Weird Doctrines: How To Be Bad People to Those Who Leave

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 Goad. 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, I've been taking a break from all things, William Brannum. And though it may not look like it from the audience side, we pre-recorded so many of

these things. I've just kind of set and I've let them run out. It's I can't tell you how many weeks it's actually been, but it's I'm trying to think in my mind how long the episodes are scheduled. I think maybe it might look like two or three weeks to everybody else who's listening to these things. But I've been putting on hold and wow, you got a you picked a doozy of a topic for me to come back with. Yeah, so this is something that most everybody who delete who leaves a destructive group experiences at some point in time. And it's

the it's the vitriol that can kind of come from leaders and members of the group just it depends on how the group structured in your relationship with the group and how much of it you may or may not see. But it's it's very common place with a lot of people in their journeys out of these destructive groups.

Yeah, it's you know, and all the support groups that I've worked with. Everybody mentions this is really the most shocking thing that has happened to them. They never expected it because you spend your whole life making attachments to people. And you think it's in a church setting where these are relationships that you think they're bonds that cannot be broken. In fact, they have songs that tell you that these bonds cannot be broken. We're we have a special connection they say. But the moment you ask a question in any one of these destructive groups, suddenly you realize that those bonds are made of dental floss. They

can just pull and break. It's not the chains that bind as they you know, I've heard sermons like that. We're bound with these chains that tie us together. And the the weakest link is where it falls apart.

Don't be that weakest link. We want to stay together. But you leave and you find out that I use dental floss, but I'll be honest, I think dental floss might be very hefty compared to what bonds that they have in these groups.

And offline James and I were discussing before we got into this. There's some pain that comes with this and people like James and I who deal with this and try to help other people.

We bear those burdens. So it does take a mental toll and you have to take a break every so often, which is why I did. And I know that some of the people working with me are also taking breaks at the same time.

You go for so long and for me it was like, gosh, it was probably 10 years. And then you just kind of melt down process it and then you get back up again. And it takes the load off of people who are really, really suffering and struggling with what we're about to talk about in this episode.

It's one of those things that we're all, anybody who has dealt with these sorts of destructive groups and have left and is finding healing from these sorts of things. You are in a constant state of deconstruction and reconstruction because you're finding things that you're deprogramming from continually and then reprogramming towards better things.

And then it's a constant reevaluation through your mental processes as you leave.

It would be nice if it was just deconstruction and then reconstruction, but it always seems like the more you deconstruct and reconstruct the more things you have to unravel. And at the same time, if you're doing things like this, it also, yeah, it increases the, like you said, the pressure and the toll because we're trying to help and also help ourselves at the same time.

So it's, yeah, it can be fun. It is and a lot of people are afraid of that word deconstruction, especially people who have left a destructive group and they've entered into a evangelical church that is very, very similar to what it was that they left.

A lot of those churches, they are, they have a fear of you deconstructing because according to the theology that's behind some of the groups, and I'm not saying they're all this way, but some of them, at least in the ones that I have experienced.

The fear coming from the minister and the elders of the churches that if you deconstruct my brother, you're not going to reconstruct. And for me, this is problematic, man, because if you go through a period of self-evaluation and evaluate what it is you believe, who you are, and you can't go back to that because you have now critical information that you're thinking through.

There's a problem here, man, because you should... able to answer all questions and point to the truth. And if this is a God that is all powerful, that will lead you into all truth, well, he's going to lead you back even if you deconstruct. But many of these groups, there's this fear of people examining what it is they believe. And it's just so wrong. And quite frankly, James, that is the premise of what we're about to get into.

The fear of deconstruction, the fear of thinking about who you are and what you believe, the fear is actually greater for the ministers who are making bank off of the tide money. The fear is if you think about what it is you're in, suddenly you're going to watch the analytics of the financial reports start to decrease very, very quickly. Yeah, a lot of times when you're there, before you even start this path of deconstruction, you've heard a lot of the things that ministers or the people that run your group have said about people who have done these

things. And there's always this boogie man that is created about this idea of questioning the group and questioning what you believe. And like John said, it's always the fear of the devil's going to get a hold of your mind and take you further. You're going to be off into no man's land and there'll be no redemption for you. And I've seen a lot of really amped up and crazy examples of ministers going really far. And I can see why the fear grips a hold of people so tightly because not only one, you're deconstructing your belief system, which is very hard to do because

it's ingrained into your personality at some point. And it's really hard to decouple those things and really start to examine that stuff. But at the same time, you have this fear and all this vitriol that's coming from these ministers to sort of reinforce the fear of not wanting to question the thing that's so tightly ingrained into your personality and you're being.

So yeah, this next clip or this first clip here is a pretty good example of some of the worst cases that we've seen in some of the things we've examined. Vomit, mar, and dirt, scrubs a lot of the former message believers. Vomit, mar, and dirt, which is the abominable, the defiling. You see, these apostates are compared to dogs and pigs.

