Faith Assembly 2024 Update Part 2

Music Hello, 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, minister, and friend, Chenel Ross, pastor, and the voice of the Understanding, Scripture, and Truth by Chenot D. Ross, YouTube channel.

Chenel, last week we did not get into very much. We tried to get through the update on the faith assembly cult. And the, you know, I hesitate to use the word cult now, because like you said in our last podcast, things have progressed in a different direction.

But there's always that question for me when people don't really own their past. I have to question, have they really changed? How much have they changed? And based on what you said last time, some people had, and other people hadn't.

So I have to raise the question, I'm not going to call it a cult officially. But I do have some questions because, you know, in my life, there are, you know, in marriage, for example, when you're in marriage, which is a really good example of being in a religion, you have your wife and children.

And if you make a mistake, the first thing that you should do is tell your wife, hey, I made this mistake and then work through it. Or if it's for one of your children, you know, I'm sorry, I got a little bit of upset whenever I shouldn't have or whatever it is, not, you know, in this case several people died.

This is so much worse than something that happened in a family. But in a family, you own up to it and you progress in a good way. You change and you learn from your mistake.

And I often tell people who are in the support group, it's not your past that really matters. I don't care what you've done, it's really where you're headed, you know, or you're going to repeat those same mistakes.

So I have a question when somebody doesn't own up to it, but I'll set off that off to the side because I want to hear the rest of the update as well. Yes, yes. Well, let me help clear up some of that.

The ministers on that with, I definitely believe from everything they said and I have no reason to question them really. I think they're good brothers in the Lord that they have a distance themselves from the past teachings of Hobart Freeman.

The ones they feel are erroneous and have owned up to them. I mentioned a couple of other ministers, a couple by name and I'm sure they're up there. that I didn't mention by name, that have, you know, not been able to deal with the things in the closet in the past, but, you know, when I got to this meeting, which was back in the middle of July, July the 17th, it began a little tense.

They knew who I was, as I said in our last interview, previously John, just from I had been the pesky one on the outside who had, you know, dared challenge some of their beliefs.

And it's just, you and I continue to talk about this same thing, but if you're not allowed to challenge beliefs, if you as a public speaker can't handle that, if it's too hot for you in the kitchen, you need to find another job because those of us who are speakers, I mean, I'm a professional speaker, that's what I've done for a living.

And that means you're going to, you're going to put your foot in your mouth and you're going to cross your waters more than one time in your life and you just got to be able to handle that.

And that's why I didn't go back and scrub all of my past history just to be about impossible to do. But, you know, we've just got to be able to, whenever I would have said something in the past, they would say, oh, he's heretical, oh, he's leaving the faith, you know, but whether I'm here or not, if I pass off the scene, the issues don't pass off the scene.

All the problems stay there, whether I'm there or not, whether I'm pointing them out or not. So I would say the meeting began a little tense because somehow we got diverted on to, because I mentioned that I thought Dr. Freeman's view on the Godhead of the Trinity.

His definition, the way he states it is definitely less than orthodox, I'm not accusing him of heresy, I do believe, I know that he believed in a father's son and Holy Spirit as being co-equal as far as deity is concerned, but his definition just showed me he'd been influenced by William Brownham.

So in any event, we got off on a little rough note and then one of the brothers who was wonderful and gracious, stood up across the conference table, leaned over and shook my hand and wanted to reboot, you know, let's reboot and when I got home, here's a text that I got from this brother, he said, thanks so much for coming to visit us.

It was great to meet you and share it together. Please do forgive me for being rude to you early in our conversation. I'm sorry for that. Wow. Wow, you know, I'm impressed because the ministers down there in the past, they wouldn't come close to something like that.

And I don't even know that he was rude, it's just, you know, when you're going to debate and discuss and dialogue about theological issues, we're all pretty passionate about what we believe. And even without raising your voice or cursing at anybody and none of that happened for sure in the meeting, you know, we all might get a little fired up.

So I'm okay with that, as long as everybody else is okay with that, I'm okay with that. That's a good sign. You know, one of the proofs that really are the tail tail sign, like you said with what happened when Freeman was alive, whenever you leave, if they begin character assassination, that's usually a sign that they still have the cultish mindset and wanting to, it's a thought stopping technique.

If they can assassinate your character, then any questions that you've raised will be completely discredited by the people who are in it. And I'll never forget, when I first started doing this, I'm one of these unusual people that see the good and everyone.

And I engaged everyone equally, you know, and I still wish I could do that. It hurts me that I can't. But if it was a cult minister who was engaging me, or if it was just a regular person who had been manipulated by the cult, I treated everybody the same, because, you know, we're all humans.

We all make mistakes. But I would find that they would be toying with me to try to find something that they could assassinate my character with. And then they would use it. So now my guard has to go up and I hate that, because it's not my nature.

And it went so far for me, and not to distract from the story. This is short. But I had this one cult minister who he didn't call me, but his secretary called me. I'd never met her or even heard of her.

And I got this phone call, a huge on Collins. I said, yeah. And she said, are you the grandson of Willard Collins, passed with the Bram Tabernacle? I said, yeah. And she said, okay.

