Weird Doctrines: Don't Pray for the Gay Guy

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, and friend, James Goode.

And together we're discussing the very weird things that preachers say, why they say them, and how they relate back to the latter-ring healing revivals of the late 1940s through the 1960s. James, we have today one of the strangest and most unusual episodes.

You know, it's sad because this is so common among many different evangelical and fundamentalist groups in Christianity. It's not limited to the message that we escaped, but the message played a key role, I believe, in spreading this fear, this weird view of people that should never have been spread.

And I know that I'm going to preface this episode with there are deep divisions, even among large denominations of faith. There are deep divisions on the views of this subject matter, and we're not going to get into that.

We're just going to talk about the weirdness that surrounds it. But we are talking today about homosexuality, and there are many, many Christians who are on one side of the fence of the other.

Either you are strongly against it, and you're against anybody who is supporting a homosexual person, or you are in a church that is what they call on the liberal side, and you let them become priests and deacons, elders, etc.

You know, there's this wide variety of different belief sets, and we're not going to touch that. But instead, we're going to touch the weirdness that surrounds all of this. Yeah, in my time growing up in the message in particular, I remember hearing so many things coming across the pulpit about this subject in particular, and how there's so much of what's said and propagated that just doesn't reflect reality.

And the sad thing about it is there, you know, this affects lives and people have been hurt by some of these things. And so many things are misunderstood and people are just people set people against each other instead of learning how to connect and communicate and love one another.

And it's sad. But I think this first clip we have is a pretty good example of some of the things that it's pretty common to see in these types of movements. I says, are anybody here that needs prayer? This young man came down. He stood there.

Now, my discernment of the Holy Spirit starts working on me. I said, what do you have need of? I'm sick. I'm very sick. I'm sick unto death. I said, you got AIDS. I said, you're homosexual. I said, are you willing to repent of your sin to ask God? Because first we repent. And then we ask God for healing. No, no, I just want this sickness off of me.

Pray for me. Because I don't want to die with AIDS. I said, I'm not praying for you unless you want to repent. I don't know if some of you guys remember that. I told him I said, I refuse to pray for you.

So that's unbelievable, James. I mean, if you really take a step back and just take the sin out of it, right? Because homosexuality, if you're of that mindset that you are strongly against it in Christianity, you view it as a sin. But you know, it is like any other sin. It's included in one of the sexual sins. So it would be the same as a person who had in their mind. It would be the same as a person who had committed adultery and they're dying.

And you're telling this person, I'm not even going to pray for you because you had this sin. It's also interestingly, it's included in the same sins as gluttony. So if a person who's rather large and goes goes to ask for prayer, well, this minister, I'm certain that he would pray for the obese person, but they're taking homosexuality and they're putting it into a much, much more sinister category.

Of course, they're creating their own hierarchy of sins and they're placing homosexuality at the top of it. And in doing so, they are in effect. They're creating an entire church filled with homophobia. And for me, you know, out of all of the...

different things that I have found that are just so vastly wrong with this type of movement. This categorization of sin that they have created, that they have invented for themselves, it is by far the most problematic because of what it does to the minds of the people.

Right, and one of the things that's difficult about this when you're in and around it, and you've grown up hearing this sort of rhetoric, it just becomes normal to you. But when you start to get away from it and start to deprogram from all these sorts of things that have been put in your mind, and you start to see people for who they are, and actually see people on a human level, not just these boogeymen that people have been put in your mind.

Yeah, it really makes you feel for the people who have, who have, who are this way and having countered this sorts of stuff, because, you know, just look at something like this, a man's going, you know, if this story is true, it's man's going to this other minister for prayer, for healing, and the minister is saying, I'm not even gonna help you in your quest to get healing by helping you talk to God, by praying for you or whatever, however they want to position it, because you won't repent of what I see as sin.

You know, and just like you said, I mean, I don't see anybody in the congregation who comes up for prayer, maybe has heart trouble, and someone says, well, you're eating too much, so until you stop eating the twinkies, we're not gonna pray for you.

It is silly how this stuff is done. And at the same time, a lot of these ministers will say that God sees sin the same way, there's just no sin greater than the other, but then they'll take something like this and put it up on such a high pedestal and say, well, this really is worse than all the other ones, and then they'll just hurt people and berate people and just treat people like another, and there's just so much damage that's done by treating people this way, and it's so sad.