To achieve the two lowest animals in God's creation. Dogs and hogs.

They're running around again, but you're getting hold of me again. That's what we're talking about. Dogs and pigs and James, that just really makes me want to go back to this religion. 100%. It's unbelievable.

You know, we need to preface this with we're not picking on any minister. In many cases, the ministers have been manipulated much in the same way that any of the people sitting in the pews have been manipulated.

But the problem is the victims have now become victimizers. And this is a gospel of condemnation to anybody who is listening to this podcast and has never been in this and has just, you know, curious about what it was and the historians that we're working with that want to see more about the mentality of people in it.

They're all aware before I don't have to point it out. You don't call people dogs and hogs if they leave your church. But when you're in a destructive group like this, you do. And the problem is that the basis for this type of theology, everybody knows it's destructive.

You can look at all of the different destructive groups that have either imploded or people have died. And they all share the same similarity. They are isolationist groups. They strongly condemn anybody who leaves or anybody who doesn't accept them.

But the basis for this, the framework that was laid actually predates the latarine movement. There was, and we've talked about it some in our podcasts with Charles. So we're going to get in a bit deeper into the fundamentalism of the American Christianity in the early 1900s.

But there was this framework that was laid of British Israelism that over time began to develop and morph into what became Christian identity. And the word identity is key. People who are working with escapees of this group or people who are trying to help people escape.

They recognize that a person who is in this type of religion, the religion and their identity become so ingrained that if you attack the religion, you're also attacking the person from the way in which they respond.

And the problem is that is that's actually the way this religion was intended because it becomes a big, deep part of your identity. Now Christian identity itself, there's a whole, it's a discussion for another day, but there are many more elements to Christian identity.

But at the time in which it was morphing, there was the notion that American Christianity had been invaded by communistic beliefs and that the church... just were apostate. And so if you left this religion into one of the other churches, you then were apostate. And though even in its worst form back in the day, I'm not certain they would have called them dogs or hogs like it has developed into today's weird cult world. But they still would have had the same view. They would have maybe not said it, but they would have thought that these

people, they're going right back into their apostate condition. And that framework was laid prior to the Laterane Movement's development. But then many people in Laterane began to adopt that theme. Yeah. And the word apostasy in apostate, that's something that I was that really started coming out as we started digging into this, as I started digging into the subject a little bit more.

And I wanted to find a definition for that to really kind of drill down and see what was really going on there. And one of the best definitions I could find talks about apostasy. And it says the total rejection of Christianity by a baptized person who having at one time professed the Christian faith publicly rejects it. Now for a lot of people that deconstruct out of these, you know, cultist movements, a lot of times they find themselves back into a healthier environment, a healthier church. They don't just leave Christianity all together. And I'm not making any judgment

calls on how ever side you fall on that because I don't I don't think any of it's productive. If you start trying to judge people on where they land up on any of the stuff, but but at the same time, when you draw with such a broad brush and just de facto questioning and then you start attacking people this way, most people haven't even gotten through the process of finding out where they're going to land. And you're already calling them an apostate.

You know, so it's so militarized in so many of these movements where if you take one step out of line, they bring down the wrath of God upon you to scare you back in line or scare those who were still in from even questioning to even maybe looking at things like you did, that it really takes things to a very dark extreme to really start to use this sort of language just from the fact that you're like, Hey, um, this person that I was brought up believing was a prophet. Um, none of their prophecies were legit. Um, that's a problem. And then you're like,

Oh, you're an apostate for even questioning. It's like, ah, that's a problem.

Right. And one of the things that the minister said, do not cast your pearls before swine. I think that's really key to understanding the difference between what is a healthy church and what is a destructive church. Because in its essence, what is being said is that we have the true gospel are are thing that we're calling the gospel and these people have left. So don't go try to share the gospel with him and bring them back.

Because they're swine, we can't share the gospel with him. That's in its essence. That's the statement that is being made. And this is James, you get to be the first. This is probably the closest I will come to preaching in any of these podcasts. I'm not a preacher. I'm not a minister. If you want to hear me preach, I'm sorry, go to a church and find a minister. I'll profess with this. But there are these lists and you can find them on the internet of the signs of a healthy church.

Now we have talked about the opposite when we talk about the bite model, which is the model of authoritarian control, behavior control, information control, thought control, and manipulation, and emotional control. But we've never really talked about the reverse of this. And there are these lists. You can just type in and Google signs of a healthy church. And you can see very clearly, is the place that I'm going to on Sunday a destructive cult, or is it a healthy church?

And I remember the first time I encountered one of these lists, I was like, oh my gosh, this is really, really bad, man. One of the most popular and probably if you were never in a destructive cult, if you are a Christian who is examining destructive cults, then you want to go to the website 9, the number 9, mark.org. And they have this good list of the signs of a healthy church. If you were in a destructive cult, this is one of the worst places you can go. And I can say it from my own experience. Because this is written from a group of people

who are in healthy churches, who think they know how to work with people who weren't. And if you read it and you were in a destructive cult, you're going to be, wow, this sounds very authoritarian. They're talking about control and discipleship. And the way it's written is not friendly to a person who is in a unhealthy religion. So while you're searching, if you're in one of these churches, you're going to see 9, marks.org. I recommend against reading it, but I did.

