Weird Doctrines: The Pentecostal Foot Fetish

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-rain healing revivals of the late 1940s through the 1960s. Well, James, we have one of those really fun topics to talk about today. This one is just so weird. Like, of all the things that we've

done that are weird. For me, this is the one I just completely, I don't understand it. Like, it's out of the context of even Pentecostalism, and yet this is a Pentecostal rule-based religion, very legalistic. And when you really think about this, this is just so weird. And it came up, gosh, I don't know how many times now. It's come up on these our stories programs that we do. I think there was one segment I had cut out that it was in, and then recently it came out in another one, and everybody's like, I don't understand what this is. Why are we

talking about women's feet? Yeah, it's so strange because, you know, when you analyze these these groups that get so heavily legalistic, and you analyze their rules and regulations that they have, as you go down the list, it gets stranger and stranger and more just bizarre the further you go. And when you get down to the point of like, just somebody wearing flip flops is a sin. It really is hard. Like you said, to wrap your mind around it because you're like, it's flip flops. And it's like, how can this be satanic and evil? And it's one of

those things that I as much as I've looked into this, I've not been able to find a good reason why any of these guys even even take this approach other than just to control the the the look of their members to such a degree to create a conformity in them. And that's really the only thing that I can I can see and think because when you look at it's their flip flops, man, it's like what in the world are we doing here? It's unreal, man. And the last conversation that I had about this, the the lady was telling me which I didn't even know this problem

existed, but she was saying that now the women they often wear the scourts in the message and their church got so legalistic that if you had the zipper around on I think it was on the butt or something You're being preached at because you had a zipper on your butt and the whole thing man Come on really a zipper is going to deny you access into heaven You know everybody's got a zipper doesn't matter if you're on the front or on the back, but they were talking about Talking about that and then I just asked you know what's the open shoes of thing and

The it's it doesn't make any sense like I'm a man. I was interviewing a female So you know her attraction to the other gender was different, but for me this is an unattractive thing It's like the most of a woman This is the body part that you just don't want to touch is the part that's stepping in the dirt man And I know that there are some cultures that do this So I'm not trying to offend those cultures, but in the United States we have we have developed mental In a different way and it's not even attractive. So

The only when you try to think how they establish this doctrine logically and You're thinking about the feet and the reason these rulers exist is because if you show just a little bit of skin It might lead you to hell as a woman because you made a man lust after you Well, you can't make that leap to make the lust after the feet. I can't anyway Maybe you're different James. Maybe maybe you've got a few things, but I don't

Now I can say that's not me either but yeah, I know it's It's crazy because you know to the extent it's a lot of these ministers don't even take it to the point where it's It's just a difference of opinion. No, it's you are literally going to hell for wearing flip-flops because it's that sinful of a thing to do and It's I'm breaking my brain John. I'm having so much trouble You're gonna you're gonna be annoyed with me in this episode. I'm having so much trouble because this is so funny I know it's ridiculous Oh, man, so I think at this point probably the best thing for us to do was just to be rolling to this first clip and just start the insanity there

Because you know, we've got we've got a minister taking a very hard-line stance against flip-flops and It reaches a level of absurdity that I don't think we've quite hit yet, but uh, let's give it a whirl The message is against tight dresses Things that provoke people Short dressing short skirt all those kind of stuff, but as long as your dress is decent Make it beautiful not for your pastor for the king Amen, you don't go to church that you go into a free markets

We need to collect this Amen The assistant for a whole year, blue skirt, blue skirt, blue skirt, flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop, they leave the message and begin to dress nice. I'm dying here, man.

So, let me get this straight, James. So, not only is the feat to be something to lust after for whatever reason for this minister may have a problem with that, I don't. I can assure you, I do not, but I'll give him that.

Maybe he's got this foot thing, but to make the claim that women are leaving the message just so they can bear their feet for the world. Oh my gosh, man. Oh, man. Yeah, it's crazy because, you know, there's always this slippery slope fallacy that a lot of preachers use very heavily in the cold.

Because it's like, you know, they'll take something that seems so innocuous. And then they'll draw this really bizarre trail of connections between all these various things and say like, you just start wearing flip-flops.

And before long, you know, you're a prostitute on the street corner. And it's just like, whoa, how do we get from there to there? But that's literally the way some of these guys take it.

You know, and it's ridiculous. I mean, they say that, you know, a sister in the church goes and she starts wearing flip-flops and then she leaves the group. It's like, that's like, all right, man.

I mean, maybe the reason why she leaves the group is because she starts wearing flip-flops and goes, this isn't satanic. So if this isn't satanic, what else are you wrong about? So maybe that's really what's going on here, not the fact that the flip-flops themselves are causing her to sin.

