The Silent Revolution: Embracing Critical Thought for the Progression of Faith

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-Brandom.org and with me I have my co-host and friend Bob Scott, former co-founder of the Kansas City Fellowship and author of Some Said They Blundered, breaking my decades of silence on Mike Bickle, the Kansas City Prophets, and the International House of Prayer. Bob, it's good to be back and to talk all things critical thinking. I don't know if you saw the comments on the last one we did but we

we didn't really plan it this way but we got engaged into a conversation on critical thinking and people were just eating it up because apparently for some people this is a new and fascinating thing and for me it's like I'm just wired that way I always critically think and so I grew up in you know this I grew up in a religion that was Pentecostal, Branemism, called nonsense and what was not unique? One of the things that is shared across most of the Pentecostal platforms that I have studied is the fact that science is discouraged. In fact

you'll find them referencing passages from Genesis talking about how all the good guys were farmers and sheep herders and the bad guys they they were musicians and that struck a raw bone with me man because I'm a musician and you know they they go through these passages and they just take it way out of context but I grew up with sermon after sermon sciences of the devil and whenever I began to examine some of the other religious faiths out there I started with Pentecostal movements because I didn't know where my family was going to go to

church after leaving and I found that that was a common thread sciences of the devil and I am one of the people who pays attention whenever I'm being taught and in school whenever I was taking science class there were no absolutes science is a theory if you if you want to prove something is true you go through a series of steps and then at the end of it it at the end of the process it is left such that we're not saying this is 100% absolute that we believe x, y, or z but based on the knowledge that we have today at the current time this is

what it is most likely to be and we're open to suggestion later And interestingly, that's literally how I have modeled my life. I'm open to anything. I may change reverse course on many things, but I wanted to, you know, after we discussed those comments and we both came to the decision, be good to just talk about critical thinking in general, because when people hear this word critical, they go nuts.

They think, oh, these are skeptics and it's actually quite the opposite. You could religion, religion could not have existed in the way that it does today. Christianity would not exist without people who critically thought.

So I wanted to open the discussion of this just a little bit. Well, I want to bring in a sector of science, we'll call it sociology, which is a part of the scientific world, because I think people, I think everybody's aware of this, but it's just good to lay it out again.

What stimulates guys like us actually creates fear in others. And the reason for that is that so much of our existence is based on being secure, right? We want to feel safe. We want to feel secure.

And so safe and secure come through predictability, consistency, right? In other words, you know what I mean? We love routine, you know, we want to feel safe. So that's kind of a default setting that all of us humans have.

So when you come along and you start challenging conventional wisdom where people feel safe, right? We've always thought this way. This is the way it's always bent, right? What people don't realize is you actually create fear.

Because suddenly now, oh my God, I've been living my whole life with this understanding. I feel safe and secure in what I know. And now you're suddenly telling me what I know. I don't know.

You know what I mean? It unnerves people. So the reason I bring that up is a lot of times when guys like you and I start down this road of just kind of peaking behind the curtain and pulling up things and going, you know, what is this?

Like really, right? That for some people creates fear, right? They don't respect like what's lower salivating over there, cowering, going, no, right? And so I always want to be respectful to people and just let them know if you're going to listen to us, if you're going to go on this journey with us, we're kind of like to cosmonauts, right?

We're just kind of, you know, I mean, we left Earth and we're out here and we're just looking at everything and here's what, again, for us, it's exciting. And for a lot of other people, it's exciting, right?

Because they've been disillusioned. They've gone through things where they felt safe, and suddenly they realized that their whole life was based on a lie, or a segment of their life was, right? And so it's like, so there's a lot of people right now, especially where the church world is, that are kind of taking a step back and going, what do I think I really know?

And what I think I know, is it really true, right? So there's kind of an openness right now, which is the only reason why I feel a little bit more safe and having some of these discussions right now, because I think people are searching.

You know, kind of, you know, I mean, they've come out of some things, and they're sort of in the wilderness of, you know, what is this, right? Yeah. Well, the interesting part for me, I've put a lot of thought into critical thought, because I was told that it was evil, you know, if you have critical thinking, that's the devil talking to you.

And so in the back of your mind, you've got this at all times, I still do, because that was literally brainwashed into my head. If you're thinking, that's the devil, brother. But that's not the way it works.

The believers in Berea, they critically examined, and I wish the Bible had said what it was that they found, but whatever it was they found, they became convinced that this was, that Christianity was true, and so they went with it, but it happened because they critically thought.

And one of the things that I find really fascinating, it really struck me how wrong it was after I had children, because when you have children, and you're teaching them anything, whether it's the Bible or whether it's, you know, I'm changing the oil in my car, they're gonna ask a lot of questions, because that's how they learn.

They learn by asking questions, and some of the questions they're asking are sometimes quite difficult to answer, right? In all aspects, you know, religion or not, but that's their brain's way of understanding the world around them.

And then we get stuck in this religion that tries to suppress that, and they started a very young age, and I can't even imagine the damage it has done, because that is literally how your brain processes the world around it, and it hit me a second time.

So it hit me first after having children, and I began to understand, no, this is wrong. You can't do this to people's minds. But then after I started working with the support groups of people who were escaping a cult, it got really weird, and I'm gonna try to say this in the most non-offensive way for people who have gone through this, and those who have made it through the other side will understand, but those who are in it right now, they won't.

