The Faithful Servant or Master Manipulator: Ewald Frank and the Message

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Blue William Brannem Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannem Historical Research at William-Branem.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 we have a very exciting episode today. I've been wanting to have been itching to get into this because it ties into so much of my other research but we're getting into the talking about Ewald Frank which was a years ago was a significant figure in the United States in the message and there are some things that happen that kind of severed all of that but then you get into the more recent years and he's one of the most infamous figures in the message. So a lot to talk through but I'm very excited

for today. Yeah John I'm excited to talk through this as well today if our listeners remember for the past I don't know how many weeks now we have been gradually going through each of the major sex of the message and we've been covering them in the order in which they broke away from the main sec and I kind of refer our listeners back to this little diagram here and Ewald Frank and his sec they broke away in the year 1981 that's when the schism began which led to their to their separation and they were the fourth major

faction to break away from the main sect of the message and we're we're definitely gonna talk about how that got started and in the message a lot of the people will refer Ewald Frank sect as the two sole people you I'm sure you've heard that in the message and anybody who's been in the message and you know here's people go through the list of all the other sex that they hate the two sole people usually make the list we hate the two sole people we hate the peruse of people we hate the thunders people yeah so the two sole people is

Ewald Frank sect of the message we'll explain why that is and what all that means you know before we get done chatting about them but that that tends to be the derisive label that most of the rest of the message people gives his followers the two sole people but yeah I mean Ewald Frank is they're sect of the message I would say is is unquestionably the second largest sect of the message they're very large a very large sect only the main sect is bigger and maybe as we talk through today our listeners can kind of

help understand why that is. But I think kind of starting out, let's just talk about how Ewald Frank met William Brownham and came into the message and the events that happened before the schism, because that kind of helps explain how his sect was so big and how he had such a large following when he did split away. And Ewald Frank met William Brownham. Here's I am not a hundred percent sure the precise date that he first came into contact with William Brownham. What I am sure is that when William Brownham went to Germany in 1955, Ewald Frank served

as one of his translators as he toured Germany in 1955. Now I think almost certainly they had had had probably some contact before that, at least an awareness. Ewald Frank had an awareness of William Brownham. Ewald Frank had lived in Canada. He was a Canadian, a German living in Canada. He moved back to Germany somewhere in the early 50s as a Pentecostal preacher working under the auspices of independent assemblies of God. And when William Brownham had his first meetings there in Germany there in in 55 and also Switzerland, Ewald Frank was at those meetings. And that's the

first that really Ewald Frank talks about coming to know and meet William Brownham. And one of the one of the one thing I want to point out about Ewald Frank right off the bat. And I've tried to do this with all the other major figures because I want to point out to you that there are some there's some evidence in what Ewald Frank's stories that he was perhaps participating in discernment hoaxes with William Brownham while he was still living. And there's also a pattern that Ewald Frank was definitely telling falsehoods lies to cover for William Brownham too. I think that's important

to see in all it in almost all his lieutenants. You can find this. You can find spots where they absolutely had to be lying and know they were lying. And also cases where they were probably participating in discernment hoaxes. And I want to give you first a discernment hoax with with Ewald Frank. So Ewald Frank would part of his his backstory that he would tell all of his listeners John is he would as part of his big missionary pitch. He would tell how that he came to the United States in 1958 and he went to a convention in Dallas, Texas, which was actually it was actually

Gordon Lindsay's deliverance training seminar school that he was at John in 1958. And so Ewald Frank would say at that school, William Brownham met him in the hotel and William Brownham pointed at him and said, you are a minister and discerned that he was a minister. And this was a great big to do right in 1958. But he tended to always leave out that he had been his interpreter in 1955.

at the in Germany. So William Brandham already knew him and already knew he was a minister when he discerned that he was a minister in 1950. So there's all of these little hints in a lot of these guys stories that they went along with discernment hoaxes and then they continued to perpetuate those things that were almost certainly fabrications for the entirety of their lives.

And one thing I want to mention with that, there are people who have a strong conscience and if you are a public speaker, you know what I'm talking about, but sometimes when you're speaking, if you get into a rhythm of speaking and your thoughts don't form fast enough, sometimes you can accidentally say things that aren't quite right and you feel this overwhelming feeling of guilt. I've had it happen to me and you end up apologizing for what you just said because you misspoke. It's it's a misspoke type of event. But there are people who do not seem to have that

conscience and they can just without you can look at what they're saying, you can look at their facial expressions. There's no obvious thought that goes into what happens after they say something that they know to be false. And I can I hate to do it because I loved my grandfather but I can use my grandfather as an example. There are things that I am fully aware he knew were completely false. There's no way that he did not know that the thing was false. And with the same breath that he's saying something that he truly believed, he would say something that was truly

false. And you could not tell the difference. It was it was as though there was no conscience what so ever in the minds of the people went what Charles is talking about in the lieutenants. It's really odd because if you go look at some of the recordings of these men, especially after we've published our research and some of the women as well, you can hear their testimony. You can see that they were involved with the thing that is 100% proven false and anyone who was there knew it was false.

