Honor vs. Silence: The Dangers of the NAR "Silent" Culture - With Adam Short

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend Adam Short, former member of the NAR.

And today Adam we're talking about something that it's interesting to me and in fact I just held up a newspaper that I'll bring up later but the silence culture of these cults. It's something that not a lot of people talk about because I think inwardly when you're in one of these groups and you're indoctrinated to the groups, rules and hierarchy and trained to be a silent sheep.

It's really difficult because there are things that you know you should as a human you should open up about but the cult has trained you manipulated you to be silent on things that truly defy human nature. So I'm excited to talk about this with you. Absolutely as always great to be here and yeah silent culture I mean what's what better way to combat it than to talk about it right?

Let's let's not just you know let's say talk about silent culture at slash aka honor culture but let's actually have a conversation and bring the elephant the room take the wrapping off the present and really dive in and dissect what is this? Why don't people not talk and especially I'd like to talk about the onslaught of church leaders especially right now with the scandals that have been hitting lately just constant messaging from higher level church leaders who are going right back to the horn saying hey don't talk about this stuff stay in your lane that's been the

quote from this week from one particular leader in the church so yeah absolutely and then you have the weird stuff out there like bringing restoration Rick I guess is his nickname bringing Todd Bentley back on stage and you know so it's so weird to me I'm so I'll open up and I'll say this publicly I know a lot of people will be angry with me but I'm a person who truly believes in restoration I strongly believe in it I think that a person who has done something bad in the past that doesn't that should not mark them that's their past and they they can improve

but the problem that I have is there are are caveats to that. A person who has something in the past and then continues to do it, for me that's not improvement. That's somebody who's showing a pattern of behavior.

And what I'm noticing as a pattern of behavior in the NAR is they overlook these patterns of behavior, which is a huge, huge fault. But the other thing is there are certain types of things that you just don't put people in leadership for.

And I know that if you're indoctrinated in these kind of groups and you're taught to believe that the apostle has the ultimate authority and so he can pick and choose who he restores and who he doesn't.

I understand that manipulation, but if you're in that position, think of it like if instead of yourself and your family and your kids, picture yourself being, I don't know, a mother who's got a daughter on a volleyball team.

If you had a coach who was a former convicted felon who improved his life and became a truly good person and is helping a bunch of girls, I understand that you want to do good for the person, but there's always gonna be that question the back of your mind, was he gonna do it again?

I really don't want my daughter on this volleyball team. But then take it a step further, say that that coach has a pattern of behavior and he keeps doing it over and over. There's no way in heck.

You're gonna take your daughter to that volleyball team, right? But there's guys who are doing it. For me, it's a huge problem, man. You know, I think one of the best examples is what you just gave.

It is a real life example of a sports coach or another example is a teacher, right? You put yourself in your child's shoes and you say, would you want your child to go be coached by that same person if they've had a history of offending children and abuse and in the various forms of abuse, CSA, well, that'd be clergy abuse, but any position of authority.

So in the real world, putting the church aside for a second, in the real world, if you're a teacher, if you're a doctor, if you're a police officer, fill in the blank and you do something like this, you're barred for the rest of your life from being a teacher or a doctor or whatever.

And then you go to jail for it. But here in the church, we not only protect perpetrators and predators, but we tell all of the little people to be silent when we're trying to hold those leaders accountable, right?

And so on Twitter, day in and day out, what we've been doing as advocates is, when we see another church leader coming out and telling everybody to be quiet about the latest scandal. The logical question that we all ask them is, well, do you have kids?

And what would you do if it was your daughter? son. Like would you just, would you tell everybody to be quiet if you're son? And if, and if they do say that, nobody has yet to my knowledge, but if they do, that should show you the even greater depravity that these people are living in, that they, that they, they wouldn't even stand up and protect their own children. Like, even the people in prison, even the convicted felons in prison, when somebody goes to prison for harming a child, like, I've heard that the prisoners go after

that person, or even the criminals in prison recognize that, you know, humane, human decency 101 is you protect children, full stop. And so the silence culture has literally become so bad that it's resulted in whole, you know, infrastructures of systems and organizations that, that, that's, that's objectively failing to protect children. And it's resulting in lots more collateral damage and abuse. And it's, and it's just horrible. I can't believe that some of these places have not been criminally charged, honestly. Like, it baffles my mind.