Thank you. And she started to hang up. And I was like, wait, wait. Who are you? Why did you call? Oh, I was just checking. I'm trying to hang up again. Well, this went on until I finally got out of her who she was.

And she was this minister's secretary. Well, he, I'm just curious. So I watched some of the sermons upcoming. And he had this whole series of discussion in one of his sermons where he said, I tried to reason with that John Collins.

And he's just so far gone, the devil. I can't remember how he put it, but alluded that the devil had got me. Well, the man never even spoke to me. And then years later, he left the message.

So it got even funnier. And they're, like I said, they're people who own up to their mistakes and they're people who are not. And I'll just leave it at that. But it sounds like things went in the right direction for you.

So I'm hoping that things will progress in a good way. I hope so too, John. The men were very cordial. They put me up in a super nice Hilton motel they covered, which I did not ask for.

They even declined. And they said, no, you are our guest. So it's at our expense and that's non-negotiable. So I thought that's wonderful. That's hospitable they would. generous, they had a lunch catered in for us during our meeting.

It was a four hour meeting, by the way. So, I mean, we covered a lot of bases, touched on a lot of things. One of the ministers had some printed out material that I think he wanted to, I'm not for sure because they weren't gonna hand it to me.

And then he said, no, I'm not gonna give this to you. He took it back. I think it was points of disagreement or points of challenge or something. But I think by the time we got to the end, I saw relaxation on the faces.

I hope I'm interpreting that right. I guess time will tell. But, you know, I do not want to be mean spirited against anyone. I don't want to be critical of anyone for the sake of being critical.

It's just, unfortunately, sometimes things have to be said because of what's been said in the past and because of the damage that it's caused. So, yeah, I took the opportunity and going up there, John and your friends may, or your followers, your viewers may find some of the things because people pictures, but I just visited, you know, it's like a blast from the past.

Whenever I was taking my trip up to Northern Indiana and then the wow of the now, when I'm looking at like the old building. And, I mean, I just took my time. I made a lot of stops on the way up there.

So, I've got a few of these photographs to show to you. And, first of all, I'll do some of Dr. Freeman's house. I know you had put up some pictures from inside Hobart's house, one of our earlier interviews when we, my wife and I were down there visiting June and had taken a bunch of pictures.

But this first picture is a visit from back in the 1980s.

And then, you'll see in this next picture, it's the exact same view but taken last week. And so, you can see not much has changed. And, one of the people that I had a couple of great conversations with that everyone who follows faith assembly will know is Jerry Irvin.

Jerry Irvin, and you're not gonna remember maybe, John, all of these names, but Jerry Irvin was the song leader forever there. Whenever they left Hobart's house in Claycool before they landed at the glory barn, the place in between was Jerry Irvin's three-car garage.

So, he goes way back to the very beginning. And so, all the bushes and shrubbery that you see planted in Hobart's front and back yard, Jerry is the one who went over there and helped stick all those in the ground for Hobart way back in the early to mid 1970s.

So, it was good to talk to Jerry and catch up and get some updates from him. So this next picture is the front walkway just leading up to the door. So if you're going to visit Hobart in June at any time, you're walking down these cobblestone steps and you're headed to the front door.

And then these next couple of shots just show the beautiful shoelake that his house was on. That northern Indiana area is just loaded with these wonderful lakes. And it's a small lake, shoelake was a small lake. Hobart had his house over on, I think one corner of the lake so you can see a view from his backyard out across the lake and then from across the lake looking back to his house. When I got over on Backwater Road, it was difficult to even find where the glory barn used to be. So you'll see a picture of a cornfield

and everything is gone. Everything is gone. It's just, it's kind of sad. You know, I first visited that place in 1976, 48 years ago. And you know, who would have thought half a century later, here we are talking about, it's all full of corn and the actual building is gone, the chimney is gone, the trailer is gone, the cabin is gone, paintplates up around bookstore is gone, everything is gone. And when I left there, I went over to what they call the new building in Wilnet. So I have a picture of the front of the building back in the 80s and then we've got

this exact same view two weeks ago. And then again, back in the 80s, you can see a couple of pictures inside the main auditorium. We're talking about a 30,000 square foot building. This was a huge building, but this is during a worship service and then after a teaching service.

And then our next picture that I'm showing you here is the main auditorium as it looks today. So I had the wonderful privilege of meeting Dan, who owns the building. And I just, Dan is wonderful.

Dan actually, Dan's, let me get this right, his son had just married Jerry Irvin, this son leader's granddaughter. So he had just seen Jerry at like a little wedding get together, a little wedding social just a few weeks prior to me being down there. Now I did not know Dan from any other contacts. I just went by the new building and he's turned it into everything pontoon.

You know, it's a it's a boat place because there's pontoon boats everywhere. there. So all of the things, accessories, the cloth seats, the vinyl seats, all the kind of stuff you'd need for a pontoon boat, that's what they do there. So when he found out who I was and I said, I'm working on a series of podcasts and he said, what's it about?

