Faith Assembly 2024 Update Part 3

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-Branum.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Chino Ross, the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chino D. Ross, YouTube channel. And we're continuing now into part three of the faith assembly update. I think I've given you so many distractions, Chino. I'm not sure we'll finish in part three. I'm probably going to throw up all kinds of red herrings for you to follow, but we're

going to give it a try and see what happens today. Hey, that sounded like a good plan, John. I'm sorry. I felt like an idiot afterwards when I looked down at my notes and thought, somehow, somewhere by some means, either I not distracted or you distracted me from going through the rest of my picture. So I just thought, well, I'm willing to throw out the offer that I will take from here on out. I will take full responsibility for all of your mistakes. Well, and you and I had a conversation afterwards. My constant distractions reminded me of the Bugs

Bunny Cartoon where you've got the big dog that he's he's setting his ways and he's headed down a path and the little dog is just dancing around him, yiping drawing his attention everywhere. That's that's me and and you, Chino, me being the little yappy dog, I think. Well, we both have a lot of history and a lot to say, a lot of thoughts and a lot on our mind, but from this most recent trip on July the 17th up to Northern Indiana to meet with some ex-faith assembly ministers. I did a little sightseeing of Blast from the past, looked at some

old places. So I was in the process of showing some photographs of the new building which has now become the old building. It's so interesting that that's what they call it because it didn't really have a name like a cool one like the glory barn. They just said it's the new building. Well, now it is definitely not the new building anymore. It is definitely the old building and for the thousands of people that have visited that place in the past and the several thousand that were members, I thought they might find it interesting. So the next picture I

wanted to show you. it was where the baptismal pool was earlier.

Now it's just a converted storage room where they keep bits and parts and pieces for this boat repair shop. And then once we got out into the main auditorium, it has been divided up with some full height walls because they did not need that big of just an open space.

They needed wall spades to put bins and storage places on. But in this next picture, if you look over on the left side, which is kind of framed in, but this is the entrance way where Dr. Freeman would come out of the back room, come on to the platform and come up to the podium.

And you can also see there is just a little bit of the red and white sign that had the famous passage

1 Corinthians 1, 10 where Paul said, now I'll besiege you, brethren, that there be no division among you. It's interesting that that particular place, and I think they just follow in line with all other similar groups, would not want any divisions.

They don't want anybody. They don't want me to be doing what I'm doing. I mean, that's, that verse isn't an attack on me. No divisions, that you'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind, think the same thing, believe the same thing.

And you know, we talked about that verse before John, it was a hallmarked verse. One of the ones you had to subscribe to if you were going to be a part of faith assembly.

But Paul's writing that to a church at home had all kinds of divisions and separations in it. Yeah, you know, as many times as I've looked at the splintered groups that emerge from Brannum or Latter-Rain, they all seem to go right to that verse and they say, you know, it's wrong to have the divisions.

Well, their entire movement exists because they had a division from the main trunk and they splintered off. So, it's still ironic, man. It's all relative, it's just, you know, where are you going to draw the dividing line?

You know, I think it's a beautiful verse and it's definitely the goal in any local assembly that we all be of the same mind, but we've also got a face reality. Everybody comes from different backgrounds.

They process the material they're hearing differently. There are stronger and weaker people in a Christian church and we're clearly told that the stronger need to not flaunt their strength but help the weaker. And if by no other means drag them with you into the kingdom, you know, do what you have to do, but we all are in this together.

We should all be helping each other. Then I think the next photograph I had is really interesting. Dan. who's the owner of the new building turned old building, got a big kick out of the fact that whenever he took possession, someone else, by the way, got the pulpit.

I think I know who got the pulpit, or at least part of it, but the whole platform, the raised area, upon which the pulpit was, and the speaker was, and the music guy and team were.

That whole raised platform was taken down and taken apart, and Dan turned it into his sewing tables. So he did a lot of a poultry work for the seats and pontoon boats. So you'll see a picture of a big sewing table.

And if you look on the ceiling above it, you see a couple of speakers, and Dan loved this too. He said that he said, I've gone around and counted them. And I think there are 150 speakers in the ceiling in this building.

So this guy did not want you to get away from him, where every minute didn't matter, where you were, you in the restrooms as well, you were going to have a speaker over your head.

And he just saw, he got the biggest laugh out of that. He told me that story three or four times. Did I tell you, there's 150 speakers in the ceiling in this building right here.

So this guy was obsessed that everybody not miss a word what he had to say, because it was the word of God. It was the word of the Lord that he was given to you.

Which in Brannemism, again, we're back to Brannemism 101. If you go to my grandfather's, well, and now it's not my grandfather's, but the Brannem Tabernacle, they had it everywhere. And I can remember clearly sitting in that restroom doing my business, and you could hear it right through the speaker in the bathroom.

