Our Stories: An Interview With Levi Duenas

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 very special guest, Levi Dwayne Yes, former message believer.

Levi, it's so good to have you on today. I have spoken to several people who have now left the sect of the message that you were in. It was one of the more infamous sects, and I've wanted to have somebody on from that group, and you are the brave one who has came forward first.

So you're the one that I get to put on the spot, and hopefully there will be others. But it's so good to have you, and maybe if you could just tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, thanks, John. I really appreciate this time you're giving me, and yeah, first of all, I want to say that I'm a big fan of your work. The William Brannum Research Page was a pretty big part of my sort of awakening to the situation that I was in.

I've been in Tucson pretty much all my life. My family and me came to that church in specific about 24, 25 years ago. It's probably 26 years now. We came as a young family of six. It was me, my brother and my sister, my sister, and my two brothers, my mom and my dad.

My parents brought us there for just to be members of the congregation, and you know, through that, I, that was, you know, where I came up, and that's how I was raised. I was raised within the message.

It was quite a unique experience. I don't know that coming out now. I've met many people who have sort of gone through a situation that I've, that my family and a lot of the people who come up in places like these have gone through.

I, I exited in the spring of 2022. I believe. Um, and I've been not ever since it's been about two years now, um, and I'm just kind of,

you know, looking to, uh, to share a little bit about what happened to me, not, not, not because it's just because I, I think there's a lot that can be said, um, about the way people, um, sort of believe things, which was, um, that was my journey.

My journey came through trying to understand my beliefs and, and what I believed. And that was, that was, that was pretty much it. And for the listeners who, you know, we're not mentioning the name of the group, obviously, for, for the protection of both Levi and, for the group, there, there are many good people who are unfortunately trapped in some of these things.

But for the listeners, the way that the message works, William Brannum was the central figure of the message called. And after he died, a number of groups, the leaders took authority of their own groups and basically became central figures of their own sect. So what we're discussing here today is a, a group where a, a single, a single person has risen up to be the new authority or the new apostle prophet. There's different names that these guys use. But Levi, you were, you were raised in this thing. You're born and raised or you came in later and you're raised

in it. So you're much like me. One of the problems that I had when I left is that I really did not know anything else. That was my identity. And, you know, after leaving, I met several people who had came in into it later. And so they had an identity and then took on the cult identity.

But when they left, they just, they had something to go back to. And like me and I'm certain you're feeling the same thing. It's hard because you leave. And then you have to find yourself, who are you? Why did they rob you of your identity? And I was just having this conversation with somebody the other day. But of all of the things that I can say that this cult truly did rob us of, that's probably the biggest thing. They stole our identities. And we, you know, through the indoctrination process, we became something that inwardly we really were not. And after you leave,

you have to kind of find out who you are. Can you tell us a little bit about that process, what that's like? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. When I was pretty young, I actually did grades one through five in the public school system. And then when I transitioned to going into the school that is run by the church, that was kind of a culture.

shock for me because some things became pretty evidently clear to me and right off the bat. There was something that stood out to me and that was that you never really questioned criticize or contradicted anything that the pastor said did or anything, you know, even against the way things were run.

And it wasn't necessarily, you know, I was a young kid and it's not necessarily that I had a bone to pick with anybody there, but this sort of way of viewing the world in which there are people who are, I mean, basically untouchable and not just in a way where you could, you know, criticize something they would do, but in what they said, it was basically considered the word of God.

And I think that's what really started me trying to understand what it is I actually believed. And that kind of stuck with me, you know, going into the church school. And then those questions kind of followed me throughout my adolescence into adulthood because they just didn't say right with me.

I really needed to understand, okay, why is it that we believe what we believe? Is it because somebody is it merely because I was born into it? That didn't seem a legitimate enough reason to me.

I think for me to really feel confident in my faith, I needed to examine it. And when that process began, it really began with me not even looking to criticize the message. In fact, I think I wanted to be opposite.

I wanted to prove the message correct, which is a path that seems a lot of people kind of go down and then when they end up coming out the other side, they're not the same.