People have been so manipulated to suppress critical thinking, that in some ways they have the mental growth of a child, sometimes in a human adult body. They've only progressed so far because they've not been allowed to critically think.

And so when they get into the support groups, now they're processing everything from the perspective of somebody who's like in their mid-teens and I've watched it time and time again. Some of the people just go wild and they're trying new things that the cult condemned and they're going way too far in the extreme with it.

And then they kind of mellow out and after they have asked all the questions and experimented all of the experiments, they kind of mellow out. But the harm that is done from the cult is because of suppressing critical thinking.

It's like coiling a spring, a bunch of springs because each person in the pew is one. And then suddenly they're all uncoiled whenever any critical thought enters their mind. They bounce around like a spring and it's sad to watch.

It really hurts me to think what they've done to the minds of the people. Again, we're talking out loud so people understand here, we're having dialogue and we're throwing things out and we're having this discussion and some of these things just pop into my head.

But here's something that I've observed. Religion, institutional religion, by nature is about preserving the past. Yes. Whether that's Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, right? In other words, we have these people in our past who, as we talked about previously, some of them, they don't even know that there's a microbiological world of viruses and bacteria and DNA and chemical and they don't know any of this, right?

So we're and they have a belief system and a way of viewing the world and institutional religion is about preserving that past, right? Science, the very nature of it, right, is about exploring the future.

So just in the very nature of these two communities, you already are at odds with each other because one's pulling you path, right? Every Sunday morning we go in and we open up the Bible and we refer back to a story that happened thousands of years ago.

Science is always looking at what's happening tomorrow, right? Looking forward. So where in history this becomes the, I don't know, I mean, and again, I'm just thinking out loud here, but it seems to me that the 15 right around the 1500s, you have a very interesting dynamic in play in the world because you have the reframation, right?

So you have a group of religious leaders who are doing the unthinkable and check. Elanging the history right the conventional wisdom where everybody feels safe and secure right This is the norm. This is our subculture world view our ideology our theology all of this and they come along and they Challenge that right? Well, what happens when they do that the minute that that happens a whole group of other guys i.e.

Galileo Copernicus Mendelssohn right all of these guys who a lot some of them are priests right which is crazy right some You know some of these guys are leaders in the church Suddenly challenge all this conventional wisdom right right and what ends up happening right?

So not only are you having a theological conflict between Luther and the you know in the Catholic church You're having a scientific You know collision with all of these men who are basically doing one thing you know what they're after Confirming to discover God Yeah, right in other words what's driving science is this world that we live in Was created by a creator who is this guy And how does this world really work that he put us in right there They're not trying to be anti-Christian or anti-god. They're actually trying to discover God. That's their quest right

Right, but what happens is is they create fear right Because they're challenging the institutional thinking And then you have this collision and of course it gets violent right people get crucified people get burned at the stake You know all these horrible things happen as you see these two You know kind of perspective colliding between the past and the future. Yeah The best example of this is in Genesis I've mentioned this somewhat before and I'm not going to open up the can of worms of old earth versus new earth That's for somebody else to discuss the date but

but The critical thinking about the Bible itself gets really weird because the human mind Has the ability to understand concepts But when put into a religious setting many of those concepts are shut off Such as it was it was believed for decades that Moses wrote the you know the books of Moses the the Pentate In doing so he would have written about his own death Which is not humanly possible But for millennia people are centuries people didn't think about this They didn't open up and think now how did he write about his own death right

And That's also a can of worms. I'm not gonna open. I'll set that off

I did a little bit you pop the can you let the air out But so bringing it in a little bit further, the gospels, I've heard Sermon after Sermon how the gospels were eyewitness testimony. This becomes problematic because some of the things that they're talking about, especially with regards to Mary and Joseph, well, if an eyewitness was there, what was he doing in this area with these people? Did they follow them to Egypt and back? Did they go, you know, this maybe it was, but the way in which we understand the Bible, I think has been

a little bit skewed. And where I'm heading with this is the Book of Genesis. So one of the problems that existed is that Genesis is talking about before the world was formed, before there was a human on it. So if a human is writing about this, a human had to have written the Book of Genesis, if a human is writing this, a human wasn't there whenever the world was formed. So it started the debate, was it pinned by God? Did God pin it through the man? And that's a majority of Christians, I think believe that. And then there's the other perception that this was, I've heard this in one

of the churches I was in, it became a series of verbal stories. So God told Adam how the world was formed and then Adam told his descendants and it was just passed down until somebody was able to write it down. And I've played that game in school where you whisper something in somebody's ear and go around the circle. It becomes a little bit problematic to think of it like that. But where I'm heading with this is the Firmament. One of the passages says God created the Firmament.

And the Firmament literally meant a blanket of shiny thingies. And people who challenge this got in big trouble because the scientists who are trying to imagine this blanket of shiny things, but yet the world is turning and they can map the stars out. They can see how the stars shift with the earth over the ages. They began to understand that it's probably not a blanket of shiny thingies. But if you challenge this, the church fought you heavily. And in today's world, Christianity would never say this. We've seen the stars. We've sent the, you know, the mario.

