Better Call Pearry: The Cult Kingpin Who SLAPPED His Way Into Power

Music 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, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianGospelChurch.org and the author of Come Out Of Her My People.

Charles, it's good to be back and to talk about all things crooked in the message. You know, it's funny to me because we're going to be getting into a very unusual message character and yet he was, along with my grandfather, I would consider him one of two main pillars that really lifted this thing up after Brandham fell and they somehow managed to keep the scheme going.

And I remember clearly hearing conversations, especially when we get towards the discussion of the copyright stuff. I remember hearing discussions in the family and, you know, I was a kid so I didn't think much of it but they were talking, whoever it was, was talking about how this guy that we're going to be talking about today, Perry Green, he was a crook.

And, you know, that phrase was thrown around a lot when I was growing up and you never really took it literally. The shock that I had when I learned that no, he was actually a crook, like, legally prosecuted in everything.

This is a big deal and I get to thinking recently about that phrase, man, we would call people crooks. Just, I don't know if your sect was the same way but especially the other leaders and the other sects, they were crooks.

And they're, you know, the scam and the people, whatever they're doing, usually it was some business venture that they were performing it a little underhandedly. I'll just say it like that. And then you realize that, no, some of them were actually crooks.

And you start to think through your mind about all of the things that they brought to the global message, to the structure of the message. And you start to realize that, no, they helped form the mythology and we'll be getting into this book, Acts of the Prophet.

But it is, it is a clear example of how underhanded criminal leaders in this movement were able to shape the movement, especially after the man died, William Brannum died. They were able to shape it, mold it, and create what it became.

That's very well said. John, you know, you're right. Perry Green is one of the most critical figures to the development of the message in the years that came after, you know, along with, along with Ewald Frank, along with your grandfather, Billy Paul, Raymond Jackson, Joseph Coleman, Lee Vale, he is in a kind of a first tier sort of a position in advancing the message forward after William Brannum died.

And of the first tier preachers, again, he's in the top tier or first tier preachers as well, right? I mean, just in the level of influence that he had. Now, as we talk about him today, you know, if our listeners remember, we have been working through a series of episodes where we've been going through the sex of the message.

And today we're going in to start laying the ground work to talk about a sect of the message, which in some ways does not have a name. It doesn't have its own really unique name that has stuck to it.

There are names that flowed around out there that some people will label it, but it is essentially the sect of the message that broke away from the main sect over the copyright wars, which started, you could say they started in 1989 and they escalated through the 1990s and the schism was complete by the early 2000s.

It was kind of a long slow moving schism. But it produced a very large set of churches, especially in North America, that were separated from the main church, mainly over bad blood that rose up during the copyright wars.

We're going to do a full episode on the copyright war, so we're not going to dive too much into that right now, but just be aware that's what we're doing. We're kind of given the backstory to figures and especially Paragreen that leads up to their sect breaking away generally during the 1990s.

Now, Paragreen, John. Paragreen can fairly be looked at as the key figure, certainly in that group of churches, because as those days came along, he was the canary in the coal mine. He was at the forefront of getting the wrath of the central institutions over the copyright stuff, and it's really them coming after him over the copyright stuff, led him to respond by organizing the anti-copyright faction coming into the early 90s, which then led to the great schism, okay, in the message.

So Paragreen just plays a central role in all this. Like I said, we'll talk about all that in more detail here in another episode too. But let's just talk about how Paragreen got started off in the message.

In that book, you have Acts of the Profit John there in your hand. I've got some different editions of it here too. We'll dive into that a bit, but in that book, in addition to examining the life of Paragreen, Paragreen actually gives a full explanation of how he came into the message in that book, because that book is essentially started out as...

Perry Greene's conversion and eyewitness testimony story of William Branham. And in that book, Perry Greene is very clear that he converted to the message in approximately February 1964 or shortly thereafter, February 1964. So, as you know, John, that's less than two years before William Branham died.

So, just think about this. You know, kind of wipe away all the history of the message that came after William Branham and go back to 1965 and 1966 when William Branham died. When that happened, John, Perry Greene was a new guy.

Perry Greene had fairly recently just showed up. He came to Jeffersonville for the first time in 1964 as well. And that is where he claimed to convert to the message. And so, Perry Greene is this relative newcomer to the message.