It is. You know, I've heard similar statements, not to this degree, I mean, this is by far, I don't know how you found this, this is by far one of the worst ones that I've heard, but I have heard similar statements, and interestingly, many of those statements are made by ministers who are in the movement, who are obese, they do suffer with the sin of gluttony.

And it's, I mean, when you take a step back and just read the Bible for what it says, they're in the same categories of sin, they are a sinner for their gluttony, but they're condemning the other sinner.

In other words, I have my sin, you have your sin, but I think yours is worse because I don't have that one, right? Right. They weaponize homosexuality. That's one of the first things that I encountered.

My family. I was very close to my family before I left the message, and my family knows me. They know all of my inward struggles. I was very open about pretty much everything, and they, I have a particular family member who was very, very well respected in the cult, and he spread around the globe that I was homeless actual in order to suppress the information that I had.

He knew that I was not, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was not, and they spread it around the globe, right? And there were people that have now escaped, that have told me that this actually was one of the key components towards they're not looking at my information for years because they thought I was, and it scared them away, and then as they were on their own path of deprogramming, they began to realize that this is not a reason to steer somebody away from any information.

So then they began to look and they, you know, they got to know me, and now they're aware. But the funny part is that it is used as a weapon, that's, for me, that's the weirdest thing of this.

Like, you don't do the same thing for the gluttony sin, you don't weaponize it and say, well, stay away from this guy because he's fat, you know, it's just so weird when you think about it, they've weaponized it and they use it against you, and I'll never will forget, I had, I want to say it was 2013 or 2014, I'd had my, the first version of my side up, probably just a few months, and this man came and he asked me to go out to launch with him, he wanted to discuss my research and the early stages of my research, and he,

I suppose he had probably heard this from my family member, because you know, it went around the globe within 48 hours, John is going to say it well. So he took me out to eat and he started mentioning that he was beating around the subject, you could tell he was embarrassed to talk about it, he's beating around the subject, trying to feel me out, and then suddenly he just laid it on the table, he said, look, I'm gay.

And he, I didn't know, I don't know what he expected, like I don't know if he had heard it, he probably expected me to say, oh, I am too. And I wasn't, so I couldn't say that, and I don't know what he expected, right?

So I just told him, you know, at this point in time, I am literally re-starting everything from the ground up, every single thing that I have been taught is false, everything. My entire foundation is false.

I had, after I left the cult, I read the Bible, I want to save. I lost count, it was like 12 times, cover to cover, just read it, read it, read it, tried to flush all of this stuff out of my head. And what I ended up doing, because there's this preconceived notion of the ideas that you were raised with that makes its way into your re-evaluation of yourself after you leave, and you have to deconstruct that. My way of deconstructing was I just eventually wiped it away. It's an empty slate, homosexuality. At that point in time, I don't know,

right or wrong, I'm not going to say, because I am rebuilding everything from the ground up. And I think I shocked him because I said, yeah, I'm rethinking everything, and I'm rethinking that right now. I'm not going to tell you where I'm going to end up, because I don't know where I'm going to end up is the way that I told him. And it shocked him. And then, because I didn't, I neither claimed it nor condemned him for it, he began to open up and tell me more, and he started naming names of other people that I grew up with. He said, this person has it, has it, that's the

wrong way to say it. This person is a homosexual. This other person struggles with it. They probably will end up, and I'm starting to, I'm scratching the back of my head, say, wait a minute, he's right.

I know that person. Yeah, that makes sense now. And it was so widespread. But the point I'm building up to with all of this is because of the way that I did not condemn him for it. And the way that I did not also either accept it, it made him open up and wanted to talk about it. It created an open door for me to discuss it with him. These ministers who are supposed to be shepherds of people, and who are supposed to be leading the flock, if they were to truly be wanting to lead this person

out of homosexuality because they think it is a sin, I can guarantee you that this is not the way to do it. I know that, yeah, talking about using it as a weapon, I mean, that's very familiar to some of the things that I've seen. And you know, it's amazing. I mean, we could, we could fill this entire show up with just clips and never, never actually say anything, but that would probably be very boring. But you know, there's just, I know I've seen many instances where ministers will take people who have left and just like you. And they'll say, you know, things like

now they're a homosexual or now they're a lesbian. And they'll use it as such a derogatory term in a way to create fear in people's minds. And if you question what we believe, then you too may end up as a down rotten homosexual.