And it's awkward too, because you get out of there and you see other brethren, we called them brethren. And your first instinct is to shake their hand. And then you're like, wait a minute, this is not the right place or atmosphere for me to be doing this.

So it's so odd, man. Well, yeah, we're going to be probably arrested, you and I, John, for just doing something illegal. And that's just having too much fun. We're just having too much fun.

Probably a law against having as much fun as I had in my life. I'm very serious about my calling, about Christianity, but you can be serious and then not take yourself too seriously. And hopefully you'll find the right balance there.

So there was a restroom and picture in there also, just I know those are original stalls and sinks and everything that people who ever went there will, I'm sure, remember. All right, so enough of the family photo, the family album here.

So we were talking at the end last time, John, about this minister's meeting of some ex-faith assembly minister. myself and I had read one of June newsletters back in the mid 1970s where at that time they had a count of what they call 37 and it got higher than that called the 40 or the low 40s. Word ministers or word ministries have went out. So these were ministers under Hobart at Faith Assembly and they would travel to just to different meetings. The next newsletter, a newsletter, June sent out was this one from March of 1977. The very next one from the one I read last time

she said since our last newsletter a group from Iowa wrote us asking for us to send them a teacher. Beginning this week Harry Albright will be flying there every other week to teach them.

We have several pilots in our church who count this as a part of their ministry to fly our ministers to various states to speak. So far the Lord has not led us to establish churches.

And you know I made the comment last time I found that interesting back then and I found it a little inconsistent that we were supposed to have a five-fold ministry but we have a one-fold ministry of nothing but teachers all of whom are required to report back to headquarters.

We do have a little denominational structure on our hands or just no way around it. And I guess all of us what what we were looking for what I'm still looking for at any ministry is consistency. Even if you want to be wrong just be consistently wrong.

You know then we can trace things easily. It's the inconsistencies where you speak out of both sides of your mouth where you say one thing and do another. That's where we end up having a lot of problems.

That's what causes a lot of confusion in people's lives at least I think so. Maybe no one ever thought of this back then but I wondered how is it we have a five-fold ministry but we only have one.

You know we only have these teachers going out and they're going out I don't even have a full count of how many satellite groups there were and we can define that term satellite you know more broadly or more tightly but these were definitely satellite groups where a minister was leaving faith assembly going to a little home group a home setting teaching them and then traveling back and let's face it I mean he's just carrying Hobart Freeman doctrine he really is I mean Hobart was the oh my you're going to have to go somewhere else to the audience who's listening

without the video feed there's a cat that just jumped in front of the camera so we're dodging cats at this point okay she's down now I'm curious about, there's a phrase you mentioned, you mentioned word ministers.

And this again is a term that I grew up with constantly in Brannemism. When you leave the cult and you go into a normal church, this isn't a phrase that you hear ever. It's just not said because it is a cult thing and a lot of people who are in the cult or who have escaped, they really don't realize that.

For in Brannemism, a lot of people also do not realize this. Some taught the quote, spoken word, which Kenneth Hagen got a lot of mileage out of it, rebranding that to be what he called Rayma.

And he started the Rayma Bible training center, all of this stuff. And he's credited as the father of it, but I can trace it back to Brannemism long before Kenneth Hagen would have ever even conceived such a notion.

And where it gets interesting is there were men in the full gospel businessmen's fellowship international who were in William Brannem's deity cult. They believe, like T.L. Osborne at William Brannem's memorial service. He said that William Brannem was God in the flesh.

And he says, now I don't care if you feel me sacrilegious for saying this, but William Brannem is God in the flesh. So there was a group of men of which were key figures in the word of faith movement that were in the deity cult.

And I'm curious about that phrase word, ministers. Were they using that in the word of faith way in Brannemism? These would be ministers who were now speaking new spoken word. That's a good question.

I don't know the way always interpreted that was they were a, they had a teaching ministry, like one other, one of the guys named his ministry with sound teaching ministries. James took it as a teacher who had a teaching ministry and they were traveling out to the different satellite groups because these groups were far enough away.

Some people chose to move to Indiana, a large number did, but I'm sure the majority chose not to. Hobart used to term all the time. He is in word ministry, but and there was a big scramble.

There was a big scramble for that. Here's a story hot off the press from the ministers meeting that I just remembered. One of the ministers there and I can say that I'm going to keep all their names anonymous for now and they didn't ask me to, but for now we'll do it.

They get best for everyone, I don't know. But one of the stories they told me that I would not have any way of having known had not a minister, an ex-minister under Hobart tell me this, but he said they had like a trial preaching night one time.

