Latter Rain to O.J. Simpson: The Untold History of FGBMI

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-Brandham.org and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianGospelChurch.org and the author of Come Out of Her My People. Charles it's good to be back and to open up with another mind-boggling podcast about the history that happened after William Brandham's death. Today we have all kinds of different things to talk about from the birth of the charismatic movement to the OJ Simpson trial.

There's just so much here and it's kind of a crazy history. I did not, even until recently, until I was working with you, I didn't realize how close this came to Jeffersonville, but I did realize, and it's in my book, Preacher Behind the White Hoods, obviously, that Kardashian family was connected to the Shecarian family and they sponsored Brannum, so we're going to get into some crazy good stuff here. Right, John. If our listeners remember our last few episodes, we have been working our way through the early history of the message in the years after William Brandham died. As you come out of 1965, William Brandham

died in December that year. They held his body from the grave. They finally agreed to bury him in April and through 1966, 1967, 1968, the message is shrinking every year. It's hemorrhaging members. It's in steep decline. There's a major schism rocking the movement in those years, and it takes, I would say, three years for all of that to sort out and for things to kind of change. And so through that period of time, you know, the early message community right there in those years, as I've mentioned before, it was about roughly 35 churches, maybe 5,000 people,

with less than half of that 5,000 being in those 35 churches, the majority of the people who believe the message back then were in non-message churches of the broader latter-lane movement, and those were just really, really tough years. But when you come out to the other side of that, you know, you start coming in through the end of 1968 and into 1969, the decline reverses and the message begins to grow exponentially after that. And today we're going to going to start talking about kind of set up to explain how that exponential growth of the message took off on the other side of those Brannum's death, the fallout, and the

schism that happened. And as we do that, I think today we've got to talk about the full gospel businessmen because as we've already mentioned through some of the prior episodes leading up to this, they're involved in this. They're playing a role. And they're playing an important role actually in how some of this is going to grow in subsequent years. William Brannum was deeply connected to the full gospel businessmen. I would say along with Oral Roberts, William Brannum was the favorite of the full gospel businessmen. Oral Roberts and William Brannum were the full gospel businessmen's two top guys. One of the two of them

headlined every major convention that they had. And sometimes they did it together. But it was one of them that always headlined their conventions. And William Brannum was even scheduled to continue highlighting their conventions, headlined their conventions, being the keynote speaker, even in 1966, like there were scheduled advertisements for upcoming events before he died even. And so as he died, the full gospel businessmen still had connections and linkages into the message. And as I've mentioned before, quite a number of the senior, most senior highest level leaders of the full gospel businessmen were members of the message. They were part of those 35 churches that I'm

talking about. They're part of that 5,000 number people I'm talking about. And today I think we should walk through who they were. We'll just get at least some of their names, talk through some of them, explain their roles, what they did. And then kind of talk about how that led to financial support and interactions with the message community, which is going to help feed some of the growth that happens as you go into 1969 and you kind of turn into the 70s. It's so fascinating. And keep in mind, as we're going through this, that these connections happened before Laterane.

Brandon was connected to the shakerians and the Kardashians before Laterane started. And if you can put your mind onto the theatrical style of the Laterane evangelists and what actually became the charismatic movement, the theatrical style of this religion, keep in mind that this came from the elite out in Los Angeles where you've got the Kardashian family that have grown into an explosive media machine. Well, they saw the power and quite frankly, the financial value of these ministries. So before Laterane happened, if you go back back to the historical episodes that Charles and I are doing.

You find that they had like little David Walker was connected to Brannum. Before Walker was connected to Brannum, Brannum was connected to these guys. And the theatrical style of that ministry, little David was supposed to be able to levitate and all these magic tricks that they had, that was part of the theatrical style of this religion.

So when you think theatrics, think Kardashians, think Shakerians, and that sets the stage for everything that we're talking about. If you go back to when the full gospel businessmen got started, William Brannum was already working with those financial backers before the financial, the full gospel businessmen organized into a group.

William Brannum in 1947, 48, 49, he starts working with the same circle of people before they call themselves the full gospel businessmen. Right. He met up with them. And back then, these guys primarily were in the four square denomination.

That four square comes up a lot when we talk about all this stuff, doesn't it, John? Four square is where the majority of these people were back then. And if you remember, this is the Pentecostal denomination, which in the 40s was the home of most of the Pentecostal British Israelites, all kinds of stuff we've talked about in prior episodes was going on there.

That's where the full gospel businessmen started at, primarily wealthy people in the Southern California area, Los Angeles area, coming together. And they were initially financing William Brannum among others. Avocagopian was another, they were financing back then.

Oh, the little David Walker's campaign manager, Raymond Hoekstra, they were financing him back then, right? It's that same circle of people. And if you read through some of their literature, the full gospel businessmen, Dima Shakerian specifically claims that somewhere, I want to say about 1952, 1953, they start working with oral Roberts.

And oral Roberts is the one who kind of suggests to them or inspires them to have the idea to turn this, what is kind of an informal group of finances into this organization in the full gospel businessmen, okay?