And I said, well, it's about the people that used to be in this building. He said, oh, I got a lot of stories. I know a lot of stuff. I could tell you all kinds of things.

And he did. And I said, now look, Dan, if any of this is confidential, you need to let me know. If not, I might have a big mouth. And I might share some of this. And he said, you know, he said, I don't care. I mean, here's what Dan said. He said, I'm an old man.

He said, I've actually got cancer. I don't have much longer to live. So he said, what do I care about what people think about me? And I said, you know, that's a great way to go through life. Whether you got cancer or not, we all need to go through life with. And you and I said this, John, all people could say about me is either something bad that's not true.

So what is not true or something that's bad that is true? Oh, well, it's true. You know, I can't deny it. What can I do with it? You know, so I don't know why people get all uptight and nervous over their reputation. Live the best life you can live and you're not going to do it perfectly.

And you're going to offend people and say things you shouldn't say and hurt people's feelings. And you know, it is what it is. You apologize. And you've got some bad marks on your report card.

And in some people's mind, those bad marks never go away. I'm sorry. Nothing I can do about the past. You know, it's just, it is what it is. That's one advantage I have over you, my friend, because the cult has assassinated my character, not just one cult. I mean, we're talking many at this point. I don't think you can break me down any further. And once you're broken down to that level, you can only look up. So, you know, I have that advantage. But I'm curious. So you mentioned where the glory of iron was in the open field. In the brand of cult, these are called

hallowed spots or, you know, there's all kinds of weird cult languages that they use for it. And I know people who make money off of giving tours to this place with the brand of it's even more interesting, because they'll take you out in the middle and nowhere in Kentucky to show you where the alleged cabins location is, which we've debunked the whole story, that whole brand of his whole life story is fictional. And that's more in Berksville, Kentucky. Yeah, and I've got, you know, most of my family grew up around there. So I have, I have more knowledge

than a lot of people, but when William Brandham first invented that story, he said, and now there's a whole neighborhood over where the cabin used to be. So they're taking them to an open field where there is no neighborhood. So even the location's wrong.

How is it with the Freeman call? Do they give tours to this place? Or do you know? No, they don't as far as I know, but here's but I but this leads me into some a story that Dan told me as far as the glory barn goes Remember they left there in the spring of 78 There's just not a whole lot of people even left Whoever attended the glory barn and if they did John some of them were children and it's you know These roads that run at right angles there in northern Indiana and Noble and Caziasco County

It's just bearing a lot of farmland and it's it's there are no Roadmarks there's just no way to find things It would be very difficult. They have to know it's on backwater road They have to know around how far off of whatever that was highway five or whatever it was to even find it But on the new building There are a lot more people because they stayed in the new building long after Hobart died in 1984 So Dan who owns the building told me interesting stories one of which was this and I'll just sew it out there and

Let everybody make their own interpretation from it. But Dan said when he was in negotiations with Don nice family That was part of the nine farm and he wanted to buy the building and he bought the building and 8.3 acres at the building, you know, he wanted that land around the building

To backtrack for a minute or to fill in the details He bought that he said in 2006 paid a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for the building which was Kind of run down by that time and 8.2 or 8.3 acres there He was in negotiations. He had offered him a hundred thousand They're turning down. He brought it up to hundred and twenty five. They said, okay We'll do that. They gave him a key He was going to go and make his last visit inside the building just to look at everything before they sign the papers

He said, Chino, I unlocked that building and I walked in there and I got into the auditorium and He said, I am not a religious man. I'm not a church man. I'm not even a spiritual man And he said I got into the middle of that auditorium and a cold street ran up my spine and He said I turned around and ran out of there and I went and got my son my adult son a Conceror cues and brought him back and we went in there together and I said well did it happen again?

And he said nope, that was one and only and I said, Dan From my conversation with you and talking with you said I don't even you don't even come across to me as a Superstitious man and he said I'm not super stupid about anything. And he said, but that was a weird feeling. What that was, I have no idea.

But to get to answering your question, he said, you know, for several months after he had bought and taken possession of the building, he said, I'd show up in the morning, get ready and lock the door, door's already unlocked. I'd go in there. He said, right there, you know, we hadn't done all of our remodeling, you know, they'd added walls and turned everything upside down and around in there. Right in the middle of the auditorium, there was this young man just sitting there in a chair staring up where the pulpit and podium used to be. I said, dude, what are you doing in my building? Who are you? And he said, oh, he said,

this is God's house. He said, this is God's house. And he said, I just, I just want to be here and feel it again. He said, that happened multiple times until I finally, Dan said, had to take the key away from him and say, you know, this is private property. You can't come back here anymore. That's just one story. I don't, and there's sure John there are a lot more that probably follow the same line that you asked me about earlier. It's crazy. It gets to the point where it's almost like relics. These people see the building as a relic and it's a hallowed place because I had a friend

of mine called me. I should pull it out. I'd have to go get it. But they sold this card. I call it the cardboard box of idolatry. They had all of these not real relics, but actually duplications of the relics. And they had things like a bullet that had was the same caliber that had been fired out of William Branham's gun. I mean, it was that level of weird. And one of the things that they had in there was this pyramid rock, which the, you know, the randomism was deeply into this pyramid ology stuff. Well, the backstory to that is when William Branham's house was getting decrepit,