I mean, it was in front of the church, but every minister was going to get 15 minutes and see how they did. The Hobart is, you know, it's like, it's like... Um, America's got talent, you know, you got a judge, Hobart's a judge here, the, the lone judge and each minister, you know, give me your best, give me your best shot for 15 minutes.

I'd be pretty hard to do 15 minutes knowing your mentor is sitting out there, you know, grading you on how you're doing. And this guy said that Hobart told him he did pretty well and, um, and I'm sure he did.

And I think there's, you know, in that group of ministers, some of them were definitely better than others. I think the majority of them weren't very good at all, but my point in our study last time was that, you know, they really, what they objected to was that statement I made where the ministers under Hobart couldn't fight their way out of a wet theological bag.

One time in our meeting, when we, when I was up there two weeks ago, I left out the word wet. I said, the theological bag and one of the guys corrected me and he said, you said wet.

You said wet theological bag. And I did it and I love both brothers. I hope they're not throwing things at the screen as they hear me right now. I mean, they didn't, they were wonderful.

They were kind and generous to me. Got a little testy at a point or two, but, you know, it's supposed to get a little testy with a group of grown men who think they know it all, you know, it's supposed to get a little testy.

That's what makes it fun. But, um, hey, an update before I go any more for anybody who knew Harry Albright, Harry Albright passed away a couple of years ago, October of 2022 at age 75.

I didn't know Harry personally. I just knew he was a minister that was going out to Clinton. I think it was Clinton, Iowa, somewhere in Iowa. He was going out to a regular meeting and another update for faith assembly people.

And my condolences to Harry's family and friends and everyone that knew him and loved him was there were a couple of brothers who were ministers, Jim and Joe Brennan, were two of the well-known ministers at faith assembly back in the day.

And just I think it's been only two weeks ago, after I came back from the meeting in Northern Indiana, which was on July the 17th, Joe Brennan passed away and his brother, Jim, I think the next morning sent me a text and shared with me the obituary and some people from other states have already told me that as well.

So my condolences and love and sympathy to Joe's family and his children and all the people that loved him, none of us are getting any younger and apart from Jesus returning during our lifetime.

which we all hope for, but apart from that happening, we're all aging and eventually going to die.

So, you know, I was thinking after our last conversation, John, about, you know, just, I know I struck a nerve when I said what I did, I did not mean to offend anyone, hurt anybody's theological or biblical sensitivity to say, at that time, I don't think they could fight their way out of it, wet theological bag.

But as we were concluding last time, you know, my point was, and I still feel that way, as I look back on that time period, 40 years ago. And what I said was, had they known what they should have known, they should have objected?

And if they did know back then, something was wrong, then you have to say, shame on you. You know, you should have objected. If you didn't know, you don't know. If you do know, you need to say something about it.

And I remember one of the things that I know, Dr. Freeman, with most upset with me over, was he had taught, we're gonna have to go back in our mind to like the mid 1970s.

There was a movement called the Shepard Ship Movement. It was called Shepard Ship. It was called Neal Disciples Ship. It also went by the title of Covering Movement. That was led by a group of men, Don Basham, Charles Simpson, Ern Baxter, and I think he came out of Latter-Rain and maybe even had connections with William Branham, Derek Grant.

So we're a group of men that were teaching this philosophy that you Christians can't just be out there on your own in life. You can't just be interpreting scripture on your own. You need to be under a covering of a higher authority and they're the ones that, you know, set you straight and tell you right, Don Trin.

And I was, as I watched Faith Assembly develop, I thought I'm seeing the exact same thing. And Dr. Freeman had a series of tapes, three of them, and then a fourth one, which was an update, and you had to buy all four to get any of them.

And it was the scathing and correctly so, denunciation of the Shepherd Ship Movement. And then I saw, aren't we dealing with the same thing if we have a final authority figure and you're not allowed to disagree with him?

And if you disagree anything seriously, you're gonna be put out, you know, he was not open to being challenged, he was not open for discussion, for the most part, about anything. I thought we'd probably have Shepherd ship on our hand.