And so that's kind of how that informal group William Brannum had already been working with through some influence of oral Roberts turns into a formal group called the full gospel businessmen, okay? And this is happening at the same time that the voice of healing fellowship is being created, which will become the full gospel fellowship a denomination.

So this, the term full gospel here aligns to several different groups who are forming at the exact same time with a similar ideology. So it's not, you've got the full gospel businessmen, you've got a full gospel fellowship denomination coming together, it's all happening there in the 50s.

We've talked about that. I know I covered that in my first book on message history quite a bit. But as you transition up to the point that William Brannum dies, eyes. Through those years William Brandon becomes almost entirely dependent on the full gospel businessmen to finance him. After he breaks with voice of healing and all the sanctions come from assemblies of God and four square dozen one anything to do with him anymore as you come into the sixties. William Brandon's primary source of financial sponsorship for what he's doing is coming from the full gospel businessmen. And so what's important to

understand through all of that and because William Brandon was involved from the very beginning key figures in in the movement from even before if they organized in the full gospel businessmen were William Brandon's followers they were part of his cult of personality.

And the very first one I think we got a point out is a man named minor Argon bright minor Argon bright. So minor Argon bright was the co founder of the full gospel businessmen he was one of the original charter members. And he was the international vice president of the organization he was second in command under D. Misha Keria minor Argon bright is from southern Indiana he's from Georgetown Indiana which is about 10 miles from Jeffersonville okay he's from right here in this area where we live from right here. And so he is this international vice president and where did his money come from he was a he ran a very big

construction company and he built skyscrapers is what his construction company you know he wasn't building you know little houses and stuff he was building skyscrapers and they built numerous numerous you know high-rise skyscrapers primarily in the west coast but also in some other parts of the United States and that's where a lot of his wealth came from and he and his family you'll find William Branham talk about him on tape a lot. He and his family were absolutely in the message they were often in attendance at the Branham tabernacle and his family the Argon bright family is

still in the in the message to the present day as far as I know I stand to be corrected but last I knew they're still message followers. He minor Argon bright traveled with William Branham quite a bit on some of his tours I think most notably minor Argon bright was along with Ferrari von Blomberg traveling with William Branham on his tours of Europe in the 50s for example sponsorships for as kind of the the the liaison to the full gospel business and so anyways minor Argon bright is one of the major full gospel businessmen often in attendance at

the Branham tabernacle itself and is the international vice president and co-founder of the full gospel businessmen. He's the first one I think we got a point out. It hits so close to home man I'll never forget somebody shared with me the photograph of William Branham except the keys to a Cadillac which I knew he had a Cadillac I had seen photographs of it and but at the same time I was programmed to believe that he would never take a Cadillac because it was That was what the, that's what these other evangelists were doing and he was condemning

every single one of them for the cars they drove. And they shared with me that the Cadillac that was given to him by the Full Gospel Businessman's Association, which he drove. And I had no idea at that time that the guy giving him the keys just lived, what is it?

15 miles from my house. It's not that far. So to think that this is heating that close to home is kind of funny, but when you think of the broad scale of where this went and how these men, the Full Gospel Businessman, they really shaped what became laterane and continued to shape the charismatic movement.

Their ties are just so deep, the funding, they're tied into multiple aspects of what we have talked through in our, in our historical research podcast. There's just, there's just so many connections. And as I mentioned, these guys are, they're connected to the Kardashian family.

They've got the financial backing of the Kardashian family. And the Shakerians themselves were very wealthy. Demus's father was, what was he, a milk, he was a milk producer or something, had a lot of wealth.

I think his name was Isaac Shakerian and you can even hear some, some tribute to him and in the Full Gospel Businessman's recordings, I've listened to some of those. They also have this massive financial backing of an engine.

They're right here next to the Brannum Tabernacle within, you know, within 20 minutes drive, you can get there. And they're closely connected to William Brannum spearheading the laterane revivals in the post-World War II healing revival.

So this financial engine is really the platform from which everything that we talk about in all of our episodes is built upon. The Full Gospel Businessman, they published magazine called The Voice. Voice magazine, here's some examples of them.

I've got a pretty sizable collection and a lot of them can be found in PDFs online. And at, in most of their magazines, there's a page in here that will list all of the officers of the organization, right?

So like, we're not guessing at who these people are, you know, and a someone who's been in the message. If they were in the message back in the older days or someone that's listened to a lot of the tapes, like, if you get these and you read these names, these names are going to, like, all jump out to you, like, oh, hey, I know them, I know them, I know them.

And so if you want to just kind of fact check and see that these people really were what we're saying, you know, get one of these magazines and just look through it. So men like Minor Argon bright too, and these others we're going to mention, they change positions over the years, right?

So they weren't always consistently vice president or treasure or whatever. They would change positions through the years. But Minor Argon bright was vice president for, I don't know, probably, probably six, seven, eight years, something like that.

person, I think that we've got to mention that was fairly notable was a man named Henry Carlson. You'll find William Brown, I'm talking about Henry Carlson on tape quite a few times. He was one of the top officers of the full gospel businessmen. And if you will remember, Henry Carlson is one of only two people, only two people that William Brown, I'm claim, took his side when he confronted the so-called 350 ministers up in Chicago. Remember that story where, you know, which is, I, you know, we're pretty sure it's a fake or highly exaggerated story. I'll put it that way. But Henry Carlson was on William Brown's side in that row.