We'll tell us how things to Galileo. Exactly. So where I'm heading with this is the problem is rather than being open to the idea that maybe we have a partial understanding, but we don't have the whole understanding. That's really missing from this. The church has, for decades, for centuries. They've tried to block people from thinking outside of the box.

And in doing so, it really hinders the progression of understanding. And it could be debated. Does it matter? I don't know. For me, it matters. I want to know. things that are true. I don't want to know things that are partially true. But whenever science tries to attempt to challenge anything that is commonly thought in the religious circles, rather than being open to, oh, let's experiment. Let's see if what we believe is true. They take the opposite approach. No, it's false. I don't care what you say.

Yeah, exactly. Well, if you think about it, you know, in the time of Abraham and the ancients, they believe that the heavens told a story and that you could predict the future from those shiny things in the form of heaven, right? Which is really interesting to me, because, you know, we can have a session another time about what is prophetic, but the thing that fascinates me is that humans, since the beginning of time, have always wanted to know what the future is. It gets back to this need to feel safe and secure, right? It's like we want to know

it's like we have this fear of living in the moment. I need to know what's coming. You know what I mean, there's this paranoia. We have this fear of the unknown, right? So even the ancients for like that, it's like we want to know what the future is. Well, in their case, those little shiny things in the heaven told the future. At least that was a whole world view by a whole group of people, right? Then you had all these rulers who wanted to know what the future was, right?

Because they wanted to know if I take my army and, you know, if I'm in the Pharaoh and I'm going to attack the Assyrians, who's going to win? So they bring the guy in the astrologer guy, right?

Who's looking at the shiny things and doing this little thing and he goes, oh, okay, King, you know, the heavens declared that you will win. It's all off they go, right? But I'm just saying that was like the norm, right? For thousands of years of humanity. Yeah. Right? How people thought, right? There was the idea of what's crazy about the ancient world, what I find interesting is arithmetic, trigonometry, geometry, right? I don't know. Those are those sciences. I don't think they're considered scientists. Anyways, the world is like way ahead. Like when you go back and you

look at these ancient structures and the things that humans built, right? It's all math, right? It's all angle, right? And it's stunning. Yeah. They're building things that we would have a hard time even with all our mechanics and engineering in the modern world build, right? Absolutely.

Look, so this is one of the great paradoxes to me. So the great, you know, the same people who are building pyramids and, you know, they're math building massive waterways and bringing, you know, the I think it's the I- serenians dug underground tunnels from the mountains to get water into the cities, right?

These massive engineering Feats, right? These are the same people who are looking to the stars To predict their future, right? They're the same people So there's been this weird Dynamic tension since the beginning of creation. Yeah, well, and they it wasn't just to predict the future The ancients believed that some of these stars were deities and the deities were worshiped and beings and They were they were lesser deities the one the stars that weren't so bright and They worshiped the planets and the stars, but they had no idea that each star was a an entire solar system and

Even further to the point I've I've set through sermons. What's interesting is it's come full circle in the ladder rain movement They were preaching UFOs, which is really crazy funny if you think about it But they were preaching UFOs and you can find advertisements for these UFO conferences that they were doing tying it to Christian identity in some weird way, but they they believed that there was a celestial You had a celestial body and a and an earthly body and one day those two bodies would unite again But now it's come full circle. I have heard sermons not

Not so long ago maybe seven years ago Whenever the UFO craze started to open up again I started saying well the Bible says that God created the heavens in the earth It didn't say earths and so therefore there can't be any UFOs and it's so It's so close-minded. I'm not saying that there are you know other beings. I don't know But I can't say definitely that there's not and yet at the same time the way that it is taught It literally so my mind is different than most people for me to prove something is true

I have to first prove that it is not false so People have commented this on my videos Reversed engineering reverse engineering so I will start down the path of critically examining something to see if it's true or false And if it's false I run with it and if it's not I just kind of you know, okay, that might be true And I move on to the next thing. That's how I work well in these Crazy religious circles where they're so close-minded They take the opposite approach they will try to prove it as false and never be open to the fact that if it can't if that doesn't

Cross that threshold. I'm not going to ever admit that it could be true They it's in other words. It's all off or all off Well one of the personality types that kind of flips my switch is dogmatic people and

One of the struggles I've had with institutional religion is dog Matic, right, we know, right? It's they think in terms of this is the absolute truth and anybody that differs from this dogma, right?

Yeah. Is either deceived or an idiot, right? Here's my issue. I think when we die and we shed our physical bodies, it's going to be a wiser moment. And here's why everything that we are studying, our worldviews, everything are limited to our five senses, right, and processing it with our human mind, right?

In other words, we have, people may not understand this, but it's like we have blinders on, right? Are existing in these frail little automobiles called bodies, right, the little vehicles that get us around, severely limit our capacity to understand the fullness of existence.

Right. You see what I mean? So once we shed these things, I thought, right? You hear this from people who have had, you know, near death experiences, right? About movement, right? Well, you know, we think in terms of time, right?

And so we have this speed, right? We have, you know, the speed of sound, which we've conquered the speed of sound, right? We've gone past it. Well, the next one is the speed of light, right?

And so we measure the universe by light years, right? So distance is really speed, like it's so many light years away. Well, you shed our bodies, and suddenly now you move with the speed of thought, right?