And so... Me being me, but again I was in my mid-20s, I questioned Dr. Freeman about it. I said I don't see a lot of difference between the way faith assembly is now being constructed and the shepherd'ship movement. And of course the only response I could get is what you would suspect, well we're not like them because everything I'm saying is correct. You know I'm not leading anybody astray. Well that's, you know, how convenient is that? And I just saw that that's not right and that's not going to work. And let me just give you one example

from the minister's meeting and I won't say who said it, but I'll just, here's a prime example. One of the things that Hobart began teaching or he taught in a message in October two months before he died and maybe we can discuss this in a later podcast. He out, he outlawed hunting. He knew he had a lot of men in his church that were hunters and he said, I believe, this is what God has shown me, that we overcomers, everything was about the man-child, the special elite Gideon's Army group, overcomers, we overcomers are not going

to want to cause any pain or hurt to God's creation. So, you know, we're, so Hobart really outlawed hunting. And one of the ministers in the group that I met with told me that or I might have brought it up because that was a big problem in my mind. That's a totally unbiblical teaching and it's totally wrong for a minister to use the platform of the pulpit and try to get people to do things you want or stop doing things that you don't want them to do. And he said, you know, when I heard that even though I was a hunter and even though

I didn't really see how that could be biblical or scriptural because he was my pastor, I decided to put away my weapons and just submit to what my pastor said. And, you know, look, John, part of me appreciates a kind spirit of someone willing to, you know, I'll lay down because my part of me appreciates, you know, a kind spirit, but there's another part of me that says, that's the very thing you can't do. What I have learned in life, what people who are survivors of cults have learned is that cult leaders are bullies. And the only way you can

deal with a bully is you hit them square in the mouth. I don't mean physically, metaphorically, you hit them square in the mouth. Hey, speaking of physically, we all know, John, I remember back in my school days when I was a kid growing up, I was in this Ideally, neighborhood walked to my little school.

It was just like a Mayberry RFD, it was perfect. When the Supreme Court decided to institute this busing stuff, then my whole neighborhood got turned upside down and my little pristine middle school, elementary school and middle school, it became a war zone.

And I found out in a hurry, as a young kid, they're bullies. I was just like a normal kind of pasted kid, but not everybody's like that. They're bullies. And I found out though, in a hurry, that the only way to get the bullies respect and to get him off your back, literally, you got to fight.

And I remember one time people had to come and break up one of my fights, because I wasn't gonna be bullied by these bullies. And bullies basically, they're cowards anyway. They ruled by fear and intimidation.

And I found if you hit them in the mouth, if you hit them hard enough, they don't bully you anymore. That was back in my school days. I don't go around hitting people in the mouth now.

But my point is, and this is true, John, you can't let these cult leaders just slide under the radar, there are little pet ideas and pet peeves and get everybody to buy into that.

Somebody has got to say, we've got to stop the madness. We've got to stop the madness here. Exactly. I had a similar experience when I was in grade school and I had to be pried off and it's a story won't get into, but it's the one and only fight I got in my life.

And I'll say I won it pretty good. But there's some complex of you to it for me. In fact, just last night, I finished the last page of the manuscript for the book I'm working on on Christian identity.

And I have a chapter devoted to the shepherding movement. What happened is so very strange. And in today's world, you wouldn't really even consider this. But towards the end of William Brannum's life in the lateral movement, the deity cult was emerging.

Like I said, T. L. Osborne was, he worshiped William Brannum as God in the flesh. He openly did. And it's very difficult because this was a secretive group. You don't know how many others in the full gospel businessmen were doing the same.

They all had, I'll say it like this, they all worshiped him whether they knew it or not because they gave him such undue reverence. And none of them critically examined what he said. And then below this series of apostles and prophets that they had created were all the subordinates.

And people were actually trained and manipulated. Some of them from birth to fear prophets and not be able to critically think or critically speak out. In other words, They knew, you know, even if they knew they were a bully, they were trained not to come up against the bullies.

Well, the history gets really weird because earned Baxter was one of Branum's closest campaign members. In fact in the early years, it was called the Baxter Branum Campaigns. They toured together. He Baxter FF Bosworth was touring with them.

Plus, you had all the white supremacy guys and all the Christian identity guys that were in it. Gordon Lindsey was a speaker at Christian Identity conferences back whenever he was highly anti-Semitic. I've got newspaper articles of this.

Well, when William Branum died after having trained all of the people that they had to submit to the authority of these apostles, prophets, the five-fold ministry basically. They held the memorial service wherein they worship William Branum as God and then T. L. Osborne was supplying training materials to Eldon Purvis who was writing the new wine magazine. Eldon Purvis was one of the most notorious religious Christian identity figures in the nation at the time.

So Christian identities forming in the Shepherding movement. They're coming with leaders who were in Branum's campaigns and they're being supplied by one who's in Branum's deity called. I mean, that's how weird this gets.