You think about that, like you think about your grandfather, who's been with William Branham for many years by that point. Or Raymond Jackson, who's been with him for many years, or Lee Vale, many years.

Or the people here in Jeffersonville who's been with William Branham since the 30s, right? Perry Greene shows up as a relative newcomer into the message. But then, a year and a half later, William Branham dies and Perry Greene skyrockets into a first tier leadership position, kind of leapfrogging over all of these far more senior people who have been with William Branham for some of them for decades at this point, John.

And you just think about that. That situation caused a whole lot of bad blood with Perry Greene from the very beginning. Because he didn't get into that by graciously being invited. He got into that first tier leadership by kicking and punching and climbing his way over everybody and doing whatever he had to stab anybody in the back to get into that first year leadership position.

It was a very nasty situation with Perry Greene and the other guy, the other ministers back then, really from the very beginning. And so I think the first thing we got to do was kind of talk about that, how that happened, and how Perry Greene got away with it.

Yeah, I agree. And it's, again, it's such an unusual thing, right? When you consider the whole movement, when you're considering this to be the people who are perfecting themselves to be the bride of Christ.

There, I don't know how it was in your sec, but we had like levels of perfection. We would go all of often go to that stature, the perfect man. You had to be that perfect man if you wanted to make the rapture.

Otherwise, you're part of the foolish bride. You can't make it. And yet at the same time, after I kind of snapped out of this, I began to realize, wait a minute. I knew that some of the leaders had not achieved this and were actually getting worse over time, not getting better over time.

How could they be perfect in that scenario? And they were... doing things like I knew things that people were doing that, man, I would never do that. That was just, it was wrong. It was sometimes criminal, but mostly unethical that what they were doing.

And if you had, you know, I read my Bible while I was in the movement. If you read your Bible and you understand how whenever you accept the gospel, according to scriptures, just reading the New Testament, how it changes your heart, I was beginning to notice that many of the leaders, they didn't show that change of heart, man, while many of the followers did.

And I never really stopped to think, wait a minute, what is this built on? Why are these people like this? And this is prime example, I, you know, again, I remember hearing the conversations about Perry Green, but it was weird because since he was a different sect, we kind of shoved that into a different category.

And I never thought about number one, how important this man is to the remaining message following after William Brandham died. But number two, what he did to get there, because I knew also like your sect, you've mentioned several times, all of the leaders had dirt on the other ones.

And here's this man who comes right before William Brandham died, who suddenly becomes one of the main pillars of the message, what did he have on the other people? That's really my question. Because we dive into this just a little bit more, John.

So Perry Green was a very wealthy man, very, very wealthy man. Well, at least he said he was wealthy, right? I mean, this is how we got it back up here. He said he was very wealthy.

And I think there's evidence that he was, was he lying about some of it? He probably was, you know. But here's the thing, he bragged about how much money he made, John. You can actually go back through his sermons and he'll tell you every year how rich he was.

And in 1964, when he joined the message, he said he made $70,000 that year, which translated into today's money would be $750,000, an annual income, okay? So that kind of gives an idea of at least how rich he claimed to be.

And just that fact, John, that I can tell you how much money he made in 1964, doesn't that say something about his personality, okay, that we can give you these exact figures, okay? It does, doesn't it?

Absolutely, man. You know, I don't know if you've seen the show Better Call Saul, but Perry Green is the religious equivalent of Better Call Saul. He starts out as a two bit whatever he was and starts making connections, whether it's by accident or he's pushing himself into those connections.

And then suddenly, somehow, he rises to become this kingpin in the message. And like Better Call Saul, number one, he wasn't really suited to do it. But number two, once he got there, he started, you know, taking on the mold of what is a religious leader in the message.

The character... Ristics of the men, even though they all condemn each other, he's basically all of the others personified into a new creature. And again, he's a criminal man. This is what the leaders have become in this thing.

Now, I'm not saying that every leader in this is a criminal, but the unethical characteristics that the other leaders had somehow, Perry Green put himself into the position, assumed to those characteristics unless he had them before, and now become one of the elite in the message.

So Perry Green shows up in Jeffersonville, 1964. He converts to the message, he's this super wealthy person, and he is very, his personality is very rude, uncouth, inappropriate. He oversteps bounds of reasonableness on a constant rate, okay, this is Perry Green.