I was just having this conversation with Bob Scott. Actually, I think we had it after the podcast that we recorded. But the, the problem is too fold. You've got the leadership who have taken the biblical model of leadership and they flipped it upside down where, you know, some of these people who are indoctrinated in the, in this type of religion, they're trained to believe that the spiritual authorities in charge are spiritual authorities, not a person who's intended to help lift you up and guide you and train you and teach you to become leaders. In other words,

the leadership do not want leaders in these groups. They, they want sheeple. So the biblical model is flipped upside down. So when you use the word coach and you think about referring to these people as coaches, a lot of people who are indoctrinated don't get it. They're not looking for coaches.

They're looking for the men who have all of the answers and who are the spiritual connections to God. And then at the same time, it's a little bit ironic because they have, there's a, there's a form of elitism that runs in this because one of the doctrines that emerged out of Latin rain is perfectionism. In order to achieve your status in heaven, you have to perfect yourself.

And then you're climbing up the spiritual ladder that only the leadership can help you climb, which is ironic. But in that perfectionist way of teaching, it's not trained really, it's not, it's not a system that really allows for reconciliation. So if you're an average layperson and you have committed some horrendous sin, it's very difficult for a lot of those people to be reconciled back into the church, they're just, they're somewhat cast out because they'll never be perfect. They'll never be to that level. But the irony in this is the leadership while having this big double standard are restoring people who would never be restored if they were

lay people. And so the Todd Bentley's of the world, if you're committing the same thing over and over again, and you know, I'm not going to go into details and what he has or has not done. And I know the allegations. I've read through them. If all of the allegations are true, then if if this person was a average person in the pew, they would just cast him out and say, you can't come back. But because he's in this quote unquote, apostle status, they bring him right back into the church. Yep. And I want to bring up something here. This is something my wife and I've talked about

at length really to think through and identify where did that practice come from, right? And this is my opinion. I did study church history years ago in college. And so, and honestly, I've forgotten a lot of what I learned in church history. But I do know, I do remember enough to remember this about the Roman Catholic church. And by the way, I'm not bashing the Roman Catholic church. When I say this, I'm just pointing out some observations about their structure institutionally and kind of maybe where some of those roots came from. If you look at

the structure of Roman Catholic church, there are two sections of the cathedral or church building, if you will, right? There's the section that's reserved for the lay people, which is typically your pews and anything behind the pulpit in the altar. And then you have the section in front, which is traditionally separated by a, there's even a gate in some Roman Catholic churches that the lay people are forbidden to cross that threshold. You have to wear a white collar, right, in order to get into that area. And it's reserved for the clergy, those that are called, those that are, wow, have balloons floating around in my video feed here.

That was interesting. But you have people who wear white collars who are identified as, you know, the select few, if you will, who are ordained by God, anointed by God, and selected by God to be the representative to the people, the representative of Christ on the earth. And what I'm getting at, I'm getting to a point here.

Those people, like you said, they can be involved in very nefarious activity. They can abuse people and their own corner of clergy are the ones that get to decide what happens to them in the future.

And invariably, they stay clergy, right? They're once clergy, always clergy. more or less. And so the late people back behind in the back of the building, so to speak, don't really have any input or any bright to say anything about what's done and what's decided about the clergy.

And honestly, I think just as you think about this, you know, from a historical standpoint, that's a blueprint from the Old Testament. It is really patterned after Old Testament temple and how that was structured with the priests and the people.

But what we've missed is the new covenant actually says that all believers are priests and that we don't need this man of God to be our representative of Christ on the earth. And so this stuff makes it way out into this honor slash silence culture that we're talking about and restoration of leaders who have offended.

This makes its way out into practical life in that way because again, you have a separation of laity and clergy and you know, it's like we say the good old boy club once you're in the club, you're in the club.

And by and large, no matter what you do, you're going to stay in that club. And so I think that that's what we're seeing play out in a lot of these scandals. You mentioned Todd. That's it, you know, exactly. I mean, he was kind of sort of sideline for several years, but Rick has replatformed him and given his green light for all we know to put him back on the stage despite the fact that he actually has a criminal past in abusing children.

So I was trying really hard to find out how how can we take the subject matter that is so so heavy and make it lighthearted. Well, your balloons is the perfect way, man. Did you see the balloons? I saw the balloons and it came to in the recordings. Everybody.

At least it wasn't the cat, man. If you're head of place with a been replaced with a cat on the way that would have been we'd have to cut that out. That would be bad. I don't want to be a cat. I do not identify in any way as a cat.

Yeah, but I'll probably leave it because people get a good laugh. But you know, you're right. In fact, what you just said, I covered in great depth in my latest book because what happened is you had new covenant Christianity. You had literally the reason why it's called Christianity is because Christ came and there are there's no need for these high priests.

And this lasted for years and years and years and the irony is you mentioned the Catholic church. The Catholic church has largely reformed from the mess that it was. But back during the days of Martin Luther, it was a tremendous mess.