There are people who will read it. But essentially, there's a common theme among all of these marks of a healthy church. And one of the most significant, this is the one that blew my mind.

I just simply had no idea. One of the most significant is a healthy church, a healthy Christian church will have expositional preaching. And what this means is you will have a context of scripture, the scripture itself, it may be a chapter in the Bible, that chapter will be the is this for the sermon that follows.

And every single aspect of the sermon will point back to that passage from the Bible. And that passage will be in the same context of the rest of the book that it came from.

So if you're reading, I don't know, chapter two of the book of Mark, and that's your sermon, well, you would also take into the context, chapter one and chapter three. It can't deviate from this.

One of the, it was eye-opening for me because in the Pentecostal style religions, I'm not saying all Pentecostal churches are this way, but many of them that I have experienced are. They will often take a word or phrase and they'll build a whole sermon off the word or phrase, but they're not giving you the context of that phrase.

And because of this, that context is so vastly different from the way it would read if you read the entire passage that the whole sermon is actually not even close to the chapter of the Bible that they brought it from.

Oh, and I'm, yeah, I'm so familiar with that because, you know, I grew up and, you know, we had the words of a prophet messenger and I do that in quotes using the terms of the cult.

But, you know, and so you'd find the minister would grab this one lone scripture, maybe two, if you're lucky, maybe one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, trying to draw an idea that this is a continual idea and then what he'll do is then he'll grab a bunch of quotes from this central figure to try to, you know, strengthen this thought that he's trying to pull and let alone that the very fact that, you know, you've identified this ad nauseam in your, in the main podcast, but the central figure himself, in this case, didn't even always agree with himself

as he went through and all of his, all of his versions of his stage personas. So, let alone they're still having to cherry pick what they're saying and so they find this thought and they run with it and it's usually something that they already believe or are trying to pull out in meaning for whatever they're trying to do.

And, you know, if it stays close to a biblical meaning then maybe it's not, maybe the end result isn't so bad, but most of the time, most of the things that are pulling out are destructive and harmful and hurtful to people and it causes a lot of pain and suffering and these movements.

And a lot of that stuff, you don't even realize until after you're leaving because the stuff is so normalized while you're there and you're like, oh, this is just normal. And especially when they're talking about the apostates and the infidels and all these sorts of things, your mind is like he's not talking about me, he's talking about somebody else and maybe I'm justifying it by feeling bad for that person because I have a revelation that they don't.

But once you start questioning and understanding the problems and the thing that you believe and you start questioning themself, all of those judgments that you passed on these other people, this entire time, all of a sudden start coming back to you and you're like, oh no.

I was a horrible person, you know, and it's one of those things that that's another thing that people have to deal with. It's the same time they're getting lambasted by these ministers or ex-family members or whatever, by all these, like you're in a pasta, you've left the faith, you're not walking with us anymore. You went out from us because you were not of us. At the very same time, a lot of people who leave are dealing with massive amounts of guilt for all the things that they're realizing that they believed wrong or the things that they put on other people because of the ways, because of the movement and how it

instructed them to be an act and treat other people. And it's a very hard, complicated process. And that's why, you know, the support groups and stuff that are out there are so important for people because people need, you know, a lot of times it's a very lonely journey. And people, people's journeys can be very specialized to themselves depending on the type of group they were in, the sorts of things that they encountered. But at the same time, finding other people who are going through the same stuff you're going through and have a shoulder to lean on and ask, ask the questions, you can't ask the people who

you thought were your friends, who, you know, maybe were your family who have turned against you. And it's, it's so nice to have those sorts of places where you can, like, just lean on people and say, Hey, I know I'm not going to get judged here, but, but what's going on here is, is there really a, a, a, an end time profit that I'm supposed to be waiting for, like, what's going on here? And then, you know, and then you can get, you know, people coming together and say, Hey, you know, maybe this is what I think or this

is what I think is what I found. And, you know, at the same time, there's no judgment. It's just like, Hey, you know, you know, just, just loving and creating a, a nice healthy net for people when that's the opposite of what they're getting from the places that they left. Yeah. Well, and more to the point, in many cases, they leave a very narcissistic minister or central figure. And the way in which narcissistic personality disorder develops and attracts people to it, they create a condition in which there's a separation. They want to create a division in people so that they can essentially say, who side are you on? Are you on mine? Are

you with us? Are you against us? Basically. And what they do is they ridicule those who are against whatever it is that they is their main focus. So these ministers, these central figures of the cults, etc. They have conditioned the people to be familiar with ridiculing other people. And while you're in the group, you think you feel righteous because you're making fun of people, which is vastly different than what the Bible teaches to do. But more to the point when you leave, you know what they're going to do to you because you have done it to other people. So now you're left with this weird thing where a lot of people don't

recognize it. But a lot of their fear isn't really fear. It's guilt because they have ridiculed other people. They know they're going to be ridiculed. And they have to now deal with the fact that, hey, while I was in this thing, I was very, very wrong.

