Faith Assembly Turns Destructive - With Chino Ross

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Chino Ross, pastor, Bible teacher, and voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chino D. Ross, YouTube channel. Chino, it's so good to have you back. We have explored all things Hobart Freeman for a few times now, and now we're getting into the nitty gritty of the downfall of what happened and the very destructive nature of a cult. There's so many ways in which a cult can go,

it's like a train with no rails, but this one went in a very bad direction, and as we'll explore, as we get further into this, it went into a direction that's somewhat familiar to people of the modern era, so I'm very excited to get into this and talk about the implosion of the Hobart Freeman cult. Well, thanks for having me on again, John, so you're ready to go down the rabbit hole with me again. I think you've been down a lot of rabbit holes. We have, there's just so much to this, you pull one little string out in the whole ball of yarn becomes done rambling. And somehow

they're all connected. I haven't figured out how all these tunnels and channels connect. I think you have that figured out better than I do. The money, man. Look for the money. Yeah, and as far as a cult goes, some people are maybe hesitant to call faith assembly a cult, and I think it all really goes back to your definition of a cult. Probably most people in the church today think of a cult along the line of Mormonism, or a seventh day Adventism, or Jehovah's Witness, where you've got groups that have doctrine, that have a doctrine, that is at odds with what

we've always thought of as the essentials or the fundamentals of the historic Christian faith, like the deity of Christ or his virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. But you and I talked in another podcast or interview together that I think you could, again, depending on how you define cult, a cult, if you don't call it a cult, you could say it's got cult-like tendencies, but if the it's a framework and the structure...

of the organization and the individual leading it tends to put people in extreme bondage to them and to their teaching, you know, at peril of losing their salvation or excommunication, I don't know what else you would call that but a call, even if they hold to orthodox fundamental Christian doctrine. Yeah, that's true. You know, the word call simply means a group of people with a common idea. You had the early Christians were the cults of Jesus Christ. I mean, it's it's really not a bad word but people like Jim Jones have made that word infamous. And so

when you hear the word today, call if you immediately go to Jonestown. But I think the the proper term as I understand it is destructive cult. If the cult has a framework that allows destruction and usually that framework, if it is most destructive, it consists of controlling and manipulating people. And that's where really it's where it gets problematic. And if you've explored any of the comments on my YouTube channel, anytime we use the word cult, immediately the people who are in the cults, the destructive ones, they immediately say, well, why aren't you attacking the Catholic

church? The Catholic church has all these problems. And if you'll notice every single cult that is being manipulated, they always go to try try to find something that's worse and say, that's worse than us. Not realizing that, well, there's a reason why you're going to the worse because you understand that destructive nature of the group. Well, I know you've done a lot more study in this broad field of cults and cultism and cult like groups. So yeah, I totally agree with that. And yeah, faith assembly definitely became maybe it did not start off a cult, but it definitely became that has

all the earmarks of that. And there are still people out there, John, who are died in the wool freemenites. And you know, what they have said to me all along is, you know, you don't have any place to speak because you never moved to Indiana. You never lived there. You never were part of the church. And that's true. They just don't understand how long my connection has been a two whole bar freemen in faith assembly back to as I told you in an earlier interview back to when I was a teenager. And I think in the last podcast, you put some pictures up and of inside whole bar

freemen's home. And those came from my camera. That's me standing there taking the picture. And I bet there's not one and a hundred people at faith assembly who are ever in Hobart's home, not one and a thousand that followed him that were ever inside his home. And that's me in the kitchen in the dining room in his study where he did his recordings. That's actually John, the back of my wife's head in one picture where June, Freeman, Hobart's wife, Hobart had passed away by the time these pictures were taken and put on rubber gloves to reach

into a cabinet and bring out and show off some little carvings that Hobart had done. So I mean, I've been out to eat with June, I've been out, I've been out to eat with the other ministers.

I mean, I know them, they know me. So I do know a little about this, even though I was not a part of the church. Yeah, and the way the cults control their information, usually that's why the backlash happens because you're exposing something that the rank and file member just didn't catch.

They didn't see it. I get the same thing and as you mentioned, I found all these spider webs, numerous spider webs of how all of this intricate web of deceit is connected. And for instance, if I publish something that's critical about AA Allen, I'm going to have the Allenites contact me.

Well, you weren't in this cult, man, but no, the information's out there. I'm just simply, you know, stating the facts and spreading them. So I see no harm in that, especially if people can learn and grow from, you know, from the history.

It's good to understand the history so we don't make the same mistakes. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Well, let's return to faith assembly. I think the last time we had talked about them leaving the glory barn.

It was a rainy day, April the 23rd of 1978, when after having a several hour meeting between Hobart and Mel and Meribeth Grider, Meribeth and Mel had realized the direction the church was taking was was not just a church going to teach on healing, but it was going to be a church teaching against doctors and that if you go to doctors or you wear glasses or you use a cane or have a wheelchair or take your insulin or have a baby born in the hospital, all of the above mentioned would all be all limits that's going to be grounds for shunning

if not excommunication. And I just know that Mel and Meribeth didn't want to be a part of that. So they decided to start charging rent, $425 a week and on April the 23rd, Hobart and Assurment said that's extortion, we're out of here.