And he saw exactly what we're seeing with the NAR today. There was this authoritarian structure. People were being Elevated to a status far beyond the other humans, and he said, no, I don't want any of this and so that's literally why Protestantism Exist today and like I said the the NAR has flipped this upside down But the reason why they did if you go back through history and I covered like I said I covered some of this in my latest book The British Israel doctrine when it embedded itself into Pentecostalism They tried to reestablish the Jewish customs feast thrones, etc. And

Then that turned into what we need to also try to go after the government and let's appoint bishops in place of Literally what they were they were condemning Rome for they wanted to establish in the United States as as the opposite of Rome So we have Protestantism with the bishops running the government and in Rome you had the Pope So they wanted this sort of a system and they began to reestablish it But in doing so the irony is they took it away from Christianity because it's no longer centered on Christ as the high priest

They want these humans to be the high priest Yeah, absolutely this also reminds me of back in the day. I say back in the day, but it's probably been Gosh 300 plus years since this happened, but do you remember when before we had the advent of What we can now have is republics, right like we have the the US is technically a republic the United Kingdom is now a constitutional monarchy and You know in France is a republic and you know a lot of the other countries, but Prior to that when you still have the monarchy in place and the monarchy was the

Authority in place, but it's interesting. You've looked back the Roman Catholic Church and even the Anglican Church The top and I'm probably getting the titles wrong with the Anglican churches. I don't know as much about the Anglican Church But I think wasn't it the archbishop of Canterbury who Was actually the one who crowned the monarchy?

They they would crown the king or the queen and so this is this is a manifestation of God God's authority represented on the earth and then be stowed upon a literal monarchy that rules a country, right?

And so that whole ruling with a Dominionism bit that whole thread has made its way out now You know into the Nahr the hyperchairs mad at church where you have the seven mountains mandate Yes, it's different. It looks different than you know the Apostles The quote unquote apostles of the Nahr movement, you know crowning the people in the seven mountains I mean, that's not actually what happens in practice, but what having been at Bethel and Being really pumped full of the 7M or seven mountain stuff like that is actually the out Workings of this is it's the spiritual authority that you're under that then

Sort of is the impetus for you to go out into the world and literally take over the various dominion You know what they call dominions of the world Whether it be education government business the arts science you name it But all of this stuff is connected to the silence and honor culture as well because Ultimately, it is the guy at the top or the guys at the top that decide What is said and what is not said and if you're not towing the line you're you were you're your sideline your outcast and And frankly you're attacked like they'll they'll attack you

And a lot of people on Twitter a lot of these leaders on Twitter. There's one of them right now Who just this past week? He's he's been over in Korea But he's been posting these videos on Twitter about how people need to stop talking about The scandals and and his his phrase is stay in your lane you need to stay in your lane and he's like railing He's telling everybody you're you're just doing cancel culture like that's his that is his

That's what he think this he thinks this is is cancel culture. It's not cancel culture. It is Him and the other leaders that are doing are they're perpetrating silence culture, but they call it honor culture. They call it It's like they call it a spirit of accusation The problem is if you look at the epistles in the New Testament Paul and the other writers are very clear about how to handle These wolves and they they don't use pretty language by the way they they basically Instruct us to expose the deeds of darkness and

Remove these people from among you because they're wolves and so in the New Testament Paul and the other writers of the New Testament They were very clear about how to handle Wolves among us, right? So we had Wolves and sheep's clothing and he said specifically instruct us in Ephesians 2 Not participate in the deeds of darkness, but rather expose them and then also when it comes to the wolves that are in your love feasts Right he talks about removing them from among you like literally Like taking these people out of out from your midst So that is quite a difference

Compared to what the leaders of the NAR are talking about right now where they say stop You know stop Talking about the scandals. Don't hold anybody accountable like those two worlds are completely separate and I just you can't reconcile the two like what they're saying is is unbiblical plain and simple Well, it doesn't even make logical sense. I mean back to the volleyball example, picture if you're a mother on the volleyball team and some other mother says, hey, this guy has a history of being a predator and a pattern of being a predator.

Do you want the predator to be on the volleyball team as your coach? No, you're gonna walk away and you're gonna say, you're not gonna say, stay in your lane, woman. You're gonna protect my daughter, right?

But that's the way it is. They want to silence the people and they've set it up. I mean, ironically, they've set it up to a, so I was talking about Bob Scott and I were talking about the two points.

The other big point which he mentioned and we're trying to think about how best to unravel this because it's gonna be offensive and I'll just briefly mention it here, but it takes two for this to happen.

