Why We Left the Message

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org, and the author of Come Out of Her My People. And together we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Well, Charles today we have an episode that really strikes home for me. This is really the

heart of why I finally decided to leave the message called to William Brannum. There were many things along the way, you know, and we've talked about across the span of our, I don't know, it's a hundred episodes, I guess we've done together, of the many various reasons why I left. There wasn't just one reason, but I will say that in making my final decision to bring my family out of it, this was the key that unlocked the door for our exit, because as a divine healing cult, I came to realize after stepping back and just thinking about it, that the focus on the gospel

became second place to the focus on divine healing. And I had not yet made the connection that William Brannum and FF Bosworth and many of the others kind of tied those two together. In order to be saved, you also had to believe in this healing thing, and William Brannum himself called it the gospel of divine healing. And it said, he said it just has the same power to save, and I never caught things like that. But I came to realize that if this were the case, if this were the so-called gospel, then there's a huge problem because it does not protect the people from death.

And that became very critical in my deciding to leave, because number one, we had focused on a false gospel. Number two, it was a gospel that was weak and powerless. And as I'm forming all of these thoughts in my head, I began to just think back through all of the people that I knew growing up, and even a the time of my exit. There were so many people that just were sickly, so many people that had died. And the real crux for me was we had a person in our family who struggled with, I think it was a 5% chance of living from cancer. It was one of the most devastating cases of

cancer that I have ever even read about. Even still today, it was awful. And trying to go to the group and we're desperate for healing for this person and watching what the leadership did, watching their response was it literally opened the door for me to leave because they knew that when cancer is this bad, the chances are very low. And they wouldn't touch it like with a 10-foot pole. They wanted to run and hide and rather than banding together in prayer and now having seen other churches watching the community come together as a community of people

to support the person who's really suffering in their family. They wanted to just sweep it under the rug so that nobody found out that there was this level of critical issues with their divine healing gospel. You know, there's so much there, John, and you were you're exactly right. And I find myself, John, really in a lot of the same places that you are with what you're saying. And I think we have a lot in common in this aspect because over the years, a lot of things had piled up for me the last few years, issues that I noticed here and there with the message. But

I have to say it was the divine healing beliefs in the message and the way that those things played out during COVID that really was the ultimate thing. Maybe you might say the straw that broke the camel's back. You know, as I watched a significant number of people in the message die as a result of their divine healing beliefs, their faith healing beliefs that really also woke me up. And it actually made me leave the church. I left the church before I quit believing the message. I left, you know, overall of the deaths. And then a few months after that, I then

decided that there was something wrong with the message itself. And it is a really difficult challenging thing when you begin to encounter the reality of those beliefs. And as it happened in that situation, as people were dying, that we're not supposed to die, that was healed, and all those other stuff, as people were dying, and you start to wake up, you begin to look back.

I can realize, oh my goodness, there has been a string of this for years, for decades. This has been going on all along, and somehow the blinders are on that, and you just can't see it while you're in there and it's so deep.

But especially once you become, you know, in leadership, maybe like me or behind the scenes, you know, everything going on, you realize that, you know, this is just not right. You know, something is not right here.

And, you know, I think as we've expressed in another episode, I mean, we definitely still believe God's healer, you know, it's not denial of miracles or denial of these sort of things to talk this way.

But there is something wrong with the beliefs of the message because it harms more people. Their faith healing beliefs harm more people than they help. I mean, that is just the reality of the situation.

More people are harmed by these beliefs than are helped. And you know, there's times I've been in there, John, I'm sure you could say the same, that we have seen things that, hey, that maybe looks like that was a genuine miracle.

Or that looks like something that, hey, something, you know, special happened here. I think we could both maybe have seen that from time to time. But that's not the typical outcome. That is the rare outcome.

And far more often than not, people can end up dying as a result of these beliefs. And I think we'll talk about that a little bit today. And I think that those videos that you've done with Chino Ross over the past few months, I have really appreciated you doing those, John.

Chino Ross talking about Herbert Freeman from Faith Assembly. Those have been terrific videos. I hope you do a few more. And maybe we can talk about that a little bit today as part of this episode.

Yeah, the episodes I'm doing with Chino are eye-opening. Even for me, as I'm talking to him, I look at what happened with Hobart Freeman's cult. And you know, anybody who has seen the outcome of that realized that it was a total disaster.

And it, again, it was built right on top of this William Brannum Divine Healing Message cult. And it's one of the fruits of the message, if you really want to look at it like that.

It's eye-opening because as we're talking, I'm putting together all the pieces together of the, all of the things that happened that I saw and witnessed in our cult that never really clicked as being, you know, critical information to, that should wake up any person and make them leave.