And on that very day, they began picking up the chairs and dismantling the Hank Platt's upper room bookstore that sat to the right of the glory barn. And that was the end of a whole entire era.

I think I've told you before I don't know if my camera is pointing over towards the rock on the, but that actually that blue piece of concrete came from the chimney of the glory barn and something else I didn't mention and John, you just got to stop me or corral me if I go off in too many directions. I can talk ad nauseam on faith assembly.

But when I say one thing, as you know, it reminds you of something else. But that picture that I took out my car window in August of 1976 of the glory barn that you put up in an earlier podcast, if you look closely and look at the chimney, you will see a white dove painted on the chimney. There are a lot of colors going on in that. It was an interesting place for them to have a church and it was wonderful. Everyone loved it there. But a couple of years later, that white dove is gone because someone appointed out to Hobart, you have taught based on the second

commandment of Exodus 20 and other passages like Romans 1. No representations or images of God. And I think he was right on that. But he had the Holy Spirit dove on the chimney. So they had to go and paint that paint over that. I think before they even left there. Well, so once they left, what are you going to do? I mean, there goes your building. They had sunk a lot of money into that place, the air conditioning and all the remodeling, all the lumber bills. As far as I'm aware, Mel just handed the bill over to Hobart and the church wrote a check. So Mel and his, what,

prior to faith assembly using it as a church, all he had was a rundown sheep barn that he was wanting to use as a coffee house. So he was able to get a nice air condition remodel painted, fixed up building and faith assembly, which was a name of the church, the group of people, not the building. Faith assembly was able to meet there from October of 1972. And if you want to hear the first message ever preached there, Hobart did a four part series entitled submission to authority and non-resistance. Tate number one in that four part series is their first meeting in

October of 1972 in the glory of barn. Their last meeting was April the 23rd of 1978. So once they left, Mel and Mary Beth were, I think, glad that they were gone, but within a year of them leaving, Mel had gone back to, according to the reports, had gone back to, even as wife said to drinking too much. He was really depressed over how everything turned out and he died of a heart attack. And the year following in 1980 on the 4th of July, the glory barn burned down under suspicious circumstances. They did an investigation. They said they believed it was arson, but that was before

the days of surveillance cameras and videos. And they were, were never able to determine who did it. Yeah, I've looked at that a bit and it's really hard because, right, you can't prove that the cult did it, but once people become that radicalized, there's really no guardrails as to what they will or they won't do.

And once you become an outsider in a group like this, the destructive nature of the cult is that, well, the people who aren't with us and who have turned away from us, they become the enemy.

And they're, you know, the workers of Satan or whatever is the, whatever is the cult mythology. So it's easy to say that it could have easily been the cult. So I'm not blaming Hobart or Faith Assembly for Milgrider's death, but it is just a terrible combination of circumstances where you've had this wonderful arrangement between you and Dr. Freeman and the people.

And they just pull out and leave and ended up dying of a heart attack the next year. So they have no place to go. So they applied for a permit and got it granted fairly quickly to set up a big tent.

You mentioned AA Allen and that was, that was the AA Allen and Jack Coe and Orr Roberts and William Branham and Gordon Lindsay. I mean, those were the days of the big revival tents.

So there was a big tent that went up on the north side of Warsaw, Indiana. It only stayed there for a short period of time and then they moved it to Goshen and it stayed there the rest of the time.

So any of the messages that you hear from April the 23rd say the late spring of 78, all through the summer of 1978 and all through the fall of 1978 were preached in the tent.

The series on the Book of Galatians, which was a turning point series in the church because I think, I mean, it just brought down, it was so hard on the people. I'm gonna give you a quote from one of those messages before we're done today.

But I think the people, you know, there was some enthusiasm over the fact that we are no longer in a building that we have no control over, you know, that we are just, you know, basically tenants here.

And I think they also probably interpreted that as persecution, you know, anytime anything bad happens, it's persecution. And I can remember in my youth going through the same thing when I was a young pastor in Minnesota, we were meeting in a big building and we really wanted to go back to the New Testament church house, you know, the house in Thy Church.

And we left that building, we had a big group of people and we actually moved into, I opened my house, I was a pastor, but I also said, you know, I can host this group of people.

people as well. We had a wonderful group of people. So we were in a little town called Wakonia, Minnesota, and we moved in, moved the church from this big, I don't know, it might have been a Lutheran cathedral or something, and we hated it.

It was cold and echoey and hollow, and we didn't like it. We wanted a church in the home. So we moved into my house, well, I think maybe the next Sunday we had the police knocking on the door, saying we were making too much noise.

