the world? And I can't say a whole lot because I sat there going along with it for my entire life until just recently, but it's very difficult. Let me just read one account again out of Alfred Poles book because this is a man who was a leader in the denominations that did the investigation that put him out.

He helped organize the meetings. This was a big guy. This man was the missionary secretary of Pentecostal assemblies. Okay, this was the highest ranking. person in their denomination to work with William Brannum. And so here's just one thing.

This is the stuff the people in the denominations that were working with William Brannum experienced. Let me read this one. He says, Now several days later, this dear brother sat before me in our office, his heavy heart and his mind in turmoil.

He had come nearly 200 miles to speak with me. But before he did, however, I already sensed what had probably happened. But in spite of this, his question still hit me hard. Brother Paul, he said, You were there beside my wife's bed, the night that Brother Brannum prayed for her and pronounced her healed.

Yes, I replied. I was right there. He went on, Can you tell me why it is that my wife, who was healed just a few days ago, was now in the grave? My friends, I believe that was one of the hardest questions I was ever called upon to answer.

My heart went out to this dear brother. I felt with him. But how could I answer? Should I tell him that his family's faith had failed? Yet his family was one highly regarded for their spirituality.

Or on the other hand, should I tell him that perhaps Mr. Brannum didn't have the gifts of healing and had deceived us all? To admit this would have reflected seriously upon the wisdom and integrity of our denominational leaders who had brought Mr. Brannum to minister at our churches.

Actually, I can't remember just what I told our dear brother, but I do know that I did some very serious thinking about all of this. This is what is happening in the minds of all kinds of these preachers after William Brannum's revival meetings, because this kind of thing was happening all over the place.

And as time goes on, as you come up here into 1953, and as these preachers start taking actions to sanction him, they have just cause to do it. William Brannum is lying to people.

He is deceiving people. And people are dying. People are dying. I mean, what more cause do you need to sanction a man than people are dying after he's telling them they're healed? He's telling their healed.

They go off their medical treatment. They die. What more cause do you need than that? It really angers me, Charles. People who have left the cult have shared with me some of the statements made by the current gatekeepers that they called themselves pastors.

And examples like this that you give, these men know this history. I mean, they've got one job to do to study the message. And that's what they preach is the message of William Brannum.

They've got one job. They know these things. But in response to things like this that Alfred Polve said, they will say, well, William Brannum never said does say at the Lord that this person is healed.

Number one, it doesn't explain the problem. You know, Alfred Polve, he's not lying. You know, you can go back and you can search the newspapers. And you can see that some of the people he's even talking about.

But worse than that, at, these men know that there are things that William Brannum spoke the words, thus say to the Lord, and did fail. They know this, but they deflect. They say, well, this example that you're giving me is false because we don't have a recording of him saying, thus say to the Lord, yet they're not telling that they do have recordings of other things that the man said that was false. It's really problematic whenever there's that level of manipulation, and that's really that's why it turned into a destructive cult.

Yeah, it's something else. You know, the average person who is at those revivals sought they were seeing all kinds of miracles, right? Yeah. But the preachers and the leaders who had to deal with the fallout after William Brannum left town, left town, they knew the truth, John.

They did. And we found it in all kinds of books. I mean, we've read, at this point, what were at episode 32, we've read dozens of accounts of this point of times of this happening everywhere on all of his tours all over the place, right? And the reality was that these leaders who were in these denominations making these decisions were having to deal with, deal with explaining this to people. And you think about that too. They're doing it in a way that it doesn't expose themselves to as being bad guys, right? Because they're the ones who brought William

Brannum around, right? And so somehow they, it's almost done in kind of under the rug kind of a manner, right? They're banning William Brannum. They're banning this radical stuff, but they're not flat out telling the people why, right? They go to, well, he's teaching aberrant doctrine.

But really, I think it has a lot to do with all of these deaths as well, honestly, as I read a counts like that. And so, anyways, I think that honestly, when you step back and look at the facts, the mythology and the message around this coming out of the denominations is nothing but a big made up story. It is not true. I mean, the manner and the reasons that William Brannum separated from the denominations has absolutely nothing to do with him having some divine special revelation.

He wouldn't even preach in that stuff then. Really, it really had more than anything to do with his refusal to separate from these latering people and all of these people dying.

