Weaponized Religion: Pentecostal Baptist Financial Scheme

Music 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 co-host, researcher, and friend, John McKinnon, the author of the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet, and the noble politician. And together we're discussing weaponized religion, how Christian identity fused with early Christian fundamentalism and politics, to form the foundation for the new apostolic reformation. John, it's really good to be back and talk through the rise to fame of Davis. I said last

episode, we're getting now to the part that's starting to get really interesting for me, because as you, we were talking beforehand, and as you found out, there's a lot of history that's just been covered up, and a lot of key figures do not want their name to be associated with any of this, because today it's vile, and it's corrupt, and people look at it with a very negative light. But back in the 1920s, this was a somewhat popular thing, you know, people joining into the white supremacy, and we're getting to the point right now where, and you know, we've talked about

Davis's background, how, you know, he was a criminal mind who got in bed with the clan, and was making quite a bit of money off of that and religion, and now we're entering the portion of Davis's life, where he's really starting to build his name for himself, and quite frankly, if you follow all of the pieces out to their logical conclusion, this is really the point where Davis sets himself up as a figure that William Brannum would want to join forces with because of the Indian a clan. So I'm excited to get into this one, and I know you are as well.

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this episode too, as others, but yeah, this one will be unique, and we follow Davis's trail as he rose to his prominence in Georgia, and how that came about, and then how he fell off in his popularity, what all happened there. But yeah, it seems like, you know, there's some effort to keep some of this history suppressed. You don't hear a lot about it in the news, but the 1915 clan had a lot to do with the while white supremacy became embedded in America and why it went all over the nation.

And that history is just not being told. So I'm very glad that these podcasts are being done because at least we can tell part of this history because you just don't see a lot.

A lot of people associate the clan with the 1870s clan, but the 1915 clan was so much different. And you had a lot, all different characters by that time, all different people running the show.

And primarily they wanted to make a good bit of money. And as we talked about last time, Clark and Tyler, they were promotional people that got involved and that's when the membership skyrocketed. And that's what really caused the proliferation of the clan throughout the nation.

And Davis was well traveled. I learned some new things that I didn't know. And of course, I knew that the main form of travel back then was by train and I've seen some articles in the paper about one town was wondering why they couldn't get a train coming by their town so they could have transportation.

But people relied on that. And I saw Davis had made travels all the way up north as far as Chicago, even in the early 20s. So he passed through Louisville, no doubt. And it just foreshadows the time he's going to embed himself in Louisville and meet William Brownham.

And if that not already met and then sometime in the 20s, they do and start these revivals that we'll talk about. But yeah, it's going to be a very interesting journey here. Absolutely. And make no mistake, the 1915 clan still had many of the elements that were problematic in the 60s from the anti-Semitism to the racism.

But it was much more complex. That's why you had people who were genuinely, they thought they were good people joining into a good cause. You had them joining into it. But you had a lot of rogue people who were even back and I was reading articles in the 20s.

People were still doing the severe brutal beatings of people with black skin and the lynchings, et cetera. But it wasn't widespread. I think that's the key difference. Because back then, they did not want the clan's name associated with vigilante.

In that aspect, they wanted them to see themselves more as like a police force. They were enforcing good values that what they considered to be good moral values. And the problem is, as we see with Davis, you had some very sinister characters who were rising up to the top of this thing.

And those characters are the ones who kind of shifted over to what happened in the 60s. And so we're examining one of those characters. And like you said, the history they just tried to...

to erase it, they don't want people to know this, but it's critical to understand this history in the sense of religion, because these values made their way into the religion, and that set up the whole framework for what happened with the laterane movement, et cetera.

You know, the clan nowadays has pretty much died out. I mean, there's probably small groups of members here and there, but it's not organized and everybody forms their own little groups probably throughout the nation.

There's probably very small groups, because you don't see a lot of marches nowadays like you did back then. And in fact, in the 1920s, maybe 1925, the very strong few million members of the clan or five million members, a lot of them marched in Washington to show that they were a show of force, but you don't see that anymore, which is a good thing.

It's good that it kind of went away eventually, but the clan and the days of the 1920s took on a religious tone. It took on a tone to try to say, we're trying to save America.

And you hate to say it, but it's almost like what you see in the political realm today. We're trying to save America and give it a Christian tone. And that's not the way to go about using Christianity.

Christianity's not to be used in a political force. You know, Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. I'll say more about that maybe later. But yeah, that's what the clan was trying to do is say we're from morality, the upholding the dignity of women.

We want to keep low on order. And it was very appealing to all the people that were populating the South at that time and especially the white people. But as the clan migrated through America, the way they would attract people is they would find an enemy, a common enemy.

They thought was an enemy. And in the South, it was mostly people with black skin in the North, it was probably mostly the Catholics that were immigrating to the nation or just playing immigrants coming in, taking the jobs of people, kind of like we see today with immigration happening on a large scale.

Maybe that's illegal immigration. But and in the West, it was probably the Japanese immigrants that, who in California, the clan there would point to them as the enemy. So it didn't matter who you had.

If you just put an enemy out there, people would join together and try to fight that common enemy. And that's really what happened in the clan, how they attracted members because people were wanting to hold to the things that they had in place and it won't change.