And they'll present it as though it's true. It's absolute fact. But then on the other hand, there are things that they truly do believe of what they say. So there's this weird mixture of truth and false and that is blended to create this different gospel. There is this really weird thing in the message where I've said before or listeners remember, I've said before that the message is held together by mutual blackmail. Okay. I'm telling you that is that that is the absolute truth. There is a mutual blackmail, especially between senior leaders that holds the whole thing together. And and part of it, think about it like this. Okay. William Brannum is making a

fake discernment. His lieutenant is participating in the fake discernment with him, right? Now his his lieutenant has some skin in the game, you know what I mean and so he is now an accomplice, okay?

And I want you to think about this. We can do this with pretty well every one of William Brannum's lieutenants John It's almost like this was a criteria to get into the intercircle was to Somehow aid William Brannum in a discernment hoax or something like that Joseph Coleman did it Raymond Jackson did it All of these got you know, we can find instances where they did it and and Ewald Frank again That's another it's just a very easy example to prove that he was Unaccomplished to his discernment hoax, okay? He was William Brannum's translator in 1955 and

Then in 1958 William Brannum miraculously discerns. He is a preacher give me a break, right? And then for him, Ewald Frank to make something out of that is Absolutely ridiculous and here's the thing Ewald Frank did a lot of stuff like this with William Brannum just like we can show a lot of the other ministers did as well, right?

Here's here's one John and I'll let you pick what's apart was wrong with this one Ewald Frank claimed that in 19 I believe it was 1962 He traveled to Washington DC to visit the Hall of Religious Art where he personally Beheld the picture of William Brannum hanging on the wall a religious art John You want to tell our listeners the problem with that story? I was so surprised whenever I came across this a friend of mine Who was also reached researching William Brannum told me there is no religious Hall of Art and?

I was like no man There's no way that this has been faults for this long to anybody who was never in the message But is familiar with William Brannum. You're aware that there's the halo photograph and there's this big mystery Whenever I'm talking to Chino who is never in the message and he's talking about the Hobart Freeman called Hobart Freeman was always referencing the halo you can listen to Benny Hinn saying and the man had a halo above his head They're talking about the halo photo well The mythology that surrounded that photo every single aspect of that mythology was false

Not one single thing that we have found that went with the mythos was true Other than the fact that there was a light that struck the lens as he claimed and there was lighting in the studio in the auditorium so he claimed William Brannum claimed that the government the FBI rushed it to Washington and said this is evidence of a supernatural photo and Your mind is kind of going to those 1950s Life-I-ish movies where oh my gosh. We just saw a supernatural thing Senate to Washington all these men gather around it and then they they because it was so famous that this happened

They put it in the religious hall of art. Well, this is a building that never existed and the truth of the matter is that story changed over time initially there was one try to find it if I can.

I don't know if I can find it, but there was one page of the Voice of Healing Magazine that before the mythos was created, it says, we can't use this photograph because it has been sent to Washington for copyright.

And the photo actually sits in the Library of Congress where every document, every photograph, every book, everything that has a copyright goes here, that's where it's stored in Washington. And I have seen videos, I wish I could find it for this podcast, I doubt I'll find it in time, but I have seen videos of well-respected ministers who are walking into the Library of Congress saying, here we are in the religious hall of art, and here's the photograph of William Brent, and they're standing in the Library of Congress.

They're lying through their teeth in the video, but whenever they send the video back to their congregations, the congregation's going, oh, well, that's amazing. That's exactly what he said. You're exactly right, John. There's no such thing as a religious hall of art and there never has been.

Now, there are people who've went to the Library of Congress, which has a copy of every single copyrighted thing there ever has been in the United States history, and they go into the right drawer and they pull out, oh, yes, here's the halo picture.

That's not what Ewald Frank said. Ewald Frank said that he went to the hall, to the hall of religious art that he looked up and hanging on the wall, framed up, just like William Bramson said, was his picture prominently displayed.

Ewald Frank claimed that he witnessed what William Bramson said personally. And here's the thing, he's the only person I am aware of, John, in the entire world who actually claimed to witness that photo hanging up the way William Bramson.

But once again, what does that do for us? It's just one more evidence that Ewald Frank, very sadly, would boldface blatantly outright lie about William Bramson, right? And so there are quite a number of examples of this.

I actually document a number of them in my book for each of the figures where you can be on the shadow of a doubt, see that they were knowingly lying about William Bramson, knowingly either participating in discernment hoaxes or knowingly lying that things happened that absolutely and possibly never happened.

Because there was no hall of religious art. How did he go to a building that did not exist and see a picture on a wall that did not exist? It just didn't happen, right?