And what was that row over? That row was over serpent seed. Henry Carlson was on William Brown's side in the fight over serpent seed, right? If you read through those quotes. Well, who is he? He was one of the top ranking highest ranking leaders in the full gospel businessmen. He was one of the officers. I think at one point he served as treasurer.

I think he might have even been a vice president at one point. And he was on the board of directors certainly for, for a good 15 years. Even after William Brown, I'm died. He continued to be a high ranking figure. So Henry Carlson is another person that we would, I would certainly count being in the message. His family stuck around for quite a few years. And it's possible.

I don't know for sure that his family's still in the message today, but they certainly were in the message up through the 70s and into the early 80s. Yeah, another notable one. Let me give you another one, John. So there's a man named Jewel Rose, Jewel Rose.

Jewel Rose lived in Phoenix, Arizona. He's another wealthy member of the full gospel businessmen. You'll find William Brown talking about Jewel Rose on tape quite a bit too. He's another man who was part of the message. And he served as treasurer. The treasurer of the overall organization of the full gospel businessmen for, I would say maybe 10 years, something like that. He was the treasurer. I think he might have even been their very first treasurer. He was also a member of the message. He followed the message, believed the message was in fairly regular attendance at message churches in Arizona after William

Brown and moved to Arizona and continued to be well into years after William Brown and died. So those are, again, two more of the top senior figures in full gospel businessmen who were followers of the message and regular attenders of message churches.

You mentioned serpent seed, which ties back to all the research that I've done on Christian identity. And this was something that was deeply embedded into the Angeloist temple. We see several people who came from the Angeloist temple who are leading Christian identity figures, key figures such as Wesley Swift, et cetera. Gordon Lindsay was speaking at the Christian identity conferences. We find him embedded into it. Well, one of the things that was a little bit mind-boggling to me when I began to reading the Kardashian connection to all of this, learning that they were also not only

were they part of the four-square organization, they seemed to be very closely aligned with Christian identity. They were sponsoring key figures like Klim Davies, who was also, he was a clansman in, or he promoted the clan, I should say, and he was involved in the Christian identity conferences.

Sponsored him, right before sponsoring Branham, who was also deeply embedded in Christian identity. So you've got all these figures that are tied together at the same time, the FGBMI is being birthed. So we don't have a lot of the information of the early years, like 1947, but you can assume from all of the connections to Christian identity that was part of the platform from which it developed.

Yeah, those things had certainly a place in the four-square denomination where quite a few of these people came from, and it's hard to know precisely who held which position on what. But yeah, Henry Carlson, according to William Branham, took his side in the fight over servancy, you know, with the other ministers.

Okay, a couple other important people, worth mentioning, and next would be Carl and Evan Williams. So Carl Williams and Evan Williams, these are people, some of these you might have met personally, John. No, I've come across paths with a few of these people so far that we're mentioning.

But Carl Williams became the treasurer after jewel rose of the full gospel businessman. He lived in Phoenix, Arizona, that area, Arizona anyway, and he moved there, I believe, with William Branham when the deity cult moved out there in 1963.

That's how Carl Williams ended up out in Arizona. Carl Williams may have been a member of the deity cult. There's certain people I'm not sure. I have suspicions, but I don't have any solid evidence.

There's a good chance Carl Williams was a member of the deity cult. He was on the board of directors of the full gospel businessman for quite a few years, and like I said, he picked up the treasurer spot after jewel rose stopped being treasurer.

And Carl Williams continued to be treasurer of the full gospel businessman into the mid-1970s, John, like all the way after William Branham had died. And so that was, that's very notable. The message, the full gospel businessman's treasurer was still the member of the message for years after William Branham died, all right?

And the way the full gospel businessman worked is they would set up like local chapters in different cities or states. And the Williams became more or less the presidents or the leaders of the full gospel businessman's chapter in Arizona and Phoenix.

And Carl Williams' son, Evan Williams, I believe. that position after Carl Williams did. I believe the Wumes themselves are actually from Chicago is my recollection. I'm not going to say that's 100% sure, but my understanding is they came from Chicago and they followed William Brannum to Arizona when all the deity cult moved out there and 64.

So those are another two very notable, the Williams family, these are people who are still, again, to the best of my knowledge, this family is still in the message to the present day,

were high ranking senior figures in the full gospel businessmen, even in the years after William Brannum died. And if I remember correctly, Carl Williams was in real estate, that's where he made most of his money, these guys are connected to very, very wealthy people.

So this is the financial engine, not only was this responsible, largely for spreading what became the charismatic movement, but the financial backing of most of the movement, as you get into some of the, some of the things that we're going to be talking about in future episodes, this FGBMI engine was part of the finances for most of it, part of William Brannum's financing for his, what was it, his European trip?

I believe it was with Baron von Blumberg as part of that. So this thing is a huge financial engine, and it attracted businessmen who were wealthy, generally to these meetings, so that they could help fund all of this thing.