And so for me, it came out to understanding why I believe what I believe and exactly what is faith. And I mean, those aren't simple questions. I don't much less for a teenager who's not really involved in society at large, but also like an understanding what and sort of having an education to even sort of come up against these questions, you know.

So I basically took what I had around me and I started doing some research. And what I realized is that my faith really wasn't strong because it was dependent on the actions of men, their words, and basically the church I was in.

And that's not something faith can actually be strongly grounded on. There needs to be something... Deeper, and you know, if you ask me, I think it has to be your personal convictions Those are some things that are basically immovable so Growing up I had a lot of I had a lot of questions and That's mainly what I remember is Why why are things the way they sort of happen, you know, why why are things like why can't we um Even question it, you know, there was like comments that would constantly being said like that only God can correct the pastor

um, and That was that was kind of terrifying. I mean once you really start to grab this grass grass the the scope of that statement It's something that It's kind of terrifying that people can actually think like that. I mean if you're holding a person in that high regard um Your whole your whole concept of a faith is is going to be a skew total because To have somebody in that position your faith is always going to go through them. It's always going to be first through them and then And then secondly like the Bible and then God like it's it's not a way for faith to actually flourish

This black and white way of thinking is It's not it's more specifically designed to scare you than it is to actually help you And that was a lot of of my adolescence was was like this unease of uncertainty No matter how hard I pursued it there was something that was That was lacking deeply I would agree with that They call these groups high demand groups. That's another name for the call itself and That's what it is. It's really high demand. They want to impress upon you The fear and the continual urgency of whatever it is that they're bringing so that you're constantly in the state of

Emotional turmoil because if you can focus on that then you do not focus on critical thought And I'll never forget for myself when I went through the same process you're describing when suddenly I realized For some reason I I'm an analytical minded person, but I had shut off all critical thought and I think Charles who does the historical podcast with me he called it only believe ism And I really can't think of a better term for it than that because you're so focused on the urgency and These men are telling you that what they're saying is this spoken word of God the new Bible the new revelation

Whatever it is that your sect called it and They're telling you this and so you're not critically thinking about whether it actually is compatible with the Bible the word of God and so The point at which you suddenly turn on your critical thought It's suddenly like you've got this overwhelming of all kinds of emotions.

For me, it was guilt for why on earth did I not critically thank while I was in this place? But then suddenly there's this overwhelming feeling of, wait a minute, all these other people are doing this too.

How are they doing it? Why are they doing it? Why would you want to do this? And what kind of people does this to another person? To another human, right? I remember going through all of that thought process.

And for me, it brought me into some fairly deep depression because I realized that my whole life that I had lived was a lie. And I had to come out of that. What was that process like for you?

Did you go through any emotional pain when you came to this realization? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I went through some pretty dark times. It seems that the more I discovered what was happening and the more I learned of the stuff that my life had been built on up to that point had been lies, you not only find yourself in search of a new way to see the world, but you lose everything you had up to that point when it comes to your worldview.

You have a lot of distrust in yourself. You have a lot of distrust in those around you. There's a lot of frustration. A lot of just wondering, why is nobody talking about this? Why are we playing this huge game of the Emperor's new clothes?

Why is it that we pretend that certain things are true when they're very clearly not? And I think the process of going through that was very difficult, but it was also very enlightening because what I ended up realizing is if you build your faith while the Bible says it, but on a strong foundation, it won't be moved.

And I think the process of slowly rebuilding that is what took me to finally take the decision to exit. One of the ways was sort of realizing the way belief and incentive sort of work hand in hand when I read a book called When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger.

That book really changed the way I viewed my faith because what I realized up until that point is more than actually believing in it, I was being incentivized to believe it. And that incentive was basically you get to stay with your family.