And I'm sure in my 20s, I thought, oh, this is great. This is persecution for the sake of Christ. Well, it's no such thing. It's just being an idiot, you know? There are laws that you have to abide by, and if you, if you were, I mean, I wouldn't want somebody next door in a rock and roll band practicing.

Well, a lot of people wouldn't want a church next door either. So we ended up having to move out, but I think what was going on with faith assembly is, wow, I mean, persecution.

We've been forced out of our building, and now we're in this tent. It was a tent that would seat 1,000 people. One of the messages and titles stealing the children's bread, you can actually hear a train, the whistle, coming down the track as it's getting closer, and as it goes by.

So there's some funny things and fun times that I think a lot of those people experienced, and anybody in your listening audience, if they were a part of that, they will know that what I'm telling them is, is definitely the truth.

You know, if you've been in a cult for any period of time, you've got some crazy stories, and we went to churches, you know, everything from, I think one of them was a, what was, it was a rented Boy Scout facility.

So here I am as a child, and you know, you can imagine all of the different things that you saw in the walls of the Boy Scout place, while you're sitting there trying to think about Jesus, and me as a kid that, you know, that's forever burned in my mind, but the one that tops them all is the Brannum Tabernacle, right when you got off the interstate onto 10th Street to go to the Tabernacle.

The very first thing that you saw or smelled was the sewage department. So I have forever burned in my head, this memory of associating the Brannum Tabernacle with sewage, which, you know, that's another joke for another day I won't tell now, but so you've got some documentation on the moves and the facilities, right?

So Jim, John, always sent out a newsletter. It was sent out from, actually from their home. So there's, you know, their mailing address in Leesburg, Indiana, the Dr. Hobart and June Freeman. This one was sent out in August of 1977.

So they knew that they were... growing so rapidly in the barn, they did not know they were gonna be kicked out or leave voluntarily, but they knew they had to have a bigger facility.

So plans were in the works to do that. So in this newsletter, that June would send out to people that were following the ministry all over the country, and I was 17 years old, 18 years old living in Mississippi, and so I got this newsletter.

And here's what she said in August of 1977. Work has already begun on the foundation for the new building, which will seat over 1,500 people. We have told you before how crowded we have been in the present facilities, many watching over close circuit TV, and many more outside in lawn chairs in their cars listening over loudspeakers.

People all over the world have been believing with us for this. One man in Illinois is offered to bring his equipment and some of his crew just to lay the floor. Already we have received over $113,000 toward the cost of the new building.

So they already had this in the works. They're gonna put this new building up. It wasn't something that totally caught them by surprise. It's just the building wasn't ready on April the 23rd of 1978, whenever they had to leave the glory barn.

So when coal weather got there and they were still waiting on their plumbing or sewage permit.

So they moved into the building. There was a trailer or two outside that was just full of porta pots because we're talking about 1,000 people. You know, out in an evangelistic tent, I was at the glory barn.

I was at the new building many times. Unfortunately, I was never there in 1978. I was actually in college down in Mississippi then. So I never got to experience what the tent was like.

But they moved in and coal weather began to set in. You know, as you get late in the fall, we're talking about not far south of Chicago. This is the north. It's gonna get cold up there.

What the church had to do was break up and they just began to meet in a variety, many different homes with different ministers taking the lead and teaching those little groups of people. The whole time waiting and waiting on this sewage permit.

Well, finally in December 1978, they got the permit. They moved into the new building. No heat, didn't have any heat that whole first winter. But I think everybody was so excited they didn't care.

You could wrap up real well and. and be comfortable. And they called it for lack of a better name, the new building. I don't think you could ever come up with a name as good as the glory barn.

And that was all stuck with it. Yeah, it really did. And I remember back in the 70s, you may have even heard of this, there was a place way over in extreme Western Kentucky called the sheepshed.

And I don't know if one copied from the other glory barn sheepshed because the glory barn was a sheep barn before it was a glory barn. But no, you couldn't come up with a name as good as that.

And so I think they just decided we won't even try. We just called it the new building. Very generic, very boring. But that's what the building was. It was just a big brown warehouse like metal building that sat in the middle of a cornfield.

It was so difficult to find that here is another newsletter of June's dated September of 1982. And there is the map that they had to draw because she says in this newsletter, we've had people show up from all over the country, couldn't find us and turn around and went back home.

That's how difficult it was to find. I think it was on the border of Casiasco and Noble County, but it was actually in Noble County where they met. So here brings up another interesting part of the whole story.

Faith assembly was not a normal tax exempt religious organization. Hobart was completely opposed to any form of incorporation when it comes to something that has to do with the gospel. So the church didn't own anything because the church wasn't anything.

I mean, there is no board. There are no members at vote. There are no articles of incorporation. But there was a couple whose name was Don and Betty Nye, who were longtime followers of Dr. Freeman.

They went back early on with him and they've got a big part of the land. And so they don't donate the land because who do you donate it to? There is no entity to whom it could be donated, but they allowed for the building to be built erected on a part of their farm.