You know, there's people out there, John, who I've seen it in the comment threads, we're say things along the line of, oh no, William Brannum wouldn't have been staying with the full gospel businessmen, you know, he was on his way out and all of this, you silly, silly, silly people.

No, the full gospel businessmen overlapped with the message. William Brannum's own cult followers, were not gonna throw him out, okay? And the figures in the message were one of the major factions of the full gospel business.

He was not on his way out. He was on his way to the top. This was his chance to rebound is what this was being set up to be. Had he not died, he almost certainly would have rebounded through this, just like oral Roberts and AL, all the other guys used this to rebound into the 70s, right?

William Brannum would have did the same thing, and he was set up, frankly, better than the rest of them to rebound for it, because he had more of their board in his back pocket than oral Roberts or the rest of them did, okay?

That's how these things work, okay? And people are just so silly, John. I just, I don't know, I don't know what it is, you know, they probably just don't have the awareness of these things like we do, you know, because I mean, these people were in our churches.

So, I mean, we know maybe in a way that they don't. So, another prominent figure that you'll notice, and he, I don't, I should go through the books and figure out precisely when this guy got on the board.

He wasn't there begin to begin. and with, but I want to say it was the late 50s, probably 57, 58, he gets on the board. Is Jack Moore, John? Jack Moore of Shreveport, Louisiana ends up on the board of directors of the Full Gospel businessman.

And my impression is that this happened after William Brownham had his big, big break up with voice of healing, right? Jack Moore was also one of the leaders of voice of healing, basically. And Jack Moore is actually the fellow who had helped connect William Brownham, via Gordon Lindsay to the four square and these fine answers back in 1947 and 48.

Remember, Jack Moore was the man who connected William Brownham to these guys. So he ends up on the board of directors as well. And we know Jack Moore is not someone we would call in the message.

I certainly wouldn't. I would call him a latter rain friendly guy, a latter rain influence guy. But he was certainly a very good friend of William Brownham and certainly would have voted and moved favorably to William Brownham.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it's so crazy to think of that history. I think I mentioned it in our revival history series that we did that I came in contact with a person in the post office who had been to Jack Moore's church when William Brownham was there.

And he swore to me that you could do anything that you wanted in life. I think he even used the word prostitute. He said, you could go out and be with prostitutes if you wanted to.

He said, because we've already seen God come and leave this earth. So we're now living in the new world, the new millennium. And he was referencing Jack Moore's church where apparently the deity cult was heavily, heavily involved, the brand of deity cult and came back.

And I mean, these people believe very clearly that there is no need for rapture. This is the new kingdom. God has, Jesus has came and gone and that Jesus was William Brownham. It, you're exactly right.

And William Brownham held his last major set of meetings at Jack Moore's church before he died. Okay, he held his big meetings at Jack Moore's church in November. He died in December. Like, don't, there was not, I mean, this was all still there.

I mean, it's not like this thing was fading that way. And that, that's actually the meetings where, if you remember, William Brownham talked about being possessed by the demon squirrel. Yeah. Was that Jack Moore's church?

Yeah. Well, and there's other ties too. So he's, William Brownham is speaking at Jack Moore's church. He's nationally praising Roy E. Davis, the, had the imperial wizard of the clan. And Davis had his biggest most publicized event right there in Shreveport where Jack Moore's church was.

All over the newspapers, the headlines, this is the imperial wizard, they held this big, very publicized rally where they were, Taking newspaper reporters into the clan rally and I mean all of this is in the newspapers you can go look I've even got on the Roy Davis page you can read some of them on the On the website Davis posed in the full clan garb and this is in Shreveport keep in mind these these are taking the years William Brandham was most active in that church so as he's mentioning Roy Davis every single person in

Shreveport is fully aware that Brandham is talking about the imperial wizard of the clan and praising him and talking about his connections to him and how Roy Davis basically ordained him and mentored him in the faith so that's we can't say that Jack Moore's church was in the clan we don't know that we don't have they burned all the records otherwise we might have some of it but all we can say is he is just praising Davis and Davis is one of the most public figures right there during the era in in Shreveport 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-brandham.org on the book's page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley Steven 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-brandham Historical Research we want to thank you for your support at the top tier of leadership in full gospel businessmen um William-brandham is these are guys William-brandham has taken on his hunting trips these are guys William-brandham is letting into his inner circle go into dinner with he their William-brandham is courting these people constantly courting these people constantly doing relationship maintenance with these people constantly working on them for years and years and years all the way up to the end of his life

and he's some of them as a result of William-brandham's courtship have fallen in yeah into his cult of personality um let's let's talk about next sum of the junior figures in the full gospel business so so far so far everyone I've talked about is top tier national level leadership okay and it's it's not the majority of the top level of leadership but as you can see it is it is major figures it's the treasurer it is the board of directors right it's the vice president right it's high ranking figures in the organization but down through the ranks of the organization there

are lots of others too um For example, the, you know, we mentioned the Dow family, which their name is spelled D-A-U-C-H, pronounced, I believe pronounced Dow. They're the family, they're family invented corrugated cardboard, right?