And that's just the way they look at it. And it's so damaging to people because it creates such a division in places where there doesn't have to be division. It's like, you know, it's just so sad because you know, just like that, that person is not the only person in any of these churches that is that way.

And so you just kind of imagine what it must be like to be that person and just to receive those sorts of things over the pulpit day in and day out, just just on a weekly basis being told you're less than, you're demon possessed and all these things.

And it's just the amount of trauma that can put in somebody's mind. And it's just, it's frustrating to see. It's especially now looking back on it. And you're just, you're replaying things that you heard growing up and you heard and on a Sunday service and you're just like, wow, I can't believe I even listened to that, you know?

Right. And you know, I'm no preacher. I never claim to be. I try to avoid theology as much as possible. Believe it or not. And just show the history. But I do read. I read a lot.

And if it's blatantly false, I will mention that this, one of the problems that I have. Number one, I mentioned they villainize it. They use it as a weapon and this is weaponized Christianity.

This is not gospel based Christianity and the clear difference is there, right? The person comes seeking healing. I'm not even going to pray for you. I'm weaponizing your sin against you. Instead of I'm helping you to overcome your sin, I'm weaponizing that sin.

That's problem number one. Problem number two, and this, for me, this is even more significant. Men who weaponize Christianity, they often take verses completely out of context because it was never intended to be weaponized and to enforce the weaponization of their religion, they will take statements from the Bible out of context or invent new statements and inject them in the Bible in effect adding to or taking away in violation of the book of Revelation where it says do not add to, do not take away.

And one of the things that they use is Sodom and Gomorrah. Anytime you hear a rant against homosexuality in the church, they will instantly talk about Sodom and Gomorrah because this is a fear-based scenario in the Bible.

They had homosexuals in the city, was the claim, and therefore because of this God... destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, in one of the most destructive obliterations of a city in the Bible.

That's how they weaponize this fear, right? One of my favorite verses from cover to cover in the whole Bible is Ezekiel 16, one of my favorite chapters is Ezekiel 16, because it undermines the entire premise of not only this, but many, many, many other things that we were taught falsely through weaponized religion. Ezekiel 16, it is comparing Jerusalem to the mother of Harlitz, which we were told the mother of Harlitz was the Catholic church, right? And it says that you Jerusalem, now this is the Jews, you Jerusalem are the bride. And we were taught that we,

these white skin Americans was the, every time it mentions bride in the Bible it's talking about the bride. Well, no, Ezekiel 16 is clearly talking about how God picked the Jews up, the children of Israel, lifted them up, washed them off, gave them a earring and a nose ring and fine jewelry and dressed them up in the way in which this minister probably, in many, many others, would condemn a person for dressing up as a bride. You know, completely undermining half of the sermons that they preach, right? Well, verse 49, it says, behold, this was the iniquity of your sister,

Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, so the gluttony, abundance of idleness. And this was in both her and her daughters and she did neither, neither strengthened the hand of the poor and the needy. So it says very clearly, this was the sin. They were prideful, they were gluttonous, they were not helping the poor and the needy. Think about this man that we just heard. Here's a person who is needy. Here's a person who needs help. And the minister is filled with pride against them.

I'm better than you because you're homosexual. He's, you know, this person, I don't know if he is or not. I actually have not seen the picture of the man, but I know ministers who make the same statement who are gluttonous. They are in violation of this verse. They are actually more like Sodom and Gamora than this poor individual who is just desperately needing prayer. And for me, that is the most problematic thing because they have weaponized religion against the people, the very people that they were supposed to be leading. And it's no better than a man with a whip just beating the slaves

until they're bloody and... broken and ruined. That's what this man is doing. Yeah, and the thing about it is that this sort of rhetoric, I mean, it's all over these kinds of movements because it's, you have this air of superiority and you have the true revelation. And when you have that, you're taught to be humble. But then when you hear things like this come across, it sounds anything but humble. It sounds like we are, if you're not like us, then we can't help you. You have to match up, you have to line up to exactly how we see things