I mean, these are realms that, right? So all I'm just saying to people is is, I think we just got to be careful in all of our perspective on things, to just realize, as Paul said, we see dimly, right?

We see through a dirty glass. We can only see a very small part of this whole world

that we live in, right? Now, the problem you get into is that it's a perspective thing, like, you know, where we are with science and computer technology. I mean, it makes us feel like we're advanced, right?

Like, because we're comparing ourselves, you know, to humans from even a hundred years ago, we're in just a different knowledge, right? I mean, most of, most grade school kids have more knowledge than anybody, you know, a hundred years ago, right?

But it's distorted, because what we don't know is what we don't know. Right right and so I just always tell people when they get real dogmatic with me about you know This is the way this like okay

You don't know what you don't know right? It's like and so that's where I that's where you know I tell people all the time if you're gonna hang with me you got to realize I'm fearless like I and and don't put me in a box and many you tell me I can't I will If you tell me I shouldn't go there. I will. It's just my personality, right? I want to understand I want to I want to know right? I'm not scared of the unknown. I don't live in a world that's fearful of what might happen

Yeah, right? So that's why it's like what I've realized that I'm unique in that regard most people really want to live in a world where they feel safe because they know right see dogmatism actually makes people feel secure Yeah, right? Have you ever run into a conversation with somebody because I don't want to know

Act actually that was one of the points I was gonna bring up I spent a lot of time just listening which many people today have forgotten how to do But if you sit back and if you listen You really hear some odd conversations and I heard this conversation I can't remember which minister it was but one of the churches we went to there's a person talking to the minister and there's the person was on the fence of Christianity and the Is asking the minister something to the effect of what if An unbelievable amount of evidence came out that

Jesus did never existed It was part of that whole Jesus didn't exist nonsense that if you look it up It's it's kind of funny some of the arguments they come up with but I've studied this because I wanted to know to prove things are true I first proved that they're not false And so I went down the path of listening to a few debates and hearing these people that they're claiming Jesus never existed And there's actually more evidence that Jesus existed Then many of the ancient rulers of the ancient nations it's it's it's far in the favor that Jesus existed

So had they asked that question to me I would have been able to give a solid answer that would have convinced them that okay, that's that's probably not true where my brain is at but the minister literally had no Perception of whether it was true or not the answer was such that Well, I'm going to believe it anyway. I don't care what the evidence says And that's not an answer man if you're if there's a person who's asking you know why that is And here's this is this is the sociology side of me People belong to a subculture like in other words we need the

be long, right? So we have these subcultures. It could be a family, could be our ethnicity, could be our church, or whatever. But we want to be long. Well, those subcultures all have world views, right? They all have perspectives. They have theology. If you want to call it that, they've got vocabulary and an only way that you can keep your friends, right?

And your relationships is you have to toe the line. Yeah. The minute that you deviate from the subculture group thing, you're going to get rejected. So I try to explain this to people all the time when you're having a conversation with somebody and they get agitated and emotional because of your difference of opinion, it's not necessarily about the argument.

It's the ramifications of if you're right, what it's going to cost me, right? Because I'm going to lose everyone, right? And so a lot of times what you're dealing with isn't actually an intellectual interaction. You're dealing with another level here of emotion and fear. You've just triggered fear in someone. Yeah. So they're coming back at you and attacking you, right? And one of the ways you see that is add honing them, right? In other words, you're having this conversation. I could always tell when this happens because suddenly it's no longer about the topic, you, right? It gets personal. You, you know, you, John,

you're an unbeliever. You, John, you lack fate, right? You, John are an accuser of the brethren. You, right? You see where it goes? It's, that's called add honing them, right? We deviate suddenly from the facts and it becomes personal. Whenever you see that, you know, you just triggered fear. Yeah. It's in the other person and you just need to, I tell people all the time, if you see that, just stop. Just stop because it's never going to get better.

You're, it's, you're in an emotional world now. It's just, it's, you're in a world of your rationality. Logic doesn't exist. Just exit. Find a way to exit out of it gracefully because you're never going to get anywhere. And only thing that's going to end up happening is you're going to just create conflict and you may not be able to come back. Just, you know, I just tell people, just let people go. Let them, I, it's just like believe whatever you want. I don't care. You know, 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 Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen 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 Brannem Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. For me, that's one of the reasons why that critical thinking is so important because whenever you get in those confrontations, if you take the emotional standpoint of, I'm just going to believe it because that's what I've been told. And I believe it because I heard one person say, I believe it because I believe it because I believe it, which doesn't say any, it doesn't tell me anything, right? That person is very easily susceptible to

the fear, but a person who has proven it out for themselves, they don't get afraid because in their brain, as soon as it gets challenged, they immediately go back to all of the major points that brought them to their conclusion. That the fear is, it's completely eliminated when you, when you really process things. And so one of the things is, you realize you're in the minority. And what I mean by that is that 90% of humanity are echoes, right?

People just echo something, somebody in authority, their subculture, whatever told them, this is how you should think. And so they're echoing that. There's the people that are in that small 10% are always the rebellious ones. Yeah. I guess I'm rebellious. But here's the irony of this thing, right? Because here's where this gets really interesting to me. Is that again, remember, the institutional world of religion, right, is about preserving the past, right?