So what they saw was an opportunity to take over and hijack the minds that were already programmed in Branumism. They saw it as an opportunity awaiting because Branum's dead. Let's go after them. So they created a movement to catch all the fallout and what that did based off of what I can tell is it just created this fertile ground where apostles and prophets could be worshipped. And the manuscript I go further because you mentioned the man child, which is the manifest sons of God, that was the Joel's army theme that emerged in early years of

Laterane. With some of those same Christian identity cult members, in fact, one of Branum's protégés, Paul Cain, resurrected the Joel's army theme for international house of prayer and brought it all again and then elevated the apostles and prophets of the NAR to become the shepherds and recreated the shepherding movement. Yeah, you're totally on to something, John. You mentioned the new wine magazine. You know, I subscribed to that when I was a teenager. I always was reading new wine magazine. That was the magazine. Jamie Buckingham had a lot to do with the magazine. I knew who Jamie

Buckingham was, but that was the shepherdship magazine right there. I think you're onto something and this seems like we're beating a dead horse to death. Again, over the fact that these ministers, they're just a pattern here that you don't find when you leave this and go to a normal church. You have a normal pastor and a normal teacher. They just don't.

tried to lord it over you as these men do. And I just, I think it was incumbent upon the young ministers, the 37 word ministers under Dr. Freeman, it was incumbent upon them to challenge him.

And they didn't. So either they didn't know that he was wrong or they knew and they were too afraid to say anything. And you and I had talked that we're, you know, we're, I'm willing to give everybody a pass. We've all a pass. We've all in our past, you know, made mistakes, said things.

We wish we wouldn't have said, you know, when you get high up to the actual leader, I think they get less of a pass. Not because they themselves have not been duped by someone before, but because they're just negatively affecting so many people's lives, you know, I'm just a small time operator on the outside, you know, I haven't had the influence that some of these other people have had. And maybe that's been a good thing for me. I've been able to look at things a little more objectively and a little more critically, but whenever I did and I brought something up,

I was always just shot down by Hobart and the other ministers there just knew, you know, don't anybody have anything to do with Chino. But somehow, you know, I was actually teaching messages. People can go on my YouTube page and see messages with Hobart Freeman's name in the title, you know, because I had talked some of his stuff to my people and I wanted to undo that.

And I wanted it to be clear and unmistakable. We're not going to dance around the issues and topics and personalities here. We need to be unambiguous. We need to be transparent. We need to be clear.

We don't have to be mean spirited. We can do it in a spirit of love. But one of the kindest things John that God ever does for any of us is to correct us. That's one of the kindest things that he ever does. He doesn't have to do that. He can just annihilate us like these prophets and apostles want to just annihilate us if we disagree with them over something. Well, how many times in God's eyes have we been wrong? And the kindest, most loving thing he can do for us is to correct us like whatever means or method. Sometimes your correction comes from your friends and sometimes

it comes from your enemies. But by whatever method or avenue just that God would correct us is a very loving thing. I would ask simple questions to Dr. Freeman. Like on faith, I thought Dr. Freeman had a terribly unbiblical view of faith. And I'll just walk people that say, oh no, he was a faith teacher. He knew everything about faith.

No, he didn't and I'll walk you down a real simple logical path. So what Hobart would say is no one ever dies believing you only died out And if you pray the prayer faith you always get the answer and then he'd have people who are struggling and so they pray and something doesn't go the way they Had asked the Lord for it to go Hobart would say didn't have enough faith they didn't pray in faith they didn't have faith And then on another tape he'd be dealing with someone who's struggling with whether or not they have enough faith and he'd quote in Romans 12

3 God has dealt to every man the measure of faith you have faith and what's the measure? Well the smallest faith you could possibly have It's probably a mustard seed and that'll move a mountain or whether a fig tree So if you've got the faith of a grain of mustard seed you have all that you can possibly have and then oh the reason it didn't work is you didn't have faith or you didn't have enough faith He did not he knew verses very well he did not have a biblical theology of faith he did not have a biblical theology of divine healing

Is divine healing in the Bible it 100% is from cover to cover Old Testament and New Testament people are healed Hobart had a doctrine of divine healing he had a doctrine that said based on Isaiah 53 the suffering servant passage that healing is in the atonement That if our sins are covered by Christ atonement so are our sicknesses and our illnesses They are covered in the same atonement they're covered the same way and they are available by the same means and that is by asking God But what I said is wait a minute there is a huge difference I'm not denying that healing is in some way in the atonement

I'm not denying that at all but I said wait a minute there is a huge difference between sin which is in the atonement and sickness One of those things we commit one of those things we catch They are not the same thing we we commit a sin Sometimes you just get ill you catch an illness you catch a cold you didn't do anything to to deserve that or to earn that it's it's just something that you call So I said that right there tells me we need to do a deeper study of what does Isaiah 53 mean