But we talked about Davis being an Oklahoma, but he fled the Oklahoma because of the bad publicity he got in the Aquarth Baptist Church and the Adairsville Baptist Churches where he was pastoring. So he had to move to Oklahoma.

to get out of town. And that was in the northern part of Atlanta. He was doing his base of operations because that's where the clan originated on that on Stone Mountain there near Atlanta. And so him and Simmons worked closely together, but he just had to get out of town because the publicity was just too hot for him. And so he took the took on his family to Oklahoma. He stayed there for a while and conducted revivals and and tried to build, you know, his organization out there. Eventually, he returned to Georgia in 1922. And then he started, he had to go to South Georgia because back

then, you know, communications didn't travel too fast until the newspapers picked up a story. And it got into newspapers all over, you know, nobody knew the news in North Georgia. The South Georgians kind of had their own area down there. They knew their news, but they didn't know what was happening in North Georgia unless word of mouth. There was no televisions or, you know, mostly radio. You didn't hear a lot maybe on the radio. So so as as they promoted the clan down in South Georgia, it wasn't too long, you know, he got down there in 1922 and by 1923,

you know, they were, they were having trouble because the clan was starting to fall out of popularity. You know, there was a good contingent of white people that embraced it, but then there was probably just an equal amount of contingent of people that did not embrace it. And they actually wanted it out of their, you know, town. They were actually denied a meeting hall in Albany, Georgia because they were giving lectures about the clan. Back then, you know, Roy was trying to present the goods out of the clan. Like here's what it stands for. They weren't about violence,

but but unfortunately or fortunately, you could say the clan took on a violent tone. And so that made it very unpopular to people because they didn't want any part of the violence, the peaceful people. But there were that vigilante force, you know, you had the angry side that wanted to take the law into their own hands. And actually, you know, that's where all the lynchings and beatings occurred. So so things were not very stable in South Georgia either. And the clan was being opposed. This is back in January of 1923. And about March of 1923, you know, of course, Davis's

modus operandi is to find a newspaper. He can, you know, be a part of. So he he got into the mix herald and started the what was known as the brick bat newspaper, which promoted the clan ideas. So he was always about publishing because that helped get the word out since they didn't have television back then because I'm sure he had had a television program if they'd had television back in those days. So by March, he had had that newspaper. And then it's interesting by April of 1923. So he just arrives down there in 1922. And so by April of 1923, he had worked his way in so

well, because as we know, he was a very sly, uh, personable person. He could He looked very innocent looking on the outside. He was very friendly and personable, but he was elected president of the Georgia Farmers Union in April of 1923.

And he quickly announced in the newspapers at that time that the headquarters would be moved from Atlanta to Val Dosta, which is South Georgia and the towns in South Georgia. And that will be an effort to hide his past because the North Georgians already knew his past.

And if he had to go to the headquarters as he was president, of course they would know who he was and they would kick him out. So he announced in the papers that at once the headquarters would be moved down there.

So that happened in April. Exactly. And it's critical to understand, you know, what's happening in the United States right now. We talked about it last episode that we did together, but William D. Upshaw had just saved the 1915 Ku Klux Klan through a congressional inquiry by using some strategic politics, I'll call it that.

And he saved William Joseph Simmons from probably from, you know, being put in prison if you really follow things out of where that was headed. And so he and Simmons are very close at this point.

It was just outed that he had been, William D. Upshaw had been part of the Klan. And he called William Joseph Simmons. I think he said he was the nightliest man in the nation or something like this, giving honor to the guy who he's defending in Congress.

You have Davis who's rising into power in Georgia and he's trying to enter through a politics, you know, he's getting in bed in the farmers union and this is the step for him trying to rise up into political power because these three men were, they were trying to invade United States politics and we'll get into this as we go further in the timeline.

You know, Upshaw even ran under the prohibition party and all of these, these men were together for a, for a length of time, they did separate with Simmons but Davis and Upshaw remained together for years.

And so you have all this going on in Atlanta. You have the Indiana clan that's rising and they're starting to have war in Indiana with anything that opposed Klan values. One of the things involved the prohibition because the clan was strongly against the alcoholism and what it did to families, et cetera.

They considered this a threat to the moral values. And at this point in time, William Brannum, if you look at his real birth year, which I have come to learn that it was 1907 instead of his claim of 1909, he is 16 at this time.

He is producing liquor. for the local Jeffersonville illicit and illegal liquor production with his father. He mentions this on recording, and he mentions his strong distaste for it. And after, you know, we'll get into that history, but after in the aftermath of all of this, he said that the clan, he would never forget them for what they did.

He saw them as a good thing, basically. So we have on the east coast side, you had Davis entering in religion, politics, merging with the joining forces with William D. Uppshaw, who was deeply embedded in both religion and politics.

And they're setting up the stage for what was to come. The clan was crumbling, the original 1915 Ku Klux Klan. And it appears Davis and Uppshaw saw an opportunity, which we'll get into a bit later.

But all of this to say, we've now set up the stage for what's coming, and it comes with quite an explosion. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to get to the year about 1930 when all this just explodes.