She's dressed like a prostitute because she's sewing her feet and not just on a street quarter in jams. This guy literally said, she goes to the flea market. That's where all the men go to look at women's feet, brother.

No, it's ridiculous. And you know, it's really hard when you see stuff like this. It's really hard to take this stuff seriously. But at the same time, it is serious because there are people in these churches who are literally held captive by these speakers who they look up to.

And they hear them say these things and they're like, well, if that's going to take me to go to hell, I don't want to go to hell. And I don't want that for my family.

And so they'll completely rid, you know, if their daughter or their son or whatever has a closet and they have flip-flops, they'll go and they'll take those things out and they'll burn those things because, you know, those are satanic.

You know, he's looking out for me and my well-being. He wouldn't say something like that just offhand if, you know, he wasn't feeling the leading of the Lord. And that's the danger in a lot of these churches is when they get you to throw away your flip-flops and thinking it's going to take you to hell, they've got you right where they want you and they can get you to believe anything.

And it's punishment, man. punishment. I can assure you that when they burn those things, it stinks too high heaven.

I used to, I don't, I don't actually don't wear them much anymore, but I used to live in hotter climates and sometimes I would wear flip flops while I was working and I never forget I dropped something hot and it was excessively hot and it hit my toe, which hurt really badly, but then as I stepped my toe back, I actually stepped on it and burnt, you know, melting through the flip flop. That rubber stinks. So whenever they tell them to burn their flip flops, they're, it's pure punishment. But, you know, in the end, you have to take a step back

and just, I'm separated from this thing so I can laugh about it, but you're right. When you're in it, this is so destructive because not only are you belittling the women in your church by telling them, like the prophet said, they're divine, designed by Satan himself to deceive the men.

And so, and deceive the men through sex. He called in that same sermon, William Brown calls them sex exposals and he's talking about exposing the flesh. So when you link that, these, these women are designed by Satan to deceive men and lure them into sex, combine that with the flip flop doctrine. Well, designed by Satan and Satan is going to show you brothers her feet if she leaves this cold. Yeah, it's crazy because, you know, the whole thing when you look at, when you look at this thing from its origin and you look at Brannum and now he talked about women.

And then these very same men will quote Brannum and then say, my beautiful wonderful sisters, you know, we're so, we're so pleased to have you and all you're such a, you're such a gem in the crown of God and all these sorts of things that they'll say. And then they'll go and they'll repeat horrible doctrines of Brannum and everything in the message is based on his view of women.

It all comes back to that from the women's side of all these doctrines and you can't escape that. And you look at something as innocuous as flip flops and you're like, okay, when you, when you take it back to the origin of how this man is thinking and then you look at how these men today are thinking and drawing a conclusion, you can see a linkage because women are so devalued and they're thought, they're looked upon as if their only existence is to sexually stumble the men and you take all of the responsibility away from men to be better and you say, well, you,

you were trying to be better, brother, but that woman, she got behind your defenses and because of those flip flops, brother, you didn't have, you didn't have a chance, you know, and so we've got to preach harder on those women to keep them aligned so that we don't stumble and it's, it's so backwards and it's so destructive and so hurtful to people and it, when you're in it, it doesn't quite stand out, but when you get away from it, It just flashes like a red light and you're just like I cannot believe that I listen to this stuff and

And there were people around me that were being emotionally destroyed because they were having to they were being told just because they wanted to wear flip-flops Which is there's no problem with wearing flip-flops that they were sinful and going to hell and probably taking other people to hell with them Man, it's it's it's it's it's it's frustrating It it's crazy man that like I say I'm I'm gonna know you with all my laughter. I just I can't help it This is funny funny stuff, but so and I've also got a problem here James This is a very difficult episode for me to do. I'm going to be out in the open

I'm going to admit it because I have a process you find these videos we get this topics and I do some studies on You know here the weird things that these ministers are saying where did it come from how has it progressed over time?

How does it end up what it is today? And I'll be honest with you I'm trying to keep this episode kind of G or PG rated. This is a difficult topic to study, man

I started to look this up and right now I don't recommend anybody who's listening to look this up on Google But if you try to Google this subject you're gonna get all kinds of things and the number one hit again I'm I'm keeping this PG rated so I'm gonna say the word that may not be PG But I'm leaving it at that. So don't don't worry that I'm gonna go too far But the number one hit on Google is an article from the Discover magazine that says foot orgasm syndrome Yep, it's a thing

And I'm not gonna read anything more in that article if you want to study that I don't recommend that you do go ahead and study it If you're of that mindset, but the thing that I keep coming back to James I went to churches from Arizona to South Carolina everywhere in between They all had different doctrines You you know when you go out west you've got the men who are Saying that the women's feet are gonna lure men to sex like this And you got the you know the women in Georgia. They all wear flip flops, you know

It's it's hot in Georgia. You don't want to you don't want to go without your flip flops and What what it came down to not on this subject in particular, but There were there were different rules for different sects of the message and then within each sect There would be different rules for every church and sometimes a sect would have multiple churches in the same city And some of those churches would not even fellowship because they did not adhere to the rules in the same way they Fighting each other man. There is no there's no brotherly love

But what it ended up to be is when you get one minister who really really struggles with something whatever that is You're gonna find like 80 90% of his sermons are talking about the thing that he himself struggles with.