And the focus is just so wrong. It warps the individual's mind. And, you know, there is a difference. Hobart Freeman was far more extremist in his views. They were not allowed any medication. And if you talk to any person in the main sect of the message...

they'll say, well, he went off into error because we're allowed medication. But what they don't realize is the way in which the gospel, this so-called gospel of divine healing is framed, it makes you prefer the divine healing gospel over the medication.

In other words, you put your faith in faith, and that faith takes priority over medication. And in some cases, people try to go out on leaps of faith so they will deny themselves the medication.

And even still today, it's really hard for me. If I get a headache, I almost refuse to take Tylenol. That's how it's so embedded in my head, man. And this is somewhat embarrassing, but I'm going to say it and set the record straight.

In our very last episode, Charles, that you and I did together where we were driving on the vehicle. I actually, I thought I had beat diabetes, and I did this very strict diet. And according to, I've got one of these little blood meters.

According to the blood meter, every time that I checked it morning, noon, night, any time of the day, I was well into the normal range. But apparently, my body was dumping loads of sugar from my liver as I slept.

And so I had no idea that the level of sugar that was in my blood, it wasn't showing up on the meter. So I thought I had beat it, and not long after we recorded that, I went back to the doctor and see this is the difference.

I did not go on a leap of faith and put my faith in faith and healing, claiming that my faith in that faith would make this secure. I kept going to the doctor, and the blood tests were very clear.

I eventually did develop diabetes, and now I just take a little medication, and it's all fine. But I have watched people, and I'm not going to mention any names as we go in this, because I have respect for the people that are suffering.

They were blinded, just like I was. But there are prominent people in the cult that are related to me, and everybody will know who I'm talking about, who have claimed healing ever since I can remember words.

And they are called upon to give their testimonies now. I think the person even regards himself as a preacher now, because he has this powerful testimony. He grew up with the Brannum family, he knows the Brannums, and so therefore anybody who knew the original Brannum family, they get almost profit or apostle status in this cult.

And yet this person has suffered, I have watched them suffer so badly that they were in a coma. I have watched time and time again, where healing... It's claimed, and there was a slight improvement, it may have been mental, but then a catastrophic, I mean, devastating failure of healing would knock the person on, knock them on their butt for weeks, sometimes months, and yet they're giving their testimony about this thing.

In this divine healing cult, about this divine healing gospel, and it's the cycle that keeps continuing. The person is going to get sick, they're going to fall down, they're going to be near death, and then rise back up and go give a testimony of how wonderful that it is to be in this message of divine healing. And all of the people, they live somewhat isolated now. So all of the people who hear this, they think, wow, this is wonderful. You can ask God for healing, and if you put faith in your faith, you can be healed, because here's a living example. But this person is one of the

most sickly, near death individuals that I can't even describe how long it's been like this, and that's what this gospel is producing. You know, the message continues to doctrines that originate in the late 1800s. One is called the doctrine of dual atonement, and the other is called the doctrine of positive confession. Now, in the message, I think people have lost track of what these doctrines are called a really long time ago, John, as in the message, you don't hear people say positive confession or dual atonement, right? But that is what they believe. I mean, that is

widely what they believe. And I'll just describe them for you that way. You know, that way the people who don't familiar with those terms and know what they mean. Well, dual atonement is the belief that the death of Christ atoned both for our sins and for our healing. And it's rooted in a reading of a verse in the book of Isaiah, where Isaiah writes that he was bruised for our iquity, right? You know, that verse. And it goes on, say, by his stripes were healed. And so they take that by his stripes were healed to say that, you know, the whipping that Jesus endured

before he went to the cross was to purchase bodily healing for people in addition to his death on the cross atonement for our sins. And so they take that to more or less say that bodily healing is available from Christ, you know, through faith. And that by itself is maybe not so bad. But when you combine it with positive confession, that's where it really, it really starts to get off the rails. And what I would suggest to our listeners to John, I mean, if you go into the book of Peter, Peter actually takes that exact same verse that Isaiah wrote by his

Stripes were healed and the Apostle Peter actually explains what that verse means from Isaiah and it does not mean bodily healing It's actually spiritual healing. It's forgiveness from sins is what the Apostle Peter explains that verse to mean So I would suggest that people who believe in dual atonement are actually Conradicting what the Apostle Peter said about Isaiah's verse, but at any rate that's that's a dual atonement But when you combine it with positive confession that's where this thing gets It gets ugly it gets dangerous and positive confession is a belief that evolved like I think we've walked through this before it evolved out of

Quimbiism out of new science it got picked up by the British Israelite healers in the late 1800s John Alexander Dowian and so forth, which is where Bosworth lived which is was nearby Chicago where Kenyan was at And these people pass it on down into the message. This is where those beliefs come from and and Positive confession is basically the belief that if you will confess Something and believe it with all your heart and all your soul. You can have that thing Right, you can have any promise that God promised you could have, but you just got to keep saying I have it

I believe it. I have it. I believe it God gave it to me. It's mine. You've got to positively confess with your lips with your mouth that you have and are getting this thing that God promised and then you'll get it and