And he immediately instills bad blood with quite literally every other notable figure here in Jeffersonville from the moment he arrives, okay, bad blood from the beginning. And you know, the stories that come from those days is that nobody liked him and everyone wanted him to leave, and they're telling that to William Branham.

And so William Branham sends him to Venezuela, John, as a missionary to get rid of him. That is the story, okay, on Perry Green. And so yeah, Perry Green ends up going to Venezuela as a missionary, and you know, as the years go by, this ends up translating into Perry Green being a notable figure in spreading the message into Latin America, because it grows with time.

But that's the story, like they initially, he went into Venezuela to start spreading the message for William Branham after he showed up. So this time goes by, John, and you know, all of the message people are moving out to Arizona to Tucson, right?

And as that happens, Perry Green decides he's going to move out to Tucson too. And this again, this causes another big problem, right? Perry Green is a man who just like, he had this way of like making everything worse, John, everything worse that he got involved in, okay?

So William Branham is moving all of these people out to Arizona. And we got to blame William Branham for this a little bit, because basically every preacher that William Branham said, hey, follow me out to Arizona.

He said, I'm going to start a church out there, and I'm going to need someone to be the pastor of that church, okay? He said that to Doug Hughes, John, I think he said it to your grandpa.

He said it to Brian Mann. He said it to Roy Borders. He said it to all kinds of these people. I think there was over a dozen preachers, John, that William Branham told they could become the pastor of the Tucson church.

Come follow me to Tucson. And they did. And some of them like Doug McHugh's, John, they actually closed down their church. Doug McHugh's... at a church in San Jose, he closed his church, he moved, his entire congregation moved to Tucson, right?

Under the impression that William Brannum had said, yes, I'm going to start a church and you're going to be the pastor at the church in Tucson. Well all of these people are moving there and, you know, about a year and a half after they've all arrived in Tucson, guess who else decides to move to Tucson?

The subject of our podcast today, Mr. Perry Green decides to move to Tucson and did William Brannum tell Perry Green he could start the church in Tucson? This is a massive message controversy to ladies and gentlemen, I mean if you're not familiar, this is a huge message controversy.

Did William Brannum give Perry Green permission to start the church in Tucson? Well Perry Green swears that he did, right? Everybody else swears that he didn't and nevertheless Perry Green opens the Tucson Tabernacle I think the month before William Brannum dies and William Brannum has his last, one of his last church services there, he does the Communion Service there in 1965.

There was another service he preached called Rapture I think after that, but anyways he held one of his last two or three services right there at that church and again the story is John, you know, and how do we know what's right or what's wrong here?

But the story is that William Brannum was upset and displeased that Perry Green showed up and opened that church because he had promised it to somebody else and that he was going to take Perry Green down a peg or two, you know, here in a few more days, but his death interrupted his ability to take Perry Green down a peg or two and left Perry Green as the pastor of this church in Tucson before William Brannum could remedy the situation.

For all of you conspiracy theorists out there, I'm not going to go too far with this for obvious reasons, but if you do a few Google searches, I think you understand what I'm talking about here.

There was a significant move to Tucson in the late 1960s and early 1970s and if you do a Google search for Tucson, Mafia, Tucson, Mob, Joe Bonanno who is one of the crime figures of the New York mob moved to Tucson in the late 1960s and then suddenly there's this sudden migration into Tucson and why that is, you can go read, there's, you know, different reasons for this, but there are, there's a lot of research that seems to make this where it appears to be a lot more than conspiracy theory.

I will just say it like that and leave it, but if you want to go look it up, you can look it up. So all these guys are moving to Arizona, Paragreen among them.

Paragreen starts this church, everybody is, so not only has he made everyone a Jefferson film at him, now he's made everyone in Tucson mad at him too. starting a church, which William Branham had promised all these other preachers they could start.

So, I mean, it's awful. I mean, it's a, it's a, it, people are coming to log her heads, but the reason that they're not is because the beloved prophet William Branham has promised us all he's going to fix the situation. He's going to put Perry Green in his place, right?

This is what William Branham, and I believe that William Branham definitely said that to people because there's so many people that say that he did, right? I mean, there's so many people that say, yeah, Perry Green did this without permission, and William Branham promised us he was going to fix it, but then William Branham dies, and interrupts if he was, whether he was lying to those people, he's probably leading them on, John, he's probably leading everybody on, he was so duplicitous.