So those sort of things are going on with Ewald Frank. So immediately, you know, he suspect, you know, his credibility, just like Lee Veil, just like Raymond Jackson, just like all of these other guys, Joseph Coleman, we've talked about.

Their character is sadly flawed because of their dishonesty and they're immediately suspect, you know, to be able to really trust anything that they say about William Bramson. So anyways, Ewald Frank John, more or less, became the preeminent minister in Europe.

in the years, right in the last years of William Brandham's life, and then in the years after he died. He opened the very first message church in Europe in Crefield, Germany. It was originally just in a rented hall when William Brandham died. They built their first church building in 1974, which was the first formal church building of a message church in Europe, as far as I know.

And so, you know, that was going on. He, as I mentioned before, he had a program on Radio Luxembourg. Which broadcasted, which is the biggest radio station in all of Europe. So he had a pretty

ability to really reach the entire European continent with his sermons through Radio Luxembourg. And through that, lots of doors got open to him in order to go and visit other churches and give testimonies about the message. And Ewaal Frank developed a sermon. There's all kinds of versions of this recordings these available for people to listen to if they want. But he, he basically came up with this maybe hour and a half, two hour long message missionary push.

And over the years, he refined it. He tweaked it. But over half of the sermons that he preached in his life, John, was this exact same missionary sermon repeated over and over and over. And he would go to this church. Here's my missionary pitch. You go to that church. Here's my missionary pitch. And he home this refined it over time. You know, and if you, you know, if you do something a thousand times in a row by the time you get, you know, the thousand times, it can be pretty good at it, right? So he's constantly refining this missionary pitch. And it's actually pretty effective.

You know, he recruits Ewaal Frank is responsible for recruiting more people into the message than any other single minister. I would even go so far, John, is to say that Ewaal Frank may have personally converted perhaps a quarter of the first generation of message believers after William Brown died. He may personally be responsible for recruiting a quarter of the, you know, of the generation that came in after William Brown. He was a prolific missionary. He was going all over the place converting all kinds of people across Europe, across Africa, South America, Southeast Asia. He was all over the place, doing stuff. And it was a really a massive endeavor.

And he partnered. He was very ecumenical. He avoided getting drawn into the thunder schism or the faith assembly schism or even leave ale schism. And he would, John, he up until his own schism, he would pretty well work with anybody. He would tour with leave ale. Like leave ale and him would go together and tour together. He would get with Paragreen and him and Paragreen would tour together. He'd get with, you know, different ministers from the different sex of the message. He would, on his missionary journey, he would hand out the literature that my sector, the message

produced, the contender. All right. And so he was very ecumenical up until the event of his schism. And in that way, he wasn't just planning churches of his own persuasion, but he was also planning churches that were friendly to Perugia sometimes, friendly to the main sect, friendly to my sect, and he was able to kind of go between the sects and that was another super important thing because in not just that he was able to go between all these, he could fundraise from them all too, John.

Another big thing is he was fundraising out of all the sects of the message to sponsor his mission work and the mission network he was building, so it was just a very elaborate thing that you all Frank was building, really starting right after William Brannum died through the late 60s and up into the mid in early 70s.

What's also interesting, and I can't give all of the details, but my family was really big into the Edmonton church, so my family was traveling back and forth with William Brannum, one of William Brannum's sons, and they were meeting with the groups in Edmonton for some unusual reason, I won't talk much about it, but in that church, there was a big presence of people who were influenced by Ewald Frank.

Ewald Frank was constantly going back and forth and come to find out later, they'll probably talk about this later in the podcast, but Ewald Frank was having an affair with one of the women in that church that my family was close to, and so it became the central hub, but in that Edmonton church, there were a number of people from Germany, and when you think back to what was happening after the war and some of the things that we'll get into later in this podcast, the German connection is significant within the message.

I would agree with that. There is a very high percentage of first-generation German immigrants who came to the United States in and around the years of World War II, especially in Canada, who were very prominent in the message back in those days.

Ewald Frank somehow was involved in all of that, and yeah, he ended up going back to Germany just to spread the message. So here's the thing, though, I think that really set Ewald Frank apart and really gave Ewald Frank's churches the edge to allow them to grow into such a message, sect of the message, John, and it's actually the literature publication.

So Ewald Frank very early on began to believe that he had a special mission from God and from William Brannum, and it goes back to a dream he had about a need to store up food, and this food in his terminology is the literature and sermons of William Brannum, right?

Like in the message you eat food, that's a euphemism for consuming the sermons of William Brannum. So he had a storehouse to store up food for like a famine. William Brannum died, and now there's a famine for the food, for the words of William Brannum.