When you take that and you combine it with dual atonement will do a tonement promises you can have healing, right? So now I'm positively confessing that I can have healing and So long as I positively confess it I can have it and in fact I do have it and even though outward symptoms may Prove I don't have it. You know, maybe it looks like I'm sick. Maybe I feel sick. Maybe I have all these conditions still But the truth is I'm really healed and I'm gonna keep saying I'm healed despite all evidence to the contrary

Because if I stop confessing that I have this thing then I'll definitely never get it Then I'll definitely never get it and that's the way positive confession works. It forces you to say you have something And believe that you have it despite all evidence To the contrary To despite all evidence the contrary and this is practice quite widely in the groups and churches That have been influenced by this ideology. So they'll say I'm healed But they're not really I'm glad you brought up the passage from Isaiah and Peter's Explanation of that. I'm no minister. So I tried to avoid the theological positions

But this one is important and it is one that I will mention from time to time because In the way in which the British Israel theology later Christian identity theology Developed within this group it developed such that as this false notion that we or the lost 10 tribes of Israel, these ministers in the movement would pick and choose verses, ripping them out of context from whatever passage they were originally written in, usually to Israel, and then combine it with something else out of context from the New Testament, and make this concoction of scripture that's like a witch's brew.

If you take this verse here, plus this verse here, you equal magic potion A or magic potion B. That's how this gospel formed. And this passage from Isaiah, one of the problems with the way that they have done it is they largely overlook the fact that there was an old and new covenant, because if you're focusing on these passages such as this verse from Isaiah, and you try to blend it with a new one, you're outside of both covenants.

Isaiah being under the old covenant and Peter being under the new covenant. And so it was very difficult for me to grasp the fact that there were such a thing as a period of time with an old covenant, and then Jesus introduced the new covenant.

That's not something that's really widely taught in this movement. But Isaiah's, when Isaiah talks about by his stripes we're healed, he's exactly talking about what Peter spoke about, the remission of sins, because under that old covenant that Isaiah was writing about, Israel was suffering because of the consequences of the old covenant, the breaking of the law.

That concept was very hard for me to grasp. Looking forward after I came out of this, once I started to understand that they were trying to blur the lines between the old and new covenant, this even further became a solidification of my decision to leave, because as a false gospel, teaching a false set of covenants, teaching a false set of doctrines on healing, they also had to introduce doctrines of rules.

Because if you're still bound by the covenant of law, you must have rules for which the law was developed, and therefore taking the entire body of modern Christians and forcing them under a new law that was neither old covenant nor new covenant.

And I started going back and you can go to my website and just type in rules. I started kind of going back and documenting all of the various rules that we had, and then carrying it forward to all of the rules that the splinter groups had that were based off of statements that William Brannum said, and it was just ridiculous.

I mean, everything from wearing blue suede shoes was a sin to having washing machines was a sin. If you take it back to what William Brannum said about it, and so I began to realize that it was a false...

gospel where the weight of salvation was not only in belief in this divine healing, gospel, but it was also a weight that were placed on our shoulders of these rules that had no purpose other than to be under the control of leadership that's really all it boiled down to.

And I began to realize if we are placing our salvation on man-made rules instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we have no salvation. What happens? In so many of these cases, John, I've known it personally, as a minister, I've counseled and with people with this problem, when you put faith in healing and faith in salvation on the same plane, like dual atonement does, if you just have faith, you're saved.

If you just have faith, you're healed. And this is how it's set up in people's mind. I just need faith. I can be saved. I just need the same faith I can be healed.

What happens is when they use their faith to be healed and the healing never comes, right? They know the healing never comes. Then their mind starts to go, oh, I don't have faith. I don't have faith.

And if I didn't have faith to be healed, well, dual atonement, it's the same faith that healed me. It's the same faith that saved me. Uh-oh. I must not also be saved. And so then it sets up this really terrible thing that happens in these people where when they fail to be healed, it triggers this chain reaction where they begin to think, oh, oh, I'm also not saved.

And now you take somebody who's experiencing a condition where they are suffering with this terrible condition, maybe that's going to take their life. And this doctrine has set them up to now believe that because they're not being healed, they're also not being saved, right?

And here they're going to their grave, thinking they're going to hell because they're not being healed, right? And it is what this does is it puts these people who are in an end of life condition.

Into this terrible position of internal turmoil where they're wrestling with the fear of going to hell because God's not healing them. And this then the reaction, the way you react to this in this belief system is you've got to continue to confess the healing, I mean, to the moment that you die, right?

You cannot let your faith go because if you let your faith go, it's almost like letting your salvation go, and you'll see them to their deathbeds saying, I'm healed, I'm healed, I'm healed, I'm healed, I'm healed, but they're not, they're not, they're not, and they die.