Now, my situation is that I actually left with my family, but I think a lot of people have to face that where... When it comes to actually questioning their faith, it's not really, is this true or not, is do I want to stay with my family, do I want to keep my job, do I want to have a huge fight with my spouse, do I want to, all these other aspects that go into it, and it's, it's like, the term that, you know, comes up a lot in the, in Leon Festinger's book is cognitive dissonance, and I, learning about that also changed a lot about how I see things

and it seemed like, especially for the children there, it's sort of induced at a young age. It doesn't seem that it comes naturally. I think kids are curious, they question a lot of things, but this sort of way of getting them to see more of what they're, what they risk losing if they question or if they criticize or if they decide to leave, they're sort of left with just this huge void because not only are they losing, you know, friends and family, there's also potential of losing employment, there's also potential of really finding yourself out on the street. A lot of people kind of go

through that, and that doesn't, to me, seem to be a way to follow your faith. I think, I think, the book of Job does a great job of sort of illustrating that is, the reason why Job was, was a servant of who God really, really, really loved and admired is because he had everything to lose.

He had the family, the wealth, and everything, and he decided to believe and have faith in God despite losing all of that. And when it comes to these groups, I think they understand that if they can keep you in fear of losing everything, then you will stay. And it seems to, it seems a cheap way. It seems, you know, the funny thing is that that sort of tends to give away the game because if your faith is true, you should have no problem sitting down with somebody and having these conversations, you know, with respect and, you know, not in the control ways,

which is, you know, usually a one-on-one meeting with a pastor in his office where, you know, he can run his, like, nice, pastor, mean pastor routine on you and sort of get what he wants from you.

Or just over the pulpit where whatever is said is not really, like, it's not a question. That's, he gets to decide the story. He gets to decide the narrative. And I think, I think that's a problem when it comes to really letting people's faith splurge because if you need to do that, then what you're teaching is missing something. There's no need for any of that in something where people are there with a real hunger and a real desire to be in a church, where they feel like their spiritual lives are growing.

going. And I think, you know, coming out here, I've been fortunate to visit a few churches and see different ways of things being done in the way people worship God. And it's been quite enlightening and it's been really beautiful to see people who have all the reason in the world to not be in church. And yet they decide to be there on Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings, giving their time to God in the best way they know how. And I don't think that's I think, well, you know, growing up in the kind of environments we did, we were kind of taught

to look down on those people to kind of view them as lost, you know, view them as essentially just cannon fodder was the word, which is a really disturbing term to say of it. You know, these people who are basically their, their, their use is basically when the bomb's father's going to be something that needs to burn. And these views of people are pretty demeaning.

And it's coming out here and seeing the complete opposite in a lot of cases. Not all cases, because, you know, people are people everywhere. And that's not something that can really be changed. That's just the way life is. But this is living in fear and a manipulation of your worldview is, is really the only way these, these groups are able to keep people locked within their faith.

It doesn't seem sincere to me. In fact, I think it's the opposite of that. I think it's coercion. I think it's undue influence. I think it's, it's a really, it's a cheapening of your own belief system, if you really believe it's the truth. I've mentioned it a couple times on the podcast, but when we left, we, my wife was at the table for launch after church, after our new church. And she said, she looked at me and she said, John, look around us, the, the children of God have increased by millions of people, because we're, now we're including these people that we

also called cannon fodder in the main sect of the message, which for those of you who don't know, this is during the olden days of the war, when they had cannons, they would send, you know, a portion of their militia out, knowing that they're just going to get slaughtered by all the cannonballs, so that they can use up all the cannonballs. And then the real militia could come in.

In other words, these lives are wasted. These lives are worthless for a cause of our own. And that's, that's literally what they were calling other Christians in these groups. But I never forget, I went to one of the theme parks, I can't remember which one it was with our new non-cult friends. And I was looking around, you know, there's all these fantasy sections in a theme park, and we're, we're in there, and it suddenly struck me, we were living in a fantasy world when we're in the cold.

And like you said, the cognitive dissonance, it was just enabling us to stay in that fantasy world and not step outside of it. But then the thought hit me in a theme park. It's fun, right?

It was like we got stuck. It was almost like being born and raised in the house of horrors. And your parents tell us, yeah, there's nothing outside of this house of horrors and then you got a group of men.

And then one thing, my mind is processing this as I'm thinking, right? And one thing led to another, led to, wait a minute, there are men who would be and women who would know that there is life outside of the theme park.

And I grew up in the cult elite being a Collins, right? And I knew there were things that I knew the upper elders in the message that they had to know many of these things.