And the example I'll give for this, which is really funny, is I went to this church and this minister, he had, you've been to these churches, James, where they just call you out right from the audience and there was a quite attractive lady sitting up front and he looked at you have a seductive spirit on your soul, which meant the guy was having a little bit trouble looking at the lady who's attractive up front, right?

Well, these men, you're gonna find a large percent of the content in their sermons about the things that they themselves struggle with the most. And they'll just call it out because they're struggling with it.

I actually get this. I'm not gonna fault the minister for this. If you have a problem, then the Bible says, confess our sins to one another, right? But they're not confessing it. They're turning it into this vicious attack against the people instead of an open confession.

So where it could be used to do for good and say, hey, look brothers and sisters, I struggle with this thing and I hope you don't struggle, but if you do, here's how I came to God.

It's you people who are doing this thing, which bothers me, you know, on and on and on. All of this to say, I don't know why these men are preaching against the feet. Do they have the trouble?

Are they like the minister who's got the attractive lady up front? Do they have this foot fetish? Are they almost said it? I'm gonna leave it. Whatever the discoverer article said, do they have this problem?

I don't know. But all I can say is, this is such a weird thing. I have trouble researching it. And when I saw the first, I think I saw the first five hits on Google, I said, nope, not for me.

I'm not gonna look at these things at all. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And like you said, the way that the entire paradigm of the responsibility structure inside of these churches is set up is that it's not that I'm faltering which is bad enough, it's that you're causing me to sin.

And so really, I'm trying to be good. You caused me to stumble. So therefore you are what's wrong in this picture, not me because I'm a holy servant of God. I can't stumble or my brothers aren't trying to stumble.

You're causing them to stumble. And that inverted way of looking at things is so wrong and it absolves men of their responsibility to be better. And by making the women escape goat and it's so destructive and it's so evil.

And you know, they get away with it because they'll throw the men under, use a token example to throw the men under the bus. And so men, I'm not leaving you out of this too.

You know, and they'll run into... Our next clip. They'll use things like, you know, min wearing shorts, which is actually very interesting when you look at the history and their profit, for example. Why shorts?

Min wearing shorts is so bad, but anyways, let's take a look at this next clip and we'll see how they throw them in under the bus, too. You get the Holy Ghost on the inside of you. I'm gonna tell you, you can take that land.

You can have holiness. You can have purity. You can have joy. Come on. I mean, you can have everything that the Word of God promised. You don't have to stand at the borderline and say, well, I can't do it. I can't live right. It's alright for our boys to wear shorts. I just, it's just William Brown's opinion. I'll tell you what, borderline believer, you better come on in. You better get another spirit on you. You're at K-dash Barnea. You're at K-dash Barnea. In the Old Testament, remember, James, the men were instructed to guard up their loins, which meant take your robe. The men were the garment

that pertained to the woman in the Pentecostal mine. They wore the robe, which looks very much like a dress. But when they girded up their loins, it meant you can't run as fast. You might trip over your dress, you men who are wearing these, these female garments in the Old Testament. So they rolled them up and they would wrap it around their legs. So they're exposing their legs where they can run fast, gird up your loins. That's, that was the custom back then, right? And the customs are just completely ignored in these Pentecostal cult-type groups. But the irony, so he's blasting the men, James. And this is one of the few times

that you'll find them blasting the men, even though, like you said, William Branumus, we caught him on photograph wearing the shorts and he had tan knees, which meant that he was wearing those shorts quite frequently. But so these guys are blasting the men, which is unusual. Usually it's blasting the women. But when they, when they do blast the men, usually it is an indirect insult to the women. So you, and you'll find this in William Branum's sermon. So you, man, who let your women do actually, you men who let your women do why. Notice in the feet thing, he bypassed the men and went straight to the women. He

didn't say, you men who let your women show their feet and going to send some poor lustful center to hell for looking at your big toe. Yeah, it's, it's crazy because, you know, I know this particular thing, you know, I remember growing up here in these things all the time, hell.