And then even at the funerals, how? any of their funerals I've been on, I think we even showed some tombstones in our recent episodes. Where they'll still put on their tombstone that they were healed.

They didn't die or that at the funeral, we would even say at the funerals, our brother is healed today, our sister is healed, their bodies and the casket and we're saying they're healed at their funerals even.

And it's so sad and it's so unfortunate. And what that actually is, what is that happens? You just step back and look at it with reasonable,

logical thinking here, okay? Here's somebody who is not healed, but they're saying they are healed. What is that? That's dishonesty, that's really what it is, right? This is not positive confession, this is false confession, right?

It's false witness, you're breaking one of the 10 commandments, right? You're saying I'm healed, but you're not really healed. And so what happens is this really just turns people into liars and it's so sad, it's so hard to say that.

I mean, I'm sorry out there, I mean, if you haven't looked at it that way, I apologize for hurting your feelings. But what you're doing is you're lying, right? And if you have a faith healing cult, so the message is a doomsday cult, it's also a faith healing cult, James, and I mean, the rather a William Brown, and was a faith healer, right?

This turned the people into his accomplices, right? How do you know, how do you know in the message when someone comes to you and says I'm healed, how do you know whether that's positive confession or a genuine healing?

You don't, right? How do we know that all of these stories in voice of healing and all these stories that we hear on tape with William Brown, how do we know that whether it's positive confession or genuine healing?

The truth is we don't, right? You can't really tell the difference between a genuine healing and positive confession, just based on the words of people alone. And that is how William Brown have got so many healing testimonies.

And while there are so many healing testimonies in the message today, a lot of it is simply positive confession. It's not actually authentic healings. I would even go so far to say, John, that maybe 90 plus percent of the healing testimonies in the message are actually positive confession and not authentic healings.

Yeah, I would agree. It's widespread. And people who are in it do not realize it's so widespread because often when they hear the person who claims I'm healed, they only see the claim. They don't see what happens behind the scenes.

And that's exactly what is going on with the members of my family who are proclaiming healed and they have been sick. I mean, deathly, deathly sick for ages, long as I can remember, even as a child.

One of the problems, and this is another part of, it's a complex reason why I decided to leave. But one of the, problems with this gospel of divine healing, because it was based on Christian identity and British Israelism.

There was a concept in British Israelism that developed into what you and I have explored and documented called the Manifested Sons of God. And this was a very heretical, very dangerous, awful group of people subscribed to a doctrine that they could become like gods.

And when you talk to the main body of the message movement, many of them will deny this. They will say that we do not believe that. That's heretical. Those people are dangerous. They're weird.

And I mean, Mike Bickel, his group believed the Manifested Sons of God. They learned it through Paul Cain, Paul Cain learned it through Brannum, Brannum learned it through the British Israel doctrine. And to believe this doctrine to its full extent, you have to demote the power of Jesus so that you can elevate the power of humans.

That was a concept that was very hard for me to grasp, and it took, you know, even long after I left, I didn't fully understand that. I just knew something was wrong because they would often go to, they were good verses that were just completely ripped out of context, such as, thy faith has made the whole.

You'll hear that phrase over and over and over in these sermons. And it's advocating for the notion that faith and faith can heal you. And this only works with the Manifested Sons of God framework.

Because if you go back to that example and read it in context, it's not the faith and the faith that has healed the person. It's their faith in Jesus and his connection to God that has healed them.

Well, in the Manifested Sons of God framework, you don't have to have God because we're all gods. We all have this greater or lesser fulfillment of the being of the embodiment of Christ. And literally, the phrase that is often used also from the Bible is, is it not said that you're gods?

They'll combine those two together. And you have to remote Jesus to promote these apostles and prophets and widespread advocations for this Manifested Sons of God framework. And I just, Charles, I just came to the place where I could not justify demoting Jesus so that I could be more like God.

I realized that that's wrong. What they're doing in this movement is wrong. And carry it forward to my research today. Look at the sheer number of different groups that we've identified. I mean, we just mentioned Mike Bechel, but it's more widespread than Mike Bechel's group.

Look at the widespread heresy that was introduced by this because all of these so-called apostles prophets and all of their quote unquote Joel's army that they developed. All of these people are falling under that same air. And I realized that for me, for my family, we could not live like this.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Brandham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen McCummery, John McKennan 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-Brandham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. This belief set has spread far and wide. I mean, this is not just the message. I mean, most every movement that's descended out of either the ladder rain or the healing revivals in the 40s and 50s, believe this way. In some degree or

another, some of them go to a greater extreme than others, right? And I think Hobart Freeman's group, Faith Assembly, is a great example of one that went to a great extreme because they got to the point that they believe also that you never go to a doctor. God will always heal you.