to receive help. And at the same time, like you pointed out, there are certain things that just seem to slide by. But things like this, they don't slide by and you can't just, you can't love people anyways. You have to prostrate yourself before the church, beg for forgiveness and repent of all that you are in this instance to receive your healing. And it even goes into some of the other things that we've talked about in some of the previous episodes with how healing is approached in these groups because it's put on such a way to where God can't do anything for you

until you're in a specific place. And it's so backwards in a way to look at healing and and even even try to look at from a scriptural point of view, it's like, you know, how about you show people some love and then see what happens afterwards? Because I have a feeling you're going to get a lot more progress with people if you start out with some love first. Absolutely. And I know that anybody who's listening to this, who has been following also the historical podcast, they're immediately going to have in the comments, well, why didn't you mention all of the homosexuals

that were in William Brandham's inner circle? I mean, and it's hard to deny, right? Because these were men openly, every, my family knew that they were gay, everybody knew this. But think of the context though. Again, this is a person who's coming, trying to desperately seek healing and they're being rejected. The same could apply to the men who were in the inner circle of William Brandham's, you know, campaigns and even the two scribes, the men who are largely responsible for William Brandham's sermons existing today. They're the guys who recorded them and distributed them.

These were gay men, right? But we're not going to talk about that because here's the problem. They're the same result of this situation because if this were to have been treated, if it is viewed as sin, if it were to have been treated as a sin and let me help you with this sin, there would be no need to cover...

it up in the first place. These men, you know, I grew up, I had no idea. I was a little shocked when I learned that everybody knew this. I had no idea that there were so many homosexuals in William Brandham's inner circle and stories that, you know, I can't yet tell them, but stories that just disgust me, really, really do.

And not from a homophobic standpoint, just the pure deception in the evil that went in with this, it's bad, it's really, really bad. All of that aside, if this was openly disgust in the same way of any of the other sins, for example, and this is one of the things that's problematic for me as well.

Whenever lust is talked about, the ministers will talk about lust and almost, I can say with a surety, 100% of the time that I heard lust, a sermon about lust, it was about a man lusting after a woman.

I have yet to hear from any man who was minister, who was involved in this thing, to talk about a woman lusting after a man, you know, because they have twisted sexuality itself into this thing that they've turned it into something that it isn't.

It is, you know, this is a human nature. You want, it's one of the primary needs for survival, for the human nature to have sex. And so to survive, it is one of your instincts.

It is an instinct that a man shares, it is an instinct that a woman shares, but you won't hear the ministers talking about the female lusting after the man, because they've weaponized it, and the target of the weaponization has become the young males in the group.

And so it's the same weaponization. They're weaponizing the homosexuality, San, they're also weaponizing the lust, San, and where it ends up is it becomes used as a tool for control rather than a tool for a shepherd to lead his sheep into a better place.

Right, and you know, one of the things you brought up there that's actually quite interesting, and maybe it's a rabbit hole for another time, you know, is how in a lot of these churches that we grew up around, female voices are silenced and discouraged from even being heard, you know, and when you have an entire movement that's based around just men speaking, your entire worldview and your perception of the Bible and everything else is just going to be perceived through a male lens.

And I just know stepping away from this movement and actually getting some clarity and actually seeing the world in such a more wider way. um it's a lot more helpful to when you're looking at the world to get a bunch of different opinions together and a bunch of different worldviews and actually help shape the world and not see it through just one pinhole of a worldview um you know and it just I imagine that so many more things could be could be helped if if people didn't try to silence people who were thought a little

differently than them and just said hey you know let's let's all work together to to talk about this and go over these things and and and try to figure this out together instead of being like only the men can speak and use sisters you sit down and be quiet yeah and along that same theme just understanding culture and information and you know the whole the whole discussion exists because of the Bible because the Bible has these passages that talk about homosexuality that becomes the theme for the sermons and that's why this man is using he's using the Bible

as a weapon he's not using it as a tool to preach the gospel the Bible as a weapon but if you also take a step back like I said I I deconstructed everything and then I started and I'm in the process of reconstructing everything it's a process that for me will take a lifetime it's not where I where I am now is probably not where I'm going to end up who knows but in reconstructing this which I'm still in the process of doing I read both sides which is a freedom that we did not have in the cult you read only subject matter that was fully aligned with whatever the minister