I was not a good person at all. And now, I'm leaving. I recognize I was not a good person. Well, they're not going to be a good person to me. But as I just live, you know?

But the other thing you said that, I think, is key. Whenever this latering thing began, William Brannum was spearheading it as he was the leader of the revival. He was recognized as the leader.

He showed many signs of narcissistic personality disorder. And he ridiculed those who weren't in the same camp. And so he conditioned other ministers and evangelists to do the same. And his whole network of making fun of people as part of your Christian preaching developed into a doctrine.

And it was an unspoken doctrine. You won't hear a sermon saying, you must ridicule these people. Instead, by example, you'll hear ministers ridiculing all of these people who aren't in their group. And the preaching has became over time.

It has become that instead of the expositional preaching. But worse than that, the leader of the revival, one of his famous sayings, which I've heard repeated in defense of his anti-biblical theology, is, I don't know the book real well, but I know the author.

In other words, I have no clue what is in the Bible. But I'm going to be a theologian, because all of the theologians are trying to fool you. And he doesn't even know theology, right?

Well, biblical theology is another key aspect of a healthy church, man. It goes hand in hand with expositional preaching. If you are teaching extra biblical theology, in other words, theology that is not based off of the Bible, it's the signs of a destructive, not a healthy church.

And more specifically, if it's a Christian church, you're going to hear the gospel, which leads me to the next point of the closest thing you'll hear me preaching that I'll ever get to in these things.

But when I left this, and I started working with people who were in it, that's the first thing that shocked me. I was in a church and they asked me, what is the gospel?

I had no idea, man. I gave an answer. I gave an answer that I was conditioned to give from birth. And it in no way, shape or form, matched the gospel. And the gospel, the word gospel, just simply means the good news that Christ has came.

He died on the cross for our sins. And... If you believe in Jesus Christ, you'll be saved. In its simplicity, that's it. There are no added rules. There are no dress codes. You don't have to have a Pentecostal wardrobe.

It's not the gospel, man. It is a very simple thing. It does not say that if you are in the elite group and you are not one of the hogs or dogs, I mean, it's so vastly different from what is taught in these things, right?

So, if you're going to go to a healthy church, you also have to have some at least basic knowledge of the Bible. And I think that's the real problem because people grow up in these groups.

They hear these ministers saying these things and they assume that what they're saying actually came from the Bible because the minister said this came from the Bible. In the cults that I grew up in, they don't even say that.

They say, half of them don't even preach from the Bible. They say, the central figure of our cult believed that said that this is in the Bible. And then they preach a whole sermon off of two to three levels deep of trying to determine where did it actually come from.

And they never looked themselves. Is it actually in the Bible? I have heard ministers quote Bible verses that the central figure invented for his own manipulation and they'll say, it's in the Bible, but they won't give you a verse or a book or a chapter because it's actually not in there.

Yeah, and I've even seen another level of just craziness where, you know, and I think we've examined some of our other ones where the ministers will say that the profit is, in this case, this profit is pulling things out of the Bible that aren't even written and he's adding to, and this fact he's adding to when you've got scripture that says, no man can add or take away, but you've got this profit, his profit is adding to this Bible and bringing these things that are just, you know, without his so-called authority, it completely falls on its face

because there's nothing else to pack it up, you know. And that's the other thing too, you, when you believe these things and you internalize these things into your own identity, you have already taken a leap of faith in this to even consume this into yourself.

And so when you go out and you get challenged, you have nothing to pack it up with. And so a lot of times what happens is, people can take multiple different, they can, multiple things can come out of their personality depending on how their personality is structured, but a lot of times what comes out of people when their belief systems are challenged is anger, especially if they don't have a foundation to back up what they believe.

And in a lot of times in these destructive groups, you don't, you just have the words of the central figure. And when the central figure is challenged, then you have nothing else to defend it with because it's like, well, I just believe this central figure.

And so a lot of times you can come up against a lot of anger. And sometimes I wonder if that's what's coming on when some of these ministers who truly believe what they're preaching and some of this stuff is going on, is that you're seeing some of this internalized belief structure be challenged.

And so sometimes this is what you're seeing. And this is just all speculation. You know, because it's all up to the individual minister and what they actually believe. But you know, this also extends down to the people going to the church as well.

And a lot of times it's sad to say, but the people in the church also take lead off of their own minister who's leading that congregation too. And if the minister gets very violent and militaristic in his words and his sayings and how he tricks other people, then a lot of times the congregation themselves will follow suit and trying to either subliminally or intentionally line up with the minister or central figure who's leading that group.