and people were starting to fall through the floors, the men scooped up the rotten floor, and they started making some of these relics with it. So you're worshiping rotten, what rotten would. But it's just the similarities are, you know, I guess it's in every cult. So I can't say that it's direct Branhamism, but it's just so odd to see that people behave the same from one group to the next. You know what I mean? Nobody, nobody's as bad as the Catholics. You know, if they could find a chipped tooth at St. Peter's, you know, you can make a billion bucks off of that. And I

shown you before, John, I have my part of the chimney of the glory bar in here. Oh, you're worshiping relics. Let me tell you where this has been used for 25 years until I finally thought, you know, I'm just going to take that home. This is the door stop for the back door in my cabinet shop. So that's why all the blue paint is rubbed off of it because it's just been the door stop. But you know, I thought it's pretty cool. Um, I haven't worshiped yet.

I don't have any plans on it, but it's made a great door stop. This is a heavy piece of concrete. I've often thought about taking some of the books and whenever I work on my car on the garage, I can use the paper to clean my hands. That's about what I think of those relics. No. 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 Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of

the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen McCummery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

Well, let's get to the actual meeting then. I went there to interview them. That was the stated goal. And when I got there, I guess probably the reason that things started off, little rough, was because they were upset about a statement I had made on one of the podcasts.

It might have been upset about a lot of statements, but I only heard about one. But the one I heard about, I'm going to say eight to 10 to 12 times, they were upset about the statement. And it got so ridiculous that by the end, because we'd go an hour into the meeting, yeah, but we want to talk about, and they've mentioned the statement again, and it got so funny that by the end, one of them said, well, this is the last time. This is the last time I'm going to mention this statement. And then as soon as he finished, one of the others said, well, I want to talk about, and the first

would say, we just said that's the last time. And I said, I guess you meant that's the next the last time. That's how many times they brought it up. And the statement that I made was this.

I said that the ministers under Hobart Freeman back in the day couldn't find their way out of a wet theological back. And you know, I did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings. I did not mean to offend anyone, but I'm sure the ministers will attest to the fact that that was a bothersome statement. So bothersome that they just brought it up. An unbelievable number of times, even though we would get away from it and have good, friendly discussion.

discussion about other things, but they wanted to come back to that. But back in those days, John, there was a big group of ministers, and they were all, you know, for the most part, you know, 90% of them were all young ministers under Dr. Freeman.

I'm gonna read a little section from Junge newsletter, dated December of 1976. When she said, we just added parking space at the church for about 150 more cars. And we may be purchasing a mobile home to attach to it for more nursery space.

This is when they're still at the glory line. However, all of this is just temporary until the Lord shows us what to do. We do not want to run ahead of the Lord and as yet have not found another building with ample space.

On Sunday morning, people arrive as early as 4.30 AM to get a front row seat. In fact, if they aren't in line by 7.30, they may not get a seat at all.

And the meeting doesn't start until 10. The message coming forth in this hour is indeed precious and well worth standing in line for. And, you know, all of this language, it's sweet and I guess there's some innocence in it, but it's also draws you in to the fact that boy, we're the end time group and you don't wanna miss us and it's worth every dime you have to make sure that you're here.

Here's a point I wanted to get to or the part. Many of the men are already in ministry. The last count was 37 separate weekly meetings in all the surrounding states, besides a special meeting for the minister's travel all over the United States.

We are constantly receiving letters from people who are hungry for God's word. They are saying, send us a teacher. We know we are in a real time of preparation, but know that eventually, most of these will be going forth by the Holy Spirit to establish true New Testament churches in all parts of the world.

And I just have so many observations about that statement that I just don't know that the ministers at Faith Assembly were aware of. One of the things Hobart taught strongly and he got it from his predecessors as you were well aware.

He was a big believer in Ephesians 4.11, the five-fold ministry. God had set these in the church. He's given gifts and their apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And as I watched Faith Assembly kind of grow and develop, the only thing I ever saw were teachers.

I didn't see any... Apostles, I didn't see any prophets, I didn't see any evangelists, although the George Reaser family down in Central America They were in Poole family that I actually supported financially in the 70s when I was a teenager. They were down in Belize, which is British Honduras There were no pastors except Hobart And speaking of Hobart being the pastor, Hobart talked all the time John. I spent 14 to 16 hours a day in my study Studying praying prepared That's a common statement on his tape 14 to 16 hours a day That does not sound like a pastor to me a pastor has to be available to his people a pastor has to do more

I'm glad that you're studying thank God for that because pastors don't study enough But you know, but don't go overboard You know, we've got to have a well-balanced ministry So when Jim says that we've got all of these ministers going out and we are you know We know this is temporary until the Lord leads them When was that ever going to be it was not going to happen as long as Hobart was alive Those ministers if they will be honest they'll know They had to be back at faith assembly to hear Dr. Freeman teach they weren't just allowed now