And if you die, it's because you didn't have faith, right? They're good to the point that they even completely drop all medical treatment. And that also is somewhat happened from time to time in certain message groups and with certain individuals in the message that they take those beliefs to the same extent that they also will not take medical treatment. And I do think it's worth pointing out, right? I know you did a good job with this in the episode with Chino Ross, but Hobart Freeman and Faith Assembly, his faith assembly, are definitely an evolution out of the

beliefs of the message. And I don't know, John, that I have ever said this on the podcast series, but I'll say it right now. The sect of the message I come from is called Faith Assembly.

And the majority of the churches in my sect of the message are called Faith Assembly, right? And it's not a coincidence that Hobart Freeman's church was called Faith Assembly. And you know, I think I've shared with you the audio clips we had brother Hobart in our church in the in the late 60s and early 70s. And you know, I don't know that it's the same Hobart that was before my time, but you know, Hobart Freeman lived like five to 10 miles away from our church in the late 60s, right?

In the same Here's that we had a brother, Hobart. You know, is it that coincidence that we had a brother, Hobart at our faith assembly, who a few years later went to Warsaw and established another faith assembly?

I know I don't know, but we do know he was around a lot of our people, right? We do know that he was near the brand of tabernacle. We know he came into contact with the message.

We know he was associated with the full gospel businessmen. He was definitely in the same circles that our preachers were. And you've seen what happened there. They got to the point that they stopped even believing going and having medical treatment of any sort.

And the death toll was, I believe I believe I've heard 125 to 150 was the death toll that ensued in that church. But John, that is not, that's maybe a big number, an extreme number, but I would say that many or more have died in the faith assembly churches I come from too, right?

And we have, our beliefs were not quite that extreme where we denied all medical treatment, but it's very common for our people to refuse or to limit medical treatment. And we had, I could go through, I thought of a variety of different stories I could tell you about people who died as a result of our faith healing beliefs in our sect of the message.

And maybe as he go along, maybe I share a couple of those more recent ones with people, just explain how this, this belief is all over the message. And it ends up manifesting with people suffering and dying prematurely is really the sad reality of it.

Right, it's, it's awful when you think of the number of people who have died. I mean, not just Hobart Freeman, not just William Branagh, but look at the history of this thing. My research has gone back so far as John Alexander Dowey, who is labeled as quote, God's general.

And, you know, as I'm trying to understand how this gospel, this false gospel came to be, I wanted to know it's origin, it's origin. I want to know the source. So I went from Branagh, that led me into Bosworth, I saw Bosworth's doctrine.

And I want to know where did Bosworth get it? And lo and behold, he was a leader in the John Alexander Dowey cult of the Christian Catholic church, I think they called themselves out of Zion, Illinois.

And I just started going through newspapers, and I had an interview on Daniel Long's channel. And we were talking about how many of these articles that I read, I read every single one of them.

And if you go to newspapers.com, you'll find that there are tens of that, maybe hundreds of thousands of articles on Alexander Dowey. I read every single one of them across the span of several years, and I came to understand that he was not God's general.

This guy was even worse than a con man. This was like the Christian mafia. and he was the Christian mob boss, but they were whisking away bodies under the blanket of night, but they had collaborated with the undertaker.

So the undertaker would drive the hers into the night, snatch a body out of there who had died in these so-called healing homes, and then the public, you know, they didn't see this. So they did not see the suffering in death that was happening in this cold.

And I began to tie that back to the experiences that I have with family, close friends, people acquaintances. These people proclaimed healing, and I knew the private lives. I knew how badly they suffered.

Like you said, outright lying. They would say I'm healed, and then they would go home and be near death. And some of them did die. I mean, that's how bad this was. But the people who are in this movement who don't see what's happening day-to-day in the private lives, they think, wow, this is wonderful.

This person had a deadly disease, and now they're healed. 100% healed, they often say. But they're not. These people suffer. You know, I thought of one story I would share, John. Just kind of how this works and the church is I come from.

And this story is about my grandfather, actually. So family story. My grandfather was on blood thinner for 50 years, right? He was in his 80s when he passed away, but he was on blood thinner for 50 years, and he had a risk of stroke.

And when he got into the last few years of his life, he started to develop some mild Alzheimer's-type dimension. And he was in a very mild state. His judgment just wasn't quite right, but he was still lucid enough.

He knew who we were. He could talk to us, you know, and he could do the things to live from day to day. And so as he's in that condition, we have a preacher.

And he gets up and he preaches how he is never gonna take his blood thinner medicine ever again. This preacher says, the doctor told me, I need this blood thinner. Well, I don't need this blood thinner.

I'm healed by God. Praise the Lord, and the blood thinner and the question was plavix. And so he's whole sermon is why God doesn't need him to take plavix because God's gonna heal him, right?

And he just rips plavix to pieces all through his sermon. Plavix, we don't need plavix. I don't need plavix, God's healed me. If I take that again, why would I do that to demonstrate I don't have faith?

So he goes on this big long spiel against plavix in his sermon. That happened to be the same blood thinner my grandfather was taken. Well, my grandparents go home. Like I said, my grandfather's got some mild dementia.