So things like that can lead to further harm and further damage, especially to those who are leaving and trying to reevaluate what it is that they actually believe. Exactly. And it's really key to understand that these ministers are not trying to, they have no reason to have a healthy church.

They're in an isolationist group whether they recognize it or not. They're in a group that is isolating themselves and they're not wanting to create an atmosphere of a healthy church. Instead what they want to do is to create mental barriers or mental boundaries where the people are scared to leave their group.

In other words, they're trying to hold it together instead of letting it implode, which means that the minister themselves have a fear of implosion, which brings this to a whole new level, James. Yeah.

And the thing about it is when you start examining the larger context of what some of these ministers are saying, and even if a lot of these don't even know themselves, kind of like where the logical conclusion of these things can go, when you start to lay it out, you can sort of see the potential here.

And I think this next clip is a pretty good example of the breadcrumbs of kind of where some of these things can go. But yeah, let's look at this next one here in Daivin.

He would have been a man that abandoned the church. That's called an apostate, by the way. Apostates do not inherit the kingdom of God. That's why when people abandon the church, it's a very serious thing.

They're leaving the battle. It's like, we're fighting on the battle tonight. Are you fighting tonight church? Are you guys ready? We're fighting here. The good fight of faith will stand for truth. And those that abandon us are going to have to suffer for that.

They're apostate. They're leaving the faith. I recently shared this image in one of our support groups, James, but it was a meme. It was comparing a healthy church when you leave versus a cult or a destructive group when you leave.

the top slot. I'll put it on the video display of this, but the top slide, we're sorry you're leaving. We really were happy to have you while you were here. Let's get coffee sometime.

I mean, they were really, really good, you know, what you would expect if you went to a healthy church, right? And then the bottom side, you know, after being out so long and having experienced healthy churches, it's just, it's funny and it shouldn't be. It's sad what the way it's developed.

But they were, you know, condemnation. You're going to, basically, they're saying you're going to hell. Yeah. They are cursing and cussing the people. I'll just say it simply like that. And it really goes back to one of the other signs of a healthy church is membership. How does it work?

Membership in a healthy church grows organically, not simply through reproduction. And in a lot of these destructive groups, they're real, they're only real church growth is we want you to have babies and have lots of them because they will eventually be giving me my money. They, they don't set themselves up as a church that an outsider, somebody who you would want to and should be spreading the gospel to, would want to join. In other words, they see this group of condemnation and hate.

And let's call it like it is, James, they see them as a hate group. And that's really what this is. There's so much, and maybe I see this more since I've left and it just stands out to me more, but it really feels like I've seen a lot lately, a lot of focus in, especially the group that I analyze, the Brandon movement towards the, towards the people who are leaving. And I think honestly, it's because that there is a, a lot of people, there's more access to information, critical information about that movement in particular, due to your research and others who have

given people a way out. And I think it is threatening to some of these ministers. And like you said, who some have their livelihoods built on this and others who, it's just their core belief system.

They're the true believer. They are the zealot. And so it's a threat to their belief system, which we've talked about as internalized into themselves, and it's, it's attack on the belief structures, attack on themselves. And so it's not, it, from that standpoint, it's not necessarily surprising to see these sorts of things. If, you know, you get attacked, the natural reaction is to attack back. But it's sad when something like this, where there's a mountain of critical evidence that just destroys every foundational pillar that this thing could possibly be built up on.

And there's nothing left for it to stand on, except the people who continue to prop it up out of their own will for it to keep going. not because it's the truth, but because they desire to not be wrong or this thing that they believe not to be wrong.

And so when you're caught in this situation, you're effectively cornered. And if just like anything, you know, an animal, if you corner an animal, it's things can get vicious. And so, so yeah, it's sad that when we come out of these things, we inevitably get caught in the crossfire of these people trying to defend and sort of keep the realm, the kingdom that they've built for themselves together.

And at the same time, you have to be so ostracized that no one can even be questioned whether they should even go see how you're doing or maybe take you out for a cup of coffee because the fear of like, maybe you're doubting spirit or you're the devil that's tormenting you will jump on me just because I have anything to do with you.

Yeah, I never forget when we first left the cult, I could go into a grocery store or a hardware store. And if I were to see people from the church and I were to walk in an aisle, they might be looking down at a product, you know, and soon as they raised their head and their eye caught mine, suddenly that product, they did not want it back on the shelf and they left the aisle, they went around the corner.

My wife even had one of her best friends walk up to her and just turn her head, I'm turning my head like this and I miss the microphone, turn her head like this and then walk around her.

So the back of her head was, you know, to her face and it's just so weird, man, that people, I remember in grade school, there were a couple of bullies that acted like that, but most of the bullies had more respect for humanity than these churches.

And the irony for me, you know, having gone through escaping a group like this and understanding how all of this works, when a minister is insulting people who leave in this manner and I know from personal experience and from basically from what I know from being at the top of this thing, I know that many of those ministers are fully aware, fully aware of everything that we've shared, they know the problems with this cult and they know that people are leaving because the critical information is overwhelming.