And you can go through and I'm not gonna bore people with that. You can find the tapes where Hobart talks about the fact that none of that, all of that belongs to the Nye's if push came to shove because it's on their property.

although the expenses of the building and of the heating system and AC and everything that eventually went into the building were obviously just like in the glory barn. Here in the new building, it was covered by the offerings by the ministry of Dr. Freeman. So Don and Betty and I, then they bring up another interesting story. Don's wife Betty, a year after they moved into this new building that they had allowed the church to build on their own property. On January the 14th of 1981, she died of untreated pneumonia. Don, a year later, married another woman whose name was

Martha. He married her a year later, two years after their marriage. Martha died of untreated breast cancer in November of 1983. The next time you and I get to talk John, I hope we can get into what really brought about all of the issues from the outside and that was the attention brought by the legal and medical community on faith assembly that caused all kinds of problems. But there had been death leading up to this time. They just were becoming more and more numerous. And so whenever Martha died in November of 1983, the coroner was Dr. John Ramsey. And after noting that cancer had

spread throughout her body and that her breast was completely decayed and gone, he had this to say, and I quote, she must have been in incredible pain. Your heart goes out to these people. This poor woman must have endured the tortures of the damned. You know, and it does break your heart.

Don's had two wives die, Betty and then Martha of untreated now because the cancer had been slowed or cured, probably not who knows. We don't know. It's so sad. We have people in our support groups who have family members who are not alive because they had been convinced not to get medical care. And you know, whether it's cancer and maybe at that time, it wasn't treatable or whether it's something that could be cured, at minimum, you can go to a facility and you don't have to suffer.

And I think that's really the, you know, the critical thing here. There are some diseases that the people get in these faith healing cults that they could have lived if they just got access to medicine, but at minimum, they can get help where they don't have to suffer. Betty's death of untreated pneumonia probably could have been taken care of, I don't know.

But Betty, by the way, was a registered nurse. And Betty, Betty Nye, Don Nye's first wife, has a very interesting connection with one of the ministers, one of the main ministers under Hobart at Faith Assembly, whose name was Jerry Burkett.

Jerry Burkett's wife Sally bled to death after the birth of a child back in 1976. So this is early on. Betty was the nurse midwife at the birth. Betty lost her license over that, because Sally, let me just tell you, let me back up and tell you a little bit about Jerry Burkett.

Jerry Burkett worked at our Ardonlian sons, which was a big publishing and printing firm in Warsaw. That's also where Bruce Kinsey, one of Hobart's sons-in-laws worked, who was married to Kathy Kinsey, one of Hobart's daughters.

Bruce got converted, shared the message with Jerry Burkett. Got Jerry Burkett very interested. Jerry Burkett, who they lived in a nice home, John, that he had designed himself. He had a high-paying job. They were living a comfortable life.

So once Jerry Burkett and his wife Sally got involved in the church, Jerry was listening to Hobart say how he had gone through college and seminary and never worked five minutes. Just went through by faith, totally trusting God.

That's a complete misrepresentation of the facts. But all the young men there were hearing that. And what did they say? Well, I've got faith. Why should I have to go to work? So guess what Jerry did?

Jerry quit his job and said, I'm just going to trust God like my pastor did. I'm just going to trust God to supply all my needs. So they lost their house. Electricity's turned off, foreclosed on the house, bounce from apartment to apartment to apartment.

And this is not an isolated story of one family. This happened over and over and over again there. The day before Sally Burkett was going to deliver this child, which was April the 2nd of 1976.

The day before April the 1st, they had just made what would be her last and final move of trying to stay ahead of the creditors and the bill collectors. So you've got this woman who's just moved the day before.

She gives birth on this day, April 2nd of 1976. The baby was okay, but she never could expel the placenta. And she began bleeding. And she asked Jerry, her husband, to call a doctor.

And he said, I've called the best one in the business. And his name is Jesus. And as the bleeding went on, there were other people there with... Jerry and they discuss what should we do should we call a doctor and they all decide if we call a doctor That's in a front to God, you know that goes contrary to everything we've been taught and so Sally's request for a doctor was denied And Sally Birkett bled to death That's all right. It wasn't the first death John, but it was one of the early ones and One of the big ones because of two reasons number one. It was completely

Preventable all you got to do is get to a hospital and you can stop the bleeding completely preventable and number two It was the wife of one of the ministers there and To jump way ahead in this story the reason this story maybe resonates with me more than others Stories have or more than it would resonate with others is because when I was a young pastor and minister in Minnesota I had been in Mississippi. I had felt God calling me to the ministry I felt that I knew where he wanted me to go and I literally took off to Minnesota by faith

In a meeting a couple of people there Turned into a whole church. They said we've been praying that God would send us a teacher Your answer to our prayers and we just had a wonderful time and a wonderful group of people I had only been in Minnesota about a year and