Very, very wealthy family from inventing basically cardboard boxes. And they're the family who basically intervened through the full gospel businessmen to give the endowment to keep the brand of tabernacle afloat and try to heal the dispute that happened after William Brandham died, right?

The full gospel businessmen though gave endowments and financial support to quite a few message churches back in those days after William Brandham died. And quite a few of the leaders back then were a full gospel businessmen.

Banks Woods was himself a full gospel businessmen. We've talked about Banks Woods a few times. He was, he owned a large construction company. That's where a lot of his revenue came from in real estate.

Fred Soffman, who was absolutely a member of the D-D-Colt, I would call him the leader of the D-D-Colt almost. I think that would be fair. Fred Soffman, who was trustee of Voice of God recording, who was trustee of the tabernacle, the William Brandham Evangelistic Association, full on D-D-Colt member, he was a full gospel businessmen for a period of time back then.

Perry Green, the Tucson tabernacle. Perry Green was a full gospel businessmen. You even hear Perry Green would, Perry Green liked to brag about being rich. We're gonna do some full episodes on Perry Green here for this thing's over with.

But Perry Green claimed, and again, you're always kind of left wondering, is it true, is it not true? Perry Green claimed that in 1964, the year he converted to the message that he had an income that year, which by inflation would translate to $750,000 a year.

That's what he claimed his income was that year. And he owned a milk delivery company. He owned a travel agency. He owned a construction company. He owned something else. He had like, he said he had like seven corporations.

Yeah, I mean, these guys were very, very well to do. There was a reason William Brandham was spending his time with these guys, okay? And there's a reason he was courting them. Another really prominent one, that grew in prominence after William Brandham died.

This man was not in the message before William Brandham died, but converted somewhat after, was a man named Lonnie Jenkins. He was a full gospel businessman. He ended up being sponsored through the full gospel businessman also to be connected with the church.

And I've been told, Lima or Lima, you take it or leave it, Ohio, Lima or Lima, Ohio and a church up there which became a pretty important message church. He was in the full gospel businessman.

And another figure we've talked about a number of times who was a full gospel businessman who was Orlando Walker. Orlando Walker had a church in Oregon. I believe it's called Paramount Full Gospel Church.

I believe it's... that was the name of it. It was a message church. He was a full gospel businessman right. And again, the full gospel businessman helped sponsor and maintain some of these churches through those years. In addition to planting other churches, which you're going to talk about as time goes on. But yeah, these are all people in the full gospel businessman. I got one more I want to talk to after this, but yeah, that's quite a few people, isn't it, John? Quite a few people.

It is. And it attracted so many wealthy people. If you go through the the history of all of the major connections into it, I mean, we're talking so Bethel Church. If you go back in Bethel Church's history, you find full gospel businessman associated with the leadership and Bethel. We're talking key figures and major mega churches. And they're backed by these very, very wealthy people. And you can't help but stop and think as you're thinking of the organizational strategy of this business. Do you go back and you think about the passage from what is it, Matthew 19? I think

it is about the it's it's easier for to put a camel through the eye of a needle than a rich man into the kingdom of God. Well, here's an organization that they're trying to put camels through needles all over the country, man. You know, John, there's, you know, okay, I'm putting on my opinion hat, okay?

You wonder you wonder what's going on. You know, what what is this all about? And you've been in the message, you know, as long as me, John, we were in the message for decades and decades and decades. And it seems to me that in most significant message churches, the pastor, the deacons, the senior leadership generally are the wealthiest people in the church.

Absolutely. They are business owners. They are rich one way or another is some and not necessarily they got rich through the church. But being rich is what seems to be the thing that qualifies them to be deacons and senior leaders, okay? Now, why is I don't know why that is from a from a official

scientific examination sort of an answer, John? I don't know necessarily why that is. But I'm going to give you my opinion, okay? My opinion is that it goes all the way back to William Brannum. These were the people William Brannum wanted around him. Why did William Brannum run him around him for their money, for their money? And he gave them these positions and he put them into these spots for their money, okay? Because they were donating and financing him and the people in the message continued the pattern that they observed William Brannum doing while he was living,

okay? And so to this day, you end up with the senior leaders in every church being wealthy people. And the truth is, John, I've been in message churches my whole life. Quite a lot of those people are absolute scoundrels, absolute dirty scoundrels, John.

To a tee, dirty scoundrels, some of the worst message believers, I mean, they give message believers a bad name, some of these guys are so bad, I mean, absolute scoundrels, John. And yeah, some of, I could, I could go down names.

I could tell you which ones of them are racists. I could tell you which ones of them are homosexuals. I could tell you all the, the adulteries they committed. And yes, they're absolute scoundrels, even according to the standards of the message.

Yeah, there they are. Yeah, there they are. What in the world? Can you explain that to me, except they courted them for their money? I, I don't know how to explain it other than that.

I have went back in my mind going through the memories of being in the brand of tabernacle. Once I, once I found out the money engine that's behind this thing and see, we were manipulated to think that William Brandham was such a poor person.