was saying you were not allowed to read the other because that's evil my brother but if you read the other side I was curious why how can you be Christian and say that homosexuality is not this purely evil thing that we were taught and so I wanted to read the arguments how there are actually Christian scholars who take that side and I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with them but I did read some of the arguments and some of it is compelling not all of it some of it is they categorize the verses about homosexuality in the Bible there are verses that

clearly talk about men sleeping with men and it is sin in the same way there are verses as we mentioned that talk about men eating too much and it is sin and there are differences in the the results of your sin right if you murder somebody there's a consequence that comes with that if you commit adultery there's a consequence in your marriage that comes with that You know, there are levels of consequences as well, but all of that aside, there are verses that talk about men sleeping with men They're very few if any talking about women sleeping with women, which is interesting in another discussion for another day

However, there are also many passages in the Bible that talk about homosexuality that aren't a scenario that exists in today's world for example whenever Paul or the Apostles were spreading the gospel in the early years and going into the Greek and Roman Cultures and they would go into the temples There were homosexual rituals in some of the temples and this was purely evil I mean this was a homosexual act to deify a false god and And you'll find Bible verses that are talking about this right men use those verses to weaponize homosexuality as this purely

vile evil sin that has no comparison in today's world to Weaponize it against the person who is homosexual and make the homosexual person feel Like their sin is even worse than it is the consequence even worse than it is and that's just taking a verse completely out of context There are other examples and one of the most interesting for me actually Something I never thought about You hear the word barbarian today the word is very very watered down The closest is you think about Conan the barbarian and fascinating movie you should watch it. It's great

But there were barbarians that existed men who They lived by the sword and they pillaged and plundered and nobody was safe It was an unsafe to travel from one town to the next because you might get attacked by a barbarian and One of the ways in which the barbarians showed dominance was they would Sodomize the males who were among those who are traveling to show their superiority in dominance and That's awful. That's that's sending the consequences of that sin you these people should be killed I mean I say that loosely, but there should be a consequence that is more severe for a person that does this to a man

You can find instances of that scenario written all throughout history, right? So there are differences in what was homosexuality then and what is homosexuality today? And that is one of the primary arguments by Christian scholars who I'm not going to say support it, but have a different view on it than we grew up with you'll find that many men who are Christian scholars men and women who are Christian scholars who are defending the homosexuals, aren't defending the fact that it is sin.

They're defending the person who is being abused spiritually by men who have weaponized religion and weaponized their religion against homosexuality. Yeah, and that's one of the problems with how we were raised to look at the Bible like it's univocal because there's so many different, I mean, there's a long span of time for all these books, they're written in different eras, they're written by different people.

And there's different traditions that exist at different times and things change, but the way we grew up, it's like it all has to speak with one voice from cover to cover and it's a little bit more complicated than that.

The more you study and the more you look into some of these verses and stuff. So yeah, it's very fascinating just from that angle, but it's kind of, there's so many things

that we could go often in this thing, but I think leading into this next clip that we have, one of the most interesting things is how, in the world of the message and movements like it,

where there's such an emphasis on demonology and demons jumping on people and stuff like that. And when homosexuality and all these different things come in how they're talked about, and it's like, it's almost like speak of the devil and he's gonna arrive and show up and infect your soul.

And it's crazy to hear the way some of these ministers talk about this stuff, and even just the fact of just hearing a story about something that somebody's going through can hurt you and somehow.

It's kind of crazy, but let's let the minister speak for himself and let's see what we think about it. When you verbalize the pavity you're dealing with in your life, you spread it out into the open and allow demonic spirits to get into it.

What do you think priests and nuns become the way they are? It's because everybody comes before them and confess their sexual sins to them. This is why they turn out to be homosexual unless venice and such sin is committed under Catholicism.

So, James, I'm going to confess to you that I like Star Trek better than Star Wars and you must know. Don't do this to me. Don't do this to me.

Yes, you know. There's so much with this, I don't even know where to begin because they're weaponizing it. This is the same weaponization as before, right? But he's weaponizing multiple things. And where do you start, right?