And I'll use this is what I'll do to tone it down. I'll use the volleyball team as the example. So if on the volleyball team, all of the women who know that there is a potential risk that their daughter may be victimized, if all of them say, okay, we're going to be silent and ignore it and let this man continue, they're partially to blame when it happened to be in.

They are partially to blame. And if you think about the way these churches are structured, I understand the brainwashing, the manipulation, I get all of this, but there has to be an onus of responsibility on the people who keep these kind of people in power.

If you see a person who, and I'm not gonna give names, I'll let you decide who I'm talking about, but if you see a person who continually restores people into leadership positions who have patterns of problems and you keep giving him your money, well he's gonna keep taking your money, he's gonna keep doing this, he sees this as vindication that what he's doing is correct.

However, if everybody pulls back and says, okay, he's not getting another dime of my ties until he stops doing this. Well then he's gonna stop doing it because he wants the money. Right, and that's been my point so often on Twitter, I'm gonna count it and deal with financial stuff all the time.

And that's been, I keep saying that over and over like if we stop the cash flow to these organizations and these institutions, you better believe they're gonna shut down. And I'm not advocating to do evil to people.

I'm just advocating for, hey, stop buying their product, stop buying their merch. I mean the Bethel's, just looking at Bethel's merch right now is sickening, like they've got bracelets, they've got like, you can buy hats, it's talk about revival.

I mean, how does that even contribute to the kingdom of God? Can you buy little pouches of the glitter so that you can throw it and let it fall and get the angel dust?

I don't think they have that available, but I'm sure somebody could come up with a glitter bag or something.

So if you shut down the cash flow like, have any money to do what they're doing anymore. I mean, these people, these organizations are, they've got massive budgets that are paying for huge buildings, they're paying salaries, and some of these churches have hundreds of people on staff and they're paying like Bethel's guy, I don't know, I think around, like going off a memory, seven or eight hundred people on staff.

And, and those people are getting paid, right? And so that money has to come from somewhere, so it's either going to be sales of products, donations or combinations of the two, or royalty income, you know, YouTube channel income, you know, on their YouTube channel, which Bethel music has a massive following. So they're getting revenue from that, but you're right. If, if the cash stops, how much longer will these people even be in the game?

My question is, if, is to these leaders, if y'all were not getting money out of this, would you still be doing it? I know there are a lot of little itty bitty church pastors all over the place, they're leading their church, they're doing an awesome job, they're, they care about their sheep, and they're not in it for the money. Honestly, a lot of them have a full-time job on top of being a pastor and they're, you know, they have their family to take care of too.

Those are the not the kind of people I'm talking about. I'm talking about the mega church celebrity pastor slash apostles who would be do super hero people. And if you were to yank their seven figure income streams, right, would you still be doing this? And I would venture to say they would not.

I would venture to say they're just like hirelings, like Jesus talked about. They're hirelings, they're not, they're not real shepherds. So they don't care for the sheep, they care for the money, they care for their reputation. So anybody that threatens a reputation, okay, I said this recently on Twitter, you take greed and narcissism and an insecurity and a leader, you mix all those three together and you're talking about an explosive combination that just bodies everywhere.

So more of the story, John, we need to yank their cash flow.

Absolutely. I mean, we need to implement sanctions, financial sanctions on these people. You know, it's funny you mentioned sanctions because all of this started. We've talked about the history. William Brannum was leading the the post-World War II healing revival. It exploded into this big thing and now he became the stepping stone for all these movements. A lot of people don't know the history because he's quote unquote God's general, but he was sanctioned by so many different denominations that they're at the end. He almost could not find a place to go. It was that bad.

And they sanctioned him because ironically, they sanctioned him because they saw the problem with his doctrine and specifically the manifested sons of God doctrine, the laterane type doctrine. They saw the problem because it created an authoritarian structure that predators could prey on the people. And so they started sanctioned.

and they did not like the Lateran doctrine. And you look at the people who are being restored, well, I keep going to Todd Bentley just because he's the recent example, but he taught manifestants of God and got called out for it.

And this is no small thing that's happening here. These guys know that they're creating an authoritarian structure. But there's something that, when you think of cancel culture and you think of the elitism, all of this, there's a bigger thing that's happening that not many people talk about.

What happens to the individuals who are subjected to this, is terrifying to think what it does to the mind, but when you're in that role of silence and you can't speak, well, your mind is still active, you can't shut your mind off, it's still active.

And so what it creates is this fear that you might speak out. So you've got multiple tiers of fear, you've got the fear of the leadership, right? And what they might do, if should it happen, but you've also got this fear of what happens if I accidentally speak out.

And when you bottle up that fear over time, there are people that end up with mental health disorders and issues and there's a whole array of, even health, physical health problems, you can develop from this type of religion.