It was so sinful and so disgusting, and homosexual even for boys in the church and even men to wear shorts. And it was so disgusting in the eyes of God for them to do such a thing, that it was such a foregone conclusion that you should even attempt to do something like that.

And if you saw somebody else do it, you should look upon them with shame and be like how dare you bring such a reproach against God that you would dare to wear shorts, brother.

That's such a disgusting thing. And then you look at their very prophet, who is caught on picture, photograph, wearing shorts outside. Like this wasn't in his house, like some ministers will tell you, like maybe in the home and private, you can wear shorts, but out in public, brother, you should definitely never wear shorts.

And then their own prophet who could do no wrong in their eyes is caught wearing shorts, and that doesn't at all affect the doctrine. It's just, nope, we're going with the, you can't wear shorts and it's a sin.

And it's ridiculous, man, because that picture alone should have made that doctrine go away immediately. But if anything, they've doubled down on things like this and they continue to enforce it in their churches and tell people that they can't do things that for all intents and purposes, there's nothing wrong with it.

Yeah. And you know, this is the only doctrine, I'm not going to go too far with this, but this is the only doctrine of men's dress code that exists in this cult at all.

This is the only one. All of them were directed at women, the female gender. And you'll notice if you scan through the sermons, this is the only one when he talks about it. He often uses the word sissy or something that to make the men seem effeminate.

And remember, this was all the women's dress code was a fault of the woman for causing the man to lust after them. Well, the only men's dress code is using the example of an effeminate man.

In other words, you're going to lust after the man. And this is coming from a person who was accused by the ministerial board. William Brannon was accused by the ministerial board of being homosexual.

He even admits this on tape. So the only time in which he mentions the man is whenever it's lusting after the man. And I still, I go back to these guys usually do not preach against something so strongly, unless they themselves have a problem with it.

And I'll just leave it at that. It's crazy because there are so many things out there where shorts just make sense. And whether it's activities and all sorts of things. And I know that you would even have girls in the churches I grew up with who they would, they want to be in sports and so they would you know even the even the shorts thing was a problem for them because it's all like it's starting to look like you're wearing pants sister and we don't wear pants in this group and you know the women don't wear pants and you know and so they'd

want to get active in sports and and there would be all these things that women would try to do to try to make they would try to color inside the lines as much as possible without damning themselves to hell so they would wear if they were like so let's use basketball as an example where you know a woman in the church would have to be really active you know she would wear shorts so absurdly long that it almost became comical sometimes because there's like are these even shorts anymore but but trying to be inside of the dress code that they put forward and it's just all these hoops and

stuff that they go through to try to have to do just even be a little bit normal in society and the entire time they're feeling like they're on the knife's edge of being a Jezebel and going to hell because they just want to be normal in play sports and you know they look at them like I'm being modest I'm not I'm not doing anything wrong here but they're being told that they're just the fact that they want to wear these shorts sometimes they're being told that that is a that is a lustful spirit that's trying to get on them to to get at the men they're the devil is using them to get to the

men as a Trojan horse through wearing shorts trying to do something as simple as just play some basketball and be normal it's ridiculous yeah and I should probably qualify your statement whenever you said the the women aren't wearing pants to those who didn't weren't raised in this religion it sounds like you're saying they exposed a lot more than the toes man

exactly but um you know I on there forget uh as an adolescent teenage male you know hormones raging in all of the boys as as with any normal human being who is a male this this happens this is part of your chemistry and your makeup I remember some of the guys talking who are in in this cult and one guy was like you know I'm really glad the women wore dresses because you really get to see a lot more of their leg whenever they're doing sports and it's you know modesty is not why they do this I can assure you that when these women women move around and they're forced to wear

the dress instead of the pants I can assure you that there's a lot less modesty going on underneath that dress and um the guys I was with were very very eager to point this out I'll just say it like that and I'll leave it at that but I recently did an interview with a woman who this this bothered her you know I'm laughing about it I'm I'm going to continue to laugh I apologize to you women this is funny I can't help it but it was to a woman it's not not funny. The way that they ridicule you in solitude, you tell you you're designed by

Satan and you're the phrase was lower than a dog or a hog. Basically they've put you so far down that you're in the mud with the hog. That's how this religion is if you're female. And she was talking about how after she'd escaped and she did not want her daughters to have to try to play sports with now she had the idea of modesty. She you know where the dress and then she would put you know pants or sweat pants or something underneath. So it didn't show what these what these guys were noticing. But I grew up in sex of the message that they did not

allow the women to wear the pants underneath the dresses which goes a level beyond the you know the reason this exists is quote unquote modesty even though it's very modest in many cases. It goes beyond that because they would not let them wear it underneath the dresses where nobody could even see it unless your skirt flies up. But they would prefer that if your skirt did fly up while you're doing these activities that you show a lot more than the toe buddy.