And so he... believes he has a divine mission to create transcripts of William Brennan's sermons, not just in English, but in all kinds of languages in order to share with the world. And then he can during the famine of William Brennan's absence, he can provide food to the masses, right? And so he begins the effort to translate William Brennan's sermons. And this is actually the first effort to do translation work of William Brennan's sermons. And it starts not long after William Brennan died in the late 60s. In fact, John Ewald Frank claims to have inspired

Perry Green and Roy Borders to really launch spoken word in the way that it became. So when William Brennan died, we're going to do some full episode on spoken word down the road. But when William Brennan died, spoken word was not actually, it was not in the program to publish all the William Brennan sermons and transcripts and stuff. They just had a few here and there, a bit of literature. But Ewald Frank is the man who claims to have inspired spoken word to undertake to print all of William Brennan sermons as transcripts. And Ewald Frank himself

had actually started to do that in Germany in the late 60s. And Ewald Frank also translated all of them into Russian and German and French and Italian and Portuguese and Spanish and Swahili and Africans and Romanian and Polish. He translated these into all kinds of languages too.

And so spoken word publications, they were only really making them in English and a limited amount in Spanish. So if you wanted a foreign language translation of William Brennan sermons, the place you had to go was Ewald Frank. Ewald Frank's sect produced all of the foreign language translations. And this is how it was drawn up into the mid and late 1980s. So for the first 25-ish 30 years of the message, all of the foreign language material almost all of it came from Ewald Frank's sect. And this gave them a huge edge. It was really only starting in the late 80s

and early 90s with the rise of voice of God recordings that the foreign language translation started to be undertook in the central institution. So anyways, this is what I believe really gave Ewald Frank the edge because as he's going to all of these foreign countries, he's able to give them copies of the literature of William Brennan in their own languages. I can give you a Swahili version of William Brennan sermons. I can give you a Romanian version of William Brennan sermons.

And so he is naturally very well positioned far better than any other group to interact with the overseas international churches. And another very important thing about this is, since he and his group are the ones doing the translations, and he dozens and dozens of people were involved in this translation, or pretty well every single bilingual person in his church in Cretchfield, Germany was involved in translation work nonstop.

And it was like a huge mission from God they were all fulfilling. But obviously by producing the translations, you can control what the people find out about. And so there was allegations that Ewald Frank was translating the sermons in a way that fit his agenda.

That was actually what voice of God started to allege and that's actually what instigated voice of God ultimately to start producing their own recordings, spoken word, publications and voice of God recordings to actually start producing their own versions of the foreign language translations because they were alleging that Ewald Frank was twisting the sermons for his agenda, right, in the years after the schism.

Is that true or not? I mean, I don't personally know if it's true or not. My guess is voice of God and spoken word just wanted to cut Ewald Frank out and have direct access to be my guess of what actually happened after the schism.

But anyway, that is a huge, huge thing that's going on that really pushes Ewald Frank to a very high level of importance in the overall global message community. That's what I found so interesting during my teenage years.

There seemed to be this strong battle between all of the different factions and voice of God recordings and it all seemed to be around control of the message entity, the stored up food, as you called it, because remember, they always go back to William Brannum saying, William Brannum referenced this verse concerning the Bible's description of roadkill where the carcasses, the eagles, will gather, which is literally talking about a rotten corpse on the ground and all of the birds pray hovering over it.

Well that's essentially what was happening during my teenage years. They considered William Brannum sermons to be this carcass of rotten flesh according to the scripture and all of these vultures were coming around it trying to find ways where they could capitalize on it.

It really came down to this was a business product and who owns the business, does voice of God, does Ewald Frank, does Perry Green, all of these different factions, they wanted their piece of the pie and Brannum sons were like, no, we weren't all of the pie.

Your spot on John, that is exactly how it works. I have a full chapter in my book on the copyright wars come out of where my people volume do and we're going to do a full episode on the copyright wars too for all this is over with.

Yeah, so Ewald Frank was in a powerful position with control over prewell all of the foreign language literature of the message really up until the 80s and the only real foreign language literature that was being produced in the United States.

dates was really had the English and then you had some Spanish literature. There wasn't really any other real foreign language translations happening. Ewald Frank's Church was even translating the contender, John, that my church produced into German to help with distribution of the contender.

So they were just, they were the translation center for message literature. And what Ewald Frank did, and this is so important because as we've explained, William ran them taught conflicting versions of literally every single topic, right?

Okay, you name it. He taught a conflicting version of that topic, baptism, Godhead, gifts of the Spirit. I mean, you name it. He taught a conflicting version of literally everything. Well, Ewald Frank in doing the translations, they could pick which conflicting version they were going to keep and just not translate the other sermons, right?

That's what he did. And so what you have a lot of the foreign countries where, you know, they don't speak English and they're not familiar with the full body of William Branagh's work, they have no idea.

A lot of them have no idea that William Branagh taught these wildly contradictory things because through the translation work, they only translated the version that they were willing, that Ewald Frank believed in basically, okay?