I lived in a little town called wakonia a big Lincoln town car Pulled up in front of my house 317 South Elm Street, wakonia, Minnesota Now gets this big huge dude And he comes and knocks on my door It's Jerry Burkitt and He had heard that I was somewhere up there in the area I think Hobart definitely knew because I could find up here is a letter Actually dated that's Hobart typed it that's his signature at the bottom That's his handwriting at the bottom discussing the fact that wow there There's Jerry Burkitt up there there was a meeting south of Minneapolis and then Hobart said

Chino and there you are in wakonia and he said now I don't know what to tell you guys but y'all have to work it out among yourselves Who's gonna do what or preach I was in a part of faith assembly Hobart knew I was there. That's why I got this Tight letter signed and then he'll set I'll convey your thoughts to Jerry down here at the bottom So Jerry pulls up at my house, but the thing is John I didn't know a thing about Sally Burkitt his wife bleeding to death before I didn't know any of this stuff

And Jerry pulled up wanted to talk about who's gonna do what and You know, I said I'm a pastor and a teacher in a church here Jerry You know, I'm doing what I call to do you know, I don't You know, I have no a already or influence or say so over anything but what I'm doing so you know you guys do what you want but so so that was my introduction to Jerry Burkett and it was years after that before I find out what happened to his wife and the story with his wife was was so sad because in her last moment

she had a friend I don't know if her name was Susan or that's a pseudonym but she had a friend named Susan and she asked will you please go get Susan the reason that she asked for Susan was Susan was part of an underground network at Faith Assembly for any of the people who wanted medical help you couldn't do it out in the open if you wore glasses and you pulled up in the parking lot you put your glasses in the glove compartment before you got out and walked inside Susan was part of the underground and Sally asked Jerry would you go get Susan and so he called Susan

Susan was at home when she found out who it was she did not want to go because she said I just knew they wanted more prayer warriors that's what they were calling me for so she said I didn't go she said that wasn't good enough for Jerry a little while later his car pulls up in my driveway he begins knocking on my door and she said I don't open the door she said I can't stand to go there and watch what's happening because she knew what was happening there she said I went hidden a closet Jerry broke the door down and went in the house she tells the story herself

walked all around looking for her she said I heard his footsteps come right by the closet and then he went on out and drove away and Susan said I look back you know and with regret you know I wish I would have had the courage to do something about it because it would have saved a woman's life but you and I know what the mindset is whenever you're in one of these cults had Susan done that she's ex-communicated you're gone from the church and what does that mean when you're gone from the church you've lost your salvation you're gone from God because God in

the church or coterminus you know it's not much different than Roman Catholicism isn't that pretty much what you've heard with the message have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter reign charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation you can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website William-Brannum.org on the book's page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley Steven Montgomery John McKinnon and others with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top, and as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

On behalf of William Brannem Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. It's like this is the recurring story for these divine healing cults. If you go back to the days of John Alexander Dowey, you had people who were dying left and right, and like you coming into it and not being aware of this, well, they were slipping the bodies out under the cover of night, so the general rank and file cult member wasn't to wear how many people were dying, but it just kept repeating and repeating and repeating.

And they tried to spiritualize any event, no matter big or small. So cases like this where Hobart Freeman really doesn't have anything to claim for, to cult himself, he's ranting or he's borrowing these things, well, whenever the people decide they don't, they've had enough.

They don't want to deal with this anymore, and like, you know, raising the ranch or whatever they do to get out of this thing, well, it's always a black or white issue. They're either with us or they're against us as the mindset.

So because they did this thing, they come down hard upon the people who really they just wanted out. They didn't. It wasn't so much that they, you know, good or bad with Hobart Freeman.

They just wanted out of this arrangement that they had. So they get painted with a very black picture of, you know, among all the cult members. It was the same for myself and my wife whenever we first left the cult.

We had people, there were people who were actually telling other people that I knew and these were high ranking members in the cult that they had seen a vision by God that within one year's time, my wife is going to leave me.

And you get branded like that. So everybody who's in the cult, they start thinking of, well, here's John. He's the guy whose wife is going to leave him. That was, you know, 2012 or in 2024 now, but you get branded and what happens is after the branding comes in their head because you're part of now this mythology, you're of the evil side of the mythology.

So you become demonized and infamous. So it got to the level where I kid you not, I could go into a grocery store and if I walked down an aisle where there were people from the cult, they would look at me and their eyes would get big and they would just scatter.

Because I'm the demonic force, I guess, you know, but that's how the cult mindset works. So I'm certain that every person that you've mentioned was demonized, but then the people that the very bad things happen to...

gets shifted in the mythology where it isn't so bad, it was just a trial or tribulation they went through. But yet it happens again and somebody else dies because the history has been erased.

Yeah, that is so true, John. And my letters that Hobart interpreted as critical letters, I could show you the tapes where he said, I got these critical letters. Well, it was like a week after I sent them, so I know they were from me.