Right and that's why that's why these these doctrines I guess you could call them for lack of a better term are so harmful because they they do not coerced come together in any way that match or make sense in a way that's that's even cognitively understandable to the brain because you're looking at this and you're like I'm trying to be modest. So I got to wear the dress because the the church tells me I have to wear the dress and I can't wear pants you know just just to wear pants because that would be sinful. But covering the pants with the dress that way

I can be a little bit more you know I can I can be a little bit more agile and on the sports court because that way I'm not worried about exposing myself in a way that that's that's would be considered indecent by the group. And the the very ministers will attack this and say you can't do that because you're still wearing pants it's like it doesn't make sense and that's because there is no logic to these things it's like no this is just what we believe you have to submit you have to deny your own intelligence to even be a part of this thing because when you think through these

things logically you're like no there's no there's no there's no way that this works but the very act of denying your own intelligence to conform to these things is a tool of manipulation that they use to control and and and get people to behave and and to to stay in the group because they're no longer relying on themselves to think for themselves they're relying on the central figure and in brandems day That was him, and in these local churches now, that's the pastor, and that sets things up for very destructive and very bad things.

It does, man. And again, I'm dying. I'm actually crying here, I'm laughing so hard. You know, it is for control, solely for the sake of control, and I can prove this by example, right?

So out in the West, when I was growing up, you couldn't wear, you couldn't wear the open-toed shoes, because you might lure a guy to hell through your big toe. Well, on the other side of the country, in the message churches, you could.

And the guys usually wore shoes, we would have, you know, some people wore boots, or they had dress shoes, some people wore tennis shoes to church. The guys never showed their toes. The women did.

And again, I apologize if this is rude to the women, I'm just going to come out and say it. I am not attracted to the feet. And some of you women had some nasty toes, I'm going to say it.

Leave it at that, because I have to prove this point, and I have to say that. I don't have a foot thing, right? Some of you women had some nasty toes. And there is a solution in the non-cult world to this.

If you have, like, fungus in your toes is a thing. It's a real thing. It's a problem that some people deal with. In the real world, women paint their toenails, right? Well, in the cult, those who couldn't show their toes, they didn't care if they painted their toes.

But on the other side of the country, you had ministers who allowed the open toes, who preached against painting those open toes. And so the dynamic was completely different, right? And logically, how does this make sense?

Whenever they talk about cosmetics, they talk about the painted face Jezebel, you know, because the final act before Jezebel prepared to die was she made herself up in the way that all of the royalty did in the old days, that's the way it worked.

They say that this was her sinful act, and this is why she died, ignoring the fact that she brought all of Israel into idolatry. That was her crime. They say that the painted face was her crime.

Not the painted toes. So why, then, other than to control the women, why would they say you can't paint those nasty-looking toenails? Oh, it's ridiculous. And, you know, if you try to look at this through a lens of modesty, modesty is relative to the culture in which you live.

And, you know, if you would rewind the tape back to 1800s, the women of today in the cult who would be presenting themselves modesty would be considered anything but modesty, because they're not living up to the standards of that day.

And, you know, those very same people thought that they were upholding the right standards for what modesty is. So, it's a very relative theme and it changes over time as culture changes and depending on where you're at in the world at different points in time.

And it's kind of a moving target in a sort of way. And just like you said, how, you know, even, you know, make up and all these things in jewelry and these things that are attacked so heavily in the message, the very same minister who attacks these things will read you a psalm of a woman being adorned and find jewelry and all this kind of stuff like that and use it to illustrate God and how he loves his bride and he'll dorn her with all these things.

And then you're like, but they're all still in the women, but you can't do that yourself because that would be sinful. But God's ideal of a perfect bride has these things. So it's completely backwards and none of it makes sense and at some point it's got to be by design because it's so ridiculous that it reaches a level of absurdity.

Exactly, man. You know, I'll never forget when I first came across that passage that you're referring to. So talking about God's faithless bride and talking about how the bride of Christ, the bride of God is Jerusalem.

And when you really think about all the doctrines that are built on God's bride, that gets really weird too. But specifically, it says, I adorned you in the way that is pleasing to me, God.

And I put a ring in your ear and I put a ring in your nose. Think of all these ministers. What would happen if all the women showed up to church with her nose right now?

So you'd hear all kinds of sermons and it wouldn't just be the toes, it would be the nose. But things progressed in a funny way because they're possible. He was going out into all of these nations when Christianity was being birthed and he was spreading Christianity and how many of the sermons that we have access to read or the letters we have access to read or Paul did he say, and you women who are wearing those togas who are exposing the shape of thine breast and the skin of thine abdomen.