There's no way they did not know these. And it suddenly struck me that it takes more than cognitive dissonance. It takes people who are maliciously influencing people knowing that it's wrong. Have you encountered anything like that in your journey out?

Yeah. I think there's definitely, there's definitely people who know more than they let on. I think there's people who probably have had some similar questions. I don't know if I would, if I would directly attribute malice to any people I directly had experiences with.

But when it gets to a certain point where the people at the top, there's almost a responsibility that they have to look into these things, especially if they're ministers or if they're in positions of teaching, of their positions of power, basically, is I think these people have the duty to really, if they're shepherds of the flock, I think they have a big, a lot of duty to question these things.

And I would say within that church, there was, I would say there's probably people who knew more than they were letting on. But it was again, in my opinion, a lot of it is probably to do with incentive, especially when people are years and decades in a place like that.

What they stand to lose by discontinued by disbelieving or by leaving or is a lot more than they stand to gain if they just stay and be quiet. There's that saying, the famous saying that goes attribute to stupidity before you attribute to malice.

In my experience, I don't want to call anybody stupid, but I think there's just a lot of turning. turning and pretending you didn't see or just remaining in the dark willfully because it's easier. And I would say the right thing to do would be to ask questions and to pursue wisdom really like to try to find out why you believe what you believe because you may go years in this and you won't realize the effect it's had on the people around you. And I think that's a lot of what plays into the problems and the many cases, the many instances of just I would

say pastoral negligence in the issues that really matter to a church and the things that should really be addressed. I mean there's so many cases of young boys getting in trouble for for watching sports or for maybe going out for a drink or something or just stuff that you know is as common behavior of young people and they were crucified for it they were they were they were you know they were told they were you know sinners and and you know they had to get their lives right and all of this and meanwhile there's people in that church

who enjoy regular dinners with the pastor and they're guilty of some horrible things and and again I don't know if that's they just seems it there's definitely something that is unequal there and not in the in the just in the in the basic sense that you're paying attention to things that don't really matter where there's a whole backlog of problems that have never been addressed and it's sad to see specifically specifically for kids because if anybody has a no voice in anything it's it's it's the kids those were always the ones where I felt like a lot of them didn't have a chance in leaving and going through the

things through which they went through I mean there's some pretty tragic cases in our in our case but this I think the will for the willful ignorance at the very top is is more damaging because it's not as obvious as malice when somebody is malicious you can pick it up pretty quickly but this will for ignorance can be kind of camouflaged into faith people can say well I'm gonna put it on the shelf or I'm gonna choose to look at it because that's what the word of God tells us to do and it's the right thing to do but really I

think they're just in a sense washing their hands of situations where I think adults people in power should really speak up and you know you that that's fine in a church I mean that can happen in a church for a year and you'll have problems when it's 40 years. It's a nightmare.

Yeah, I was in it for 37 years and I believed it hookline and sinker for 36 and a half of those years. For me, you know, I can't say that I was willfully ignorant. I was naive. I had no idea plus I was in a different category than the rank and file members, right? Because being in this cult royalty, it's kind of this weird bliss in knowing that you had the family of somebody who knew the prophet. That's literally the claim to fame that I had, which is ridiculous now that I think of it. But that's what we had. That's all I had. But I was not willfully ignorant. I was

pretty naive and I went through some very catastrophic life experiences, several things at one time got me to doing some soul searching, which every person in their life should do. But in the message cult and their splinter groups, you really only do this when you go through something really hard because they keep you in this high demand urgency. And so you're soul searching, your life searching, they don't impress, they don't want you to do this because they know you're going to leave, right? But I stumbled as I'm doing this searching, I back then there wasn't this

wealth of information out there. In fact, there's only a couple guys that I know of that even had anything critical on random. And I stumbled onto one of them by accident and started going through the things. And then it hit me. I knew it was wrong. I was, you know, like I said, 36 and a half years old, I believe. I knew it was wrong. And then suddenly enters in personal convictions.

When you know something's wrong and you keep doing it, you cannot live with yourself. You, I can't, there are some people that can, I guess, I couldn't, I couldn't live with myself like this.