But it's what Davis is doing. I mean, it seems to be what he had in his mind to, you know, to move into the religious aspect of this because he wasn't making headway, the clan was just wasn't making headway into what his goals were and of what, how this movement was going.

They could make an outside organization outside of Christianity, although they tried to make it look Christian, but whoever heard of Christianity were in white sheets and all that kind of stuff and having all these weird names like Klondike or whatever.

But you know, they're just, it's just not Christian. So people realize that so they, they did have a strategy to move into religion, which we'll see to really make this a religious thing and a religious movement, which people bought into as well.

But so Davis working in South Georgia and so by May, they had an all night meeting because of the opposition to the use of the hall and things they must have had a crisis point because they actually had an all night meeting in Valdosta, Georgia, one of the organizers of the clan there was just beaten by towns folks there that didn't want the clan or a group that opposed the clan from being there.

So somebody took a beating and then while they were having this all night meeting, somebody rode by in a car or whatever and shots were fired on the street by the opposition, but nobody was hurt.

So you know, it started getting down to the point of having guns involved in this thing in the town there, but so far nobody has gotten killed. By June, you know, Davis was arrested for liable without his brick-bath paper, which he just started in March, a woman said he...

Published something in the paper about about her and and so she sued him for libel what it's not the first time or the last time He was sued for libel about publishing something about somebody, but that just appears to be what he did Quite a bit when he didn't like someone that that article appeared in Atlanta Constitution And so now he was in danger of getting exposed And I think this was key to him getting exposed because when it sent got up to Atlanta and somebody read the old Davis is back in South Georgia now

By July, this is one month later He was deposed as the president of the farmers union as this 22 You know in 22 papers across the nation or more I counted 22 Just as what I was able to do by a simple search. It was probably more He was exposed for his life and what he did in Texas, Georgia having two wives in July and then they deposed him as President of farmers union by that time because his life was exposed. So I believe that Woman exposing him or or suing him for libel calls that because that article went all the way to Atlanta

And then just right after that not not less than a month later in later in July the mix herald The complex which which included the mix herald there it actually burned That's the first time it burned and so Davis was deposed the brick bat was gone and Soon after Davis had to leave town before he left town, you know that area burned So that's why I think Davis may have had something to do with that because it's not the first time or the last time that Things burned down when Davis had to leave town So there there seems to be a connection there

In by august when Davis got back to Texas now he went back to Texas and of course the clan He was being ousted from the clan falling out of favor With everyone because he didn't even uphold the clan's morality And they flogged him with the rope and put him in the hospital And that's when I think he began to his transition, you know to say well I can't make it in the clan. Of course they they did try to start a new organization That which was clan like the the flaming sword But but that even didn't work out but he begins to to look at religion as the way he could promote what his ideas were and that was in full swing by 1925

So he still stays in South Georgia in September he came back and actually became pastor In in Kennedy Memorial and Fitzgerald Georgia, so he hadn't quite left Georgia in 23 He holds Services in Kennedy now now he's trying to say the title of this subject he was speaking on was my life as a Clansman why I'm no longer working for the KKK or the glucose clan. So as he's come back after being flogged by the clan beaten I say, hey, I'm no longer working for the clan now.

Now he's into pastoring churches again, full swing. So this is where he's making his transition. And at some point, I believe pressure began mounting against him while he was there, because he began carrying a gun for protection.

In fact, he was arrested in January of 1924. Warrants were issued by a judge, FM powers, and was placed Roy Davis under bond. He was charged with carrying a deadly weapon concealed, and also with carrying a deadly weapon to a place of worship.

So it being alleged that Davis had a pistol concealed on one occasion. So Davis, either before or after this time, he began carrying a gun with him wherever he went. And I think we've seen articles by the time he got to California.

He was posing as an FBI agent at one point and showed somebody a gun that he was carrying. So from this point on, he really feared for his life in a lot of ways.

So he was carrying protection around for him as personal protection. He was formerly ousted a month later in 1924 from the clan, you know, Hire Mevens, who became the supreme leader after he bought out Simmons interest in the clan, or gave Simmons a title and just paid him a salary.

He was formerly ousted in a large article in the papers where they said he's no longer has any part to do with the Cluecliffe's clan. And Davis then publicly comes against the clan. So that's what he, I'm not in the newspapers.

And he, an article was published that said the clan by reason of his rottenness of his imperial wizard, Hire Mevens was rapidly going to pieces. So Davis's strategy of getting in the papers and starting to promote an idea that he hopes people will latch onto.

And he does get some success in that as he goes northward to talk bad about the clan. He does get some success and people start to leave the organization because he wants to make you look like a bad organization.

Now, something he wants supported and now he doesn't. And so in February, Simmons sold his rights to the clan back for a lump sum of $146,000. That's about $2.6 million today. So you can see the kind of money that we're talking about.

And that's what Davis was after. We'll see it's a fight over money a lot of times. And that ended Simmons clan career. And Davis goes north of Indianapolis in February as far as Chicago as I mentioned.

And that was the point of that was to criticize the clan and to start this whole thing of trying to get members out of the clan and then promote his new organization, which he and Simmons were creating called the Flaming Sword.