We're not talking about one or two or three minor trivial problems. We're talking about fundamentally wrong things with the religion itself. And so these ministers, they know why people are leaving, they know. So when they insult us, again, it's coming from a fear that they're going to lose their soul means to make money, essentially.

But more than that, they're instilling a fear of condemnation within the people and the pews so that they don't leave. And whenever they're insulting people who have left, they're really not even speaking to those people because they're aware most of these people are not listening to them. I mean, we've examined these things and I've never looked at the things that you've shared. I've never listened to these guys.

I don't like to listen to these guys. If you had not shared this with me, I'd probably not know that they said this. They're not speaking to me. They're not speaking to you. That insult is actually intended to persuade the person who's in the pews that if they leave, they too will be insulted by every single person that they grew up with, every single pillar in their own support group. So when they insult us, it's not even to us. They're insulting people who leave to try to scare the people in the pews. Right. And we both know this from, we've both talked about it

before, how we like healthy debates. I've seen some videos online where healthy Christian debates or skeptic debates and things like that. And if it's a healthy debate, it can be very informative and you can glean a lot from it. But one of the things that you'll see in a debate that goes south is usually when somebody gets caught in a spot where they're very ill-prepared, and they have nothing to back up what they say. And so usually what happens is the debate goes from being about discussing ideas and defending an idea to name, calling, and ridicule, and it gets

hateful. And so usually when somebody starts reacting that way to the things that you're saying, especially if it's extremely logical and it's based on fact, usually it's an example that you've already won the debate because the person has nothing else to argue with. So they're going for the hell marry. They're going for the nuclear option to try to just win because there's no one left to withstand the the the the vehement way that they're trying to defend their point, but they're not defending it with sound facts and reason. They're just trying to defend it with

emotion. And usually when you've reached that point, you know you've already won the argument. Right. And you know, one of the key differences between this type of anti-biblical church, this unhealthy church and a healthy church that's grounded in the Bible. In my opinion, these ministers who are preaching, they have either never read the Bible or they've never tried to understand it. Because if you read the Gospels and you really understand what Jesus is saying, even if you don't understand, if you simply read what he's saying, Peter, for example, asked Jesus, how many times do we forgive these people? These people have gone astray. How many

times do we forgive them? Is it seven times? And Jesus said 70 times seven. So in your minds, if you're one of the people who's on the fence and you're sitting in one of these churches, think about the difference of that. What if Jesus had said, Yes, Peter, they've left the church and we're not going to forgive them.

We're going to call them dogs and we're going to call them hogs. And we're going to scorn them forever for eternity, right? But that's not what he said, man.

Yeah. And the thing about it is, even that particular verse, if you in a, in a fundamentalist, fundamentalist, legalistic movement, they would be like, okay, Jesus said 70 times seven. So when the person has needs to for be forgived for the 491st time, then they're out of chances because by Jesus's math, that's how that adds up.

But the, the, the, the intent of the scripture is to be like, keep forgiving people. You know, the numbers just asked me how many times could they possibly just keep forgiving people because that's what we do.

We turn the other cheek, we forgive, you know, but that also leads into this nice clip here where it's like, you know, the, we're sort of drawing a path here to, to, to how these things go.

And, and you start to see the, the degradation that this takes as it goes through because it just, it gets, when you go to its logical conclusion, it keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

And, and you might find one instance where it's like, oh, that's not so bad. Maybe I can kind of see, maybe where they're coming from. But then if you just keep letting it play through, it just, it gets worse and the intention gets worse and, and the destructiveness of it gets worse.

But let's take a look at this next clip and, uh, an examine. No, sir, the elect stayed with him the same is happening again today. Many are leaving the word, but some are staying with it.

Oh, Ma, he was writing about you. But remember the parable of the wheat and tears, the tears have to be bundled for burning. These apostate churches are getting bound closer and closer together, ready for the fires of God's judgment.

But the wheat is going to be gathered to the master. James, the irony of this episode for me, you know, I've heard some of these things. I grew up in churches like this, but the irony, the fact that somebody like me, I am the least qualified person to preach.

I'm the least among all of every single person who's listening to this podcast. I will tell you right now, I am the most unworthy, the most, the least among all of you, right? The fact that I and the one who is telling who is examining these ministers and comparing them just simply to the books of the Bible, to what words of Jesus, the fact that I can do this, me who is the least worthy to do this, it shows just how wrong this type of religion is, man. I mean, think of Jesus, Jesus said the greatest commandment is love.

He said, the, you know, the entire old testament is summed up in love. of your neighbor as yourself and love God above all else. It's that simple. If one of my boys were to suddenly decide they want nothing more to do with us and they leave and they start scorning us, they teach us, they start telling other people that we've done X, Y or Z.