They had said to him the Lord has called me to leave here and go You know and establish a church somewhere And I think a couple of people did that I'm sure Dr. Freeman would have probably been okay with that But if all 37 or they ended up with more like 40 If all 40 him had said, you know, we're going to go establish a church. I don't think that's right I don't think Hobart would have wanted or would have allowed that They just kept growing and growing and getting bigger and bigger and what is also interesting John that I think that probably none of these people are aware of is that

At Hobart's own Lips for a church to get big is to be wrong is to go in the wrong direction So this is on take the need for empowering Which was part of the book of acts it might have been the very first tape in the series on acts then in 1974 42-minute 27-second time stamp here's what Hobart said In fact, it's better not to get too big. It really is It's better to have two bodies Than one five times this size in one place The size of that church when he said this was 250 people

Five times that size would be 1,250 people They ended up with 2200 people And according to what Hobart said It's better to have two bodies in one five times this size in one place That isn't the same thing as saying remain small I said divide and conquer. That is divide and spread. I find that to be very interesting that early in Hobart's life he knew that you can't you can't continue just to grow in one place. But as he began to feel like he was the only one, well how would you ever allow people to go off and be

pastored by somebody else because they don't have the full-time message? You're the only one who has that message. So my statement that the minister under Hobart couldn't fight their way out of a bad theologically you know it's it's it's based on the fact that I had I had heard I had heard myself the messages at least from the tea what I call the tier one ministers Bruce Kinsey and Steve Hill and Jeff Barnett the big ministers with big followings with a lot of people in their meetings I had heard their messages and you know I welcome anybody today to go back and listen to their messages

from the late 1970s and early 1980s and if you think they're biblically and theologically sound you know that's your opinion I don't think they were riding somebody else's cocktails well I know they were I'm a hundred percent certain they were riding somebody else's cocktails they believed what they were taught they read the books they were told to read they followed the interpretation that Dr. Freeman provided for them and if you ever came up with something different and were to challenge him that would be a a rare thing he was the one who was in control he was the one who had all the power and you know

I'm sorry but we know that power corrupts and we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely and if you don't have some kind of system of checks and balances around you don't have you don't have you don't have to call it a board of deacons or a board of elders but my goodness you know the church is in the New Testament definitely had a plurality of leadership you might find an exception where a church had six people in it because it was newly arisen somewhere in the Mediterranean world you know I don't know we don't have those facts and statistics could you have a lone minister for sure but I

mean let's don't look for the exception let's talk about what is normally gonna be the case you're gonna have 30 40 50 100 200 300 people and so you know you're gonna need some other ministers so the ministers and I heard the ministers that traveled near me that I was actually able to meet the King of my study and my church and and talk with me they wanted to cast a spirit of Jezebel out of me they were all into spirits everything has a spirit and everything has a name and we think you have a Jezebel spirit and we think you

have a critical spirit you have an intellectual spirit you have a you're too logical you have a two logical spirit and you have a disruptive spirit and you have you have a spirit you want to cause problems all the time But if I go away the problems are still there, right?

Absolutely You know it goes back to we I talked last time about the the cult Disorder that that exists, but it's actually deeper than that. I've come to the conclusion You know when I first began this I too focused heavily on the theology and I saw it as a big you know as is this big structure that was built on sinking sand and the problem is that The men who try to uphold that a lot of times it's very hard for them to see below the surface Because in these cults there's a false foundation with another false foundation built on top of that and yet another and another and another and another

And then on the top they put this cheap vinyl down which may have some sound theology because you know you're not gonna Worship something that's completely false, but it's got this hint of something that's really deadly underneath and nobody's really looking under the covers of this thing to see what's under there And the interesting part is every single thing Right down to the letter that you mentioned in this entire last segment where you were talking comes from Branemism I'll read your quote. This is this is almost it may be the very month. It's either that or right before that

Jim Jones of the Jones town massacre was introduced to become a leader in William Branem's cult William Branem says you see what formality does these big churches Carnal-minded quoting the scripture. Did you know that Satan quotes the scripture? He held a debate with Jesus and What he's saying there if you go down to its essence You're gonna have people who have critical thinking against our cult theology and there of the devil because the devil can mimic this That's exactly what they're saying and I Almost interrupted you with laughter when you mentioned the fivefold ministry good Lord man

And they they teach this to the letter in the Branem cults But if anybody were to claim profit, they're immediately Chastised and those who do claim profit usually go on to start their own cult and it isn't except for I think there's certain parts of Africa Where some of the men do claim to be an apostle but I'm gonna use this word and it's politically not politically correct But I'm quoting the people in the states who are in the cult they call those people the nut jobs Because they've gone off into an apostle ship Well, they're just they're just following the same teaching man

It's the fivefold ministry and not a single pastor does the duties as a pastor would in a normal church that is not called What they do is they hire a minion they hire this guy that has a title of assistant pastor and he He's the one that they send out to do all the dirty work and dirty work, meaning you have to go pray for the sick and do your pastorly duties.

Usually the pastor is, he's the king of his church castle, and every single thing that you describe man, it is Brannemism 101. And I learn this every time you and I talk, I keep saying I only know the Freeman background, and I know a little bit of the Brannot's in that you do.