And the people are in it, continuing the silence culture, they're also continuing the, it's continuing a way to breed insanity if you really stop and think about it. You're so glad you brought this up.

I can tell you, in my experience, I have experienced that. Like, I'm not gonna say I'm an insane person. I mean, maybe somebody thinks I'm insane, but I might say that I am. Hopefully, hopefully I don't suffer from insanity, but I will say, I have experienced a deep degree of mental unhealth because of silence culture.

I'm not gonna call it honor culture anymore. It's not honor culture, it's silence culture.

And you're exactly right, because your mind is still active, right? Your mind, I mean, your body and your mind are created in a way to try to process and work through this stuff. And if your mind doesn't have your mouth to help you process that stuff, you're not able to speak it out and process it and say what happened, not only just with your own experience, but what you observe as a witness, as a third party, potentially witnessing abuse of other people.

Like, that is so damaging on so many levels. Psychologically, mentally, physical health. And I've experienced that just in my story. And just, you know, for the very first time, my wife and I are actually speaking out publicly about things that we observed.

or I'm sorry, things that we witnessed and experienced in our own life. And it's taken more than a decade for us to do this. And it's because of what you said, like just fear of retaliation and all of this indoctrination of like you're supposed to say silent about this.

You're only supposed to speak positive about the leaders. You're only supposed to speak edification and all that stuff. So even now as I'm talking, I still have those takes going in my head, but I'm choosing to like combat that and go public.

And it is a process. It's not something you do. It's not like a switch you flip on. And it's like, okay, all of a sudden it's all out there. It's like it is a journey you go on.

And honestly, there's a lot of fear you have to sort of wrestle with and overcome. So yeah, it's not easy. 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?

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You know, every Friday, I do the thing where people share their stories. And before and after, it's funny as you watch it happen while you're recording, but before they're incredibly nervous to speak out.

And then after they do, I've had so many people, in fact, just another last night said that after just telling, opening up and telling the story, just mentally, verbally processing what happened, they felt this burden just lift, right?

Well, when you're in this culture where you're made to be silent and you're bottling all of this up, and you don't express yourself, exactly what you said happens to your head. You have this fear, you have this burden that you just cannot get rid of, but defying that and talking out about it is a way to release all of that fear.

And you can empower yourself, but at the same time, you help others who are trapped in that same fear. So that's the other thing that is a little bit weird about this. While all of these people are in the cancel in the silent culture, were lifting up the leader and without this, I mean, literally without the people, they could not be elevated to the position that they're in.

Once a person does become vocal, it's like dominoes around them and then the whole thing crumbles. And that's when you watch them do the showmanship, they'll bring in new faces, they'll bring in new, let's have a new convention, that kind of thing because they want to distract you.

Yeah, better yet, like a PR manager, like a spin doctor comes in, like a certain somebody that we all know who was retained by a high hop KC has now been working as we understand with daystar.

And it's like the messaging and the propaganda, the propaganda works. If it didn't work, the CIA wouldn't use it. But I mean, I think that the church is just about as good at propagandas, the CIA is.

Well, and the funny part is, if you know the history, the two kind of collaborated with each other a bit. So there is that, right? But no, you're right, it's the whole thing. Just, it needs to be turned back right side up.

This movement took the biblical model for leadership and flipped it upside down. And we need more people like Martin Luther to post their doors on the popes of the NAR and say, no, we're not going to put up with this anymore.

Dude, totally. I was gonna say earlier when you mentioned Martin Luther, my wife and I have been talking about this lately, like we have a sliver of hope that maybe a reformation's happening. Maybe enough of us are speaking out, are becoming aware, are choosing to put our dollars elsewhere, like help the poor rather than send it to a church fund to support a $90 to $100 million building, Bethel.

Or more than $100 million. Like how many, how many poor people can we feed if we had a $100 million? Okay, well I know that in Africa when I live there, and this has been a long time ago, like you could buy a 50 pound bag of rice, and we would do this, we go buy a 50 pound bag of rice, we take the family to the market, you know, they had fish, vegetables, whatever.

And we pick a family every week. And that's the kind of stuff that we need to be doing as Christians like. Let's feed the poor, let's help people. You know, people that have been hit by Hurricane Helene, now the LA wildfires, like, let's do that stuff.

Like there's plenty of, there's plenty of people that want to help. And so, you know, back to the whole Martin Luther, how much said Martin Luther King, him too, but Martin Luther, because he did a lot of good stuff.