You don't find a single one, but that was the culture back then. And then what happened is it progressed into America. You had the Puritans and the Quakers and they were against the sin of showing the flesh.

But that's how the nation was founded. So Americanized Christianity progressed in such a way that they built upon the Quaker idea and the Puritan idea and showing the skin. Anytime you hear the word modesty, which the word in the Bible has this broad array of meanings, it's not just the skin. It's, in other words, don't be gaudy, right? But they changed the, don't be gaudy to, don't show a little skin. And it progressed and became more and more rigid. And especially in the Pentecostal movement, it became more of, if you show your skin as a woman, you're going straight

to hell, but it's okay if the men do it. Yeah, it's, it's crazy because, you know, one of the things we would hear so much around the sex that I was in was that, you know, we're taking this back to the apostolic, the original apostolic birth of the church. And that's where we're finding our roots. And that's where we're taking it back to. But like you said, so many ministers do not want to fully embrace the context of the time in which the religion was birthed. And so they will take their modern ideas and inject them into that context and then warp that context to fit

their worldview. And that's also one of the things that you run across in these churches is your idea of even, so it gets complicated in a message context because ultimately your view of the Bible is filtered through Brannum's view of the Bible. You're filtered through the message lens. But there's even another lens in front of that before you even get there and you're filtered through the, the, the, the pastor's lens and his view of context of history and how these things match together. And a lot of times you have men who are not very educated who read, they get

some, you know, Bible commentaries and they read through these and some different things. And then they try to make up some sort of a view of history and the context in which these things were written in took. But it always seems to line back up with their original view of things.

And then you end up with this even more warped view than even what Brannum had to begin with. And it's, it really comes down to uneducated men trying to present themselves as though they are extremely educated and control and manipulate people to see the world through the lens which they have carefully crafted for themselves. Yeah, they just, they take logic and reason and they dump it upside down. In fact, you'll find countless sermons where they will denounce you if you have logic or reason, which becomes very problematic if you have an analytical mind, which I do, I had

to suppress it when I was in the cult. But you, you can't have logic, you can't have reason because they're going to give you these doctrines that just defy all logic, like causing a man to stumble by looking at your toes. The whole thing is just so absurd. And, you know, for me, you have to take a step back and you have to realize that it isn't just that the dress code has strayed further and further and further from the truth of Christianity. The gospel itself has been ignored because whenever they take these things that are

completely absurd and they lift them up into greater importance than the gospel of Jesus Christ, can you truly say that this is a gospel-based church? I can't because they they have taken the simplicity of the gospel and they've so far overcomplicated it that half the people that they're denouncing for their toes, half the people don't even understand what the gospel is and they have these altar calls. Are you secure in your salvation? Come up to the altar. We'll have the people going up there because they have confused them as to how salvation works so they don't know if they're saved and they keep going up

Sunday after Sunday to you know to try to plead with God. Please let me know am I saved? Instead of just preaching salvation and preaching the gospel. Right and it gets to the point where you know as we look at this next clip where a minister will get to the point where he's accusing women of practically leading double lives to where they come to church and they dress one way and then they you know go to a locker room to change and to like to play sports or something and then in a duffle bag they have a completely different

outfit and it's almost like they're just like Superman changing in the phone booth and they're a completely different person you know it's ridiculous but you know it just goes to the fact that when you push these things as far as a lot of these ministers do you get to such an unhealthy burden of just ridiculousness that's placed upon the shoulders of women and it just continues to bash and and just bring them down to such a minute level that it's it's it's it takes all the oxygen out out of them because it's it's so oppressive you know and it's it's it's crazy to see but but let's roll into

this next clip and and and we'll take a look. Jesus said whosoever look at the Punna woman to last after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart who is to blame you you presented yourself them shorts and slacks some women say to me not some woman said to me not long ago said I don't wear shorts brother Brannum I thank the Lord for that I wear slacks did I read that right some woman said to me not long ago said I don't wear shorts brother Brannum I thank the Lord for that I wear slacks I said that's worse wow it just becomes

normal anymore now you walk around and people whether they're in church or not in church or whether they want to wear a dress around the church people and then you know roll up their skirt when they're in school or go change into some pants when They got it in their locker room or they got it and I know what I'm talking about but I've been raised in the message I know how some people have done it in class or they get to university or get to college and they'll They'll dress one way when they leave the house and they got a duffel bag or in their locker and they just they live a whole