He's weaponizing the Catholic Church, fear of the Catholic Church, which was part of the white supremacy agenda. He's weaponizing the homosexuality, et cetera. But really, the story that comes to mind for me, which is, I'm not going to give the guy's name because I have to be cautious how far I go with this story.

But we attended a cult church briefly in our road to escaping the mother church, the one from Mecca, the message. And we went for a brief time. And there was a quite attractive girl that set up front.

And I can say this with assurance because I'm not homosexual. This lady was quite attractive. And she set up front. And she was intently watching the minister. She was, by normal Christian standards, she was dressed in a way that is normal.

There really was nothing out of the ordinary, right? In fact, if you compare the early photographs of the Brannum family with the way this person was dressing, she was actually more modest than the Brannum girls.

But in today's version of the cult, she was dressed like what they call a harlot.

Which, for me, is so ironic because how do you get there, right? Well, she was sitting up front dressed like a quote, harlot, meaning she might have had a little bit of her lower knee exposed, maybe.

I mean, it wasn't that long. Oh, that's true. Well, you could see, man, the minister kept looking at the lady, right? And he would sermon after sermon. He, you know, I didn't think much of it because you could try to make eye contact with everybody, but he got to be a little, I don't know, it was a little bit embarrassing after a while.

And then one Sunday, the guy actually says, you have a seducive spirit on you, lady. And so, you know, I'm not going to give them this.

You don't suddenly accept homosexuality because somebody confesses to you. No, that's not how this works, man. I can assure you with 100% assurance that is not how this works. The way in which they weaponize this is to an outsider looking in, it's almost comical because...

It defies not only logic and reason, but it defies every single aspect of biblical Christianity of, I mean, everywhere from biblical Christianity to logic to just basic human sense. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy because, you know, even just, you know, because like you said, he uses so many different things when he's in his little example here in this clip, you know, and he's even talking about just, you know, even just other things, you know, just, just speaking them, verbalizing them, you're giving the devil power. And it's like, you know, and that, that, that's coming, that feels like all that, the opposite side of the

name and claimant, you know, movement, you know, it's like, oh, you speak the negative, and the negativity will take over, you know, and there's, there is, I won't say there isn't anything to positive affirmation and on a psychological standpoint. But I mean, talking about, you know, just saying, hey, man, you know, things have been a little rough. It's like, oh, you gave the devil an inch. He's going to take a mile now. He's going to wreck your entire life. It's like, no, man, that's not how it works. You know, it's just, it's so crazy to, to,

and it, and another thing too, it just, it makes God so weak in these movements to, to say that you can't even, you can't even just have a conversation with somebody and be like, hey, man, really been struggling. This is going on in my life and whatever. But like, no, no, no, you're, you're, you're, you're given the devil leeway just to have his way and, and, you know, you're never going to get on the other side of this. It's like, okay, well, what about the God that I'm supposedly serving here? What's, you know, what's he got to say about this? You know, but like,

nope, you know, you spoke it. And so now the devil's got all the, all the ammo he needs. And I don't know, man, it just, it seems so ridiculous. Yeah. You know, and it really, it goes against scripture. This is an anti-biblical thing that he is saying because the Bible says very clearly, confess your sins one to another. It doesn't say don't confess your sins one to another. It says confess your sins one to another. And this man is saying the opposite of the Bible. He's saying the wrong thing, right? And, you know, for me, I understand to some extent there could be a problem.

For example, if a person is struggling with alcoholism and confess your sins one to another, it's probably not a good idea to go to another person who has an alcohol addiction who is struggling with the same alcohol addiction. And let's confess it to this guy. Well, this guy might slip further and go back and drink, right? There are, there are consequences to how you confess your sins. But what he is describing is a situation where there are people who are dedicated to listening to the confession of sins, which is, you know, like it or not, if you're anti-catholic,

like it or not, it is a biblical thing. The way in which they do it, I don't know. But the concept of biblical. This person is teaching anti-biblical theology plain and simple. All right, and the other thing too is with what he says later on in this clip, you know, is talking about how, you know, don't even tell me, don't even tell the pastor, tell it to God. It's like, all right, well, aren't you supposed to be here as a shoulder to lean on? It's like, aren't you supposed to be, you know, helping me and helping the sheep? You know, and it's just like,