So now, you know, fast forward, this is year 2024, there's a bombardment of information critical to the message cult and all of its very splinter groups all over the web. Anybody who opens up their phone can find this stuff and they stumble onto it by accident. So now it's changed.

And I don't understand that. Like I'm shocked because I had the personal convictions when I found out something's false. I don't want to continue something false. If I find out they're lying to me, well, why are they lying to me? I don't want to continue to be lied to. Did you go through anything like that? Like you're on the, you're on the recent edge of leaving. So what are your thoughts in that area? What, what was it like learning it was wrong? Did you have these convictions and questions that I had? Yeah, I had a lot of them. I would say a lot of that is due to my two.

to my parents, my parents always taught us that when something is true, it's true. And when something is wrong, no matter how much somebody tries to convince you, it's true, it's not. And I remember my mom and my dad having those early talks with me and I attribute a lot of that to them.

And then as I grow older, you were kind of faced with some pretty blatant situations where a person in a position who we've been pretty much indoctrinated since we were kids that were these, you know, elite men of God who were angels before the foundation of the world. And they were side by side with, with Jesus and Michael and all those angels and they were fighting Satan and all these like crazy, like you said, like their fantasies. And that was, that was the context.

In which I then started to examine my faith. And they're completely different. And so, yeah, I went through a lot of those hardships of that, that, that soul searching and, and the questioning of your faith. And that's something that's really demonized within, within, within these groups is, you know, the, the motto is only believe, right? And, and the, the biggest sin is unbelief.

And it's funny, you know, I was thinking about your day, I can really only think of one other like company that kind of has them. That's like Disney. You know, they say if you can wish upon her, you can believe. And you know, it's like, I guess they both, you know, there's something about fairy tales there. But I think when I started to really examine it, it was, it was, it was, it was tumultuous within me to say the least. I really struggled with why I even believed in the Bible at all. And, and that was, that shook me to my

very core. And that, that sent me straight, you know, into doing a lot of reading and, and looking into Christian apologetics. And once I started delving into that, it was even more contrasted with, with the message, because as you there's probably more now, but there wasn't much in the form of message of apologetics, you know, they don't really, they don't really depend on that when their motto is only believe, right? Take all your doubts and just put them on a shelf and then only believe in. And that sort of way of viewing the world directly, directly clashed with what I was

trying to do is trying to understand why I believe what I believed. And that was very, that, that was very disheartening because I was like, man, I've, I've run to the message my whole life as a shelter, you know, up until that point. And it was heartbreaking. I think that I felt more heartbroken and hurt than angry. I was just like, I really believe this and I didn't just believe that I loved it, you know?

I was the type of person to, you know, there was a span of time where I would fast on Sundays. There was, you know, I enjoyed reading messages. I would fall, you can ask my parents, I would fall asleep listening to tapes.

I would, I was into it because, because I, because I believed it, and I loved it. And I think it was very heartbreaking to, to see that all, all that effort and all this time I had put so much faith into it, the message wasn't really willing to defend me.

It was only asking me to believe it mindlessly, and, and thoughtlessly. And I couldn't do that, you know, when you start, as you grow, you know, a big part of growing up is, is developing your own convictions and following them, because that's, that's what's going to take you through life.

That's a, that's a foundation that will keep you, if you, if you follow convictions that you've examined and you've thought deeply about, and, and so it was, it was enlightening and it was also very, very sad.

I, I had a period where I struggled a lot with mental, mental depression. I was, I was, I was pretty sad for about a year to the point where I, I just didn't, I just didn't really carry their way.

And I think that's when I, I think that's when I really realized, okay, this has to take a step up. My faith can't just be in the gutter for no, for other than the reason that what I was taught as a child, what I was basically born into is probably, is not real.

And so what that means is I have to, I have to work out my own faith and, and that meant studying and, and reading the Bible. I got, you know, into a lot of literature.

And I think that was really what, what healed me is, is pursuing it for myself. You know, there's a lot of fear around questioning your faith. I would recommend it because it will strengthen it.