And they weren't critical letters. Critical letters is, you know, critical letters. This was, these were letters asking questions. Why are so many people dying? I mean, they're dropping like flies. Why is the maternity mortality rate 100 times in Casiasco and Noble County, what it is in the rest of Indiana?

Yeah, so it's exactly what you're saying. So whenever they moved out of the glory barn, going into that new building, I think there was a lot of high hope and expectation, but they didn't realize you're really sealing your doom because now you're in your own building.

Now the bully pulpit can totally take over and the attitude police like the SS can march in step with what the bully pulpit is saying. And that is exactly what began to happen. And you take that Galatian series that was taught during the summer in the 10 of 1978.

It was really at that point where it was announced that once we get to the new building, things are gonna be much stricter. We're not going to allow every Tom Dick and Harry in here.

This is a place for overcomers. This is a place for, you know, people who mean to go on with God. And so descent was just not going to be tolerated at all.

As a matter of fact, one of the big, when you go, when you went in the new building, they had scripture versus big ones and big block letters up on the wall. If I remember correctly, they had Matthew 17, 20, Faith has a grain of mustard seed.

They had Mark 11, 24. And up front with that, they had first Corinthians chapter one in verse 10, where Paul is admonishing the Corinthians that they all be of the same mind and speak the same thing and have the same judgment.

And that was harped upon. That was probably the big verse in the center up front in the church, which is a not so subtle reminder to everyone that descent is not tolerated here. You got to get in line.

Everybody has to march to the same beat. We have to have the same discernment and judgment about everything. And. No one slowed down to think, yeah, I grant, that is an apostolic injunction in the Bible, but it's written to one of the most dysfunctional churches in the New Testament, that's the church at Corinth.

And yes, it's the ideal. And yes, it is what we should strive for and what we should work toward, but nobody of their own can bring that about. That is a work of the Holy Spirit.

You can't, you can try to force people to agree. You can force them to agree externally, but you can't change another person's heart. You know, you can't make them want to be of the same mind.

That is, it is a verse worth teaching on and preaching about and encouraging your church. This is our goal. We want to be in unity, but the reality of the matter is, you know, good grief.

We're all our own people. We've come from a million different backgrounds with, and we bring with us our own baggage and our own presuppositions. And to get, well, heck, you know, you're married. I'm married, you can't even get a married couple to agree on everything.

You know, you can't even get them close to agreeing on everything. So you're definitely not going to get a couple of thousand people to agree, but the bully pulpit, man, John, hammered away. We've got to all be together, and there would be attendance out in the parking lot.

Just old gravel with grass grown up, but the parking lot attendance with their little walkie talkies reporting back and forth. You know, if you showed up there and were not one of the regulars, which I did on several occasions.

So you're coming from another state with a different license plate. If you're not one of the regulars, you're viewed with suspicion. I mean, you're pretty much guilty until you can prove that you're innocent.

It just as soon as you show up, you know, they're looking for members of the church. This was not a welcoming body at all. They talked a lot about faith. They needed to talk a lot more about love, which they just wouldn't do.

Faith was the most important thing to them. So the parking lot attendance would look and see, and so if someone were to ask someone in your audience, well, how do you know if you're finding a faith assembly family?

Well, most of the couples were in their late 20s or 30s. It was a husband and wife. He would have a Bible and a notebook in one hand. He'd have a diaper bag over the other.

He's got one little small kid in the arm with a diaper bag. And behind him has to be behind him. By the way, we need to talk about that at some point in this, but behind him, couldn't be in front of him, behind him is the wife.

She has to be behind him. And they just got out of a van, you know? There's only vehicle that could hold all those people. So I know people never appreciated my dark humor, but there's so much tragedy in this.

I was always looking for humor. And I would say, you know what? What is the standard vehicle? You don't know where I'm going with this, probably John. What is the standard vehicle that kidnappers use?

Well, it's a van where you can pull up, slide the door open, grab the young lady off the sidewalk, put her in there, and take off to do whatever you're going to do. And I'd say, guess what?

There are no vans available for kidnappers in Northern Indiana. They've all been purchased. They're all parked at Beta Simpli. Well, and people hated me for saying that. And I do not mean to imply that anybody at Beta Simpli was a kidnapper.

That is obviously not my point. But they never appreciated my humor on that. But if you look at some of the old pictures, they actually had the van rose. And there were just rows and rows of these vans.

So the parking lot attend its new, what a faith assembly person was going to look like. And if you showed up and you're not a faith assembly like person, then you're viewed with suspicion.

So as I said earlier, whenever they got into the tent and now they're coming into the new building, everything changes. And I think John, that really was the downfall of faith assembly when Hobart Freeman elevated himself to Pope Freeman.

He was unreachable. He was unteachable. He was unaccountable to anyone. I told you in an earlier interview that one of his mentors at Gray Seminary, Dr. John Ray, REA, had been very instrumental in introducing Dr. Freeman to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And here is some correspondence I had with Dr. Ray. This was in December of 1990. Dr. Ray, who by then was teaching at a school out in California, said this to me. Yes, Hobart Freeman was a student of mine at Gray Seminary in his doctoral studies.