it's like, so it's crazy how, you know, you twist this stuff and you know, and this is one of the things that it's been so difficult for me as I've been deprogramming and because I grew up and everything was a demon, you know, you know, and so it's hard for me and I know that, you know, some people may may not see this the same way as I do, and so I'm not saying that this is how things are, but it's just, it's hard for me when I hear somebody blame something on a demon, my mind immediately goes, maybe there's another explanation, you know, because, you know,

when you grow up and everything's a demon, it's like, okay, not everything can be a demon's fault, you know. Yeah, you know, as I was deconstructing, that's one of the things that I really it took me a while, but I really started to move away from because regardless of whether you believe angels and demons in today's world, regardless of all of that, ministers who use this can weaponize that as well, and they'll have you scared to walk out of your house, man, you're gonna get, your demon's gonna get you, and that's not, like you said,

it makes God so weak, this is a powerless God, you might accidentally catch a demon. If you confess your sins, one to another, you might catch their demon, my brother. It's, it's just so wrong, and I never will forget we left the cult, and then we went briefly to another church, and I'm not going to name the denomination, but in my opinion, it was like one step away from the cult. It was the same thing with a different brand and without the prophet God, but they gathered everybody together in the conference hall, or the gymnasium of the church, and they gathered

everybody together and gave an entire lecture on demons and how you might encounter them, and they framed it as, and don't be scared, but they scared the heck out of the people. You could see it all over their faces, man, and I'm newly escaped from the cult, and I know what's happening. I can see how they are weaponizing this thing, and I'm looking around the room. Now, there were some of the elders who weren't in fear, obviously, because they're teaching it and they understand it, but the average lay member who's sitting And especially the children, man, they're sitting there,

their eyes are like this big and they're, these people are scared to death, you might catch a demon. And they're talking about it got to the point of ridiculous because they were talking about how demons communicate.

They said that a demon can't foresee the future or tell the future or predict the future or understand the future. The only way that they can talk to each other is by seeing what happens and then they communicate secretly among themselves.

And you could watch the fear spread even further, oh my gosh, what if they saw me at Kroger? There's a demon that saw me at Kroger. Well, I'm sitting here thinking, you know, at this point I had engaged critical thought because I had just left the call.

And I'm critically thinking about this ridiculous thing that they're saying. And the thought suddenly struck me, how do these guys know this? There's absolutely, there's absolutely, no more child reverse that describes how a demon can communicate one to another.

And I'm sitting here thinking this is absurd, man, this is ridiculous. And it was one of the key elements of me going out of that place because I'm not going to do ridiculous anymore, there's just no more.

And it becomes problematic because back to what this guy was saying about how you might accidentally catch a demon by heating God's words to confess your sins, one to another. Well, a person who suddenly takes a step back and wakes up and thinks, this guy is preaching against the Bible.

The moment you make that leap, you're going to leave the ridiculous religion. And so in doing so, this man has, I will praise him for it, he has made a way for his people to escape the cult.

Yeah, you know, and it's one of those things that, you know, I even look back on, you know, as I've gotten more distance from, you know, my escape, you know, and I look at things earlier in my life that, you know, I could see critical thought engaging, but it was, it was almost like a vehicle that isn't maintenance very well.

So it's like, sometimes it sparks and sometimes it doesn't, you know, so that critical thought flashes every once in a while. But I remember I was, I was at was a group of young people one time after, after service and we were like, we got together for coffee or something, we were talking about the service from that day or whatever.

And I remember, and I can't remember exactly the initiating conversation, but something that, and had been thinking about was, you know, the Westboro Baptist Church, you know, and it just, you know, and I think some things in my mind were starting to make connections from some, things that I was hearing over the pulpit and some of the things I had heard about this other very famous church on the news and how derogatory they were, you know, and I think I asked the question because about how I wonder what gets them to where they are. You know, it's one thing to

disagree, but you know, just how how how vicious they are about it, you know, and you know, and I remember everyone just kind of looked at me being like and to the effect of they're not our people, why do we care? You know, why do we care what they think? You know, and I was I was always troubled by that because something about me is I've always been somebody who likes to take things apart and figure out how they work. And so something like this was a puzzle and I was like I was trying to understand a little bit more, but I just remember

the firm rejection from all the other people around me. They were like we don't we don't care, they're not message. We don't care what they think. They're they're just as lost as everybody else, but in the meantime, my brain is like some of the things I'm hearing sound kind of similar, you know, and it's just it's amazing to to to see those things in retrospect and kind of see the see things start the cognitive distance start to be shaken just a little bit, even though it was many years after that before I even made my exit. Right. And you know, I think the final point that