It will strengthen it. It really will. You, you need to examine why you believe what you believe. And I think, even though it was difficult and there was a lot of turmoil, I think, in the end, it's been worth it because I'll be honest, I think, I think now, I feel a lot more confident in my faith, not in myself, you know, in a lot of ways, I, I find myself, you know, the message tends to give you some easy out, sometimes out of things.

You know, if the only sin is, is unbelief, well, then as long as you believe the message, then you can do a lot of things. And that, that, that's not an uncommon theme. And I would say, inside of a, a ministry like ours.

And so, I think putting my feet on a foundation of really understanding my faith is what took me out of, as you said, that part of your life where it's tumultuous and you're kind of broken and your faith is not in a good place.

Yeah. Yeah, that process is terrifying for anybody who's gone through it because you basically have to deconstruct who you were and then reconstruct who you are. But for people like us that were born and raised in it, where do you begin? Right? You have to build up everything. It's like you're suddenly building this new person and wait a minute, that new person is me. And I'll never forget, you're one of the many who came out of this thing and remained Christian. There's a large number of them. I'll never forget reconstructing that. A lot of people don't know that I've

done this. I don't know if I've even mentioned it, but I spent like two years going into Christian apologetics and learning what it was, how it worked, chipping in, where I was able. And when you get into this, you suddenly realize that you literally learned nothing about the Bible while you're in this thing. Nothing. And you're talking with people who, you know, they're atheist and they're debating the Christian apologist. And they know more about the Bible, these atheists, know more about the Bible than the message people that I knew, even then myself. And I read the Bible while I was in it. So then I came to terms with the fact that I was reading it

through a lens that blinded what it said. In other words, they had so twisted theology that, you know, take this verse out of context here and this other verse over here and mix them together and make this new concoction of theology. And none of that is even in the Bible. So you go back and you actually read the Bible for what it says. And you can't make it say those things that are in the message. That's that's really where it ended up. But the after all of that process, the thought that hit me, which was, and I'm not going to get into theology. I'm not a preacher at all. But the

thought that hit me suddenly, I came across these verses like Luke 16, 16, the law on the prophets were until John and, you know, since then, the good news of the kingdom. All of these passages that are referring to a clear transition of the way things work, of the life of becoming, literally becoming Christianity, if you read through the Bible, through this process. And there's a process where the law on the prophets were until John. So this was, you know, the prophets and the laws were the law was the book of Moses. Then In these last days Jesus has spoken and next he's sending his Holy Spirit who will lead and guide you

When I came to terms with realizing that these men were trying to do what the Holy Spirit was supposed to do for Christianity I felt robbed. I felt like Number one, why would they even want to do this? Why would they want to claim that they have that authority and that's a you know that the same supernatural affects that they claim to be given of God. Why would they even claim this was greater than simply the Holy Spirit that was supposed to be the one who's leading and guiding us?

What was that like for you when when you started going into the church and you started reading the Bible for yourself was it anything similar to what I just described? Yes, absolutely. That was actually a big one is because the case for the message is Is that you have to almost bring it on par with the Bible and I mean that's unbiblical to start But let's say that we can sort of make a case for that. It's a tall order There has to be a lot that goes into that because I think a lot of what within the message, you know, it tends to be

King James only group and that that sort of limits the scope, but it kind of puts them in bright where they want to be is we only have to really look at one book to to make to justify our case and And I think learning about the Bible was was a was a big part of it is I Well, first of all the book is an archaeological find it's a it's a it's a compilation of a lot of books that spend a vast amount of history and they sort of Correlated with one another and it's like it's a miraculous book. It's it's not it's a library the Bible is a library of books

correct Yes, and it's also what's that many thousands of years of of war and and and just history of humanity and it's kind of pushed the West forward in a lot of ways and And so to to make the case that the message is even close to one par with a book like that

It they were it's not even it's it's really difficult because I mean as you know You don't really if if you want to Disprove the message. You don't even have to look outside of the actual books they give The inconsistencies that that sort of go between the books is that was one of the most infuriating things

Finding out, you know, you can take the life stories for example and those will It's right there. I mean He the inconsistencies between him Saying his his his life story while it was completely something else in another part, it was like, how can you make the case that this is on par with the Bible, right?