Then somebody comes along and challenges that, right? And they're instantly labeled what? Rebellious. Yeah. So, so, well, that's, you know, that's the theological term for something, right? So what happens is, is the subculture then rejects them. But here's the crazy thing about this, is those little weird people that challenge conventional wisdom are the ones who move humanity forward. Right. If they don't exist, see, this is all weird to me. It's, it's what they call paradox, right? Because the church is, you know, we, you know, it's all about obedience, right? We need to obey. We need to conform, right? And the people that are the most godly are the

most obedient, right? That's sort of the default setting. But the problem is, is that, that perspective, we'd still be living in the Middle Ages. Yeah. Right? Everything that's happened, the reason we have a modern world is because of rebellious people who lived on the of these subcultures that had very little social capital to risk and decided to challenge what everybody thought was normal or what everybody thought was that right, they challenged that and went, oh wait a minute, this isn't actually 100% true.

Absolutely. Wait a minute, right? So you see the weird paradox here, so you get this religious world over here that's all being told, if you want to be like, God, you got to obey.

Here's the box. And stay in it and obey, and then your God's child. Yeah. What's funny is, one of the churches we visited post-cult was really big into helping people learn and grow and think, but they were freshly out of seminary, and so they were throwing out all of these big names, and they would say, we know that this theology is correct because, and they would name off all of the church fathers, and stringing together this daisy chain of religious beliefs, they would come up to the conclusion that was their final climax of the sermon, and they did this time and time again, to the person in the pew,

the average person in the pew, they sat there and they just said, oh, okay, well that must be true. Well I'm new to all of this, and it was good for me to hear this because they would mention these names I've never heard, and so I go look it up, and what did this person believe?

Good Lord, man, if you go through the early church fathers, granted these people also just recently had come out of cults, right? They came out of the Greek and Roman deity cults. So the things that they believe were quite shocking to me, and if you go to that exercise, and you understand that the way theology has progressed is exactly like this.

There were some people who believed some really nutty things, and it was adopted as a standard during its time. Somebody would critically think and buck the system, and if they didn't get killed, which is another interesting story for another day, they didn't get killed by the church, they would create a movement forward, and they would lead somebody into further truth.

And this process is basically how it was refined. So we don't believe that, for example, one of the books that almost made it into the Bible was a book where there was a 50-foot Jesus that went around stomping cities after the resurrection.

Well, that book didn't make it in the Bible, but it was almost made it. So it tells you that there were people who believed some really strange things, and today a Christian wouldn't even consider this.

They would say, no, this is wrong. Back then, they believed this, but they refined what they believed over time, and the truth progressed in a positive way. What's interesting for me is whenever you look at some of the cults that exist today, reversing this, and they're progressing it in the opposite direction.

Well, let's take an example, a New Testament example, which I think is to your point, because we don't even talk about it anymore. But at the time, this was a huge problem. And it was meat, sacrifice, titles. Yes. Right? Right? I mean, you think about this. Sisters, I mean, because of their spiritual worldview that these other gods were entities, real entities, right? There was this whole thinking that, you know, if that meat had been taken to a temple and used, Christians could need it, right? Then somebody comes along and goes, well, wait a minute, if they don't exist, like if they're not even real. Right? So what? Like, they may think that's

what they're doing, but that doesn't mean that's really what's right. See, again, it gets critical thinking, right? Somebody's like, wait a minute. But there's this huge conflict. When's the last time you were in a church or anywhere where we were having a discussion about meat, sacrifice, titles? Actually. So, so let me tell you a funny story about the random calls.

Okay. Okay. Oh my god. This is going to be crazy. Yeah. This one will be crazy, because if you think about it, this is, this was later reign. Whenever I talk, random calls, random was the leader of the Revival, right? So many of these ideas that I'm saying would have existed in the 50s and 60s.

So what you're talking about is one of my favorite passages, because I, it also says don't avoid a celebration. And this was a one of the breaking points of doctrine for me, because we were taught that Halloween is of the devil. If you participate, you're going to catch the evil spirit.

If there's a witch on the street, that witch's spirit will get on you all this nonsense. But the passage clearly says don't be afraid to eat or drink or participate in the celebrations. You can go read it yourself. So, in the random calls, they taught that the the food itself was much like it was in the world that this passage is referring to. Whenever a randomite praise for their food, by example from the leaders, they sanctify it.

Whenever the, during the prayer, they will say, I sanctify this food for my body. And it means that if they don't sanctify it, the food could be harmful to the body, which is a really weird thing to think about. If you look at the Bible, the closest thing to a prayer over the food is they, they would think about the food. They would bless it and thank it.

They wouldn't sanctify it and make the food holy, right? But we lived in that world. They were also T totalers. So, when you read the passage and says don't be afraid of things for food or drink, well, in these message cults, they excluded the alcohol. They would say, So they never got sick from salmonella poison or anything like that right because they sanctified the food.

I knew quite a few people would get sick. I myself got sick from food poisoning of some kind and I sanctified the food from their weak prayer person, here sanctification was very powerful. But it's like I said, it's a progression in the wrong direction.

Now it's came back from that. I would say in today's, the way this thing has grew and splintered, I would say that that might be in the minority, but I was in the main sect.