But like nailing the thing up on the door, like the 95 Theses, that's really cool because maybe what we're doing is, this is each of us taking our Theses and nailing them on the church door of, you know, now we have Twitter.

and you know all the social media that's like the church door we're nailing it on two and we do podcasts and all this other stuff but let there be a reformation and let there be fundamental endemic change and um let's see what we can become because there are a lot of people in the boat of exile right who like myself and my wife like we we haven't been in church in a long time we love Jesus we follow him and even if you don't identify as a Christian anymore that's fine too because there's plenty of room for you because we all care about each other and we all are trying to

find our place post church and I just think that there are enough of us out there who you know it's kind of like the needles moving enough I think we're getting to it hopefully a tipping point um if more of these organizations start to sort of you know tilt and act like they're going to fall I mean I'm not wishing bad on people but like it actually will be a good thing if these institutions crumble and then we have something born out of the ashes that actually cares for people and is grassroots and is not top down hierarchical leadership like we've

seen uh you know for decades I've had a problem for a long time giving tides to pay for a church building and I can't even imagine it's not even a mega church when my family attends a church we avoid mega churches but I can't even imagine giving money to a system like that because you don't know what your money's well if you see the Cadillac that the guy is driving or the Lexus or whatever you know some of it's going there but you really it's like you know these these people who get on TV and they're they beg for your money to go help some other country and they've done

investigations and they found that the people who are in the organization get most of it what's that way with the church leadership and I would strongly prefer to help out a person who's in need which is what we've tried to do but that brings up an interesting point which I've I've mentioned at least three times now when they talk about the spiritual gifts they always want the ones that people can't really fully access and think are mysterious they never talk about the gift of service or the gift of giving if you read the New Testament and you

understand the spiritual gifts why did they choose to focus on just two or three why not all of the spiritual gifts which include the giving and helping and all of the things that people should do for other people well I think I'm you know just thinking out loud off the cuff here I think one of the reasons is it's not as flashy and glitzy right like hey go help clean out you know clean up trash on the side of the road or you know go clean somebody's bathroom or whatever I mean that's not glitzy and glamorous whereas getting on the stage and you know delivering a

prophetic word or a healing like That's, that gets the crowd more excited than some of this mundane boring stuff, you know? But, in fact, the matter is, there's a lot of boring stuff in life.

And, anyway, I think that's probably one reason. And, you know, they have identified the gifts that get the crowd whipped up and get some to pull out their credit cards in their checkbook to give money.

Absolutely. Like, how, you know, here's an interesting metric we can look at, John. I've never thought of this before, just kind of came to me right now. But, what is, you know, we talk about per capita income, right?

That's a financial metric you can look at. Well, what's the per capita healing ratio? So, like, when I'm getting at is this, for every dollar I contribute to XYZ Church, what healings am I getting in return for that?

I mean, if we're gonna take it to that level of, I'm kind of being sarcastic on purpose, but I'm making a point like, that's how this stuff is pitched. Give me, you know, so a seed of $1,000 today and your whole town will be healed of cancer tomorrow.

It's like, okay, that is ridiculous because I can't write a check and create healing just because I wrote a check to a minister who's supposed to be like,

exerting healing. So, what would be the per capita healing of a $1,000 gift, you know, I don't know. Like, it's kind of crazy to think of it that way, but I think that's the sort of, the model they're pitching is, get up on stage, do the healings, write your check, and then your return on your investment is, you know, supposedly all these people get healed.

But meanwhile, Jesus, every time he healed somebody, I don't think I remember anybody giving Jesus money to get healed. No, like, is that is that even a thing in the Bible? Like, is there a connection between money and healing in the Bible?

I don't think there is. No. And the interest is the opposite. And the interesting part is, so all of these guys, they, like I said, they're referencing Brannum as their stepping stone. Benny Han, he has the gift of swinging the code and watching the crowd fall over, right?

What kind of a gift is this, right? And he says things like William Brannum had the greatest gift, I can't do it like he does, but the greatest gift. And he's referencing Brannum's healing revivals.

And you can go look it up on my website, I've got the newspapers up there, but at the height of his fame, they tried, the newspapers tried to do exactly what you did, the per capita per healing.

Oh, really? They found that he was getting, Brannum was getting big boxes, they said it took two hefty men to carry the boxes of money out of his campaigns. He was getting that much money.

And we're talking, this is in the 40s, the amount of money they're describing then is like half a billion dollars now. So he's breaking in all of this money. It was crazy money. So then they said, okay, who got healed?

And there were newspaper reports out of, and this is during the height of what made him famous. It's supposed to be his greatest healing ministry ever. Everybody who came, they were talking about you know, busloads of crutches that were carried away from these people.