And I think a lot of that motivates that type of thinking is really what they want is they want the unbending adherence to their word, is they want what they say to be final, with the same finality that you view the Bible if you're a Christian. And that gives them a lot of power to basically interpret whatever they want to preach and get their means. And you know, the funny thing about the message is that because the doctrine and the messages are so inconsistent with one another, each minister tends to develop his own way of seeing it. And if you go from church to

church, there's like variations and there's different ways of seeing things and they slightly vary, but they have some pretty strong disagreements. And that's always been funny to me because that was originally one of the criticisms that Brannum had of the denominations.

Is that they were infighting and that they put sort of, they put people's own personal like human desires, right? He talks a lot about, you know, these churches that have events for for the people like Poplux and all that stuff. And you know, the funny thing is the message is a much different now. And I think this, what happens, well, what I believe happens is that there seems to be like all belief systems that are self-sustaining, they sort of tend to deteriorate into the beliefs of the people who run them. So as these churches sort of morph into their own

into their own things, we just find that they're not really getting anywhere. And they're not helping people improve their faith. And if anything, they're not, they don't really even know the Bible like you said. It's sad, but it's not, it seems to be just another piece that actually fits in if the status quo is to be maintained, right? The keeping the people just listening to what you have to say and your interpretation of the Bible and then your own personal interpretation of the message, you can basically have a type of freedom that is not really given to a lot of

pastors for Christians. You know, there's a lot of oversight and when it comes to churches and You know, those pastors are helped to account by by people who are above them and that doesn't exist I think that's a big draw to the message for people who are trying to be ministers Yeah, there's no accountability correct. Yes, and and I think that That was one of the more infuriating parts of it is is finding out that there was people who Who knew this and it was all part of the the strategy really is to to maintain this

this view of themselves as equal to or you know like all the you know, there's a lot of believers in the message who have their own pastor as like the next prophet or One of the three with Brannum or whatever right all these things that So that sort of come when there is no real Foundation and I think that's what the Bible is That's why it's important to to examine it and I think that's why it's important to understand it and is because If you're a Christian your authority is the Bible, right? And you can sit down with your pastor and have those discussions

but when your authority is An interpretation of the Bible that's coming through like two or three different lenses the message or your minister or both Then you're total then there's I don't think even the con like your your context is totally off You really don't have a Even a good place to start and I think that was very to start that was very infuriating for me was to find out that Not only do I have well, I have the symptoms of it, but the entire Foundation on my faith is just been set up by people who have their own interest

at heart and I think that was That was a stab in the gut for sure and I didn't it didn't feel like I was ever gonna get anywhere

And ultimately I think ultimately that's why I left yeah Charles who I've mentioned earlier in this podcast episode in his sect The leader was much like your sect right William Brannum was no longer the authority He the new central figure his pastor was the the authority and He recognized the fact that William Brannum had many many internal contradictions and This was the second oldest Driving message church that exists in all of message history to name that William Brannum mentioned frequently on the recording So everybody knows who this is and he's admitting that there were contradictions

But he said it was to confuse the people so that you could weed out the unbelievers Which essentially is calling not only the Christians outside of the message canon water. But now we've got this blast radius within the sect that we're just going to wipe them out too because they're confused. And this is basically this was by design that you confuse the people. And you know, the Bible verse God is not the author of confusion.

Just unravels the whole thing. But if you could go back in time and give your former self before you escape this thing, some encouragement and advice, what would you do? Yeah, I think the simple way would just be that I think I would encourage myself just to stick to my convictions overall. I think that's a strong foundation, especially if you examine them, I think they will guide you in the way that you'll need to go. And I think that's so important because in doing that, you take your faith back. You know, it's not dependent on what you've

been taught your whole life. It really is dependent on your personal experience. And it really puts, you know, I feel the control back in your hands is to say, not only am I free, but the way I view the world and the way I interact with my faith, it's also mine again. And I think that's very important because it helps with, you know, leaving and there's, it's, it's, it comes with, as your faith grows, all the struggles that come with that and the, and the, and the rebuilding of your faith as you leave and you, and you struggle to sort of find a foundation outside of the context