That was one of the things back in the day I was somewhat critical of that I just don't understand this five full ministry teaching, but you have a one full ministry teaching. You just have your teacher and you have all teachers and you won't allow anyone to be a prophet.

And like you said, I think a few thought they were, well they're definitely a heretic, and maybe they were, I don't know, but I'm just saying, you know, if at least let the men go out and become a pastor and not have to report back to faith assembly, every time heath is up behind the podium.

You know, I'm so thankful that I didn't go through faith assembly, even though let me just be clear again, in my late teens and early 20s, I believe everything Hobart said. I didn't believe it because Hobart said it, but I believed that everything he said, he had scriptural backing for it.

You know, I didn't, was I following a man? Of course not, I wasn't following a man. Nobody ever follows a man. I believe that everything he said, he had because he quote a verse.

And I just wasn't smart enough yet to figure out the time when he was quoting a verse and it was valid. And when he was quoting a verse and it wasn't valid. And everybody in the videos, everybody in the videos watching you try not to laugh because I'm sitting here busting out.

My mind went a completely different direction when you called him half. I'll just, I'll leave it at that. We'll walk away from it, but, oh my gosh. You know, to clear the air, his full name is Hobart Edward Freeman.

Okay, so to clear the air, he is truly half. Hobart Edward Freeman. I don't want anybody to go down a wrong path. This is the right path. But no, in my early 20s, I believed everything Dr. Freeman said.

And I'm grateful for many things I learned from Hobart. It's unfortunate that things turned out the way that he did. I've often thought about his death and Hobart was really ill. John, at the end of his life, I'm sure he was in a lot of pain.

And, you know, when he died, he was no longer in that pain. He got to be in the presence of his Lord. And I'm so thankful for that. I'm thankful that he did not have to go through that the sicknesses and the illnesses that he was experiencing at the time.

And I can guarantee you, whenever he got into heaven, he immediately saw all the foolishness of all of this stupidity, trying to tell people what kind of shoes to wear, and what kind of...

and what kind of verses he saw through all that immediately but also his death was able to free a lot of other people up as well who were going to go on like myself and many other people to live another 40 or 50 or 60 years and be free from you know the legalisms and the bondages that he taught but you know I obviously did not mean and do not mean to this day to offend anyone or to make light of anyone else's theological knowledge or education and I don't know it all by any means and I'm all you know back in the day whenever I would try to engage these people you know

I was a pastor of my own church and it's a little bit of a lonely place and I understand what that's like and what I was always hungry for were peers I was I was really hungry for peers it's one of the reason I ended up going on to seminary because you know if you're a pastor of your own church you're kind of like the smartest guy there I mean you're supposed to be theologically and biblically I think I was in my church but you know if I'm just comparing myself to a handful of people I'm the smartest person there that's not saying very much right

you know if you can be in a group of a hundred million and be the smartest person you're pretty smart but I was desperate for peers I wanted the theological banter I wanted the arguing not in a mean spirit but I wanted that that's not what this text says because read this no that you are wrong because read this you know because I think that's where you get somewhere you don't get somewhere when you just lay down on your back and let some steam roller roll over the top of you and tell you these are all the answers the people that I teach now I have this saying and I tell

them when I'm talking you know you're welcome to ask a question there are two kinds of questions that I will not answer number one a question where if I answer it I'm spoiling the surprise because that's going to be in my next teaching and number two I'm not going to answer those questions that I don't know the answer to you know that's the other question you had to refuse to answer because ministers feel like they have some obligation to know everything well heck we don't know everything and you don't need to be under that obligation to know everything but and we need to be smarter than

the congregation at least in biblical or why are we the leader we need to sit down and let somebody else get up there but so these guys back in that maybe they have and I'm sure they have I know they have they have progressed because we all have had 40 years since whole marks death to progress in biblical and theological knowledge I'm talking about when I made that statement I'm talking about then they couldn't fight their way out of because If they could, if you were biblically and theologically sound, why didn't they challenge Hobart?

I was. Why didn't they band together? Why didn't two of them get together? Why didn't three of them in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established? Why didn't they organize a little group?

Why didn't they stop the madness? Why didn't they warn him or warn the people? I'm just going to leave question mark. That's just an open-ended question. Why didn't you do something? I was doing something about it from my, you know, distant perspective.

I was writing letters. I was calling Dr. Freeman on the phone. I couldn't always get through to him and I understand that. Busy man, he got a lot of people on the nobody. But sometimes, you know, June would say, okay, channel, he'll talk to you and we would talk.

And, you know, I know he read the letters until probably he got to the point where they were relatively consistent in their criticism or their questioning. And then when he sees my name and return address, he just throws that in file 13, you know, that's gone.

So, John Maiming, is that not a fair question? Why didn't if you guys knew that this belief on divine healing and this cremation of 144,000 in man-child and if you believe, if you knew that was not biblical, why do you do something about it?

Yeah. You know, that's why I enjoy having people like you on the podcast because my personality is so far different. It's like we're two opposite extremes. I'm not a, I'm very non-confrontational. If you can't tell that already by my podcast.