And I'll never forget the shock that I had whenever I saw the first newspaper article saying that in these revivals, as early as 1947, it took two very husky men to carry out the boxes of money from these revivals.

And then I was going back to the memory after that. And most of the men that Grandpa called on to pray, which was like this big honor in the message. Before you close the service, you call on somebody to pray and everybody just feels blast.

Most of those people were very wealthy when you really think about it. Now did he purposely choose the wealthy for? I don't know, but I can tell you that most of them had money.

It's so strange, isn't it? So again, okay, so I'm taking my opinion hat back off, okay? I'm going to come back to put the fact hat back on. All right, so next person on the list I want to talk about, John, is actually Orlando Walker's son, Gerald Lee Walker.

And he's probably the last person I'm going to mention here. So he was still on the board of directors into the 1980s, John, in the full gospel businessmen, all the way up through nearly to the end of Dema Shakerian's life.

And I think it would be fair to say that Gerald Lee Walker led a civil war in the full gospel businessmen while he was still living to basically try and overthrow Dema Shakerian. And you know, again, there's things there you can kind of wonder about what all that was, but what I can say is, hey, the message people that were in leadership positions attempted a rebellion against Dema Shakerian in the 80s to get control of the organization.

That happened. That absolutely happened. That is part of the internal politics of what happened in the 80s in the full gospel businessmen. Now, they failed. They did not get control. Dema Shakerian held on, right?

And it ended up that the... you know, Gerald Lee Walker, and those were the guys that ended up on the losing side, but the full gospel businessman went down the drains more or less after that.

They lost all their influence, and what happened there? What happened there in the 80s? The full gospel businessman lost, lost all the message members of their organization. Okay. That happened in the 80s. And so that we're going to kind of set to a side.

Maybe when we get to the 80s, we'll talk about that. But when you come back into the 1970s, late 60s and 70s, it's very important to remember the full gospel businessman, not the majority, not all of them, but a large faction of them, including key figures, were members of the message, attendees of message churches, close confidants in some ways to William Branham.

They helped endow some of the early message churches with lots and lots and lots of money. And so I say all this, I'm not trying to say that the message controlled the full gospel businessman, right, or that the full gospel businessman was the message.

That's not the case. That's not the case. But they held the message people held key spots in the full gospel businessman, such that they were able to channel a lot of the financial resources of that organization into the message community to sponsor message missionary work, right?

And so as we consider how the message expanded in its growth and how it financed that, this is one of the key ways a lot of that was financed in those very early years.

The message was small. As 5,000 people and 35 churches, there's limited financial resources there if you think about it as their average people, but there's not average people. A lot of these are super wealthy, high ranking leaders in a organization that is loaded with money, and they're able to push those resources into the message.

And a large part of the early mission work that the message did overseas was heavily subsidized by the full gospel businessman. And some of the major message churches that grew up in North America after William Branham died did so due to large endowments provided to them by the full gospel businessman. You know, you mentioned Gerald Lee Walker, and it's interesting the timing of me recording this episode because I still continue to get letters about Sarah Branham, William Branham's daughter and her disappearance. And all of the strange ties, my family had direct ties to Sarah right before she disappeared. And she was supposed to come visit my family

right before she disappeared. And that research is all on hold. I still get emails. I just got one last night. I'm asking, where is Sarah? And it basically became, I'll just say it like this, it became best in our best interest to halt on that research because there are some complications and some maybe some dangers.

there. So we put it on hold. But I still get questions and comments about that. Well, so Gerald Lee Walker was a treasurer for the full gospel businessman. He was also the attorney for Sarah Brannum. And if you look at the time in which there was this shake up and it looks like the message people were trying to get in bed here during this time, he is Sarah Brannum's attorney. Also, not long before this, I want to say it was maybe three years or so. You had the Brannum family in the, I think I mentioned this the last episode, ordinary people organization

where you had Brannum's two sons and you had T. L. Osborne and Kenneth Hagen Ministries joining together for some collaboration. We don't know what it was, but we see two organizations founded. So as you see the message trying to get in bed with this organization, you also see all these connections to word of faith prosperity gospel and they're connected directly to William Brannum's daughter. So all these connections, you can't say where it went because all of it just kind of dissipated. But you can look at it, you can kind of piece together what might have happened had it all worked out. And the shape of the shape of the charismatic

movement after the eighties would have looked entirely different had the Brannum's got their hands on it. You said something there that's just fascinating. I mean really struck me, John. So I knew Gerald Lee Walker was on the board of directors of the full gospel businessman, but I didn't realize he was the treasurer until you brought, you know, you kind of showed that article there. That is fascinating. So John, when all the stuff went down with Sarah Brannum, I have a whole section in my book on this. And for our friends out there, my church served as

the mediator between Sarah Brannum and the rest of her family. Okay. I have all of the legal documents that Gerald Walker created in my, I have copies of everything. And William Brannum are rather Raymond Jackson, our pastor secretly loved to secretly record things. John, I have copies of the recordings of Raymond Jackson with George Smith and Rebecca Smith and Billy Paul Brannum and Sarah Brannum through that whole period as he mediated that holding. Now did they know he was making those recordings? I don't know. But John, I know everything about all of that stuff. Okay.