But he, he, when William Branham died, nevertheless, he couldn't keep the dance up. The charade couldn't keep going, and now we're in this ugly situation where this newcomer has stepped on a whole bunch of people to get himself into a first-year leadership role.

Okay? And this inappropriate behavior of leave a, rather, of Perry Green, I want to give you just one more, one more sort of example to kind of help our listeners visualize how the early message community was, was reacting to some of this stuff. So when William Branham died in 1965, okay?

Perry Green shows up at the hospital, John, like he is, like he is the most important person in the world to William Branham, okay? And he more or less completely takes over the situation in that hospital, he won't leave William Branham's side, he's staying there with him overnight, like he is taken over the situation in that hospital, which again was very inappropriate and very unwelcome by many of the message leaders back then, absolutely was not welcome behavior, right?

And Perry Green brags about this, I mean, he isn't even bragging about this as an offense to a lot of the old-time message preachers that he even did this. And then of course when William Branham died, he insisted on, he would not leave the side of the body, he had to escort the body personally all the way back to, like every step of this was considered an inappropriate offensive thing by the other leaders in the message. And when he finally got back here to Jeffersonville with the body, as you and I know, John, he was basically kicked out out of having anything else

to do and your grandfather and my pastor and all the others took over and made him sit down more or less at that point. Perry Green was offended that he was not given a prominent role with the funeral and all that. He never, he did do a little slightly spoke at the very beginning as a little bit like an MC at the very start, but he wasn't allowed to give a eulogy or anything like that.

Perry Green was not happy about any of that, he was personally insulted by all that and never that again just fueled, you know, the stuff that came next with him. Now, one more thing that I want to just put in here too, just to help kind of again just set the table what this was like. So, at the hospital, John.

When William Brannum died, Billy Paul's wife, her name is Lois, she's still living, I believe, She started to weep and cry when William Brannum, when the news came to her that William Brannum died, you know She's and you know, that's natural, isn't it? You know someone dies. You're just that's kind of can break your heart And so her heart was broke. She starts to cry at the funeral. What do you think you're at the at the at the hospital?

Perry Green comes over to Lois He grabs she he grabs Lois up Billy Paul's wife up and He pulls his hand back and he slaps her in the face

To get her to stop crying John Okay, I I kid you not and He brags about this. I mean for years and years he would brag about this John But when he did that like it was like shock and horror Like like the other preachers and they're like

I hope I'm just painting a good picture of what of what Perry Green was like Okay, and again, you just got to put all this in context Perry Green could have been in the message less than two years a lot of these people hardly knew him from Adam Right now he did have a bit of a better relationship with Billy Paul because they'd went to seminary for a little bit Right, but most of these people didn't hardly know him he he had not earned the Stature or the respect or the standing to do all of this stuff that he was doing and he was just running a rough shot over everybody

And nobody liked it. Okay. This is the situation when William Brannum dies You know everybody was trying to get her quite and everything else and I go over to try to quieter and I slap her

If you haven't heard that that's the truth I slapped her Right there. I made a bunch of enemies. It is really unbelievable It would be like so the Pope just died and I'm not going to talk about all of the similarities between the Catholic church and the message But if you do the math you can the sum of topics of where they align are very very close. It's unbelievable But say that you or I who are nobodies just suddenly showed up at the Pope's funeral and tried to inject ourselves into that ceremony That's that's really essentially what Barry Green did he came out of nowhere to the Pope of the cult who has died

And he's sitting there with all of the other popes or they all all the other bishops in the sacked and hey, I'm a bishop to recognize me That's it exactly and hey, I'm gonna come slap your wife

What in the world, John? I mean what in the world? It it's unbelievable, isn't it? I mean, it's really hard to it's just unbelievable stuff It's crazy stuff man and again, we're talking about the person whose character is impure and take this a step further than this so Like like we said before the message leaders have dirt on the other leaders I have some evidence that they also have dirt on some of the rising followers because they don't want somebody to rise up into authority who might sway the thing into a non-profitable manner.

I'll just say it like that. So they have some dirt on some of the rank and file members. I have to wonder what they had on Perry Green and what he had on them because I'm certain that this came to blows at some point.

At some point in time, they had to call this guy in a room and say, look, man, you just slapped my wife. What in the heck are you doing? And Perry Green would have said, yes, but I know this, this, and this.

And I'm going to talk if you don't let me in your inner circle. I don't know how this conversation came to be. I wasn't there. I don't even know if this conversation happened. But I can assure you that conversations like this do happen.