And I see the good and all people, you know, so you think our confrontation, all right? Well, no, it takes all people, it all kinds of people to run the world. And that's one of the concepts that's really hardest to grasp when you're in the cult.

That's why I made the comment last time about the iron sharp, sharpened iron. They don't like that at all. My personality doesn't make me enjoy it as the thing. But, you know, so I see the humor and everything and I'm a big jokes to you know this from talking to me.

I had this, in one of my first jobs, I had this really good friend and I should have never done this to him, but I did. Every night after work for six straight months, I'm talking every single night.

I made sure that I worked 15 minutes longer than him because I walked in his office every single night after he left and I would push his desk one millimeter closer to the wall.

And so he couldn't tell that it was being moved. But after about four months or five months into, he said, man, I just feel like, I don't know, John, the walls are closing in.

I've started a diet. You know, I'm thankful he can... think me for his diet and his health got better because of this. For me, that's funny. You know, that's, I probably shouldn't have done that.

But where I'm headed with all of this is when you're being manipulated in a mind control cult, the changes are very subtle. In I mentioned Jim Jones earlier, nobody joined Jim Jones is called the people's temple and said, Hey, I want to go drink cyanide lace cool, cool, laid with the rest of the crowd and kill myself.

Nobody does this. You take small pieces and you move just like that desk. You move it closer and closer. And the people who are being manipulated often don't even realize that they are. And all at the same time, they're being trained with this very black or white mentality on everything.

You either with us or you're against us. You're either with the theology or you're a critic. It's that kind of thing. So I give them a little bit of grace because me having been indoctrinated in one of these things, I was just like them.

I thought I had true, true word of God theology. And I've learned that very little that I had was actually correct. And at one point, and not many people are willing to do this, that's the sad part.

At one point, I had to wipe the entire slate clean and I literally started from the very basics of everything I started with, is there a God? And then once you make that leap, you go further and further.

And, okay, is Jesus part of, you know, is Christianity the true religion? And then you go further and further, I started from nothing and built up. Most people, what they like to do, I mentioned the structure earlier with the cheap vinyl floor on the top.

What most people do is they'll peel up the vinyl floor and let's see one layer below it. Yeah, that's bad. Let's rip it out. Let's put another vinyl floor over all of these layers and layers and layers.

And layers and layers and layers of bad theology. That's usually how it works. And so they may, they may truly believe that they have sound theology, even back then, some of the people who are waking up.

I don't see what you said is really negative. It takes people like you to help people to wake up. And that's why I invite people like you on the podcast because I can't do that.

My person now needs so much different. Well, let me share personally, John, from from deep personal experience that I can remember as a 25 year, I'm 65 years old today. You know, I don't care what anybody thinks now.

I don't really mean that. But I mean, I'm, I'm pretty secure, but I'm willing to listen to anybody about anything, but I'm not timid when I was 25 years old. And I am going to try to address my mentor.

That was a difficult task. If people think that I just saw, Oh, I know it all now. I'm going to go correct. Dr. Freeman, they're totally wrong. It was a difficult. acts. You can't even quite understand it unless you've been through it, unless you have been at that point in your life, a really young minister who was very much indebted to Dr. Freeman for a lot of groundwork in my theology and my approach to Scripture, because the facts are, I was very indebted to him. But at the same time, as I've said over and over, the

biggest blessing that God ever gave me at that time was keeping me from ever becoming a member of faith assembly, because I could have just been a clone like the rest of them and then had to fight my way out of it. For God to have just supernaturally called me from Mississippi to move to Minnesota, I didn't know anybody within hundreds of miles and I had been married two weeks, didn't even own a car, had $2,000 to my name, had a new bride, we just packed up and moved.

And I just moved from the ward, I needed to go to the Minneapolis area and go west of that area. That's literally, I rented a U-Haul, drove out west, found an apartment, rented it, and unpacked and just sat down and figured, what do I do next? I had no job, I had $2,000, did not own a car, we called a bus to go to the grocery store and called a bus back home. But within a matter of two months, God just brought people into our life, I met this person and I met this person and then

somebody invited me to teach in a little home church way out in Southwestern Minnesota. It seemed like it took me several hours to go there and I think I got two dozen eggs for my teaching that night. They sent home two dozen eggs, it was a farm. Another place I went to full gospel businessmen's meeting that invited me to speak at that and you know back in those days you leave with $50 or something. But I was just on, I was just on cloud nine as it were because I thought, wow, you know, this is coming to pass what God has called us to do. And I finally got

with this little group of people who literally said, Jenna, we have been praying for two years for God to send us a teacher. We know we need to learn things. I didn't know much, but the little bit that I knew was just a little bit more than they knew. And that's all it took. But whenever I became a pastor, I just found out these little sands of Hobard, they just don't quite work that way because it's not exactly because I have people coming ask me a question after a teaching. Well, what about this verse over here? And I go, yeah, what about that verse over there?