I'm still going to love them with an unconditional love and I'm going to try to restore that relationship. I don't care if they murder somebody. I don't care if they're in prison. While they're in prison, I am still going to try to help them.

That's the way a father's love is. That's the way it's supposed to be. Take that a step further. These are not just fathers. These are supposed to be the shepherds that is leading your soul into eternal salvation.

That's their one job. And they're telling people that if you question me, if you question this faith, if you disbelieve in any way, shape, or form, I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to do what Jesus instructed me to do because I don't believe Jesus.

If you take it, if you follow this all out to its conclusion,

there is no other explanation. These ministers do not believe the words of Jesus. Right. And the thing about it is, is when you're brought up in a destructive group with a central figure, so much of what you're taught to think in your entire thought process is around, what does a central figure think?

And then if it's not the central figure, it's like in the structure that I'm familiar with, it's like what does the pastor think because the pastor's like a next step down from that. I'll, you know, you could say.

And so there's little, there's little thought on what do I think because your thought that you are, your thought process is problematic and things like that. And so if you have a question, you're taught to lean on the minister's understanding or lean on the central figures understanding.

And the problem with that is you have to continually reject your own critical thinking processes because a lot of times in a good situation where say you're questioning a destructive cult, your critical thought processes are trying to activate and trying to kick in, but you're surrounded by all this information that is completely not built critically, it's all built on these lies and this deceit and this entire structure of trying to keep you pinned in and keep you locked into this group.

And so it gets really tough and really hard to do that, especially when you're, like I said, the entire, the entire structure of the group is trying to keep you pinned honed in on the central figure whoever that is for this particular, for that particular instance.

But, you know, even, you know, the New Testament talks about when the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you in the... to all truth. Now, I don't remember the pastor or the prophet or whoever is the central figure of your group, necessarily being the spirit of truth. So, you know, it's one of those things where you learn to, it's okay to take a little bit more responsibility for understanding and parsing these things. And the reason why I say this is because you talked about like, well, I'm not a minister and stuff like that. And it's like, we all

have more to say and more to do than we're told in these destructive groups because they want to keep us small, isolated, pinned in to where we can't question. We can't read the Bible for ourselves and or whatever book it is that is part of that group. And you can't come away and use your own understanding or your own, you know, guidance to sort of walk through that. You have to have the central figure walking with you at all times. And pretty much holding your hand through the entire process of understanding. And that is one of the, also one of the hardest things when you walk away is starting to have trust

in yourself to be like, okay, I don't need these people to walk through this. I may, I may get it wrong, but it's okay, you know, because I'm not going to hell because I'm literally trying to figure out what's going on here. And that is not evil and that is not wrong.

Yeah. I mean, essentially trying to suppress the ability for a person to better themselves. It really comes down to that. And that's why these lists about healthy churches exist. Because if you're in a healthy church, you are bettering yourself and you're bettering others. If you're in a destructive group, they don't want you to become better. They want you to be under their submission. That's, in essence, that's what they're teaching, which leads me to the last two marks of a healthy church. A healthy church will support its people. But more than that, it will teach people to support people. And those people that they're supporting

are not just the Christians or the elite or the people in their church. It is teaching people to be good people. If somebody needs your help, go help them. If somebody has no food, give them food. This is the way, like the Mandalorian show. This is the way, my brother.

You know, Jesus taught this in the Bible. I don't, I shouldn't have to say this. I shouldn't have to be the one who says, come on, guys, this is how you be good to people. I shouldn't have to do this. But that's the way it is in an unhealthy church. People who, they scorn who they condemn, all those people are usually asking is just be good people. That's it. You know, a healthy church will teach people to help others.

But most critical of all is the leadership aspect. Every single one of these lists of what makes a healthy church, we'll talk about the leadership. A leader is a true leader. A leader of a healthy church is a leader who teaches others to lead.

Because that leader may not always be there. They could die, they could move away, get replaced. A leader teaches other people to lead. And those people become leaders of other people and teach them to lead.

And they're teaching an organic growth of goodness. In an unhealthy church, they don't want this. I remember sitting down talking to a minister who escaped the cult. And he said, John, they did not even want me. If I found a passage from the Bible that supplemented what they said, they didn't even want to hear it.

They don't want to hear any sort of spiritual revelation from any of the people who are sitting in the pews. What they want is the people sitting in the pews to give them praise for the wonderful thing that they said.

And that's not leadership. Leadership would be teaching the person. Yes, that's great. I'm glad that you found this. Now, this was a minister. This was not just your average person. But they would say, that's great. I'm glad you found that.

Share it with other people. You too have the power to do good. In an unhealthy church, not only do they scorn those that leave, they scorn those that might become a leader and might set up another church and lead other churches.

In fact, this is one of their financially, it's not to their benefit. But this is one of the things that I believe based off of what I've seen. These ministers fear most is that a person will rise up and be led by God to preach and might actually preach the gospel.

But whenever they set up a healthy church, they're going to watch their own congregation implode because they know all of these ministers, in my opinion, they know that they are in an unhealthy church.