My wife and I were instrumental in introducing him to the baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1966. And here's the point I want to get to. Later, we were saddened to see him become so extreme in his faith teaching.

By the time he moved from Claypool to found and lead the glory barn in Northwestern, we no longer were having any fellowship with or contact with him and June. In many ways, Hobart was an excellent Bible scholar and careful Bible teacher.

But, and then he has dash, dash, dash, dash, exclamation. point. You fill in the blanks yourself there. So that was his mentor that had been a professor of his whenever Hobart was working on his doctoral studies and that was an intelligent educated seminary professor who realized that Hobart had gotten to the place where he had drawn a circle so small around himself and he was the only one that could stand in it and everybody else was on the outside and so he began giving these threats and warnings against anyone who would challenge him or disagree with him. If anyone's heard any of his messages to any link they'll recognize these

are direct quotations. Here's some examples. God doesn't give you the right to sit out there and pick and choose which things you want to obey. Here's another one. If you can find things out on your own then why did God raise up anointed five-fold ministry? I mean isn't that setting the scene for being able to tell people anything you want to tell them? Right and you know we talked earlier about the qualifications for determining whether it's just a cult of people or a destructive when now we're getting into the cult of personality once a person has reached that level of authority

where he can say anything he wants he or she do anything they want over the people and take that level of control over them well then the people are just beaten down into submission and they begin to assume the identity of the central figure because they're being just they're almost going into the state of mind of a child and they see this parent child relationship but it's a very very bad parent and so they take control they hijack their minds and now you have a cult of personality that has developed. He would pronounce a curse on anyone who left faith assembly he says those people

are biting the hand that fed them he said if you want to go go there are already two waiting for your seat don't bother going to another church after leaving here you'll fail and he screams at the top of his voice in the Galatian series he says if you leave faith assembly you are not saved so I mean these are and then he would go on to tell horror stories of people who opposed him and then died you know you mentioned that before you know you're branded with with the with the scarlet letter or you're branded with a Nazi swastika or something and as soon as that's put on you

I mean, it's hard for you to get away from it because anybody who By virtue of the fact that Hobart said or someone else said this person is, you know Taboo they're excommunicated. I mean that mark goes on you whether you wanted or not it goes on you and Your right as soon as those people had that mark They couldn't even go to the grocery store without being shown that's a tight-knit community and we're talking about the new building They sat 2,300 people and they had as many as probably 21 or 2,200 people there at one time

That's a small rural area in North Central Indiana, which means You know pretty much everybody up there knows somebody who is a part of faith assembly Which pretty much means any gas station or diner or grocery store or car dealership you go to Somebody's gonna be there Who is a part of faith assembly or know someone who's a part of faith assembly or who was a part of faith assembly and It just created incredible distrust among the people they begin You know because it made you appear to be a true and loyal member if you could spy on

Someone else in the church and report that hey when they go home they put their glasses on or when they go home They watch TV or when she goes home she takes a dress off and puts man's pants on she puts blue jeans on As soon as they saw that and they could report that back to the authorities well, you know Maybe that'll help them and their time of judgment in the future, you know with the church You know you mentioned the favorite verses that they have Once a group has radicalized to the point that you're talking about they also have favorite themes and

Often you'll find they're talking about Noah's Ark It came right down to the flood and then the door closed and then they'll have a whole series of door closed themes, right? We you know whenever I left the church I was really shocked When I heard the gospel and I started understanding I started reading the the Bible over and over and over to wash us out of my head And it there wasn't a door closing on the gospel, you know the gospel is to everyone to anybody who believes Jesus But we had this mentality that we were the elite group and the door had closed and so I

Can remember clearly while sitting in the church. I would be wondering well, why aren't we spreading this to the city if the city is gonna Die, let's go tell the city. Let's let's help them so they can be saved too, right?

Well, because of my family's position of quote unquote cult royalty, which I have branded it I get to see both sides of it and they're they would hear these sermons where they're preaching at the people and saying Look at us right here in this evil city, and none of the people in the city will even come to hear the true gospel.

Well, they're not telling the people who's listening that the deacons are actually closing the door in the faces of people who are the outsiders, because like you said, they can recognize the cult members and the non-cult members.

And I've actually stood there whenever they were casting the people out of the church who were curious people who came from the streets. So you've got this mentality that the doors closed. We're right at the last days.

This is the end, stick with us. And once you get in that mindset, it gets really, really destructive and dangerous. And you're saying that you saw that with your background, and we are certain that Hobart was a big follower of William Brownham.

He said, I believe he was God's prophet. So I mean, there's a common source to all of this. And cult people, the way you recognize them, they talk to talk and walk the walk, they have a certain walk, they have a certain talk, so you can spot who is a part of our group and who isn't.