And I feel sorry, but my people were wonderful. They loved me. They were patient with me. And I was just determined that I was going to pour myself into study and I was going to learn, and my little income that I had, I can remember I made myself a little study in my basement of my home in Waconia, 317 South Elm Street in Waconia, Minnesota, and when I would get some money, I would send off an order of $22 for two books, $35 for six books, whatever week after week to buy, you don't know who's liberal, who's conservative,

who's Neil Orthodox, you know, who is what, it took me a little time to start to figure that out, and I just began to order and order, and let me, if you don't mind, let me throw in a personal story, I ended up living in New England, ended up going to seminary outside of Boston, and I went to a place to buy some books there, and if anybody used to buy books back in the 70s and 80s, they'll remember CBD, they were Christian book distributors, and when I was in Minnesota, I bought everything from them, so I'm in seminary outside of

Boston, Christian book distributors is also in that same area, they were having some kind of, it was in the fall, some kind of, you know, promotional sale, where they raised like the garage door on their facility, and you could walk in, there were a long line of people, and there was a cashier at the cashier, and you started everybody was checking out, so I had a stack of books, this is a true story, I had a stack of books, I come up to the cashier, and I don't remember why, but in paying for the books, they also wanted

to know your name, or something, maybe it gets you on a mailing list, and she asked me, so what's your name, and I said, Chen O'Ralls, and she looked up at me, and she said, did you say, Chen O'Ralls, this is a cashier, and I said yes, and she said, are you the Chen O'Ralls? I said, the only one I know, fortunately, and she said, oh my goodness, she said, you're the person who's bought more books from us than anybody, she said, we gotta stop, come on, I want to enter into everybody inside, John, they take me into the main

office of the president there of CBD, and they just, I mean, they just treated me like I was royalty, I was nothing but a schmuck, you know, I was just this minister who loved to study theology, and epistemology, and apologetics, I just loved to study, and they said, we are so thankful to get to meet you, and I'm a nobody, I'm no celebrity, you know, I'm not Martin Luther or John Calvin, I'm just me, and they said, you know, to show our appreciation, any commentary, any theological word book study, anything you want, just take it, it's anything you want, it's on the house today, and so I walked out of there with

just loads of books that those people gave me, so my point is, I was doing my home And because I was doing my homework and didn't make me anybody special it was my job, you know I felt if you're going to be a professional it's your job to do your job and I'm can't write on Anybody else's back to get into theological heaven, you know, I've got to do this on my own and so it was Difficult for me very difficult. I as a 25 year old to try to offer some critique and I was I guess naive

Yeah, definitely naive to think that anybody would listen, but I don't ever want to be that way in my life. I don't think I am to this day I'll have people in my where I teach now, they'll ask the question, well, how do you square that with this?

And I'll say that's a good question and here's how I answer that. I don't take it. I'm not offended by it. I mean, don't we want Our students end up smarter than us. Don't parents want their children end up better than they hire themselves?

That's the whole goal. If your goal is to always be the smartest one then you're failing in your mission. You know, you want to be teaching those people. So man, their mind is clicking like this. Now they're thinking faster than you're thinking.

And before you know it, they caught you in something. And maybe I'm overstating the case, but my point is we just have to have a job. We just have to have a generous spirit and a real spirit that we want our people, you know, we want them to understand for themselves.

I tell them all the time, if any man ever tells you believe this because I said it, walk out the door immediately. That's the last time you ever, ever, ever, ever need to listen to him.

If he said believe this because I said it to you, you believe it because you're convinced in your own mind. And when I saw what was going on with Dr. Freeman, I thought it was like the emperor had no clothes on and everybody was afraid to tell him.

You know, and I just wasn't going to be a part of that. If they recognize he didn't have clothes on, I recognize that he didn't and I was going to say something about it.

You know, Chino, people aren't going to know what to think of us. Here we're talking about half and we're talking about CBD and what are we selling here? You mentioned the authoritarianism of theology. And I think that's important for people to understand. I want to hone in on that just a bit because the way in which things were especially in religion in the 50s and 60s.

And remember, these, these cults are really stuck in the 50s and 60s. They don't even realize it. But that's the way it was. You had somebody who was your primary source, your leader and everybody looked up to them.

And people over time have realized that that's a very ineffective strategy.

largely they learned this from other countries that had abandoned that strategy decades prior, but now in the IT world we call it a crowdsourcing strategy. One person gets some knowledge and they share it with others and other people use that knowledge and combine it with theirs and then their knowledge comes up higher. Well the first person who shared it he now learns from the other guy and he comes up to a higher plane so everybody's lifted up and in the way these authoritarian cults and sad to say but largely Christian religion in general of the 50s

it was a pyramid structure and the guy at the top is usually the one who glorified himself in that control whether he wanted to or not because the figures it was the strategy everybody was doing and it was just common for the era. Now in today's world that's not the way it works but there's so much more we could talk about still we haven't finished the full update so we've gone over an hour let's uh let's cut it off here and let's come back and finish it up so if you've enjoyed our show and you want to learn more information you can check us out on the web

you can find us at William-Branum.org for an overview of the historical research of William -Branum and the healing revivals read preacher behind the white hoods a critical examination of William-Branum and his message available on amazon kindle and audible