And it is the most likely scenario for him to have gotten where he was. I got to agree with you, John. And we might not get there today, but we're going to talk about a lot of the criminality and stuff that Perry Green was involved in and all of our lawsuits and all of this stuff and all of his victims.

And I think that will help people understand how that can certainly be true. So that's the situation when William Brandham dies. Perry Green is a relative newcomer who has stepped on people, behaved inappropriately, did all of this crazy stuff to get himself into a first-tier leadership position as leader of the Tucson Tabernacle, which he may or may not have started with William Brandham's permission.

I mean, we don't, it's hard to be exactly sure. And here William Brandham dies. And so, John, we talked about in prior episodes how Billy Paul overthrew the Brandham Tabernacle, right, and installed himself as general overseer and all of that stuff.

Okay. Well, back then, of course, I would say half of the message community was in either the Brandham Tabernacle or the Tucson Tabernacle. I think those two churches together were 50% of the early message community.

I think that's very fair to say when William Brandham died. Those two churches were 50% of the total message community. I want to say Perry Green's church had roughly 500. The Tabernacle had roughly 500 when William Brandham died.

And so, you're very close to half the community in those two churches. So, for Billy Paul, if he controls the Brandham Tabernacle and he has the Tucson Tabernacle, you know, in line with him, then he has half, maybe even the majority of the message under his control at that point, right?

So, Perry Green is the one who partnered with Billy Paul to enable the overthrow of the Brandham Tabernacle, John. Your grandfather was actually out in Arizona at the Tucson Tabernacle when all that happened and part of the...

takeover of the toast of the brand of tabernacle. I think was partially trying to find places for all these preachers that William Brandham had promised that they could become the Tucson tabernacle pastor. They were trying to sort that position out, right? That's when Vernon man came back the first time. That's when your grandpa, he came back eventually, Doug McHughes, they ended up buying him his own church and he got to go have his other church out there.

They were doing things to get these other people who had been promised the pastor ship positions. I think that's playing a role in it. But Perry Green fully backs Billy Paul. And Billy Paul and Perry Green actually were working in total lockstep during those early days.

And Billy Paul and Perry Green are roughly the same age. They had went to seminary together and they had actually kind of developed a friendship. And it's really the alliance of those two men that enabled them who were not the senior leaders, who were not the elders of the message, who were actually two guys who had really bad reputations in the early message community, to essentially totally overthrow all of the old guard and all of William Brandham's true lieutenants when he died. I mean, that's the truth. They overthrew Orman Neville, they overthrew Raymond Jackson, they overthrew the other prominent ministers in Jeffersonville.

They usurped power over all the other ministers. William Brandham had led out to Arizona. Right. Basically, Billy Paul and Perry Green working together over through the message community in some ways when William Brandham died.

And there's some interesting conflicts that happen as this is occurring. You know, as I mentioned before, when you read the New Testament and you understand the Gospels, there are several passages that talk about the sin of pride and it talks about how to humble yourselves and how the way of a true Christian is humility. Yet there's this weird tension when somebody rises into power and the message. And I can't put it into proper words without people having been there and seen it. But my grandfather, for example, people would consider him to have been humble, one of the most humble people they've ever met. But watch somebody else rise into

power and see how that humility plays out, man. It is by no means what you expect whenever they call humility and it's people who knew my grandfather offstage. They would describe him with mixed emotions. He was the most humble man they knew yet, oh my gosh, don't anger him. And that's not humility. That's really a stage act, if you really think of what's going on. So you have all of these stage acts. You have people who are rising into power and as one rises, everybody wants to scramble to get dirt on them because they want to make sure that

they're higher in power. It's like a pyramid scheme. Everybody's trying to get to the top. And who's going to make it? The person who's at the top has just died. William Brannum. Who's the next one who's going to rise and be the top of the pyramid?

When William Brannum in the years shortly after his death, it's really the alliance between Billy Paul and Perry Green that defines the main sect of the message, I would say. It's that alliance between those two that holds the main sect together and gets them over that hump and beyond some of those first initial schisms, and then helps the message spread out.