And speaking of Isaiah 53 Matthew quotes it in Matthew 816 and 17 as applying during Jesus earthly ministry He said it Matthew said in verse 16 of Matthew 8 when even was come they brought in in many that were possessed with demons and that were sick, he cast out the spirits with a word, he healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. And he's quoting Isaiah 53, and this is long before Calvary. This is before the atonement. And somehow something is being fulfilled at that time. And this isn't a theological podcast, John, so we

won't delve into that. But my point, I hope it's well taken, it was not a well thought out theology of faith, and it was not a well thought out theology of healing. There were proof text, but a proof text without a context is a pretext for nonsense is what I've always taught my students. There is a local context for that proof text, and there is a broader context, which is the whole of scripture. And scripture is not going to contradict scripture. And scripture has to be used to interpret scripture. And that just was not happening with Dr. Freeman's teaching. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal

movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Branham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the

contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You know, I laughed and I shouldn't have it was wrong of me, but when you mentioned that the gentleman were upset because of the wet paper bag, wet theological bag thing.

You know, the part of the reason I laughed is because in the Brandhamism, it's entirely different. I would, it would be a compliment to have said that to a Brandhamite pastor because they have no theological bag. They literally just quote Brandham over and over like broken records.

And those same ministers, if they were to sit in a Brandham sermon, they'd stand up and say, what are you guys doing, man? You're quoting this dead guy from the 60s who had no, he even admitted he didn't know what was in the Bible. He said, I don't know the book real well, but I know the author. And yet I'm going to teach you everything about it.

So, you know, it's ironic, but I think if those same men were to just go to, you can go to yourself table.branum.org. It's the headquarters website. It's got all the brand new sermons that they allow you to see. You'll notice the very first sentence says we're getting some new gadgets for recording, which means they've erased all of the sermons of the old gadgets. But in any case, you can search them every single phrase that you've mentioned to this point in this episode of the podcast, you can find it in branum. It's branum ism 101 right down to the atonement by his stripes were healed. That actually came from John Alexander

Dowey, not branum. But FF Bosworth, who toured in branum's campaigns and was branum's mentor, was a leader in Dowey's cult and Zion Illinois. And Bosworth trained branum to believe that that phrase mentioned meant that whenever Christ died, he died for your healing too and healing and salvation come in the same package. It's a very twisted form of the dual atonement that they teach.

So I'm not getting the theology either. This is really just blatant history and you can you can look it up on the internet. But they taught this version of divine healing that was completely false and anyone who rose up against them were seen as the enemy by this movement.

And the real problem is they, and I guess this does border into theology, because of the way British israelism morphed into Christian identity and impacted the lateral reign movement. What they did was because they had this false notion that America's of the 1900s were the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel and certain specific passages from the Old Testament applied to us today. When you do that, you have to totally eliminate the notion of a new covenant.

So all through my 36 years of branumism, they might mention new covenant, but they really didn't understand what it meant. Well, I believe what you're saying, John, I do definitely believe in a message of faith and healing. I do believe that's taught in the New Testament, but I just don't think Hobart ever, you know, he never developed it the way it should have been developed theologically for it to be consistent. You know, he talked about healing in the atonement, but then people weren't allowed to wear eyeglasses. Well, unless that's magnitude of generation, some kind of eye disease, that's not a disease or that's not a sickness. You know, and then it went

further, then broken bones, you're not allowed to go to a doctor and have a cast or anything set, and then everything just continued to progress, and they didn't even go to dentist. Let alone go to a dentist to fix a tooth. They wouldn't go to dentist to get their teeth clean. I'll never forget one of the last times.

I got to hang out with June with Mrs. Freeman. I hadn't seen her in a while and she was a sweet lady but bless her heart when she opened her mouth, her teeth were green and I was just shocked and I felt so sorry because even if let's just grant your healing in the atonement, your sickness and illness, let's just grant that for a moment.

That didn't have anything to do with eyewear and glasses and dentists and teeth cleaning. That's what I mean by the lack of theological clarity and precision in the area of faith and healing. If you're going to teach on that and you should, the New Testament is full of teaching on faith and healing. If you're going to do that, you need to be responsible and you need to have clarity and precision because when you don't and you just run to these verses by a stride for heal, if you just run to the verses and you quote the verses, then what happens is because you

haven't filled in background information because you have not put the flesh on the bones, people just have to start figuring out in their own mind and they're watching what others are doing. Wow, okay, all my healing is covered in the atonement and then it became real my new, okay, well, what actually is a sickness or an illness? What is that? You know, what is what is just normal?

What is and so you're confused? What's covered in the atonement and what is it? And it's just easier to say, well, anything medical, whenever Hobart at the end brought in how evil the MDs, the medical deities were that they all have a background in sorcery and witchcraft, then for sure you don't want to have anything to do with them. So you've got these people dying, you have these people not driving, you have husbands whose wives could see and they couldn't so they have to surrender their driver's license and their wives or friends drive them to and from work

and their wives drive the family to and from church all the time. I mean, John, it was just a mess. So I was critical of Dr. Freeman's doctrine of divine healing and his doctrine of faith, even though he thought he was the only man who had been given the pure, uncompromising faith message for the end times, he could not fight his way out of a wet theological bag.