Another life and they wonder why they're in sorrow. They wonder why they're depressed You know James the Bible says who is whosoever adds to from this book or take it the way his parts taken from the Book of life and here's a minister who's saying If you cause the man to lust after you Jesus said that you women are the ones to blame and I don't remember that being said Message from the Bible James in fact if you go back and you read it's you know in Matthew 5 Jesus is not to the degree that William Bramham does but you know where William Bramham says and you man

Jesus is addressing the male half of his following in this passage and he's saying you men who are Just lustful man and if you look after a woman You should pluck your own eye out if it's causing you that much of a problem It doesn't say the women should pluck their eyes out It says the men should and and it goes so far to say that if you can't keep your hands off of the women Which is the next verse then take your it's better to take your hand than to be denied into the kingdom of God right

So Jesus is clearly addressing the men but what these Like I said earlier these men have lost the focus of the gospel to the extent that the Bible no longer matters to them It's the doctrine that matters to them the doctrine that they have invented man made doctrine that doctrine has more Importance than what the Bible says to the extent that when they preach it If the Bible doesn't say what they have learned in their doctrine They'll choose the doctrine instead of the Bible and in doing so in this case It's at a direct attack against the women and then to to make matters worse

They tell the women that it is Jesus that is attacking them That's how bad this is oh I know it it's insane because you know like we've talked about it and like you just illustrated perfectly there It's like taking the responsibility off of men for their own actions in placing it upon women Let alone all the other things that women have to deal with in this cult and in other movements like it You know You're already given them a crazy standard to live up to and then you're also telling them things that are outside of their control

Is also their fault It's like you're setting people up for failure multiple times over because it's an unwinnable scenario You know, you're you're you're you know, it's it's crazy because Like you said if you read the scripture and you read the intent of the of the passage it's thing, men. This is your responsibility to not do this. And if you do this, it is better for you to punish yourself and remove the offending parts of yourself that are causing you to stumble. It's not, oh, she wore open-toed shoes. And so therefore, women should cover up their feet because it made me feel a way that maybe I shouldn't feel, you know, and

it's ridiculous. But with these men, they do not study the Bible like they claim to. They study it through a lens. Their own lens multiplied by Brannum's lens. And we know from a fact that he didn't know his Bible from a hole in the ground in the way that he represented it. You know, and so you compound all these errors upon errors upon errors and how you look at this stuff. And you come away with such crazy doctrines that it is just laughable and absurd. And you know, the way that they do this. So it's not just the women

in their church that they insult. They also insult the people of the city who have no idea that they're not supposed to wear the open-toed shoes. Like, this is not a thing. If you're a message minister and you're listening to this, which ironically, we have message ministers who I know are listening to this. If you're a message minister and you're listening to this and you're making these ridiculous statements on doctrine and then blast all the rest of the city and condemn them to hell, they don't know that they're not supposed to wear, let the women expose the feet, man. I can assure you that they do not

know this in the Bible. Jesus wore sandals. The women wore sandals. Everybody wore sandals because that's what you wore in that culture. And you know, it's not just the Hebrews, right? You go into the Greeks and Roman days. They wore the sandals. Even the military men, you can find historical artifacts of the sandals that the military guys wore and the women. They all wore sandals. I can assure you. So when you're blasting the city, the point I'm trying to lead up to this is this. A Christian church has only one single job, one, to bring the community together, to show the people the love of Christ and to make

those who aren't Christian want to become Christian. That's the one job. You know, it doesn't get any more simple than that, but they've complicated it. So these men, they want to condemn the people who are letting the women show their big toe. But they're not telling them not to do it. So in other words, they're not leading them to the gospel of the big toe.

So these people will never know this, right? Right. And it's so ridiculous. And that's a perfect segue into this next clip because we have a minister doing something extremely similar where, you know, it's so ridiculous because ministers...

They get so offended by some of these things that we've talked about. To the fact that they would want to proclaim them, it's false joketrend to do these things, to wear the flip-flops, to do all these things.

And it's so silly, you know. And, man, this is a great, perfect example for one of our final clips, to just kind of tie up the absurdity in a nice little bow. Oh my goodness, there's not enough money on earth for me to look like that in public.

And the guys there, you know how they walk with flip, oh, a bunch of you wear flip-flops, don't you? I actually would declare them false doctrine if it was up to me.

But you know how people do? They got these flip-flops and you got to kind of put your feet in a certain way, like a duck, to walk with flip-flops. And silk shorts hanging way off his bottom, and a wife beater, no respect.

You know why I bring that up? Because I've drove down a certain road in this city past a certain church in this city, and they're dressed just like that when they walk in the house of God.

Yeah, you're right. No respect for themselves, no respect for God. You have no respect for God, because God gave you a big toe, and you're going to show it.