Their alliance together, which starts the control of the message institutions, we're going to do some full episodes on the message institutions, but it's some of Perry Green is continuing to channel full gospel businessmen money. If I haven't said it already, Perry Green was a full gospel businessman. He's playing a key role in helping funnel full gospel businessmen money into the expansion of spoken word publications into the the tape producing franchise that eventually becomes voice of God recordings, and so it's their alliance that really keeps it going. Perry Green is central in moving in the money, and Billy Paul is in the actual positions of senior

leadership, at least on paper and behind the scenes of Brannum Tabernacle and the central institutions. As that happens, things gradually stabilize. As the schisms take their toll and people break away, things stabilize as you come into the early 1970s, late 60s, early 70s, and the friendship and relationship between Billy Paul and Perry Green stays pretty good. As far as I know, coming up into the 1980s, and until I'd say the late, the middle of the late 80s, that's when things start to get sour. Well, as long as things are going good, you know, they're all getting along, everything's fine,

and you could consider Perry Green one of the most senior figures of the main sect, honestly, up until certainly up until the mid 1980s. So through all of that time, Billy Paul is spearheading a lot of mission outreach for the message, and Billy Paul, rather Perry Green, Billy Paul helping him, especially focuses on Central America, you know, Central America, Mexico, Latin America, that part of the world, and he's planning a lot of Hispanic churches, John, and I think we can credit a lot of the early growth of the Hispanic community to outreach that Billy Paul,

rather than Perry Green, with Billy Paul's help, was launching and doing like Golden Dawn Tabernacle, for example, like Perry Green helped sponsor and kick off the creation of the Golden Dawn Tabernacle as a Spanish, Hispanic message church in Tucson, for example. There's other churches we could, I could point you to, like in New Mexico, other places in Arizona, and...

California, and of course way down in Mexico and Texas that the Paragreen is helping sponsor and drawing a lot of Hispanic people into the message and sponsoring Hispanic missionaries to to spread the message into the Spanish-speaking nations of the Americas.

And there's where transitions from a pyramid scheme to this gray area between pyramid scheme and actual business structure. Because what they're doing essentially in many cases, not all, but in many cases, they receive kickbacks from those organizations and churches that they help establish.

Rightfully so to some extent, if I offer a bunch of money to you and you build a church and it costs me a bunch of money to help you get started, I want to get some of my money back because of help you got started.

But in some cases, there's a little bit profit on the side that comes with this. So it's hard to know without going through all of Paragreen's account ledger, which we don't have to know how much of it was business, how much of it was legitimate.

I can tell you that if you look at some of the court documents, which we'll get into much later, there's evidence that suggests that he was doing this for business to make a lot of money.

And in some cases, I think he made a lot of money through his legal expenses. I think he lost a lot of money. So I don't know if he was rich or not. You may not have known that this massive amount of money was flowing through Paragreen.

But the point I'm trying to make here is that when you're in the message and you hear about things like this, somebody's helping to grow a church in Mexico, you're only thinking of the religion and you're starting to think, well, this is great.

The message is spreading. It's getting the quote unquote good news of William Brannum out to the world. But you really don't think of the business side of this. There were people who really, really tried to make money by growing their religious empire and they were creating miniature empires.

So whenever the cult makes fun of people like Joe Osteen, he's got this great big building, all these fancy crowds, all of this money, yet you look at some of the leaders in the message, there's these little humble guys that look like they have nothing.

But some of them have entire empires across the globe. And how do you account for this and how, how is that different than Joe Osteen? 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 Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. Perry Green, so let's talk about his business as a little bit, John. And let's just talk about, I'm not going to talk about the literature piece today because there was a lot of money coming out of that. Maybe we'll start

talking about that when we talk about the copyright wars, but let's talk about his other businesses. And just explain how being in a position like he is in the message, and there's lots of other message preachers today who are in a similar position. How it is so how it is lucrative for them, okay, in ways that I think people may not realize, okay. So, Perry Green himself, he owned, I believe he claimed he owned 17 different corporations. I think that's the number he would give. And among them, the two of them I think that are the most notable is one was a construction company,

and the other was a travel agency. Those are probably the two most notable ones, but he owned like a milk delivery business. He had stuff in oil supposedly. And again, a lot of this is based on what he said, right. And so he's got all of these different businesses. And the message gradually, John, over time became more and more communal, okay. As people began to come into these message communities, the gradual trend, and this isn't just about every message church that I'm familiar with, John, the gradual trend is that these prominent, wealthier business owner types in the message

church gradually became the employer of all the other people in the church. And gradually, the majority of the people in the church end up working for a message boss, a message employer, right. This is the trend. And so the same is true, Perry Green, right. As the church consolidates, lots and lots of message people end up working for him and his businesses, okay. So he's got

message followers as his employees and his business outside of the church. And as you think about this, you know, as the message is becoming more and more communal, this is one of the, one of the, I think the very important steps on that path to communal living for the message, right. One of the first steps was the left public education. They started private education.