So that's where we are right now is this new organization that Davis finally leaves Georgia. And they're trying to get us many out of the clan and get this new organization. go in so they can make the same amount of money, they would have the same type of maybe cost you $10 to join, but they're promoting it as a newer and better organization than the clan is.

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The fight over money, for me, is the most interesting part of this because as we start to see the shift from the underground white supremacy into the very public religious side, it looks very much like Davis and probably Upshaw as well, discovered that there was probably more money to be made in the religion than there was in the clan.

Because as we see, once you get to about 1924-ish, whenever we're talking about Davis being exposed for all of his multiple lives and multiple wives and criminal charges galore, well he's not very well received in Baptist churches.

He does still try, but as soon as he does, he gets out of it as being this fraud and this guy who's living a very non-Christian lifestyle, just say it like that. So he starts flirting with other religions and what's really interesting is it looks like he's flirting to see which religious sect will take him without him being exposed.

And at the same time, you have Pentecostalism that's spreading like a virus throughout the United States. And if you study the trail of history of Pentecostalism, you've got strong influencers like A.B. Simpson, who was the head of the Christian Missionary Alliance, who seems to be also that alliance seems to be somewhat affiliated with Upshaw in the later years.

Well, this group of people, they were bringing in and today's money millions of dollars. People just willingly giving up their money for these mission trips and the, according to... what you see in the newspapers, the books weren't quite legit.

It looks like AB Simpson was making a lot of money. He had his wife doing some of the accounting and people would receive the money and she would put it in her personal account, mixed with all of her personal expenditures, which were quite extravagant.

And then she would take it out of a personal account whenever she would fund a mission. And there were discrepancies and there was no way to determine how big the discrepancies were because it was mixed with her personal account.

So you've got that growing. He strongly influenced Frank Sanford. And I think if you study, if you look at what we Charles and I talked about in the historical podcast, that was a big mess.

But Frank Sanford influenced Parham. And then Parham took those same ideas. Parham went to Frank Sanford's massive commune. He had, I read somewhere recently that it was the largest Bible school in the world at Frank Sanford's place in Maine.

So Parham went there and he also went to John Dowey who was labeled the richest man in the West for making, I think it's a day's money, it's like a half a billion dollars this man had.

So those ideas came into Pentecostalism and Parham was one, you know, without Parham, there is no Pentecostalism. So Davis is flirting around with all these different denominations. And somewhere, I haven't really determined where, but somewhere he encounters Pentecostalism and it looks like he saw how much money flowed through these meetings because he's like, oh boy, I've got a new playground to play in.

And he starts posing as Pentecostal in some of these meetings. So he's in with politics, he has, he was second in command of the 1915 Ku Klux Klan. That was being disbanded in, in the sense that it pre-existed.

The Indiana Klan was rising and they were trying to create a competing white supremacy group to take members out of the 1915 Klan over to this new organization that it didn't last because people found out the financial schemes.

And so all of this to say in the end, in the aftermath of this, Davis decides that Pentecostalism is where the money's at. I'm glad you brought out the money trail because I think if you look at the money trail and look at what's happening today, that's where it all lies.

And any of the Bible does say the love of money is the root of all evil. So really it's the love of money. It's not money itself, but I believe these men really love money because you find it everywhere and I believe, you know, Dowee was probably the mastermind and really the hub of his operations is where really a lot of people learned their techniques and learned that you could make a lot of money through religion.

And I think that's why we see Davis shifting to just religion after they get out of the after they realized the flaming sword, you know, teetered out and didn't produce anything. They eventually just stayed with religion because they realized people will willingly give their money.

In fact, in religion, your coaxed to and your emotions get involved and the way they conduct their services, your emotions are so involved and they present such a case that, oh, I'm such a poor man, I need to go on missions, God's call me.

When you bring God into the picture and that they really believe that you're a man of God, they're going to impede their pocketbooks, you know, because they've been promised maybe a blessing and return and it's and that when they discovered that, I just think that it was all over then because then they just realized what a gold mine, you know, religion was, but you know, it's funny, you know, out of Dowee, you know, Lindsey Gordon, Lindsey came out of Dowee, he worked with Brannum, John G. Lake, of course, came out of Dowee, but he was earlier than, you know, than Brannum on the scene.

The Bosworths came out of Dowee and he worked with Brannum as well and a lot of these men today that promote that and they buy these mansions and airplanes and so forth, they're getting rich off of religion is they believe us are birthright, you know, to have that.

They believe riches is what they're promised and they leave all their people that are following them very poor and a way to see this when we get into this, you know, Brannum had a tax case eventually, you know, he only reported maybe $78,000 in income, but his income was far greater than that. Even as managers were reporting back then on those days, $80,000 in income and I think the tax case against him was somewhere and I don't remember how much it was, maybe you know, yeah, it was $300,000. So his salary in today's money would have been probably

in close to the millions to have that much back taxes owed someone might have paid it for him, but getting back to 1924, you know, Davis had to leave Georgia after that bad publicity again and he began some campaigns in Tennessee and about 1924, this is when I believe, you know, Brannum's connection with the KKK happened. He was shot accidentally, either himself or someone shot him while they were hunting in the legs and he was in the hospital. Well, they were so destitute at that time. I think his dad was arrested for moon shining back in those days and so

they couldn't pay the bill even though it was only $61. And it's very strange because that's when his affiliation with the clan started and like he said, he's never going to speak bad of them no matter what they do because they paid the bill for him.