Ewald Frank just didn't translate the conflicting version that he didn't agree with. And so on one hand, that is incredibly deceptive. On the other hand, it actually serves to make them cohesive, right? Because the things John that would make here in North America that were making us all hate each other and want to see each other dead, he was not introducing that into the international overseas, non-English speaking world, right?

They weren't getting all these multiple conflicting versions to fight over. They were just getting one version more or less. And so over here in America, we're all, you know, fighting over what the thunders are and the people overseas are like, what in the world is, you know, does that even matter?

You know, so there's, they don't even, you know, they didn't even get the conflict. So anyways, you get a lot of that happening. And it's really, it's really only in the English speaking world where you have these fights over all the schisms and, you know, in over the conflicting statements because the non-English speaking world is simply unaware that they exist.

To put this into proper perspective for people who are on the outside looking in, I've had people write me and say, how on earth did this spread so thickly through the developing nations because there's so many conflicts and internal problems with it.

And especially some of the, like in Africa, you have the people, you know, black people who are listening to this guy who's talking very strongly against African-Americans and some of the sermons. Put this in proper perspective.

The highest target of missionary work for the voice of God recordings, which is the main sect, was into Mexico. I knew several Mexican missionaries and people from some of my friends in Arizona would frequently travel through Mexico, spreading the message of William Branham.

I left January 1, 2012. Whenever we left, I thought, you know, there are, what is it Charles? It's like 1,200 sermons of William Branham that we had access to. For almost 50 years, that was the mission of the organization to translate, to move the message into other countries, to make it readily available because this is the stored up food.

This is the mana that the bride of Christ is feeding on until Jesus returns. There were approximately, and don't quote me on the number, but it was this low. There were approximately 50 to 100 sermons that were translated in Spanish, and they selectively chose the sermons, right?

So if you had two sermons that told a completely different life story, for example, one version was sent down into Mexico, all of the conflicting versions that completely overturned his entire testimony, that was withheld from the translation.

So as the message was spreading by these guys, they were selectively choosing which versions of what William Branham said went into the other countries. They certainly withheld the ones where he's preaching trainitarian gods and talking about the third person of the Trinity coming down into his sermons because of the other countries they were denouncing the Trinity doctrine.

So they're withholding the sermons and it's spreading and they get out of the, I don't know how many different, 50 different flavors of what William Branham taught, they're getting one single flavor. An interesting thing that that demonstrates, John, it demonstrates that the leaders who spread the message overseas and did all those translations, it demonstrates they were aware of all of the problems and were attempting to clean them up on purpose, right?

I mean, it's obviously, it's just an indisputable piece of evidence that they are aware of the problems and they're trying to clean it up as they make the translations and spread overseas, right? Even though publicly, they'll never admit that their problems yet an examination of their work proves they are fully aware of it and were attempting to clean it all up, right?

So, I mean, it's what a mess. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, William-Branham.org. On the book's page of the website, site, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen McGummery, 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.

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After the schism happens, we're going to talk about the schism and what happened, ladies young. This is one of the biggest drop-down, narrow-eyed-out schisms of the message, what happened with Ewald Frank. After the schism happened, Ewald Frank began to say he was the faithful servant.

That began to be his title among his followers. His honorific title was the faithful servant. And if you go to, I believe it's Matthew 24, John, you know, the same place where wherever the carcass is there, the eagles will be gathered.

Well at the end of that chapter, there's the verse that says, who then is the wise and faithful servant? Who will give his people meat and do season? Ewald Frank says, it is me.

I am the faithful servant. Who will give you meat and do season? From the storehouse, a food that I've stored up, here is the meat of the carcass, okay, Ewald Frank played that up, I mean that is exactly, I mean verbatim, the words came out of his mouth, right, on this stuff.

And he was respected by his followers as the faithful servant. And this is a great way to detect someone who is part of Ewald Frank's sect of the message. If they refer to him as the faithful servant, as basically the full filler of that verse in Matthew 24, that is a dead giveaway, you know, you're in an Ewald Frank sect.

Otherwise they use a lot of the exact same terminology as the other sects of the message. But that said, a dead clue giveaway, you know, that they're honoring Ewald Frank as the faithful servant.

What I found is whenever these guys create biblical titles, like you said, the good and faithful servant, it ties right back to that passage to the manipulated minds of the congregation. Whenever they read that verse, they're going to apply that verse to Ewald Frank.

And usually this comes in the form of some sort of opposition to a scandal. These guys have some rising opposition, and they want to play the martyr card. And whenever they do the martyr card, it's usually something in that order, something that makes them out to look humble, they're shrouded in humility, and all of the forces of evil, which, oh, by the way, are the other members of the same cult that you're in.