So the main sect did this at least at one time. And where I was headed with this is even funnier. So whenever they have communion, it's this weird ritualistic ceremony that is unlike anything you've ever seen before.

You must be silent. It is a doomsday approach, brother. If you have anything in your life, you're going to hell if you take this little wafer. And the wafer has to be prepared a certain way, but at the end of it, my grandfather would stand there on his throne and say, this that remains shall be burned before the dawn of another day.

And it's just like straight out of a Stephen King book, man, that's how weird this gets. So all of this to say, if you can't critically think about even the food that you're eating or the drink, and then compare it to the passage in the Bible that says, don't let these freaks scare you like this, you're going to progress in the wrong direction.

Well, it's kind of like something that mystifies me and maybe our listeners can expand on this. But it's like when's the last time somebody sacrificed a beast to God, right? And supposedly Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, and therefore we don't need to set sacrifices again, right?

But there's a whole movement within Christendom to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and we have to have the red heifer so we could go back in there and sacrifice again. Am I head a little scratching here going, wait a minute, we just had 2,000 years of Christian theology that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, but now Christians want to go back and rebuild the temple and sacrifice.

It's like, you see what I mean? It's like my head starts speeding in this stuff. Like, what is going on here? I've heard multiple sermons about this red heifer. I clearly remember one minister, he came out and he says, well, folks, it's getting near the end.

I have a surprise for you. And he pulled out this newspaper article from Unazware, and talking about the red heifer that they just discovered in Israel, and this is it before this year ends.

We mark my words, we're going to see the end of times, and what kind of a gospel sermon is this man? Yeah, so there's a few head scratchers out there. you know, for me, that's why it's just like, I take sort of this gameleo approach to a lot of things, you know what I mean?

It's just like, well, if it's God, it'll have legs to it, right? And if it's not God, it'll eventually just disappear. I just think people need, you know, I know this is scary for a lot of people, but I think people just need to take a step back about what they think they know, you know?

I would admit it. I think humility is actually the way, you know what I'm saying? It's like humility to me is a teachable spirit, right? It's the assumption that I don't know about everything.

I may not be right on things, right? In other words, and I think if we approached our relationships that way, we'd have a whole lot less conflict, you know what I mean? It's like, I have all kinds of relationships in my life that we're probably 180 degrees difference in how we see something.

Yeah. I don't care. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like, okay, great. I mean, it's not, you know what I mean? It's like, let people be what they are. And you know what?

I don't, you know, it's like in Christodum, we've got this history, right? Of killing people who don't believe like we do. Yeah. So one of the things I was going to circle back with you about is I actually have another book before the Some State Blunder book, and it's called In the Company of Joseph, when the past becomes the future.

Underlying the theme in the book is that in my worldview, Christians have a really puny God. I know that's going to sound weird to most people, because they think they have the revelation of God, right?

We're Christians, we're His people. But their whole context for what God does and moves is within the context of the church world. Right. Right? And what I'm trying to do in the book is get people to understand He's the God of creation.

He's just not the God of the church. Yeah. Right? Now, the people outside the church may not understand all of it, but God's at work, and this is one of my points in the book.

Most of what God does actually happens with people who aren't on staff at churches and are not running religious organizations, and most of what He does happens outside of the church. Now, people can't get their head around that because they've been programmed again.

They've been told where to look, what to see, and how to interpret it, right? So they've got this really narrow worldview of God, and you know, where He does what He does, you know?

Yeah. Because it's when, in fact, there's all kinds of things out there, you know, that are gods. That's one of the things that hit me really hard, because as I started my support groups, I started noticing people going through deconstruction.

At that time, I didn't know what it was. I didn't understand that you had to tear down the false god before you could build anything else. And I saw it as just, oh my gosh, these people are losing their faith.

And I watched people come and try to hijack what I was doing. And they were trying to force me to force religion upon these people. And something inside of me said, this is wrong.

That's profilization. And it just feels wrong. And I decided not to do it. I decided to buck all of the system that was trying to be created in my support groups. But over time, I came to realize that the problem was much deeper than just even this thing that I'm doing.

You go outside to the broader scope of the churches, they kind of teach the same thing. They teach that you have to be the one to push the religion on people so that you push them into heaven.

And it turns, this is the same exact thought that you just said. It turns the god into such a weak god is the god not powerful enough to lead a person to him. That was really the thing that hit me.

And I'll never forget to add this conversation. People got a puny god. Yeah, yeah. Really when you break it down, I'm like, my god, your god is so tiny and small and puny. Like you can only do this little thing here.

Wow, you created this massive universe, right? With all this crazy stuff, but you only can operate in this little tiny space over here. Yeah. Well, and so this thought and granted, this will offend some people.

I'm gonna say it anyway, because this was my thought process as I was coming out of this thing. I was trying to imagine a world where you had to, it's not just that you have to force the Christian religion on people.

You have to force them into some sort of a confession. Differing denominations have a different version of what this is, but you're essentially confessing your faith in Jesus Christ. Well, the thing that hit me was, I was trying to picture a world where, and I sat down with a pastor and asked this and they'll look on his face when I asked it.