If you sat down with a group of trained biblical people and you raised Biblically valid questions on faith and healing with where Hobart ended up on his dude, he couldn't have gotten himself out of a bag either.

And let's don't anyone forget the man who taught all of this. God loved him and blessed his heart But the man that taught all of this died of everything. He said that he would not die from You know The the way in which that this was presented in this movement was so twisted they There were a lot of people who were opposed to the divine healers and they they would quote it divine healers as such If you read through the newspapers It got so tremendous that if you if you do a search for William Branham

You're gonna find his halo photograph, you know with the the lighting above his head Which it's fully debunked if you go to my website These guys in the full gospel businessmen voice of healing they claimed that it was a the only supernatural light ever taken and They don't mention that basketball players and the Beatles had the same exact halo over their heads in the photos Because that was the lighting in the Sam Houston, Coliseum But that photo exists because of a debate between a Baptist minister FF Bosworth and William Branham wherein the Baptist minister said I

Truly believe that God heals the Bible clearly says that God heals But there's nowhere in the Bible that says that I have to have a human being that is my intercessor between God and my healing There's no there's nothing that even remotely suggests this and so they held this big debate and Ironically Branham tells this story and I think it may even be published in the One of one of the magazines I can't remember which but they say it's the only role of film that developed God would not allow The photographs to be taken of any of the debate except for my halo photo basically

Well, I found in the newspapers back then they they had a whole slew of photographs and the two men fighting I started reading through the article it actually broke out in a fist fight

The men the men on the divine healing side they got so frustrated I guess they got tied in a theological knot because day two couldn't fight their way out of a wet theological bag And so they said okay, we're just gonna take up fists and we're gonna fight our way out of it and they had to The man's name was Reverend Bess they had to get him out of the building before they attacked him It was that bad and that's how this movement trains you it trains you to be so to So polarized against somebody who doesn't think and see things the way that you do that you want to fight them

And it's just totally wrong. This is not Christianity at all. Yeah, I mean so many things there John that all I Didn't want to fight Dr. Freeman or any of the other ministers. I just wanted a discussion to let's sit down and debate and dialogue And the William Brannum halo. I just I just love the William Brannum halo because I was I was 18 years old I was a freshman at the University of Mississippi told you a little bit of the story before.

But I had enough time to not only do my school studies, but I was just buying everything I could buy from all of the healing revivalists. And right at that time, a professor at the University of Alabama Birmingham, Dr. David Edwin-Herald had come out with this book entitled All Things Are Possible.

And it was gonna be the factual history of the whole healing revival. And one of the pictures on the front cover was that halo over William Branham. And did I believe that was real?

Absolutely. I believe that was real. And then you open it and you get the pictures inside the book. And I just thought, wow. Well, I came later not to believe that, not because I had any evidence which you have provided us with.

I just knew William Branham's a false prophet. So I don't believe anything about him. Well, what do you do with the halo? I don't care about halos. None of that means anything to me.

I was able to reject all that stuff without historical proof. And then I see what you have been able to show people are pictures in that same coliseum of the same halo over other people.

And when I saw that, I knew there had to be an explanation. I didn't know what it was. It's either a demon manifesting, it's not God. It's either a demon or there's some normal explanation.

And thankfully, you were able to give me that. But, you know, Hobart criticized me from the pulpit. I did not want to get into a physical fight, but I did want to get into a theological fight, quote, unquote.

A discussion. I think iron does sharpen iron. I think we can all help each other. I think we all have blinders on. That's some part of our theological perception. And you need some help to get out of that.

So, yeah, the ministers did not like what I said. I think they probably can fight their way out of a lot of theological bags. Now, some of them, the better ones can. Just not the way I want it.

OK, I'll wait for a moment. The minister included that. No, some of these guys, and I can't speak for all. I only know the ones that I know. Some of them are very sharp.

One of them, especially in biblical languages, like Hebrew, and he could dance circles around me. I'll ride his cocktails for stuff like that. But it was hard, hard, hard for me, is a 20-something-year-old minister to think that my leader might have led me astray.

And that was difficult. That was difficult to process, because, you know, we all want to follow someone who's perfect, you know? We don't want to have to think for ourselves. We all want someone that we can say, hey, you know, if he said it, you know, we can take it to the bank.

Bye. Unfortunately, that's not true. It's not true for any of us who are leaders and so everyone who's a follower just needs to be aware of, you know, we need to be like the Bereans.