that you've had your whole life. Yeah, I would agree with that. There's so many things that I wish I could tell myself if I went back. You know, when people leave this and other similar groups, the message is not alone. If you examine other cults, they're all pretty much the same. They've got different doctrines and theology, but in the end, the structure, the hierarchy, all of it is pretty much the same with different, just different faces, right? It's a different theme park and not as fun as the one that you were in, you know, but there, there's a wide variety of what happens when

people leave. And for some people, they, you know, their childhood was also robbed. There were things that other kids got to enjoy that they never, ever did. And some people they leave and they're like, we I'm free. I can do these things, but it's weird because you experienced them for the first time as an adult. So you've got the, the guardrails of being adult, but wanting to go back and do the things of your childhood. And your early enough out, this probably hasn't hit you yet.

I swore that It would never hit me because I'm an adult. I'm too big for this kind of thing. About five, six years later, it suddenly hits you and it finally sinks in. Wait a minute.

I've never done this or that or the other thing. And so we, within reason, we try to few new things. And I'll give one story which I'm embarrassed to tell, but I will, but for our wedding anniversary, my wife and I had never been into a casino.

I have no desire whatsoever to gamble. I think it, for me, I think it's kind of silly because I'm very financially minded and this is just waste of money, right? But I'd never set foot in one.

So we went to, there's a boat, probably 45 minutes north of here that's a casino. And it was five floors, five stories deep in a boat. And we walked in the top and everybody's like, they're so bored and they're pulling the cranks and feeding the money.

And that's, that's floor number one, right? So we're looking around, well, this isn't any fun. Let's go see what's on the next one. So we go down there, everybody there is like this or throwing a car, they're just bored out of their minds.

And you know, they're addicted. It really is what it comes down to, they're addicted. So we got all the way down to the bottom floor and I said, we gotta do this, right? So we each took a $1 bill and played the penny slots until the dollar was gone.

And then left. And now I can say that I've done this. I didn't enjoy it, it was no fun, but I had the convictions of adults. I didn't go blow $100, right? But I got the experience.

And while doing it, there were some things that I'm glad that I went that I could see because these are things you'll never see anywhere else. But I also didn't blow a lot of money.

So I'm glad that I didn't go as a teenager, right? But like I said, there's a lot of different pathways people go, it sounds like you took the more cautious, the more stable, a very good solid secure pathway is the one that you chose, which is same kind of pathway that I chose.

I'm too analytically minded to go do something stupid. So I'm very glad that you were able to do that. It's funny, I think I have a similar story with a casino, but it was basically the same as, I just walked in and I played a few dollars and I was like, I don't even understand these machines, but I got to say that I did it and that's the end of that.

Yeah. Life is good, you know, you can experience it, you don't have to do, you can go to bad places and you don't have to do bad things. That was another concept I had to grasp.

Jesus sat with prostitutes and there's nothing in the Bible about him doing the bad things that other people would do, right? You can be a good person in a bad place, right? It's called agency and I think that's something that you learn, but it also, it comes with responsibility, which is the...

side of that, you know. So I think walking that line is, you know, you can part, you can go and you can enjoy yourself. But I think at the end of the day, the responsibility to be a productive person and to be a Christian is still yours. It doesn't belong to anybody else. So that's one thing you get. Well, it's very good talking with you today. And like I said, I've been wanting to talk to somebody who came out of the sect that you were in. And I'm very glad that you step forward because I know that there will be others who will. And even if they don't, there will be many others

who get encouragement just because that you did. It's very brave to do what you have done. And I'm so glad. So thankful that you are now free and can experience all of all the good things of life. And it sounds like we've actually, we share a lot in common the Christian apologetics and the pathways that you've chosen were very similar to the journey that I took when I first came out. So I, I expect that you'll do very well for yourself because I feel somewhat stable and where I am. And I'm happy to see that you're taking many of the same pathways and making the same choices.

But if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org for an overview of the historical research of William -Branum and the healing revivals. Read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William-Branum and his message available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.