Another important step was employment consolidated to where the majority of people are being employed by message employers and other steps. So anyways, when you think about that, you are now coming to my church. I am a senior control over you. You worked for me in my business, right. It's moving into the place where where someone like Perry Green or I could say other preachers that are in this exact same situation, they now have near total control.

over the people in their church who are also their employees in their business, okay? And so if you don't like what, if I don't like what you're doing at work, I'm gonna use my powers of preacher to punish you.

And this has happened. I'm gonna whip you from the platform. How dare you not do a good job? I'm gonna use my religious power to punish you or not I'm doing a good job at work or vice versa.

You're not pleasing me at church. Guess what? I'm kicking you out. There goes your income. And hey, I'm gonna make your family divorce you too. You dirty dog. This is exactly what a pair of green did this sort of stuff quite a bit too.

And so do other message preachers. As this happens, right, they have, you could almost call it a captive workforce, John. And I'm not saying that it's this way for every person, but there are, I'm telling you, beyond a shadow of it out, there are a lot of people in the message today who are absolutely a captive workforce, trapped working for message employers.

And they can't get away. They can't get away because of the control that that preacher has over them on all sides. You don't like what you're getting paid? Too bad. You wanna get kicked out of church and lose your family?

Right. This is the sort of power play stuff that goes on in these situations. And here's where I get really, really angry Charles. In business, I worked with an Asian India firm. And they basically had Asian India slaves.

They did not physically own the people. You know, in the United States, that's illegal if that were to happen. The head of the corporation, go to prison. But what they did was they had the, if you wanted to come to America and work in an American company, we'll sponsor your visa.

We'll give you food, room, board, everything that you need to survive. But you're going to sign over to me, a year salary in advance. That's how it worked. So when they came here, if they were to suddenly go to the authorities and say, hey, there are 30 of us sleeping on the floor of this apartment.

We don't have enough food, the living conditions are horrific. It's nasty in there. They could not go to the authorities because they would lose a year's worth of salary. So these people were basically owned.

Not to that extreme, but in a very similar way, that's how people who are in leadership in the message own the rank and file members. I've had multiple people contact me and it never really sunk in until the first lady called me and she was wanting to leave the message.

She'd realized the whole thing was a scam and was false. But she was employed by a person who is in the message and had some clout in the message. Whenever she left and once they found out that she left, the people would fire her and it's very common.

It happens all throughout the message. They would fire her, they would say, well, she's a poor worker and give reasons outside of the fact that she left the message. But they would do this and it's not legal. You can't legally do that. That is discrimination in the United States But this happens and it happens often. So she was trapped and especially being female the women You know, we're all trained in this cult that education is of the devil and they just they strongly discourage it in some cases for bit it So many of especially if you're a woman the women usually can't simply go get another job

So if they have a job that they're supporting themselves and the message They can't leave and find enough Salary to support themselves after leaving. They literally have to move in with somebody I've seen cases where women just simply go get married to whoever so that they can escape the message and it's their only way out That angers me because number one it is illegal what they're doing but it's from a biblical standpoint like a mention It's unethical. Take this a step further and Focusing a little bit more on the women. There are passages in the New Testament that talk about caring for the widows

And that's part of the humble yourself help each other encourage lift the community of Christ up Well, they're a leadership that number one they know that they own the people by doing what they're doing You create this environment where everybody can't leave Well number two they some of them pray upon the widows. I have Not just one person, but there were many people maybe not many, but there were some leaders who whenever a Widow whenever a husband died and the widow took ownership of all of the husband's retirement Well, the leaders would step in and say hey, we'll care for you