And what do you think he does? He quits taking his plavix because the preacher said we don't need plavix for a minute. About a month later, he took a terrible stroke, John, that that medicine was actually there to prevent.

He went into the nursing home. He never knew who he was again after that. He never recovered from that stroke, and he eventually died.

Those are the sort of things that happened in the message, right? Now, my grandfather was elderly, right? I mean, he would have passed away eventually. He did have dementia, right? And, you know, who's to say maybe some of that wouldn't have happened anyway.

But, you know, in my opinion, I mean, I think the preacher who preached against that medicine has some responsibility in that situation, right? And I could share so many stories like that, but that's one of my own stories.

That's my own family. I feel okay to tell that story, but it's really sad what these beliefs do to people. And it breaks my heart sometimes, just to even talk about it, to think about it.

It's really hard. And you know, in this type of cult religion, there are a lot of mental health issues, and I can't stress enough the importance of focusing on helping those who have the mental health issues.

It's widespread. I know many people who, friends of mine, family of mine, acquaintances, and I went from churches from Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between. I know many, many people who suffer with mental health issues, some of them really, really severe.

And in this type of gospel, you are taught to deny, deny anything that resembles something that your body is suffering with. So you deny the mental health issues. And in doing so, you have to deny the people who need help from their mental health issues with their mental health issues.

And they'll often deny the medication for it. And this becomes very problematic because if the mental health issue is so severe that the person cannot remain stable without medication and you're trying to convince them not to take the medication, well, then it goes into the cycle that it repeats forever.

I know personally, people who my grandfather from behind the pulpit, would talk about how bad they had gotten and then after they got the medication, they got, quote unquote, healed. And everybody in the church was praising God because Grandpa didn't really mention the fact that the person got back on their meds.

He also didn't mention the time whenever they went off of their meds. And so they relapsed and often relapsed far worse than they had to begin with. But they go through the cycle. Now, people with mental health issues, often there is a struggle to get them to take their meds.

But compound that with a cult who is trying to teach you that you don't need... the meds. So in the back of their mind, as they're suffering, their suffering becomes exponentially greater because they teach them not to take the meds. And it's so problematic, Charles, because the quality of life that these people could have, if they were to be on their meds, is completely robbed of them. And then make it even worse, the cult demonizes anything that resembles mental health issues, to the extent that if somebody leaves the message, they will actually tell them, they'll actually tell all the people that that person has a mental health

issue, and that's why they left. And they further demonize the mental health rather than saying that if the people were to go to the doctor and get what they need to make their body chemistry right, the person could have a normal life. And this is not centralized to just the random cult. We actually went to, I'm not going to mention the name, but we went to a mainstream denomination after leaving the cult. And they had somehow got a hold of this lateraline ideology that Brannum had taught. And they claimed that if a person had mental health

issue, it was because they needed, they needed intervention from their pastor because they had alleged sin in their life. And they were actually convincing people who had issues that could be resolved with medication, not to take their medication. And this was in a mainstream denomination, which was not limited to the message, but all of this developed from this framework that you and I have examined on this podcast. They have put such faith in that they have taken away faith in the gospel. And I just can't picture a gospel where it is designed that people should suffer. I can't picture that being any of any value whatsoever.

So our family just decided, we no longer value this false gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is so simple. Once I finally heard it after leaving the cult, I was like, why on earth did they hide this from us? It's so simple. And I mean, you can live a good life. You can have a happy life.

And you're going to have struggles. That's part of life. But why would I want to focus on a false gospel like this? I know what you mean. And I look at people like my grandfather who was in the message since William Brannum. The message sent my grandfather to an early grave, John, listening to the message preacher sent my grandfather to an early grave in my opinion. And I've seen that with so many people, so many people. And I thought of another couple other stories I might share.

I'll give you another one. This is the story, John, when I actually exited the church I was in, where I was the associate pastor. And the same preacher who would preach against, you know, the blood thinner medicine with my grandfather situation, a Lot of other things similar to that unfolded and I started to become aware at when it happened with my grandfather That kind of woke me up like, you know, hey, we got to be careful with what we're saying, you know, because there's people here who Are gonna act out on it maybe in a bad way

And you know, I tried to talk to him about that a few times, but you know, he just kept, you know, doing the same stuff You know, without really caring about the consequences and when we got into COVID, John

Most message churches, I don't think they even followed any of the COVID protocols, right? But our church we followed the COVID protocols. We we basically had half the people come on service half come the other service We spaced everybody out right Social distancing and we went for several months into COVID like that and we never spread COVID through the church Right because the guidelines actually worked right you wear a mask you social distance It actually worked right so we did that for I would say maybe six months and

Then about six months in the same preacher who you know, it preached against medicines in those different ways He preaches a sermon from the book of Isaiah and and he goes to the verses in Isaiah that says, you know, the plague will never I'm sorry, not Isaiah the book of Psalms the plague will never come nigh your door and He takes that and he and he says in that this is almost a direct quote the bride choirist cannot get COVID God will protect us the plague will never come nigh our door and He does some very common message things. He says the best place for sick person is at church because church is where you can get healed, right?