And it's kind of interesting by 1926, you know, random had this new Model T Ford that he takes out West and you kind of wonder was he recruited by the clan at that time?

Was he so affiliated with the clan in some way? Maybe he was getting members joining and getting money or was it the illegal whiskey? Because how could a very poor family that could hardly afford to pay a hospital bill of $61?

Now where did he get this car? A new Model T 1926 Ford that he had a picture taken with that and then he drove it out West. So it's kind of there's a disconnect there.

There's something under the scenes that we may not know. Maybe you have more information about that here in a minute. So Davis, his new operation becomes Chattanooga and he takes the garrison family with him at this time.

If you look in the city directories in 1925, you'll find the garrison family with him and you'll find Davis may have left his second wife or his second wife left him by this time but his daughter Catherine's with him because Catherine becomes one of the musicians and some of his revivals by this time she's playing either the piano or singing in his revivals that why he holds those in Tennessee.

So Tennessee becomes his new base of operations as well as I'm sure he's traveling still about. But Davis, and as we get into this, remember the age gap here, you know, Davis is 36 at this time and Ali Lee who I'm sure he's got his eye on her because we'll see they eventually get together.

He was only 11 years old at this time. So think about how young she is and how old this guy is. He's almost 40 years old and she's only 11 years old. That's something to keep in mind.

The listener should keep in mind as we go forward. But they all appear in the city directory in 1925 and immediately in Chattanooga here. He forms meetings and he starts renouncing the clan. So he got 4,000 people.

It's in the papers that clan is renounced by 4,000 people in Chattanooga. So they are starting to, it says they start to swear, feel, feel, feel to the new organization which is the flaming sword.

So by this time him and Simmons are creating the flaming sword and they're getting people to renounce the clan. So they're starting their new organization collecting money. And by January of 1925, the Davis and Simmons kind of part of company and they kind of stop working together.

And in January, also Roy announces he will give a talk exposing the flaming swords organizational secrets and they will decide it's fate at that time. So something happened with the money. David starts accusing Simmons being paid $150,000 and that Simmons was only in this organization for the money.

So it sounds very familiar. After this flaming sword fizzles out here early 1925 a year later, after they tried to start it, you know, Davis was accusing Simmons of taking money just to be in it for the money.

You know, Davis was in it for a lot more reasons than just that. His talk is to ask the members to quit the flaming sword. He writes articles on the paper all over Oklahoma and everywhere that he believed that group was becoming mercenary, unamerican and and then the members themselves say he's without authority to even say that.

You know, finally, he, he relieves himself of the flaming sword organization in 1925. And there's actually an article in the paper of him becoming a hoslery salesman. He must have only been in that for a very short time because he never, he never, nothing ever else has said about that.

But it seems like he's getting out of all these organizations at this time and he's, he's going to go wholeheartedly in, in religion. Now now Simmons carries on with the flaming sword. Uh, in fact, he, uh, Charles Watson and Simmons then joined together to fight Davis, his attempt to disband, uh, the flaming sword, you know, Davis is fighting hard to get the members to lay down, he calls it lay down their arms.

Uh, at that time, there's articles on the paper about that. But so Simmons gets him a new working partner and they join forces to try to fight Davis on this. Uh, by April of 1925, though, an unfortunate event happened to Simmons, uh, they were traveling down to Florida, I believe.

And somewhere along the way they crashed their car, uh, one of his, uh, uh, uh, persons within their died. Simmons was injured pretty badly and it had a long time recovering. And then the flaming sword organization even turns against him, uh, for the missing $150,000 which they say he took.

So, uh, you know, Davis's efforts to turn people against Simmons and the, and the organization seems to be working. Uh, in April of that year in 1925, uh, after he stirred up those members, causing him to take the sides with him.

The organization just begins to self-destruct on its own. So the flaming sword never became anything. You never hear of it today, even, uh, as much as you even do the clan. So, so by April of that year, you know, the flaming sword even disintegrates, you know, part of it being the reason, uh, from uh, Simmons's car crash, he couldn't be effective in, in promoting the organization.

Uh, and the article in the paper, uh, said this. It says enter nice scene warfare, uh, among the membership of officials of the flaming sword has been raging ever since Dr. Roy Davis, Royal Ambassador in the United States of the body issued a proclamation.

in Chattanooga in January, calling from the Knights to Disband. That's where he believed it was mercenary, but internaising means it's destructive to both sides of the conflict. So, so Davis was just trying to tear down the organization, but that conflict between them was destructive to both the ends. So, so that's when Davis really turns to religion and he joins forces with the Church of God because Church of God's headquarters is in Chattanooga and he starts participating in that denomination. But mostly what you see in the papers is about him being in the musical programs, him having an orchestra and a band and and and participating that way. He eventually worked his

way into that organization as a preacher. And by July of 1925, after all this has happened, a second fire then destroys the mixed herald and it's completely burned to the ground. In fact, it can't even produce papers after that and and what's in there or Walton there who has the paper said he's just out of business, his home burned. It was the same one that belonged to Roy Davis a while back a couple years before that. So, whatever started the fire then, you know, I don't know, but I don't know if Davis was even involved, but it eventually just put him out of

business. But you know, by this time, you know, William Brannum is 19 years old and this is when he leaves in that brand new Model T in early on in 1926 to go out west and then he returns back in 1929.