They're all rising up against me because I am the good and faithful servant. So by the time you get to the middle and late 1970s, Ewald Frank is the preeminent message missionary. And he is at the head of, by far, the most important message mission network. And he has influence over the majority of mission work in Africa, the majority of mission work in Southeast Asia. I mean, he is, he is involved in just about every significant mission outreach effort in the Eastern hemisphere. Now, in the Western hemisphere, it's not quite so much because the main sect is, is pretty dominant in Mexico, Latin America.

But Ewald Frank does have a presence there too. You know, Ewald Frank is visiting Venezuela and Brazil and Chile and you know, there is stuff happening there. But if, if you look at it, say the, you know, Western hemisphere is a slightly more dominated by the main sect in its outreach, the, the Eastern hemisphere is, is more dominated by Ewald Frank.

And again, it goes back mainly to the literature, right? Ewald Frank had all of the Western, all of the Eastern hemisphere language foreign literature, whereas the public, you know, the groups here in North America were really only producing English in Spanish, which is, you know, is the dominant, you know, probably what, 90% of people in North and South America speak either English or Spanish. So you really only need those two. But, but not so, you know, in the, in the Eastern hemisphere, you know, in Europe and, in Africa and so forth, you need all of these other languages. So anyways, Ewald Frank's church is basically

the hub of this mission network. And, and it's massive. And by, you know, by the time you get into this, you know, like I said, the mid 70s, there are hundreds of preachers being sponsored out of his church globally to spread the message. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of churches have been planted, especially in Africa, especially Southeast Asia, you know, and, and, and that big push that he's doing. And so that this massive network has, has developed in which Ewald Frank is a highly respected leader, okay? And at that point, he's still touring Billy Paul. Billy Paul goes within place, John. He tours Africa with

Sydney Jackson, you know, he tours the South, you know, South America with Perry Green, you know, all of this stuff is happening, you know, and even the, you know, famous mission, message missionaries like Archie Martin, the man who planted the message community in Brazil. He's traveling to Crefield. He's working with Ewald Frank. Paul is your lowery, you know, the guy setting up the massive cult in India. He's coming to Crefield.

He's working with Ewald Frank, right? Ewald Frank is partnered with every, he mission figure of the message world, okay? And so what causes the problem, or what leads to the schism actually starts, John, in 1979, 1980. And it don't really have anything to do with Ewald Franks.

Teachings or anything of that nature. He's still getting along very well with all of the other sex of the message But something happens Which begins this massive schism and then Ewald Frank does start to come up with some wonky ideas on the other side of it And so what is it? What happens? It is Ewald Frank's sex scandal. Okay, so I'm going to just kind of briefly describe this John and we might we might have a bit of time to talk about this in this episode today but Somewhere throughout time Ewald Frank was carrying on affairs with with multiple women

One of the women that he was carrying on affair with was actually his secretary in Crefield, Germany his secretary and they were having a long-term You know relations and This went on for some time and it the message community the broader message community did not start to learn about this until 1984 1984 is when the news Got out to the broader world. We're gonna talk about how that happened But it it started really in Crefield in 1979 and let me let me explain how it happened. Okay Somehow and this is a little fuzzy to me exactly how but I I suspect it was probably Ewald Frank's wife

Told two preachers in in Germany that Ewald Frank was having an affair. When these two ministers they come to Crefield, Germany John They come to Ewald Frank's church on a Sunday They come on the platform. They confront him to his face. Just imagine this ladies in general. They confront him to his face You are having an affair and they grab him and they push him down on his knees I've heard the story from witnesses there John They shove him down on his knees and they force Ewald Frank to make a public confession before his entire church

Wow of all of the details of all of the stuff going on and he is forced into a public confession in 1979 in Crefield, Germany at that point there's probably a thousand-ish people in his church John and this sets the stage for what is eventually going to Cascade into the collapse of his church and the massive schism that's finally gonna unfold as the entire world finds out in 1984 and Keep in mind the different Conflicting doctrines regarding this in the message. So you have William Brannum who You know as a Pentecostal minister There are passages that talk about marriage and divorce in the Bible and

Whenever you read those especially in the more fundamentalist sects You're allowed one husband to marry one wife until the death of one or the other and then they can remarry But in William Brannum's doctrine while it initially From a stage persona perspective started like that and we have court records showing where he's helping his brothers just trade women like trading a cow it's it's kind of crazy.

But from his public stage persona presence, he seemed to back that up for several years. And then suddenly, whatever happened, some scandal caused his change, I think, but William Brennan comes out and he says that it's okay for the man to take other wives plural, but it's not okay for the woman.

A woman must remain single to a single husband. So men carried this in various different directions. Polygamy was introduced with the marriage and divorce sermon, which we've talked about, but there were other men who kind of took that as like freedom.

I can go sleep around with anybody I want. It doesn't matter because I'm a man, but the women can't do that back to me. That was kind of the weird people skirting the laws surrounding being faithful to your wife in this movement.