You've probably heard things similar to that and so the next church service well all the sick people start coming right the people who are sick no longer quarantining they're coming to church and

One week after that John one week after that 168 people came down with COVID in our church 168 people we were we are a large church and I I don't know if you know I mean our church was the largest Jeffersonville message church John Sorry for tabernacle we had gel beat the back then, but anyways, we had It's not anymore. I can tell you that but 168 people out of our congregation got got the COVID and you know that was you know certainly less than half the people but We had multiple fatalities John multiple fatalities came out of that

All kinds of elderly people were had to be hospitalized It was really really bad. It was so bad. We had to close the church and

With the with the with the hospitalization with the fatalities and stuff I mean it I have to say that really got to me because I in my mind realized hey It was this preacher's actions two weeks before this that caused all this to happen right we were fine up until then.

And it was definitely his actions and people believing what he said and following along with it, that the cause would happen. And then after we opened the church back up about three, four weeks later, he preaches again, the same preacher John, and he announces that his parents, his elderly parents have had COVID.

COVID been in their house, they're sick, and that his elderly mother, they're refusing to give her any medical treatment. The doctors have said she should be hospitalized except for they're refusing to hospitalize her, they're not gonna give her medical treatment.

And that was the event, John, which really, I'm like, oh my goodness, they're killing this woman. And she did, John, she died. That lady died when they denied her that medical treatment. And that was really kind of the breaking point like I can't go along with this anymore.

I mean, for God's sake, we're killing people. You know, we're killing people. And that's the point at which I exited the church I was in. I didn't quit believing the message, but yeah, the message, these beliefs absolutely come out of the message.

And people will kill their own parents for God's sake. I mean, it's unbelievable, John. It is unbelievable. It is unbelievable. And your church was not isolated in this. I know that I've been to churches a variety of different belief sets that are all built on this framework.

That we're talking about. And whenever this happens in one of these churches, the rest of the churches is just kind of, you know, cut them off, they'll say they went off in the air because it's undeniable the air that happened in the church.

But before they cut them off, you know, they're really no different. That's really the key thing to understand. It's no different. And if you take this across, not just the Brandon religion, but go to all of the splinter groups that develop from this, they all have the same foundation.

They're varying levels of how much they accept and reject within this false gospel. But the key elements of the false gospel are largely adopted among all of the splinter groups. And so the danger remains, no matter which one of the splinter groups you look at, you know, they may not be hyper destructive now, but they have the same framework.

And so what happens is over time, all it takes is one person who becomes, you know, authoritarian in the group to develop it into a very destructive and as you've, you know, examined a very deadly group.

So for me, I, you know, I wish there were laws that prevented these types of groups from emerging. In the United States, under the way that the constitution and the, you know, articles are written, and there's no way that this can happen because there is a separation of church and state and the state can't get it.

involved. But I wish that that was not the case. I wish that there was a way to govern this to protect the people, if nothing else. Because all it takes, like I said, is just one person to get sort of a authoritarian mind and lead people to their deaths.

Yeah. All right. And it has happened. You know, the faith assembly church is plural in the state of Indiana have killed hundreds of people, right? And I mean, it's documented. The health department has intervened at different times in the past. And it's really unfortunate. I got one more story, John. I'm going to share one more story. Okay. So we're following the we're following the COVID train. So this one comes after this one's not all that long ago. This is after I have done left the message that this one happens. And I had multiple people from the church who are still

my friends that talked to me, call and share the story with me here, not too terribly long ago. Well, the pastor, so this is a different preacher, gets a prayer shawl, a Jewish prayer shawl.

And he's got it around his shoulders. And he invites everyone to come be healed. And in this, he's impersonating Jesus. He goes, he reads the scripture about the woman with the issue of the blood, how she touched the hem of his garment and was healed. And so he's got on a prayer shawl. He says, this is like what Jesus wore. And you can come touch the hem of his garment, the hem of the preacher's garment, and be healed. And so he invites everyone to come touch the hem of his, the preacher's garment, and be healed. And so they form lines. And the entire church, more or

less, comes around touches the, you know, the hymns of his prayer shawl. And as all this is happening, he's saying, they're singing only believe, right? Obviously, they're singing only believe. And the whole time he's also saying, only believe, only believe, everyone that touches him, only believe, only believe. So they're practicing only believeism, right? And so the whole church files past, everybody gets, everybody gets all of the only believeism, healing, touching the hem of his garments. What do you think happens? They all got COVID again. Instead of getting healed, John, they all got COVID again because they are spreading the COVID on the prayer shawl to

everybody. And they had to close the church again. It's unbelievable. The stuff, I mean, it's unbelievable, John. It's unbelievable. The things that go on and people just don't wake up from this stuff. It is unbelievable. I lost really good friends and family to COVID. It's no joke.