I said, what if they're picture a remote island somewhere where there is a family who loves God with all their heart? They don't understand God. They've never heard the name Jesus, but they know that there is a being, a creator being that created the heavens and earth.

And they're kind to their neighbors. They love God above all things. They love their neighbor as themselves. They're doing exactly what Jesus said, but they've never heard the name Jesus because they've never had a missionary who tried to forcibly convert them.

I asked this minister, is this person going to heaven or is this person going to hell? Yeah, that's a big question. The look on the face, man.

Well, again, he's going to respond the only way he knows how, right? In his little, you know, puny, little very narrow worldview, he cannot see the God of creation. He can only see the God of the church.

And so it's hard. I run into that all the time. I think one of the things that, you know, I posted a thing today on my Facebook page because I was, I'm trying to encourage people that the pain of some of the disillusionment and confusion they've gone through over the last 18 months is actually a really good thing.

Because what it's done is it's actually these things that we're talking about. It's blowing up all this stuff, like all these little narrow guardrails, you know, where people will tell, you know, do not, you know, if you go over here, you're out about pounds, right?

You can't, you can't think. You got to stay right here, right? You know, and of course they all come up with the road to heaven as a narrow one. Right? So, this is the whole thing, right?

And so, and so what's happened is there's a lot of people that have been imprisoned mentally by religious, you know, institutional religion. But realizing that what's driving a lot of it, again, this is me drilling down to the nature of it, is we can insecure human beings who need status and stuff, right?

That's right. That's at the root of the whole institutional world, right? Whether you're in the brand of cult or you're the pope or you're the, you know, the assemblies of God, right? You have this whole hierarchy of people who's, who are getting affirmation because, look, I'm somebody.

I have status, I have a position, I got stuff, you know, there's money coming in, got, you know, whatever. And so what, what's happened is is that I think a lot of people are, you know, that's George Barnacol, some of the dunes that's, that's the people who are basically, I'm done with the institutional church world now.

I've seen the show every Sunday, it's the same thing everywhere, you know, got to have our three songs, our trendy music, got our coffee and the lobby, you know, we get the message and we all go home, right?

And people are like, wait, you know, they're kind of, that's that real narrow kind of existence is blowing the doors off. And they're scared a little bit, like, because it's like, oh my gosh, I'm in uncharted territory.

But I think what happens is, is, and this is my encouragement to people, be fearless, meaning that the minute you get disillusioned and you stop what you call critical thinking, right? You've been trained for years, not to critical think or not to whatever.

Suddenly now, you are opening your soul for God. to teach you things that you never thought you could understand right in other words you're actually now humble right because you're before God now going got teach me I don't know I thought I knew I really don't know right and in that space right and this is what's weird is the people that get these kind of revelations about new things they all have something in common they have an open soul right they have a I call it a you know there's a closed spirit and an open spirit yeah and most religious people have a closed spirit because

they already think they know yeah right but people that have an open spirit which again it's scary right because it's it's you don't feel safe in that world right not knowing is scary but that's also the place where you discover this big God one of the exercises that I did after leaving the cult so we were in a legalistic religion and I tried to understand what does that even mean because at the same time we were in legalism we were being told that it was grace field which is a total conundrum but that's how it was

and so I kept going back to that passage where Jesus said the entire old testament is summed up in love God and love your neighbors yourself so I did this exercise and I wish I'd a cap it but I created this spreadsheet and I went through the entire new testament of every single rule that was listed and most of them so you're looking at things that you should do and you're looking at things that are considered sand so I put them in there and I put them in a column and I would apply this filter how does this relate to that passage

love God love your neighbors yourself and it's it's very easy like if you're caring for a widow where you're loving you're loving the widow as yourself you go through all of them you can go go through this the irony is after I got done I noticed by and large the most sin mentioned in the entire new testament is pride every single time that you go through the passages of what are the things to avoid it's always pride and it's always referring to you should be humble and humility and so what I'm headed with this is what I have found is

that that sin has entered the church in that they don't allow people to stop and think because of their pride because they might have to they might have to accept that they might have been wrong about something and some of those things that they may have been wrong about may be core doctrine or core foundational doctrine for whatever is their organization or the denomination of faith and the pride is actually hindering people from progressing into truth so once I came to that exercise I was kind of open to exactly what you're saying you open yourself up where you can critically think,

prove things out, and then there comes a point when, okay, I have proved it out. I'm now satisfied, distinct, whatever it is, whatever doctrine is that I believe. Now I can be open to accept it more.

So you go through this process and this journey to, essentially, to better yourself, but also to empower yourself. You're empowering yourself to think, believe, have stronger faith. And the result of all of this is, in the end, your faith is actually more secure than the minister who's saying, I believe because I believe because I believe.

That's exactly. While you're a musician, and I'm not, but I love music, but music speaks to me. And if there's a song about kind of the essence of what we're talking about, it's Pink Floyd's another brick in the wall.

I love that song. Right. Oh no, Pink Floyd was right, but I'm just saying, the church world is that song. Yeah. That's right. You know, have you ever seen, you know, the video of it, right?

Everybody's, they're in the factory setting and everybody's in line marching in step, right? And it's like, now they're brick in the wall, right? Once, in order to get out of that, you know, to quit being a cog in the religious machine, the only way out is to rebel.