Yeah, I mean, it's so crazy that the very fact that flip-flops, and I love that we're kind of ending back up here, because we sort of detour it away, and then become a kind of comeback, because it just shows the absurdity level that these things go to, and these men, they're so offended by a flip-flop, that they would want to declare it false doctrine, and that it's such a sinful thing to do, that even just talking about seeing other people around the town, go to church, and you see them walking in and they're wearing flip-flops,

and it's just, he's just so disgusted, there's just such a high disgust level about this. It's like, hey man, maybe flip-flops is not your style, but it doesn't mean that it's going to send somebody to hell. No, it doesn't. And you know, the message is one of the most judgmental religions that you're going to find, and all of the splinter groups that emerge from it, believe it or not, are even more judgmental. That's why they splintered off.

The most judgmental people that you are going to find on the face of this earth, and they take every single one of those passages from the Bible talking about Jesus telling you, or they apostles telling you to judge, and they twist its meaning, right? The meaning in the Bible is like, make a decision, examine something, and come to a conclusion. Judge for yourself. In other words, you know, don't just blindly do something, which they want you to. They will only believe, right? Don't blindly do this thing. See for yourself, examine for yourself, study for yourself,

judge it. you know, not condemn it and blast it. What they've done is they've replaced the word judge with strongly, vocally condemned. That's how backwards this is. But then take that a step further.

So this guy's telling all of his men and women in the church that your toes are sexy sisters and you're gonna lead these guys to hell because of your toes. And I drove past another church and oh my gosh, them prostitutes showed their toes.

So every single person in this church, whenever they're out in the city and they've been trained to judge and condemn and blast and vocally abuse and all of this stuff, right? So they see a woman on the street.

Oh, look, brother, she, her toes are showing. You woman who are showing your toes. So then you create this race of people, or this not race, but this group of people that they're making fools of themselves because the people who they're making fun of and ridiculing and insulting, they're like, what on earth are these people talking about?

Oh, I know. It's so silly. And you know, the inspiration from the flip flop, I mean, I've not looked into this directly, but it has to be the sandal because they're so similar. And like you said, this sandal was worn quite heavily in biblical times.

And it's just like, you mean to tell me that the apostles weren't wearing their sandals when they got together and went to church and somehow it's not specified or anything like that from the worst sandals, it's ridiculous.

And once again, it shows the absurdity levels that these things get to when men preach their own personal doctrines over the pulpit that are not bound and grounded in the religion that they claim to preach.

And it's almost like for self-fulfillment and self-gratification that they can sort of mold people into their ideal versions of what they think people should be. And it's completely unhinged and outside of anything that would be biblical or a biblical standard, but it matters to these men.

And so therefore, they're gonna preach it and ram it down, people throw it over the pulpit. Yeah. You know, I've often wanted to do this as a joke. I don't know if you've seen these or not, but there are people who, as a joke, they'll take an old pair of cowboy boots and they'll cut them up and they'll fold part of it underneath and go through the soul where they turn the cowboy boot into a sandal, but it's still got the height of the cowboy boot.

I wear cowboy boots a lot because the way that my foot is arched, the cowboy boots feel better on my feet than anything that is laced. So I'm one of these freaks who I'll wear a suit in cowboy boots.

That's me, that's who I am. And I've thought about doing this as a joke because... that have all these old cowboy boots that are just worn completely out. But notice, these ministers who are blasting the women for their sexy toes, they don't bless the men.

So the men can wear these things. And what if they turn this into a doctrine? All these men in the message who think the women's sexy toes are sending people to hell. And you're not supposed to do this if you're a woman, but it's okay for a man.

We should all donate them a large box of these sandals so their church made out of cowboy boots for all of the men to wear these things, right? I think that's a great idea, John.

It's like, okay, you think that's absurd? Try this on for size.

Absolutely. Well, I hate to say it, man. I'm having so much fun. And I've actually had to wipe so many tears from eyes from laughing so hard in this episode. I've got to stop.

I can't keep going. We've got to stop this. But I'll just end it on this note. If you're in one of these churches and your female and they're making fun of your toes, just remember that God is the one that gave you those toes.

He gave you your elbow in the same way, right? You don't find them condemning your elbow when you go out in public. And if you did, you'd probably laugh at them, right? Because that is stupid.

And I seldom I use that word. In fact, I think this is the first time that I've used this word. That is stupid. I'm gonna say it. If you're condemning the woman for their big toe and saying that the big toe is sexy, that's pretty stupid.

Plain and simple, I'll leave it at that. If you have weird doctrines that you'd like for us to discuss on the show, please contact us on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org.

For an in-depth look at the dangers behind these groups, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-Rain to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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