Well, in time, we can, we can try and get there and talk about some of that stuff. But yeah, there's some really, really, really ugly stuff that happened there. And then Sarah Brannum disappeared. Yeah. And Gerald Lee Walker was her lawyer through it. So anyways, I didn't realize that Gerald Lee Walker was treasurer. So what that tells me, John, this is so interesting, is that from the time that the full gospel businessman was founded into what, 1985, 86, 87, roughly, the majority of those years, if not all of those years, the treasurer of the full gospel

businessman internet. National was a member of the message. Yes Okay, it was absolutely through the 60 up and through the 50s and 60s he was absolutely through the 70s He was and quite possibly John, I mean I would want to go back and look and see if there was a gap between Carl Williams and Gerald Lee Walker as Treasurer, but if it went straight from Carl Williams to Gerald Lee Walker The Treasurer of the Full Gospel Businessman was a message follower into the 19 middle late 1980s, John Mind blown All right everybody look I mean we're not making this stuff up

Okay, it's crazy right and this is absolutely how money is flowing I know this is how money is flowing. It's not the only way and they're voting it. It's not I'm not saying it's all I'm not even saying it's like under the table or anything nefarious. It's all legit I think what's going on but the board of directors and everything approves it all out the Treasurer's got influence right I mean it's happening right. I mean if you are running an organization you just think about this I'm running an organization and I say I want a channel a million dollars to mission work this year

Treasurer please channel this money to mission work And who who gets to pick the mission work they're gonna sponsor right you just think about this Yeah, okay, it's a big deal The connections to the Full Gospel Businessman are mind boggling I abated the hook at the very beginning of this episode if you didn't catch it but talking about It was also connected to O.J. Simpson If you read the book the Kardashians and you understand what it is that they're talking about It's kind of crazy. They do mention the Full Gospel Businessman in that book

But the connection to O.J. So for example Demo Shakerian was the founder of Full Gospel Businessman His son was at Richard Shakerian I think he became the international president something like this his daughter Denise Shakerian She was for a period of time Engaged to Robert Kardashian who became famous during the O.J. trial Robert Kardashian who was Descended I can't remember how how many loaves descended from Tatos the sponsor of all of this He's the one that allegedly led O.J. to Become a Christian and took him to his first Bible study etc So you got all of these connections. It's just so weird and

Denise Shakerian so the movie gone in 60 seconds Denise Shakerian who is deeply embedded into this thing right her father's head of the Full Gospel Businessman She was the She was one of the producers of the Gone in 60 seconds movie with Nicholas Cage and there's some tie. I think it's her her Husbands Father or maybe her husband produced the 1970s movie gone in 60 seconds her acted in it, something like this. You can find all most of that information in the Kardashians book.

But the connections are just mind-boggling to both entertainment, religion, money, finances, and scandals, which we're going to get into later.

Oh my goodness, John. So there's some other important things I think I like to point out about the full gospel businessmen, too, because as you come into the late 60s and into the 70s, they're sponsoring a lot of stuff. Lots and lots of money. I mean, I would say probably in today's money, certainly hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, were being sponsored and flowing through the full gospel businessmen. And the things that they were sponsoring were quite vast, quite, quite vast. And through that period of time, right? Yep, they were given endowments to

start message searches. Yes, they were some of their mission money was being directed to message missionaries that were spreading the message in Africa and South America and the Philippines in different places. That was happening. But they're also helping launch televangelism, okay? So they're also paying for a TV program lineup. And they started to develop this TV program lineup in 1968.

So we're 1968, what we're two, three years after William Brownham has died. And Pat Robertson had came into contact with all these guys. And I want to say 1956, 1957, something like that. And developed a relationship with them. And he started the Christian Broadcasting Network. And when he did, it was just it was a single kind of a po-dunk TV station, okay, when this thing started out.

But the full gospel businessman, when they got involved in it, they just they financed a television lineup. And it was their financial support. I'll say that really helped push the CBN network over the line and into its path to become a powerhouse. And so as they financed that TV lineup starting in 1968, you know, two and a half, three years after William Brownham has died, we know we've said before, almost certainly, William Brownham would have been in those TV slots if he had lived. But instead, we do see Oral Roberts. Or Roberts would have been in the TV

slots one way or the other, for sure, because he was right right there with William Brownham neck and neck with these guys. But what we see happening is the slots that William Brownham filled as keynote speaker at their conventions, after he died, you get three guys who take over those slots for the full gospel businessman, Tommy Osborne, Derek Prince, and Kenneth Hagen.

Those three guys take over the key speaking slots at their conventions that William Brownham previously filled. They had already been, those three guys had already been at their conventions, they had more or less been the junior people. Next to William Brownham, at those conventions like Derek Prince would warm up the crowd and introduce William Brannum.