And God help those that came in off the street looking for a drink of water of spiritual water. Oh yeah. The terminology being used is just way out in left field. And you see, wow, everyone's marching, it's like the SS.

Everybody's marching to the same beat. I've got to pick my foot up and drop it down in the same step with everybody else. If not, I don't stand a chance. How horrible is that?

Oh yeah. Yeah, the cult's loaded language keeps everything together and so people can identify each other. I don't know if as you I mentioned to or somebody else, but I have a hard time sometimes when I'm interviewing people from different splinter groups of the message because they'll have a different loaded language.

And so as they're talking, I've got multiple monitors up. So I'm going over to this monitor and I'm typing in what they said so I can find, well, what is that phrase that they just said?

Because I have no idea. But to them, to them, it's so common. They think everybody knows this phrase. Everybody who's a Christian should know what it means to be the midnight cry or whatever is the phrase that they got taught.

Yeah, or the or the man child that you're part of the man child company or the manifested sons company. John, there is a, there are probably several sides, but there is one main site online that we ought to mention for people that want to go down the rabbit hole with us because it is a site where X,

faith assembly people who are maybe still in favor, maybe not in favor able to just voice in vent. And it's called,

Tomax seven. P-O-M-A-X, and then the number seven. And it goes back 20 years ago from now. And I think the guy started it around 2004, 20 years ago, and you can just see posts through the years.

But there was one in particular from April of 2008. This person said, when I think of faith assembly, I feel great sadness. Sadness for my parents, who were so young and enthusiastic and overjoyed to be part of what they thought was a great movement.

Sadness for my mother, who had to wrestle with untreated depression for so many dark and lonely years. Sadness for their heartfelt beliefs that began to crumble when the unthinkable happened when brother Freeman, as I always heard him call, died.

Sadness for the youth, my siblings, and I never experienced, as we were taught so young to redeem the time because the days were evil. Sadness for all the family that we never knew and all the friendships my parents nipped in the bud because we could not associate with even very godly people who did not follow the teachings of faith assembly.

Sadness for the years of feeling like an immigrant in my own country of not understanding the cultural references around me or the casual manner young people use to address their elders or that wearing a bathing suit does not guarantee your eternal damnation.

Sadness for all the times we barely had food in the house, but my father which scraped together a few dollars for the locked wooden box in the back of the church. Even if it meant he did not eat or had to forego his beloved coffee.

My mother told me recently that in all those years of counting their deprivation, all joy, they spoke with brother Freeman one time, one time in all those years. They devoted themselves to this man and the message he preached and the God he served.

They sat under his teaching Sunday after Sunday, Wednesday after Wednesday, borrowed stacks of his tapes in between services. They left family and friends and education and careers all behind for the sake of the gospel he preached and likely he didn't even know their names.

And it sounds so similar to what I hear in the support groups from people. They, I know families who their entire, their entire livelihood was in one state, but because the cult leader condemned that state or because they moved to another, the cult leader moved to another state.

They would up in the whole family and they would go with them and Actually had good lives good businesses and these people they forfeit everything and in the end They have nothing and it's really really sad That's why I've always kind of been against it and why I saved all these notes John about freemen I never knew I'd get to use it like this. I always thought I'd just write a book sometime But it's not to get back at Hobart Hobart's dead and gone You know, it's doesn't have anything to do with that. It's it's the the fallout the fallout is devastating from these groups and

If you can't provide Some kind of which you are obviously doing a great job of reliable documented historical evidence and proof You know these people are just out there floundering trying to figure it out on their own So good good job my friend. Well, thank you. It is quite the history and I'm with you The history needs to be documented good and bad And what I found is that after leaving the cults you find these other groups that are not cult groups and they Value their history. You can go find entire archives In fact, I've dug through some of them. They've opened the doors to me and you can find the entire archive of everything in their history

Good or bad and they they're proud of it because they can they say look we made this mistake back here and here's where we corrected it Versus in the cult they hide the mistake and pretend it never happened and Histories bound to repeat itself whenever you do this Yeah, as someone has said the only thing that we don't learn The only thing that we learn from history is that we don't learn from history That's about the only thing we learned from history, but that's a really good point Yeah, the cults have never made a mistake

But we know that's not true. We know we have all made tons of mistakes and You know the mark of a good person is not that you've never made a mistake The mark of a good person is that you recognize your mistakes and you've grown from them That's the mark of of a maturity in a nutshell Absolutely, and I must have grown an awful lot Well, thank you for doing this. We'll get together again and there's a there's a path this is headed and I'm getting really excited that we're getting closer to that path because there's a connection that

I'm I'm certain that almost none of our listeners are aware of between Hobart Freeman and the NAR So we're slowly getting there and there's so much more to unpack and I feel it's important to unpack it and document it as we go so that we don't lose that history So all right, thank you so much for doing this Thank you for having me John. I appreciate it It's always good Well, 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-branam.org for an overview of the historical research of William-branam in the healing

Revivalists read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Revivalists read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Revivalists read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.