There is such a thing as being a more noble versus a less noble person. And Paul said in Acts 1711 that the Bereans were more noble and he described in what way they were more noble. They received what Paul said, but they didn't stop there. They said they went home and they searched the scriptures daily to see if what this apostle, the apostle Paul, he was definitely writing what he said. They didn't take it at face value. They went home and searched the scriptures daily to see if those things were so. But it was difficult

for me to make the challenge, but I did it. And then a few years after that, let me just give you one more thing, John. I don't want to keep you on too long. But I told everyone before that Dr. John Davis, who was a student of Dr. Freeman's at Grace Seminary when Hobart was still teaching there on faculty, Dr. John Davis happened to get the exact same degrees as Hobart. He majored in Hebrew at Old Testament. And Dr. Freeman was his mentor. And in late September of 1983, Dr. Davis did a series of four articles for the

Warsaw Times Union newspaper. And here is something he said. And when I read this, it, because I was still a young minister in 1983, when I read this, it said, you know, I think I'm doing okay. I think I'm on the right path. Here's what he said. Anyone contemplating leaving faith assembly has warned about various judgments, which God would bring up on them.

Jack Farrell, one of the associate pastors, put it this way in a recent message, a young man recently left our ministry and just up and die. A crushing silence settled over the entire congregation. The implications were obvious. But it's fine to the threats of doom, a number of former ministers, members have indicated that with less and less exposure to Freeman, many would drift away from the assembly to other charismatic congregations. Because most of the ministers, Dr. Davis said, quote, unquote, in the assembly, he's talking about the 37 word ministries have no formal theological education apart from that which they have received

here and are at best a pale imitation of Freeman messages by his associate ministers that I have heard of the assembly or on tape. And I've heard more than 40. were shallow, poorly organized, full of biblical references taken out of context, replete with absurd generalizations about other churches or denominations, saturated with veiled threats, and redundant beyond imagination.

That's coming from a graduate level teacher, a seminary level professor, who definitely not only knows his Bible, but he's professionally trained, he's professionally educated, that was his take, not my take. You know, this is the third party's take, that was his take on the 37 word ministers.

And I happened to agree because I had felt the same thing before I ever read what he said. So look, to the ministers from faith assembly that I spoke with, I think they are good Christian men.

They're in their own ministry, spreading the gospel, teaching people the Bible, or decades later. I'm sure we all have much sounder theology than we did back then. You know, love to everyone who is going further and deeper with the Lord.

But I guess the lesson learned is anytime a minister stands up and tells you something and then says, believe it because I said it, just walk out the door. He does not deserve an audience because you're not treating your people with the respect they deserve.

They are people, they are Christians, they need to come to their own conclusion. Yes, you can help point them down the right path, but do it in a godly biblical fashion. And you're just responsible for the input, you're not responsible for the output.

You've given your input, that's what you're responsible for as a Christian minister. Let these people figure it out on their own. And they either agree with what you've taught or they don't. And God bless us all, John, in our pursuit of learning God's Word.

You know, you made a comment earlier that I fully agree with. It doesn't matter if you're wrong, if you're consistently wrong. It shows that you're not trying to fool people. That's really for me.

I have a real problem with ministers who are deceptive. Even today in my journey after we left the cult, I've tried several different churches. I'm not going to lie, I said in a few, which I really felt like the minister was being a little bit deceptive.

We walked out of the door and that was the last time that we went there. It's that bad. Not all churches are like that. And I'm a person who studies on my own. I really, the minister, for me, a pastor is supposed to be someone who is helping you learn.

And I take the initiative that I learn on my own. And what I've... found is that I can find two respected ministers who everyone looks up to for their theology, who fully disagree on certain passages that, in my opinion, are fundamental passages that are really important.

But they see it one way and the other guy sees it the other way, which you're going to choose. And in the cult, you're taught a very black or white mentality, is right or it's wrong.

And in the real world, it's not like this. But everybody sees things eye to eye and that's why you have all of these Christian denominations. Everybody had their points that they saw as the most important and they chose a denominational path that led them there.

So to the ministers who were maybe offended by that statement, you have to think outside the box just a little bit because everybody has a difference of opinion. It's just that back then, Hobart has no exception to this rule.

There was a lot of deception. The point I'm trying to make is try and be consistent, and like Cheno said, don't be deceptive. If you're wrong, admit you're wrong and change your ways. That's really the bottom line for me.

But anyway, Cheno, this has been fun. I know it's an unusual series of podcasts, but for the people of Faith Assembly, I think it'll really, really help them. So thank you so much for doing this.

I hope so, John. You're welcome. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-Branum.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Brannum and the Healing Revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.