Kenneth Hagin would prophesy and get the people all excited and turn it over to William Brannum, right? Tommy Osborne, it was all the same thing. They were like the introductory acts to William Brannum who then was the main act at the Full Gospel Businessmen shows. And so when William Brannum dies, they get his slots in the, they basically get promoted up to the senior speaking role now. And the same thing we see happens when they launch their TV lineup. Those same three guys, Kenneth Hagin, Derek Prince and Tommy Osborne end up into these television slots that

they're funding on the CBM network. And this is what does a whole whole lot to launch those three men into popularity. And so that's happening right in the same window of time, right? 68, 69, right at the same time that these schisms and stuff we're talking about are happening in the message. So it's an interesting time frame. And it's also interesting just to kind of realize it's some of the same people financing both sides of what we're talking about here.

And the irony of all of this is I grew up with men preaching who knew this history. They all knew it. Many of them were old enough. They were there when all of this was happening. When all of this was being set up. And they preached against the televangelists and the charismatic just railing them saying things that, you know, we had a profit for this age and he would have never agreed with all of this. And they're not telling the people who are sitting in the pews listening to this nonsense that it was literally random who created all of this. And they know it. Some of them were there,

some of them watched this stuff. But they're preaching it in an attempt to turn this away and further isolate these people away from all of the rest of Christianity. That's how bad and weird this gets. But these men were there. They knew it. And you look at, you mentioned Kenneth Hagen, I still get hate mail from people who were, I guess you'd call them in the Kenneth Hagen cult.

I don't know how you would say this, but they, they so avidly defend Kenneth Hagen and say he was never part of this. Kenneth Hagen was right there, man. He was right there. Absolutely. It's unbelievable. Word of faith is a direct cousin of the message. And yeah, the word of faith movement, it's a cult, ladies and gentlemen, I run from your life from them too. Anyway, you know, kind of coming back to the message, I mean, you're right, John. And of course, William Brannum would have did it. Okay, we have two videos of William Brannum, 20th century profit and deep calls the deep.

We have two motion picture videos of William Brannum, who made paid for and funded those videos. The full gospel business man. Okay. All right. And when William Brannum, so we know they, they basically buried those videos when William Brandham died. Now, why did they bury them? They buried them because Carol Ruth Strubler died. The little girl he said was healed, died two weeks later, and was in the news. So they, when he was, yeah, they buried him. And when we talk about Perry Green, we'll talk about this some more, but Perry Green, who was a full gospel businessman,

got those out of the archives from full gospel businessmen after William Brandham died, and starts using that. That's how the message community gets them, right? They made it, Carol Ruth Strubler died. They buried it. Years go by, people forget. And Perry Green pulls it out of the full gospel businessman archives. And hey, look, we've got these videos of William Brandham killing Carol Ruth Strubler. Praise the Lord. Look at how that little girl was healed.

These people were scumbags, John. I mean, what a dirt bag would do with things like that. I'll tell you the dirt bags name. Well, when we get to those episodes, but anyways, this is, this is what, this was William Brandham absolutely would have went along with going on television. He already was the full gospel businessman. We're already paying for it, right?

And you want my opinion. The thing that derailed William Brandham from going to television faster than he did was the fact that Carol Ruth Strubler died in the second video he recorded, and put us in the newspapers. That is my explanation as to why he didn't go into TV to begin with.

But yeah, he definitely would have ended up up there before it was all said and done. So I don't know, John, there's so much more we could say about the connection to the full gospel businessman. I'm sure we will say a lot more through our next episodes.

You know, as we continue to look at the post-Brandham years, but I felt like we needed at this stage to just really bring it home for our listeners that senior leaders in the full gospel businessman were message followers, right? Not to say that the full gospel businessman was the message or controlled by the message. It was a, it was a complimentary group. They had a lot of the same ideology, overlapping ideology in a lot of ways. But the people who were in the message, you're in the senior post of the full gospel businessman were absolutely in a position to help

direct the finances of that organization to support the message in those critical years after William Brandham died, just as they had been doing before he died. And that is part of what helps explains how the message was able to recover and enter into explosive growth by the early 1970s.

Yeah, and you know, you mentioned Carol Ruth Struebler. I actually did not, I was not aware that she had died until you had shared that with me. But interestingly, after you had shared that with me, it was maybe a year later, I came in contact with an old timer who was around during all of these meetings. And he told me that he was aware. And many people were aware that this girl died.

And it was mind boggling like it was shaking to them. They were completely shaken because of this fact. And you know, it's, it's hard to believe how much has been covered up. Not only are they covering up William Brandham's failures and making this theatrical religion, they're failing to mention all these connections.

So whenever the New Apostolic Reformation mentions William Brandham and his great healing ministry that never failed and his prophecies that were fully accurate, many of these men and women are fully aware that that is not the case. But in theater, it makes for a better story. So they're basically just painting the picture that all of this is this wonderful movement that has no flaws and they're taking all the flaws and this week making them under the rug. So as you get further in this series, which we're going to expose this, you're going to begin to realize that all of the things that are being said about

this movement and how it developed, all of it is based off of things that they're concealing from the people. And I could go on and on about all of the cover-ups, but we'll save it for the next episode, Charles. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-brandham.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org.

For more about the history of William Brandham and the healing revivals, read Come Out of Her My People, Available on Amazon and Kindle. And for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.