Well, the newspapers who were there on the scene said that people were arriving in ambulances to be healed and then carried back out in ambulances. They weren't healed. And in fact, one investigative reporter went on a journey to try to find a healing and he went all throughout the United States and Canada and finally gave up and said, look, if you can produce just one single example of healing, I'll publish it in the newspaper. They couldn't find one, not even one.

That's how bad this thing was. So per capita zero, right? But here, here's what the ministry did because you'll find like my grandparents will tell you there were thousands of people healed. They'll be there and they say, I got healed in this thing. But what they did was much like the psychological impact that they're having on the silence culture, they had the same thing with the healing culture. They wanted you to pretend to be healed and you had to name it and claim it. If you left there, you weren't supposed to be healed it instantly. When you left there, if you mentioned that you still had whatever was wrong with you,

then you're going to you're going to be stuck with it. But if you have a by faith accept that you've been healed, whether you were or not, then God would heal you. That was how they presented to the people. So those people went home and said, yes, I'm healed. And they told their neighbors, they told their church friends, yes, I'm healed, even though they weren't. And that spread like wild fire throughout the movement. So you had you had the opposite of silence culture. You had the, I don't know what you call it, is like the lying culture. That's interesting. Yeah, it's like

the connection between, well, it's yeah, the opposite because they were programmed to go out and sort of share the testimonies of things that they thought happened, right? They were convinced they happened. Maybe they had psychosomatic improvement or, you know, the minds of powerful tool and, you know, we, you know, there is power and positive thinking. And so maybe some of these people did have improvement, but it wasn't like an actual supernatural, like legit healing.

And then they went and I think what you're saying is propagated that message and sort of one thing led to another. Now you, you're in this fervor and lots of people believe they were healed.

Which is interesting. Yeah, because it's, there certain things that the silence culture says that you are supposed to talk about, right? And you are supposed to talk about the testimonies, the healings, the prophetic words, and the miracles, we're encouraged to talk about all that stuff, but we're not encouraged to talk about the negative stuff.

And so everybody knows what they're supposed to talk about. Like that's the moral of the story. We all know what we are and aren't supposed to talk about. And it's just such a problem, man, because whenever you shut people up like this, they feel inferior.

And it's by design, right? The leadership wants the people to feel inferior. They want to be superior, but it just breaks the people down. And I can't imagine for myself, once I realized that this was fake, I knew I had to get my family out of it.

I knew that my children are not going to grow up like this. I had this conversation actually just earlier today with a person that comes a point and I think everybody's life, if you're into this type of movement, where you're faced with that choice, you suddenly come to realize that everything is not cracked up to be, is not as what they have presented to be.

And you're faced with this. And what do you do with it? The sad truth is a large majority of the people, they choose to be silent in those cases. It's not like they're even programmed to be.

They literally come with the choice. Do I talk about this or do I take the easy path? And a lot of people, I've actually talked to people who literally told me that they stayed in it because, John, it's just too hard.

My whole family is going to turn against me. Everybody that I know is going to hate me and I'll lose everything. So I just, I don't believe any of this, but I choose to stay in it.

That's crazy. And it just shows you how much cognitive dissonance comes with that and how much collateral damage people experience if they do choose to book the system and speak out and opt out and stop participating.

There's a lot. And you know how it is. We were like this too. Our whole life was enmeshed in this culture and your whole life. And so to think of extricating from it or opting out from it, that's a very scary thing to do.

And so I don't criticize them for choosing to just go along, what's that saying? Go through the ropes or go through the motions of it, but not really believing it. You see why people choose that.

But I think I want to make the point, though, what really infuriates me, though, is to see the leaders of these movements and churches choose not to speak out when they have colleagues that are called out.

and credible allegations come forward right and you have third party testimony you have evidence the whole works and even criminal investigations and people get sued and people get arrested and go to jail and like the the former police officer at Morningstar he's in jail right now by the way he was criminally charged and convicted for CSA he's in jail but people like that that are actually convicted they have a lit there's a legal case against them you still will have leaders like Rick join her come out and say we did the right thing we had the internal

investigation and and like the other leaders that just choose not to say anything the people that choose not to say anything as leaders that tells you just as much as when they actually do speak like what they don't say tells you all you need to know about that person and they're not and they're dangerous they're dangerous people I wouldn't let my kids up within 10 miles of these people oh yeah and it all goes back to the volleyball example so this happens all of all the all of the daughters mothers see that there's a problem their their daughters are at risk and they start

to raise their voices well the principal walks out and the principal finally comes to realize that wait a minute somehow this guy slipped through our hiring process and this guy has a background he should not be in this position not only does he have a background but he has a pattern of repeating what he did in his background yeah the principal is going to be appalled that this happened he's going to he's going to personally apologize to each of these women he's going to say I'm sorry this person was in here thank you for bringing this to my attention he's out and we're going to