Many of them grew up in an unhealthy church. Many of them know that they created an unhealthy church by example. So if a person who's in their pews gets called by God to preach and goes and sets up a healthy church, they're going to scorn that person when it's set up a healthy church. That's how bad this is, James.

Yeah, and it's, man, it's so sad because at one point you can examine where you've come from but another time it kind of hits home because we all still know people who are involved, who still are in some of these movements.

And it's tough because at the same time as your eyes are being opened, you understand more and more about. what you came out of and what some of the other people are still in and I remember having a conversation with somebody that I talk to and I don't know if they meant I don't know if they meant to say this or maybe so I want to give them a little bit of leeway here because sometimes you know but I remember when I told them that I was doing this podcast because I was like I didn't want to

kind of just hit them you know because they're still in the group I didn't want it to hit them you know find out about it and from some other source so so I told them about it and they made the comment they said well I don't see a problem still being your friend as long as you're not trying to do something like come and kill my family or something like that and you know what's sad is that I've seen so many examples of of of ministers talk about how you know these people would lead death camps if they could the devil's gonna get on these people and they're

gonna turn against us they're they're the they're the they're the cane to our able you know and you hear somebody say that and they might not even realize what's going on but they're sitting under you know ministers who were saying things like this and it's just sad when you see that side of it where someone even if that's not exactly what they were getting at the thought that that's what could be leading someone to say something like that is very sad and what will anybody tell you about any process that just steals something down to its purest form is it gets smaller

and smaller and smaller and smaller as it goes so don't be discouraged when you say oh why aren't we growing why aren't there so many more people in here why do people seem to go away and not come in because the hour's late the hour is late there's not much left there's nothing out brother Bradham back then called him cannon fodder how much more now hey I got news for the apostate that are leaving the message William Brownham is God's standard and the voice by which your life will be judged he is your prophet he is your pastor but he is the standard by which God will judge

every man woman boy or girl you don't have to like it but it's it's a vindicated message and he's a vindicated messenger so James I've been thinking how do we in this because you have enough clips of ministers condemning people who've laughed we could probably go fine probably going for the next year and the problem is we're going to be saying the same thing come on man this is not the way this is not what yeah this is not what Jesus taught if you want to be like Jesus do the right thing that's if I if I

or to give advice to these ministers, that's my advice. Just do the right thing. Don't do the wrong thing just because you have been taught by example to be a bad person. That's my simple advice, be a good person.

And I think the way that I'll end this, James, is you've got one more I think that we should play. And it's literally talking about using weaponizing loaded language against a person who leaves.

The vast majority of people who were never in this thing, they're not even going to understand it. But let's take a word, which is cannon fodder. That's a phrase that was used by William Brannum.

Train these ministers to scorn others in the exact opposite of the example of Christ. And they said, let's call these people cannon fodder means the people that do not matter to me. In other words, in the war, you send out a batch of people who you know, their only existence is to go die.

Their cannon fodder, you're sending them into the battle so that they waste all of the cannons, they die, then the rest of the troops can go in. That's what this means. And so you've got a minister who's preaching the exact opposite of what Jesus said, that we want them to die.

That's the worst of all of these clips. So I think the way that I'll end this, James, let's just compare what the minister says with what's in the Bible. And I'm just picking some random passages, but you can also, you know, you can open any chapter of the Bible, but very easily you can type into many of these websites.

Openbible.info is one that I like to use. It gives you a good lineup of quotes on a theme, but even Google, now you can type into Google and they'll give you passages from the Bible that you can explore and you can read further.

But John 1512, my commandment is this, love each other as I have loved you. In other words, don't think of them as cannon fodder. Don't think of them as a person that you want to die.

Love them like I loved you. Luke 631, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You don't even have to be a Christian to know that. I know, I know people who have never set foot in a church.

Who are atheists? Who have said this to me? They're in a bad situation. They saw somebody treat them very poorly and they said, do unto others as you want them to do unto you.

You don't even have to be a Christian to know that you can be a good person. And it's that simple. You go into Corinthians 1614, do everything in love. Proverbs 1717, a friend loves it all times.

Look at any of these passages that is telling you how to be a good person. from the Bible. And if you're a minister who is in this type of religion, ask yourself this question, am I a good person? That's all you have to do. You can read up the Bible, you can read it yourself. Am I a good person? It's what I'm saying, helping people. Am I teaching them to be a good person? And I think if we examine ourselves, I think there's many people who can be, who can find ways in which they can improve. Myself included, I'm not a

perfect person. There are ways that I can improve. There are ways that I can be a better person and love people more. I think everybody should strive to love people more, not to teach each other that they're cannon fodder and you wish them to die. So if you have weird questions that you would like for us to discuss on the show, you can contact us on the web, you can find us at William-Brandom.org. For an in-depth look at the dangers of being in such destructive groups, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-Rain to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle,

and Audible.