And I have, through the work I'm doing with James Goad, as we're going through these weird doctrines, one day we decided to just go through and see what people were saying in these movements about COVID. And everything from the Brannamites to the NAR, they're all teaching a very destructive, very dangerous doctrine.

They placed emphasis on prophecy, dreams, healing, even just casual statements by ministers. They placed that above the medication. And they were entire churches that taught that the medication was, they were teaching the conspiracy theories, which I'm certain you've heard from behind the pulpit of how the government was injecting the mark of the beast into your bloodstream and all kinds of weird stuff, man.

And it's just so problematic because they have taken the false gospel and they're toying with the people's lives and they've brought death. This movement is a movement that is a harbinger of death. And, you know, I can't stress enough.

This is why we left. This is why we left the message. But there are people still in it. And my heart bleeds for the people who are suffering in it because they could live good lives.

They could live healthy, fulfilled lives if they were not under the false gospel. And if you're a researcher and you're listening to this and you wanna see the true depths of how bad that a false gospel can lead you, this is it.

This is how it can lead you to death. And I just, I can't stress enough how bad this is. A lot of people, when they research cults, they go to the extremes like they'll look at Jim Jones who was a part of Brandon's message cult.

He led all his people to death and it was a disaster. Don't get me wrong. But they often focus on that type of event because it makes the news. And not the day-to-day heresy that's being taught like this that honestly, Charles, if you take the number of people that have died due to this false gospel, it actually is worse than Jonestown.

That's how bad this is. So, for me, I couldn't do it. I couldn't stay in this thing. I would agree with you, John. I mean, the number of deaths that have come from the faith healing practices of the message and I will say people who believe in a combination of dual detonement and positive confession, you know.

By themselves, you know, they're not too bad. But when you put them together, it's a cocktail that it does kill people. And it's killed people from, it's been killing people from the 1800s, John.

I mean, we can track them through the newspapers, these deaths. And those are just the ones that made the press. You know, it's probably a number that would be unfathomable to us that have died, that it just never got noticed by anybody with these things.

I mean, John, it's a massive, massive number of people that these beliefs have killed prematurely. And it's so sad and so unfortunate. And you know, I think I do want to say again, you know.

Oh, certainly, I believe God heals. God's a healer, right? And the problem with these beliefs is it what one preacher I heard would say is it turns God into a vending machine, right? You go up and you punch the buttons with the right combination and you get what you want.

But it's don't work that way, right? I mean, you can't faith your way into anything. You can't faith your way into healing unless God wants you to have healing. And it's not always that God wants to heal people, right?

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but every person who has ever lived, including Jesus Christ himself, with the exception of I guess Elijah and Enoch have died, right? I mean, everybody that has ever been born, except Elijah and Enoch, according to the Bible, has died, right?

And that trend is not going to change, right? In the current paradigm, right? That's not going to change, okay? So it's inevitable. God does not heal everybody. Everybody has died. Okay, and so you just can't add those things up and make them work out the way that these belief systems put it together.

And it's really sad, it's really unfortunate. And it leads to the deaths of premature deaths of many, many people and torturous lives that these people live. I'd have so many times, John, that, you know, I would be counseling people as a minister and one of these other ministers who is more into faith healing, I guess than I was, has convinced them to give up their medication and have faith.

And they're living with all of these conditions that if they just take the pill, right, it would help. But they have went, you know, I had one lady one time come to me and she said, I've had so much faith this past year since I quit taking my medication because this preacher, what he said, but I haven't got any better and she's crying.

She's weeping, you know, of the pain that she's suffering, the things that she's suffering and just cannot understand why her faith was not enough to heal her, right? And it's so hard to just, to tell people like that you have been snuckered, you've been snuckered, right?

You've been tricked, you've been fooled, go take your medicine, right? Obviously God does not want to heal you right now. Go take your medicine, right? And it's not a lack of faith to take your medicine.

And it's so sad. And you know, to say these things by the cult we come from, John, we'll be branded as the worst heretics there ever was. Oh my goodness, you're unbelievers, you don't believe in divine healing all this stuff, but the sad truth is, John, these people have been tricked and it is harming and killing people.

So sad, so sad. It is sad. And in summary, if I were to sum this podcast episode up in six words, it is come out of her, my people. So get Charles Book, come out of her, my people.

If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. For an overview of the history... Research of William Branham in the Healing Revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Branham in his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

This is William Branham in the Healing Revival, a critical examination of William Branham in the Healing Revival. William Branham in the Healing Revival, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Branham in the Healing Revival.

This is William Branham in the Healing Revival, reading preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Branham in the Healing Revival. You