I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention again, the Bible says examine, you can tell what kind of tree it is by examining the fruit that it bears. And I mean, look at the fruits that we have explained in this episode. You've got Jim Jones, who literally killed over 900 people in Jonestown, Guyana, convinced them all to drink cyanide laced coolade. You've got the shepherding movement. Their framework is basically, they took the five-fold ministries hierarchy of control, and they said, we're going to elect these shepherds, and these shepherds, which are, by the way, us, are going to have control over the

lay shepherds, which are the pastors of the churches, who are going to have control over you. So they created this cult hierarchy, and then it turned destructive, and like you've shown some of the splinter groups from that, even turned even more destructive. So you've got these spider webs of branches that came off of what William Brannum created, that became just as destructive, sometimes more destructive than what William Brannum himself even was. And if you examine every one of these groups that splintered, you find very few that actually reformed and turned the right path. Everyone that we see that branched off of this, the majority of them, turned

the wrong way and became even worse. Yeah, it's something else. It's really, it's also sad, John. You look back, it's just also sad, and the truth of this stuff still is somewhat like a knife in the heart to me, as well as I look at this. And as we say this, it's not like everything Derek Prince did was bad. It's really not like everything William Brannum did was bad, or earned backster.

It's not that that like these guys 100% of what they did is bad, but there's enough poison in there that it produced all of these cults. There's something in there that has a tendency to produce these crazy cults. And something is off in there. And I think through our latter reign episodes, we diagnosed a bit of what those root causes are. But anyway, there's one last split, and I'll just do this one real quick, but I think I need to mention before we wrap up this episode.

And you know, if our people want more of it, they can put a comment, maybe we can do something deeper on it at some point. But George Houghton, the initial leader of the latter reign revival, he ended up having a falling out with the other leaders at Sharon Orphanage, as you come through the mid 1950s. And George Houghton actually ended up excommunicated from North Battle from Sharon Orphanage. And so remember, this man, George Houghton, a lifelong British Israelite, a lifelong preacher, the racial version of Serpent Seed, he ends up at that point

being the former leader of Sharon Orphanage leaves, and he starts working with Joseph Matson-Bose at that point with the independent assemblies of God. And before it's over with, he ends up really in connection with the message for the rest of his life. And as we've pointed out several times before, I think he was most closely connected to Perry Green and his groups.

That's where I think he fellowshiped the most, and he preached what message youth camp meetings. And he was doing that all the way through the 70s, the 80s, and then he died about 1995. And so I say this because I really think it's very safe to conclude the message.

is the message of William Brannum is also one of the main branches of the ladder rain movement, right? Right there with the shepherding movement, we're right there with with the Sharon Orphanage group, we're right there with the mom Beale, we're right there with the right with all of them. We are one of the main branches and we have the message they don't I'm sure they don't want to claim it, but they have as much claim to being the successors of ladder rain as anybody else. I mean they had the founding guy as a as a member. So anyways I

think that's kind of where we can end this episode, but ladder rain caused all kinds of schisms, all over Pentecostalism, and not a there's not a major group in Pentecostalism that wasn't touched by it and we honestly didn't even scratch the surface of all the divisions that ladder rain caused here, but I hope we've at least shed some light on the divisions related around the Ministry of William Brannum. Yeah, I think I'll conclude by saying it's a pattern that continues. You've got, you know, when this thing started, you had it was called this interdenominational faith, which meant basically, I don't care if your

doctrine is polar opposite than my doctrine, we can come together under this thing that's called the full gospel. Well, that doesn't always work Charles because sometimes the core doctrines are aggressively positioned against other core doctrines and they turn into battles and fights. That's literally why this thing splintered in the first place. Well, then what happens is you've got William Brannum who used these different stage personas, each tailoring to these various groups that splintered. Well, sometimes the statements of William Brannum made are in polar opposition to other statements that he made. Then you've got all of these splinter groups off of the message that are trying to say as

as William Brannum's son quotes it, every word the prophet says is, thus say the Lord, you've got that kind of mentality. Well, what happens whenever the thus say at the Lord doesn't match the other thus say at the Lord? Well, then you've got one group that says, well, our understanding of it is right and yours is wrong because you listen to this other recording of William Brannum, then those groups splinter and new apostles are raised up. So this thing is ever evolving, ever splintering, ever destructive, ever worse than it ever could have been initially because it's so incoherent. If that makes any sense, it's in essence,

it is so internally conflicting that it can never have a cohesion, a cohesive unit of message followers. You're going to have this type of message followers and this other type of message followers who are going to be battling each other forever. That's exactly what we see. Well, Charles, this was fun and I'm so excited to get into the Jim Jones research. I know that it may be a few episodes out, but we're getting there. And I'm just dying to get in that because it's fascinating to me. But if you've enjoyed our So when you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branham.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Branham and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Branham and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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