He lived in Arizona and Kansas as the papers say. And there's not much in the papers regarding Roy until about November of 1926. So we'll get into that and what he starts doing then, you know, shortly. You mentioned the fall of the nights of the flaming sword over money and when I read this in a picture, Davis, I really had to laugh because you know how pyramid scheme works. You have a single person or sometimes a handful of people at the top and you have this pyramid. Everybody under them gets money and every layer down and the ones at the top are the ones that are really

making the big box. Well, Davis was by that by the point of time in which they formed this thing. Davis was second in command of the Atlanta clan. So he he's right up there at the top of this pyramid and he's making a heck of a lot of money with Simmons. And then those two start a new one.

And somewhere I read it was in the hundreds of thousands of people that Davis himself had signed up. So he's getting all of their money, all of their dues, you know, a portion of it. And Simmons, Simmons is making money, but he's right up to the top of Davis. So when Davis turns and points fingers at Simmons, it's it's kind of just like to cast him out so he can rise up to the top.

But you're right. That is the point of time in which the, you know, the Night to the Flaming Sword began to crumble. There was an article published where it was mentioned that the night to the Flaming Sword were actually more militant and violent than the original clan.

And so there was this fear that it was going to be exposed just like the 1915 clan. And here are the two guys, Simmons and Davis, that were part of the original exposure. And I think the people who signed up just didn't want that. They didn't want to be their name associated with it. And then they started reviewing the money and they're like, wait a minute, these guys are making a lot of money.

And here's where the intersection of all of the religious history and all of the clan history, white supremacy, Christian identity, here is the epicenter of where it all comes together. Because right after all of this is happening, Davis starts hosting, he called it undenominational. In other words, everybody's welcome, just like William Brannum did when Laterane started.

Everybody's welcome. Come join our new revival. And it mentions that Davis is the president of the Davis McPherson College, which if you go back to what Frank Sanford was doing, Davis apparently got some ideas there.

And it says he's one of the national directors of the fundamentalist league of America. And you'll remember Gerald Burton, Winrod, who has deep ties to Pentecostalism, fundamentalism, Christian identity, all of these things. He was also a director. So Davis is meeting Winrod. Winrod is very, very, very close to Amy Simple McPherson. In fact, she had him preach whenever she's too sick to take the pulpit. So he's in bed with Pentecostals.

Davis now starts to get the notion of becoming in bed with Pentecostals. And really this is the epicenter where it all happened. And if you go back into, you know, from my former days of being in the message call, we believe that Brannum brought all of these divine revelations that came from God, and nobody else knew this, and would have never known without Brannum.

Well, in the very first series of meetings that Davis holds, he's choosing subjects like the second coming of Christ, the Great Tribulation. Will the rapture, will the rapture of the church take place before the tribulation? And he brings in all of the fundamentalist ideas that he's working with Winrod on, evolution and science, etc.

All with the key elements of what we had in the quote-unquote message. And you can see them all in Davis's ministry as we continue to go on. And this was all, from my opinion, it looks like this was all because of money. There was so much money to be made in religion at that time that Davis and all these guys just decided, you know, there's too much risk in being exposed by cops.

Congress by these militant organizations we have, but we still like those. Let's instead become religious figures and then try to take all of the white supremacy militant vigilanteism underground where it used to be out in front.

That was the, if you knew Davis, you knew that he was with the clan. Now they're trying to make that separation and this will evolve into what comes later where they have all of these private secret clan groups that even the government can't track them all that are hidden in these little underground organizations.

Well, this is the epicenter where all of this happens. Yeah, I see, you know, the clan sort of went underground. In fact, they called it the invisible empire. And so, yeah, there was no way to track, you know, who were members.

And of course, they hid their faces. They wouldn't even show their faces, you know, by wearing the hoods. So yeah, it was very hard to track there, but you know, you were saying, you know, this the revivalism and how a lot of a lot of white supremacists, they chose Pentecostalism.

I guess and it goes back to what we're talking about with the new abstract reformation. You know, if you don't have a good doctrinal foundation, you know, anything goes. So Pentecostalism probably had the least amount of doctrinal foundation about it.

So just about anybody could join it and pose as a Pentecostal minister and show a few signs and wonders and people would just, you know, go, go after that. They were chasing signs and wonders back in those days, which started in the early 1900s when they saw the signs of tongues, what they thought were tongues. And even that was proven not to be genuine.