We'll make sure that everything's good sign your entire inheritance over to me and then whenever the widow died they got everything and I have heard the cases where the children actually didn't even get their Inheritance because now the minister owns that entire inheritance This is what's happening in the message and it like I said it angers me a few more things I want to point out about you know this employer business stuff which Perry Green is a good example of it if If you work for the leadership of the church, they know how much money you make they know whether you're paying your tides or not

okay, and they you know that they use that to compel financial Gifting out of you because they know how much money you got like as they're paying you right and so there's a there's like this Aspect of it where yeah, I'm paying you this money in this job But now I'm gonna come to church Sunday and compel you to give X percentage of the fact to me You know and if you're not giving it back to me then I'm gonna make a life harder for you at your job I'm gonna make life harder at your church. So they know they know in this

Absolutely happen it is rampant in the message this sort of thing That happens for people who work for message employers. And the way you mentioned bringing in people overseas, this is another common thing you'll find in some of the larger message churches and I'm aware of this happening in Canada.

I'm aware of it happening in the United States. In a paragreen situation, think of the Hispanic community, right? They're bringing, they are facilitating through the message immigration into North America, whether Canada or the United States, okay?

And a lot of times these migrants end up working for the message leadership in their business entities and paragreen is no exception. And in some cases, like in the case of Hispanics, it is, you know, what in America, we call illegal immigrants, right or undocumented workers.

And so now they've got an even higher level of leverage over those sort of people. Sometimes it's a lot of times you'll find it being Africans and Indians as well, John. And so there's a lot of people, a lot of the mission networks that exist overseas, especially India, especially Africa and especially even probably more than anywhere else, especially in older years in Mexico and Latin America.

These mission networks are converting people into the message and then they create a pathway for some of these people to immigrate into the United States. Sometimes legally, sometimes illegally, right? And then these people end up working as employees in the businesses of the message leaders who now are using all of this, you know, to their financial advantage, right?

And you know, is it unethical? Yeah, a lot of it's unethical a lot of times, is it, is it always criminal? Maybe not always criminal could be borderline, right? But it's the situations where the point being the message leaders are financially profiting from this entire enterprise, right?

And the church and the message just serves, and for some of these leaders as a way to bring in employees for their businesses, right? And for them to have cheaper labor. And that's really sad, isn't it, John?

That's very sad. And if you really take a step back from all of this and think of, think of this religion not as a religion, the message, think of it as a business from the leadership standpoint.

Look at the types of businesses that are all connected to the church. You've got real estate, you've got contracting, you've got roofing. Many of the business entities that they have created are the prime examples of companies who could benefit strongly from bringing in labor like you're describing.

And I know some of the companies, I'm not going to go too far because they might sue me if I tell everything that I know about their companies. But think of the people who come into the area and now look at those businesses.

And think about how many people they have working for them who came, who migrated from another country, who were working on a visa. And you know, again, I don't have the financial disclosures of every one of these companies, their private entities, but I can assure you, based off of what we see with Perry Green, if he were doing this, and I'm using if because I don't have the ledger, if he were doing this, I can't put it past him that he would bring people over and misuse the labor as well.

I don't know how much more time we got to chat about this today. I know in our next episode, I want to start diving into the literature and we'll talk about what was going on with Perry Green's travel business as well.

Because I mean, there are things we do have quite a fair bit of testimony and examples with and we'll also maybe start to go through some of the lawsuit documents where Perry Green was involved in, I mean, I don't know how many lawsuits, John.

I think it might be 100 plus lawsuits that Perry Green was involved in, right? There was definitely nefarious stuff of foot, okay? And as you read through the lawsuits that he was involved in, it kind of gives you a clue as to the nature of things that was going on with him and his businesses.

So next episode, maybe we can start to dive into that and how that and the literature piece ultimately leads into the copyright wars and the schism that is to come. So stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen.

I hope you're enjoying our deep dive into Perry Green in this sect of the message. It's going to be so much fun, man. There's so much more to talk about with Perry Green. And remember, after everything that you've heard today and especially what we're getting into in the next episode, this is one of two main pillars.

Like I said, my grandfather and Perry Green, when William Brandham died, they lifted this whole thing back up and by all means, this cult should have imploded when William Brandham died because when he died, everything that he said about himself and his end of day's scenario died with him.

He can't have led the whole nation of Israel to the gospel, for example, which is one of his claims. They would do this before he died. All of the visions that he saw when he was, you know, everything that he said that was unfulfilled died with him.

So Perry Green and my grandfather lifted this thing back up and when we get into the next episode, you'll see the type of character that held the message up. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.William-brandham.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org. For more about the history of William Brandham and the healing revivals, you can 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 Automal.