That's what was kind of going on. So now you've got this schism that's happening over Ewald Frank and his multiple affairs. Whenever this happens, you've got part of the church that sides with him because part of the church still believes what William Brennan said, he can, but she can't.

And then the other side are like, well, I remember William Brennan saying the other thing. It's one man, one woman until death to the part. And you find that division straight down through the message community in almost every country.

Let me continue to explain what happens next in Ewald Frank's church. And again, these stories are very illustrative to give people insight into what the message is like. So this happens, Ewald Frank has confessed his extramarital fair sins to his whole church.

And this starts on a Sunday. Well, they have a week-long meetings. They have service every day after that because they all feel like they've got to get resolution or to the bottom of this.

Well by day two or three, John, it is decided by the leadership at Crefield Free Mission that it would be appropriate for every single person in the church to be dragged before the platform and also forced to confess all of their sexual sins as well.

So one by one, John, they go through the entire church, John. And every member of the church who has sexual sins is forced to make public confessions of their sins, past or present. And as I explained before, I tell you, the message is held together by mutual blackmail.

How do you think, John, that Ewald Frank kept his sex story from getting out to the message public for five years after that? Because of this. They went around and he or they forced every...

Person in the church to confess all you know all these sins John and so then the people are finding out Oh my goodness. This guy over here is a secret homosexual. Oh my goodness. This man over here's having an affair with my wife Oh my goodness that person my wife had an affair on me years ago and John they this Just at the people who went through this to John. I'm telling you came out of this Absolutely traumatized because this was all forced this was absolutely forced on them and John it this Destroyed. I mean it absolutely destroyed a lot of the people there and it actually almost totally destroyed his church

He went from 1,000 people in his church 230 people in his church on the other side is and I'll explain a little more about how all this happened but Yes, John. I mean this is how Think about that in order to I mean why else would he have did this except to protect himself?

It sounds like a raced even song with a squirrel in a religion where you can create squirrels. I know what you mean, you know, and so So what happens John This all simmers it's simmers and simmers and simmers You know as everybody's looking around and you know this person is looking over at the man in the other pew who had an affair with his wife And this other guy who is you know this and that in the other and John eventually The people can't it it explodes. I mean you can't do this, right?

I mean you can't do this and have a community survive basically in in response to having this Exposed e.w. Frank dropped a nuclear bomb on his church, okay, and And they left John. I mean, I'm telling you at 95% plus of the people left e.w. Frank's church You know as as all of this unfolds and E.w. Frank is left with like 30 people in his church John as you come into 1980 You know, and so what happens the other hundreds of people who left and number of them get to thinking wait a minute

Why should he get the church? Where's the major? You know, why should he get all the property and everything and Some of them actually decide they're gonna come back and they're gonna seize all the assets and take over the church And they come back and they confront e.w. Frank and and almost a kind of a hostile takeover sort of but e.w. Frank threatens them with the police and the law and you know dirty underhanded stuff and he basically Forces out 95% of his church retains control of all of the assets all of the property

All of the stuff and he's done it in such a way that nobody out in the rest of the message or in all of his Mishes net mission network has any idea that anything has even happened right he and key has absolutely silenced Everybody who knows you know knows anything about it because what are they gonna do?

He's gonna go tell all the dirt on them too, right? I mean, what do you call this, but dirty and evil, John? And here's the thing, this is par for the course, this sort of thing, I mean, this is a massive scale, but this is daily life in a lot of message churches.

This is just not on this scale, but this is daily life in a lot of message churches, what you all Frank did, just on a massive scale. And that level of blackmail, it flows through all of the different splinter groups of the message.

Like you said, it's a religion of blackmail. And it carries forward into the NAR, you have people like Paul Kane, who's recording every single conversation. There's a reason why he's recording every single conversation.

If you get dirt on somebody, you can really make them do whatever you want, depending on what the dirt is. And that's how this religion, it's really, in all of my research, I've been trying to answer one question, how did this mess survive?

Because this is the biggest convoluted mess you've ever heard of. That it slipped under the radar for so many years, people had no idea. How did it survive? And I think the only way it survived was because of the blackmail.

I have to agree with you, John. I mean, I know the sect I come from, it is mutual blackmail that holds that place together too, because they know, okay, this person's the imbezzler, and this person's an adulterer, and this person's a homosexual, and this person's the thief, and this person's this, and this person, and they have it all on each other.

And nobody can tip their hand without triggering a response. So it's like mutual, assured destruction, right? To try and deal with anything. And I have to tell you, John, it is incredibly effective. It is incredibly effective, and it is absolutely how a lot of the leaders hold power and maintain power.

Right, like, okay, so we're kind of out and left field here a little bit, but Ron Spencer knows the dirt on Tim Pruitt, okay? And Tim Pruitt knows the dirt on Ed Biscoll, and Ed Biscoll knows the dirt on Donnie Reagan, right?