And this is back in the early days when it first started. You would think that when it was first to spirit, it was first poured out that at least what they had was genuine. But even the earliest days in Params group that you talk about, I think there was this lady, and I don't remember her name, but they claimed she was speaking in Chinese and writing in Chinese. And of course, there's many videos about this incident. And they believed it so much that they went over to China, thinking they was going to speak in tongues and preach to gospel to these people. And they ended

up, you know, coming back because the people didn't understand them. They were just speaking gibberish. This was in the early days when you think, well, you know, this should be genuine. You know, what they have is a genuine gift or whatever. And maybe it was. I'm not going to say it wasn't.

But, you know, happened in the early days. So that shows you how people can just get into these organizations and what it wasn't real. You know, they went over there and failed. So many things happen like that. But, but Roy, this at this time in 19...

In 26, Roy couldn't get rid of Georgia. He just could not bear this thought of, I guess he's getting out of Georgia. So he goes back to Georgia, but this time, he's in a Pentecostal holiness church.

You know, holding a revival. There's an article in the paper about him being the minister of at a Pentecostal holiness church. So, you know, he met up with Church of God in Chattanooga and now he's traveling back to Atlanta to hold a revival as a Pentecostal minister.

Now, can you imagine, with the history and background of Davis, if he hasn't repented, and when there's no indication he's ever repented, he was able to fool people and, and I think he was a Pentecostal minister at this time.

It just goes to show you that anything goes, you know, he can, and he was in the healings, he was in conducting healing services, you know, anointing with oil, all the Pentecostal gifts at this time.

So, he was becoming a master at deceiving the people. And that's what it was all about is, and we'll find that as he met Brannum, the deception became even deeper. So, Georgia didn't soon forget.

I found a few humorous things in the papers. Georgia didn't forget about Roy Davis. He might have held a few revivals, but there's a town called Dallanaga, and they sure didn't forget about Davis, and they published some scathing articles about Roy.

Every time he was there, this was in February 1927. So, he was there only a few months when they wrote this article, and I'm thankful for the papers. You know, I'm really glad, the papers today don't do what the papers did back then.

I just wish we had newspapers today like we had back then, because there were some real good journalists back then. They took their time to write some really good articles, which is so much help to bring the truth out about what was going on.

But, so they really wanted to keep them out of their town. You know, Dallanaga's about 65 miles north of Atlanta, and in February, here was an article, I'll read a little bit about this, and they knew exactly about Roy Davis.

So, they said, last Monday, when we were setting up the clipping from the Texas paper, we thought Roy E. Davis, Reverend Roy E. Davis, Evangelist, author, lecturer, temple builder, divine healer, singer, music teacher, and then they added Lady Charmer, and et cetera, was going to be in Dallanaga six months.

He said so, but he left at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, to be absent a while while he stated, which was the biggest load of hot air, the bus has ever carried out of Dallanaga.

You know, you see what they thought of him. I later went down and told this hypocrite of some of his court ships in Dallanaga, which might have caused him to go to other parts earlier than he expected.

So they said he was probably going to get out of town a little earlier than he thought he would because people knew his past. Some of you people may think of ye editor for what he, is said and published about this crook, but one of these days when you get your eyes open, you may feel like thanking him.

So what the journalist was saying there is that you might think bad of me right now for writing what I'm writing, but later on you're gonna thank me for writing what I'm writing. So that was, so another article appeared in March.

We said a gentleman informed us last Sunday, he understood that Roy Davis, the divine healer and Lady Charmer wrote to one of his DeLonica Lady friends to come to Knoxville and play the organ while he preached.

Soon after Davis arrived in DeLonica and got up on the stage at the Pentecost Church, he pulled out a little glass, placed it on the table and close to the Bible, then he stood with his breasts stuck out and said, the devil is in me.

I will get him out directly and then reach back and took a sip of whatever was in the glass. So it seems that the devil is still in him. And if he continues like this, he has been doing, he's likely knocking the devil out of him with almost, says someone was likely to knock the devil out of him with a piece of lead, which means if he continues on like he's doing, somebody's gonna shoot him.

If he has a wife, why don't he carry her around with him and have her play that organ for him and keep girls and married women from being talked about because no man with the devil in him could do any good preaching.

You know, that's pretty revealing. If you just take time to study this article, they exactly know what he is. So by this time, he must not be carrying his wife around with him, he's charming ladies.

You know, he brings us lady to Knoxville, eventually play the organ. She's mentioned in the paper. But like I said, he's got his eyes on the garrison girl, probably by this time and very young girl.

But he's back and forth between Chattanooga and Knoxville and Atlanta and other towns in Georgia by May of 1920, 2027. So, but anyway, there's some other articles. Even this article here in May of 1927 said he was a wife, deserter, including after he was lady, charmer and all around her, generally.

But anyway, there's article after article in DeLonica to try to push him out of town. And I believe they were successful. Finally, they pretty much were responsible for getting him out of Georgia completely because by this time, he's going to be in Tennessee, holding these revivals in Knoxville by 1927 and holding debates in the Church of God in March of 1928.

And he's fully engaged by this time in the Pentecostal faith. Can you imagine that? I mean, the Pentecostal people are accepting this man. And that even goes when he gets finally into Knoxville and Jeffersonville when we see meets William Brownham.