I'll make is we wrap this up. There's so much we can talk about like I'm I'm having trouble deciding where where do we cut this off or do we end this. The final point that I'll make is the phrase that these men are obviously missing love the center hate the sin. That's whenever you go to a gospel based church, that's that's the phrase they always use, especially with homosexuality, love the center hate the sin. And that's a good thing, you know, if you see this is sin, wherever you stand on this issue, if you see this sin, don't combine the sin with the person.

And that's what these men are doing as they weaponize this. They have taken the sin and they've made it a part of the person. And now the sin and the person are one and the same. And the person themselves becomes vilified by the people who are in the same congregation, right. The man who come to seek healing. If this story was, you know, this story was as he described it. The man who came seeking healing suddenly got called out as a person who was a homosexual and was branded.

And so this branding is just truly, truly horrific. But you know, when you take a step back and you view it in the correct way, love the center, hate the sin, you have to shift your mind into such a way that you actually want to help the person. And I think that's where all of these men, every single example, and we've got more than we you go through. Every single example is the same way. There is no desire really to help the person. There's just a condemnation. And even worse, whenever these ministers, I don't know about these, but I have, I've seen similar situations. Whenever they are aware

that there is a person with a particular sin in their congregation, they focus on it. After sermon, after sermon, Sunday, after Sunday, Wednesday, it's so repetitive. It's like if there's a mother who makes chocolate chip cookies and tells the child, no, don't eat that cookie because it'll spoil your supper. And then the child goes another room, starts playing. The mother goes another room and tells them, don't eat those cookies in the kitchen.

It'll spoil your supper. It's not even doing it. Don't eat the cookie and continue. Don't eat the cookie. Well, eventually, that's all the child can think about is the cookies that are in there in the kitchen, right? Well, even worse, some of these ministers struggle with the same thing. They have the same sin. They have the same struggles. And that's why they focus on it. I don't know that that's the case with these, obviously, but I have seen it. I have seen these men who like the man who condemn the lady because she had a quote seductive spirit. They have their own struggles, but they're shifting the blame

of their own struggles to the person who's struggling instead of trying to help them. And it's just so backwards, man, this is not Christianity. I don't even know what you call this. It's called a cult. Yeah, it's tough because the more and more of these days, I really try to spend less time trying to condemn people and more time just trying to love people because one thing that I have found in a lot of the ways that I thought I was loving people before was I was trying to love them into a version of them that I had

in my head that I thought was the perfect version of them. But that is not how it's supposed to be. You just need to love people unconditionally and just treat people with respect, treat people to love, help those who are less fortunate if you lend a helping hand, but that's so opposite from the way we were raised and the way we were taught. When you're taught that you have a special understanding, you are the elect, you are God's chosen. It does something to your psyche. Even when you try to do something nice for somebody, it's

there. Even if you don't realize it's there, it's buried itself into your subconscious. And one of the deep programming from that, I found to be one of the most... helpful things in the way I just I see the world around me and I see people even if they live lives that I don't even understand it's like I can still love that person. I mean as long as you're not actually hurting somebody else, I don't see a reason why I can't just love the person who they are, you know, and it's it's it's been a lot more helpful for

me to take that approach than the approach I was taking before I came out. Yeah. One of one of my key focuses for reconstructing is this, you know, Jesus said the greatest two commandments, love God, love your neighbor as yourself. As I'm reconstructing, I build everything on that platform. If it can't be pointed through that platform, I, you know, I don't give it much credence because everything has to be built on that. If not, what do you have? You have, you have a religion that is no better than the pagan religions that people sacrifice their children to. So it, that's just it, man. Love the people.

Love the center. Hate the sin, right? If you have weird doctrines that you'd like for us to discuss on the show, contact us on the web. You can find us at William-Branham.org for an overview of the historical research of William Branham and the healing revivals.

He'd preacher behind the white hoods a critical examination of William Branham and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.