Like, they do. And this is why they won't say bad things about each other, because they know the other person will then say the bad things about them. This is how it works, John, and I can go through, and here's the thing, you know, we can set all you people free, we can tell your dirt for you, and then the enemies, you know, won't be able to use it against you anymore.

It's actually liberating these people when we tell their dirt, John, because now it can no longer be used as blackmail against them, and probably what'll happen is their enemies in order to defend the message, we'll say the blackmail's not even true, right?

Oh boy, we could help you guys out so much if you just let us, but I'm telling you what, John, the messages are wrecked, and it is absolutely the sort of mutual blackmail that holds the whole thing together, from Joseph to Billy Paul to Raymond Jackson to all the way to the bottom.

I'm telling you, this is what holds it together. Every Friday I do these our stories where people who are in the message can come and they can tell their experience. I'm gonna put a blanket offer out to all of the ministers.

If you want to be free, where you can't be blackmailed, Come tell your story and just you can share the dirt openly. I don't even have to do it. You can just say all of the things that you're you're hiding in secret. And you too can be free.

So anyway, it's coming back to the faithful servant, Ewald Frank. So he nuclear bombs his church, John. And he manages to basically effectively cover this whole thing up for several years. So that is stage one, nuclear bombs his church, get black mail on everybody else in there and hold it all together. And of course, what does he do? He's got this massive mission network. So he starts importing a new congregation from his global mission network.

It's not that hard, right? And that's exactly what happens. So he starts, you know, cannibalizing some of his other areas of his mission network and repopulates his church. And this sort of thing has happened in that respect, all kinds of times in the message on. There's actually been very high rates of turnover in the oldest message churches, right? There have been times like you'd look at, we'll say Ed Biskill's church. Well, like not that long ago, half the people left Ed Biskill's church, right? But he refills from the global network of churches, right? And repopulates the church.

The same thing with the brand of tabernacle. You know, how many times the brand of tabernacle has turned over. It's pop, you know, it's congregation. And it just refills it from the, you know, from the mission, you know, from the from the larger network. So the oldest message churches have scandals. This is a pretty epic one, John, with Ewald Frank, but things like this happen throughout the course of message history in the oldest message centers. And they do absolutely turn over their congregations 50, 60, 70%. And then they just repopulate from the from the global network. Same

similar things has happened at Faith Assembly, not on that scale. The same thing, you know, Cloverdale. It's happened on a set, you know, like that. It's happened at the brand of tabernacle. I mean, we could go down the list, Ewald Frank's church, and the large churches where this sort of thing is happening. It's actually a common feature in the message. And so long as the leader can hold on to the property and the assets, you're right. And the other leaders won't turn on him.

Yeah, he just sales through just fine. Yep, I destroyed the lives of several hundred people, but I managed to hold on to power. Yes, I did indeed have some really terrible affairs and treat my wife awful. Ewald Frank told everybody his wife was a witch, John, that she was practicing sorcery and witchcraft, which is absolutely not true. And, and here's the same too, John, with Ewald Frank. Ewald Frank actually got a girl pregnant in this, and they forced the girl to have an abortion. Okay. And this, this is what happened. And, and this is what actually led

Ewald Frank's wife to tell people about it, because she was so upset that her husband had forced somebody to get an abortion after he got her pregnant. And so her name was Helen, I believe, was her name, and Helen Frank. And so we'll talk more about this in the next episode. But yeah, I mean.

Ewell Frank caused mass destruction, two hundreds of lives, right? And absolutely nothing can be done to stop him. That is the message, ladies and gentlemen. There is no way to stop a leader. They can do whatever they want. And there is no way to stop these people once they have power because that is the way that the message is structured.

And it's structured that way on purpose. And William Branham is the one who built that structure. And he built it on structure on purpose because he didn't like it when people tried to hold him accountable.

And to anybody listening who can think, how can it get worse than this? How can anything become worse than this confusing mass of a ministry? Well, with Ewell Frank's story, once you get into the Colonia Dignidad years, I can show you much, much worse. So where we're headed after this, it gets far more interesting. I'll say it like that. But it also gets much worse.

There was a lot going on behind the scenes that I still question. I have lots of questions about how it evolved to that level. We're talking the Nazis, the United States government, the Chilean government. We're talking all kinds of things that some of which I can't even mention on YouTube or YouTube might block the whole video. It's some pretty bad stuff that these guys were getting into. So I'm looking forward to the next episode. And it will be a very, very exciting one. Me too, John. So come back. We're going to pick up right where we left off. I mean,

and if you think the sex scandal is the wild point of Ewell Frank's story, no, it gets a lot worse than this, ladies and gentlemen. This is just when it started to go down hill in a bad way.

Absolutely. If you've enjoyed a show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Brandom.org and Christian Gospel Church.org. For more about the history of William-Brandom and the healing revivals, read Come Out of Her My People. And for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle and Orbital.