Right. Which is the very thing your taught sense, your little is bad. Like if you disobey, right? You're bad, right? So it's, if people are conflicted, right? They're, they're terrified. And it's like, wait a minute.

My whole life I was told to obey. And now suddenly, I have to disobey, right? But you know how we get there? Disillusionment. That's why I keep saying to people, you don't understand. I know disillusionment is painful.

I know you don't like it. I know you think it's a horrible experience, but it's the liberated. It's the great liberator for you. It's the thing that's setting you free, right? Embrace it. In other words, I know it's painful.

I know it hurts. I know it's costly. I know all that, but grab it, hold on to it and use it. Like use that as the fuel, right? To a whole new world. Like just, like in other words, don't shrink back, you know, grab a hold of it.

You know, it's like grab onto this thing. It's like ride the rapids right now, right? It's gonna get you somewhere. And don't be afraid, right? You know, and let God talk to you in his own way.

In other words, you are a unique entity. And find your own journey with God. Find your own way. Let God talk to you the way he wants to talk to you. And, you know what I mean?

Quit being an echo and learn to be a voice. Like, and what I mean by a voice is someone who's got there by their own. own revelation, right? They're all critical thinking their own journey where it's like, okay, I got this now. You know, I mean, versus doing what we all do is repeating what Pastor said last Sunday. I mean, God, I can't tell you how many times of it in conversations.

Well, brother Sol and so said, well, our pastor said, yeah. Well, this the all, this the ologian said, right? And everybody's referring to someone else. You don't get people going, you know, this is what I figured out. Yeah, I know. I was laughing and it was out of place and people are going to fault me for that. But I couldn't help it because as you were speaking, I suddenly came to the realization that when this podcast goes out, everybody's going to send me mail thinking, you and I are starting a rebellion. So we're not doing that. We're just opening

our thoughts and dialogues so that we can critically think about critically thinking. So just I want to tell a story because it'll describe me. But I was Catholic. My parents were Catholics. I got sent to CZD, which is a Monday night at the Catholic Church, where we were all learning about our faith, right? Well, it was horribly boring. And we weren't interested. And the teacher got real frustrated and through the curriculum down on his desk and and basically said, because it's, you know, we're all sagging his boys and girls, right? So you young men don't seem

to be interested in anything that I'm talking about. What do you want to talk about, right? Well, we're from Milwaukee. So it's like, they don't talk about the cremated packets. We're 11 and 12 year olds, right? And it was Raquel Welsh, right? We're just, you know, we're people, bastard boys, right? And I didn't say anything. I was sitting in the back of the room, right?

And so he turns to me and he says, well, Bob, what do you want to talk about? And I was on the, you know, put on the spot. And so I just blurted out what I thought, right? I said, I want to study other religions. And the look on his face, it went from white, right? It's like, I root to, it was like white and red, right? And then he gets really mad. What do you mean? There is no other religion. There's only one way, right? And he goes, I don't understand it. And I said to him,

I go, well, you know, my dad's buying a car right now. And we've been driving around on Saturday, all these different dealerships. And we've been driving these different cars because he's going to decide which one he wants to buy, right? And I'm like, you're not giving me any options here.

Like I'm just sitting here having to drive this one car. I want another option, right? I want to know why, like what else is out there? And why this is the truth, right? Anyways, the bell rings, and we all go, we all go home, right? So I'm sitting in the back of seat. Mom takes me home. How was easy? Okay. You know, I go back the next week. I walk in and he goes, Bob, you're not in this class anymore. You're in room two 12, right? So I'm thinking, okay, so I'm walking down the hall.

all as a 11 year old thinking, I'm going to the other religions class, right? I'm going to a place where, you know, we can talk about what else is out there. So I walk in the room, and there's about four or five other guys there.

The bell goes off, and nobody goes in their seat. Like they're all just sitting there, and I look over and there's some high school kid hiding behind a book at the teacher's desk. So I walk over there and I lean over his book and go, hey, what class is this?

And he looks up at me and he goes, you're in detention. No. And just say it, that was the end of it for me, right? You know, that was where I went, okay, I'm out of here, right?

And from that time until I became 18 and then had my own interaction with God in the middle of the night, I was just so sick of anything in institutional Christianity where I couldn't ask questions.

Yeah. So what you're saying is you're about to get me into detention for this episode. I think you and I are a big trouble. Yeah, we probably are. But that's what it's all about.

But you know, what people don't understand is is we may be in our sixties, but underneath that hour, just little boy still turning over rocks, looking, you know, for critters. Yeah, and that's exactly it.

If you're afraid to turn over the rock, what fun is this world, right? So exactly. Well, we could go on for the next four hours, but I'll cut this one off and next time we'll talk about what it means to be a prophet because that's an interesting one for me.

And I've put a lot of thought into, when you mentioned the idea, put a lot of thought into it because I've been called a false prophet and I've never had a prophecy ever. So I want to talk to you that.

So thanks for doing this. Next time we'll talk about prophets. Yeah, we'll do that one. Well, and again, the whole prophetic thing, what's it rooted in? Say again, how do we view it? We view it through a religious church paradigm, right?

Except for prophets have been around way before Christianity, way before Judaism, right? So this will be a fun conversation. Yeah, I will. 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-Branum.org. 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.

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