Now, you wonder how the legend around Brownham being the prophet of God and being called of God. By the time Davis meets him, and they join forces, you know, how could that be? How could a man like Davis, and a man is supposed to be, have revelation from God, you know, ever join forces with a man like that?

But we'll see that, you know, Brannem gets his start from Davis, all his preaching ability comes from Davis's doctrine and things like that, come from, you know, who Davis is. So he's just a chip off the old block and Davis calls him his Timothy, you know, and the article on voice of healing.

So, you know, he, he, he nails it right there. So I'll, I'll mention one thing, then let you get to talking. But he begins these organizational debates with the Pentecostal, he calls his organization Pentecostal Baptist by this time, and he debates on some of these topics.

So a couple of topics as mentioned is the baptism of the Holy Spirit is needed for this day and miraculous gifts and healing continue to this day. And this is very interesting that Davis in 1927 is saying this because, you know, Brannem claims that he never encountered Pentecostal people until he came in contact with him in 1934.

And that's a very interesting statement by a man that's supposed to be preaching truth when he states that later on in his life story, he said he never encountered Pentecostal people, but Davis by this time was a full blown Pentecostal.

We see he had already been preaching in Pentecostal churches, holding debates and as a Pentecostal and preaching Pentecostal doctrine. And they were even together holding revivals in the 1920s. So a very untrue statement by Brannem, I hate to say, I hate to say that, but it's a very untrue statement.

And it just goes to show you that what Pentecostalism had brought into itself through these men. Yeah, from a religious standpoint, this is where it's starting to get really interesting because his Pentecostal Baptist church of God's sect that he was creating, it wasn't just a church, although at that time it probably was just one church, but what he was doing was in the manner of Dr. John Alexander Dowey, he's creating a sect of Pentecostalism where he's the general overseer.

And he starts planting these churches and he's holding these quote unquote undenominational meetings because he's starting a new sect, he needs people and he wants them all to join in. Just like, you know, Brannem did with the latter reign.

It's a, he called it, Brannem called it inter-denominational and come out of your church and join mine. Well, Davis called it undenominational and did the same thing, it was the same road map. And as they're creating this new Pentecostal sect, Davis has the advantage of working with people like Gerald Winrod, because the content that Winrod was projecting, you know that it went through, Davis because you can find that same content in William Brannum's ministry who was the Timothy to Davis, as you mentioned. And one of the things that Gerald Winrod had encountered and was using to his advantage, he discovered Clarence Larkin's book Dispensational Truth. And if you go

back to our historical podcast that I did with Charles, that is woven all throughout William Brannum's ministry. Brannum's seven church ages, all of his, you know, his future home vision. All of these were plagiarizations of this dispensational truth book by Clarence Larkin. And Winrod at this time is holding conferences where he's talking about the Larkin's work. The subject matter is dispensational truth. So we see this alliance happening. Also Winrod is part of the Christian and missionary alliance. So he's, he's got the, you know, the framework for all this money flowing in through his work. Well, Davis is, like I said, his eyes are just lighting up. Look at all this

money that can be made. So he starts to build his own Pentecostal organization where he can be the general overseer. And where it's really interesting is I have known some very crooked people, John, they're never honest about their backstory. If they don't want you to know what's happening, they're not going to tell you the truth. These are the years in which William Brannum is not honest about his backstory. None of it is true. Every single aspect that we've looked at has been false from this period of time. And we know, like you said, he's got the new cars where their family

was destitute. There's no way this guy had enough money for new cars unless something else was going on. And he starts traveling. And why is he traveling? Where did he get the money to travel?

It looks very much like from an early age, at least, I've calculated at least by the age of 16, maybe even 15. William Brannum is doing things that do not fit the character that he describes in his quote unquote life stories. He has been working with his father to produce liquor, which was being sold to the Chicago mob. He apparently didn't like doing that. And it was very vocal about his father and the evil things that his father did. So he would have sided with the clan at that point.

And he's just disappearing from Jefferson to why? Why is he taking these road trips and all of this stuff, right? Well, Davis is creating a new sect. They have a new white supremacy group that was being formed. And now there's all this money to be made in religion. So where does it go?

We can't be on the shadow of a doubt. Say Brannum was involved with that because that history has unfortunately been fully... raised, and William Brannum has been fully dishonest about all of it. But what we can see is what's happening with Davis and Winrod, and if you examine the ministries of these two men and their mission, what they were trying to achieve, you find both of those things, those elements present in William Brannum's laterane ministry. So if he's not working with them, he's at least studying them. And the question comes, was he studying it through

Davis, who was his first pastor in the, you know, the general overseer of this sect that was created for Pentecostalism, or was he working with these guys beforehand? We'll never know. But all of this sets up for the next episode. It's going to be a doozy, because we're talking about the point in time in which William Brannum's epicenter happens with Davis, at least the one that we can document, and we can document some very wild stories about how that came to be. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too.

I'm really excited about this one. But anyway, we'll, we'll get there next time. So 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-brannum.org. For more information about Roy Davis and William Brannum, read The Persuasive Preacher, The Gifted Profit, and The Noble Politician. For more information about the dark side of Latter-Rain, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-Rain to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.