reevaluate our process we're going to determine what happened how did he slip through the cracks that's what's going to happen if a person who is respectable is in leadership but what do we see happening it's the exact opposite they want to cover it up they want to say no you women who are raising your voices you're in the wrong lane you need to be quiet what what what kind of world do we live in where this is happening man and this is the this is the church and like the regular world that quote unquote un-Christian non-Christian world they're doing the right

thing like the schools yeah you'll get a one-off case where they don't do the right thing it's the time they do because they know if they don't they're going to go to jail and they're going to lose their career lose their job and everything and yeah it's like what you said like the mom speaking out become the bad guy you know in the church circles it's like oh yeah by the way y'all are the bad guys for speaking out and trying to protect your kids like in what world is that normal like that that that's how far gone these churches are and these quote we're calling churches I don't know

if there are churches or aren't I don't know what they are but they're their predatory institutions where children are us safe. And so, yeah, it's got to stop. I hope the authorities start stepping in both at a local state level and a federal level. These people need to be stopped. Like, then you go to jail, then you go to freaking prison. So how do we prevent all of this from happening?

What? What is your advice to the listeners? If you're in the type of movement and you start to see that there's a problem, these people are bringing leaders in who are not respectable. What do you do? How do you step forward? How does this process begin?

It's hard. It's really hard. I mean, I think first and foremost, it is stopping the music in your head for a second and paying attention to what do you feel? What do you really think about what you're observing right now? Whatever the situation is, it could be any level of unhealth. It could be abuse. It could be whatever the feeling of blank, respect the signals that your body is giving you. Do you have a sense of your gut? Something's not right here or if you're observing something like, Hey, that's not quite right. Something doesn't add up here. Okay. I think that's the first step to acknowledge that in your

own being. And then the next question becomes, what do I do with this information? Who do I talk to about this? And then if it's been abused that you've observed by a clergy member, if you live in certain states you live in, you're required to report that, especially if you are in a position of ministry or a church leadership, you're required to report that to the authorities. So I definitely think that's important. But finding the courage to begin to speak out, whether that looks like a one-on-one conversation with somebody you trust, and then that person accompanies you to the leader. There is strength in numbers,

and I think that it can help to have a few trusted people to go to that leader or another leader that you trust that you think might hear you out and do your part in speaking out. And, you know, unfortunately, if you're met with opposition or they attack you, they won't hear you or whatever the case is, obviously you do have the option to involve legal counsel.

You know, that's, you know, can be a wise choice, but then also going public with a journalist. Julie Royce is a good, you know, journalist to contact, and she's very good at handling and investigating these kinds of allegations and getting to the truth of the matter and then, you know, invariably publishing that information for the public. So there's just a few things I can think of. I mean, it's all nuanced and hard to navigate that, but, but yeah, hopefully that helps somebody who might be in that situation.

And I'm going to say this, too, because I know I have a compassion even for the leadership. I understand all of the problems with me saying that and if you're a victim I'm sorry, but I was close to the leadership and I can't help it. I understand that humans are humans and the problem exists both ways.

So if you're a leader and you're in this and we have leaders who are listening to the podcast ironically If you're a leader and you're listening to this and you actually want to do the right thing I think it's good to encourage people to speak out whether they say bad things about you or not It's good to get people to open up because you can learn from this At one of the things that whenever you're I've had business coaches. I've worked with business coaches One of the things that they encourage is for the employees to speak out about what they don't like to the leadership in a business

Because then the leadership knows exactly where everybody stands. They understand all of the problems They can address them and it's it's actually a good thing It's actually helpful to learn all of your faults. I know it goes against human nature But it is good to learn your faults because then you can address your faults and you can become a better person So if you're a leader and you're in this and you're listening Open up have some classes have people teach them how to speak up teach them how to if they see a problem Speak out against the problem and I think you'll find people will like you and trust you a lot more

Yeah, yeah, they'll feel more safe To vocalize maybe other things that you're not aware of that may not relate to abuse at all It might be something completely different, but yeah having a two-way dialogue is so important no matter what the context is Well, this has been incredibly fun. This is not at all what I expected as a topic today We we had a million different things that we could have talked about and you wanted this But I'm glad we did I feel like this will be helpful to the people who are stuck in this because

Like I said the emotional toll that it takes on you in this silent culture is beyond words I felt it you felt it Literally every person who tells their story on every Friday in our podcast they all feel it So thank you for coming up with this Absolutely. Thank you John as always appreciate you awesome Well if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web You can find us at William-branam.org For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR

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