Branhamism in New Zealand: Escape From A Message Cult - With Stephanie Bailey

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Stephanie Bailey, former member of the message from New Zealand. Stephanie is good to have you and to talk about all things message related and how I am very curious to talk about some of the differences between what I grew up in and the main sect and what was going on in New Zealand.

So I'm very excited to have you on and talk to that. Maybe if you could start by just telling everybody a little bit about yourself. Hi John, it's very good to be here today.

So I'm Stephanie. I grew up in Telenaki, a little place called New Plum Earth with my parents. I have always been in the message, but my grandparents, my dance parents, actually helped start the first church in New Cormoth. I don't really know too much of the history around who started what in other parts of New Zealand, but yeah, my paternal grandparents, they started to help start the church up in New Cormoth that I grew up in. Awesome. So your family is message royalty from New Zealand families who helped start the church. Everybody knows them.

Everybody recognizes them. So in many ways, you're similar to me, but in New Zealand. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I would say everyone knows the top lucky church and everyone knows my parents and the past is there. So yeah, I would say it's royalty.

I can imagine everybody recognizes you. So tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up in New Plum Earth in the message. It's very interesting. We didn't go to school for too long at public school. We were homeschooled.

I think I went to three years of primary school when I was homeschooled. There's always very much like the weird kid. We had long skirts, long hair, all of that sort of stuff. We weren't allowed to cut out hair, no earrings.

So we would definitely have the weird kids growing up, even in school in the winter, to have long skirts, not even usually when we were stockings to school. Toot Wednesday, Sunday, then potentially on Sunday evening.

Every now and then we'd have communion and foot washing. I assume that's normal. Communion and foot washing for everybody. That grew up in the message, but yeah, I don't really remember too much. I just always remember.

remember that weird kid and Mum and Dad were pretty into it. They still very much are, none of us kids are still there but yeah it was, I feel like it was okay when we were little kids but then once we got into our rebellious phase, questioned everything then it started becoming like real difficult and that's when Mum and Dad you know fought back with us and yeah it was, it was yeah, it was always, it's always the weird kid, I don't know, that's how I felt growing up and I never felt like I belonged anywhere and we always, we always compared to exclusive brethren

as well. I think I've heard you guys talk about them quite a bit on the podcast. We had a bunch of exclusive brethren live up the road from us actually and everyone would be like oh are you just like one of them and we were like no we're non-denominational and I don't even know what that means the kid but yeah, message books everywhere in the house. My Mum and Dad they had or at least three or four shelves just full of transcripted message books from Brother Benjamin's Church. That was a big one growing up. I don't know if you remember a few of you

have heard of this but have you heard the family alter book that was written by Cloverdale? No.

It was like a 365 day book and somebody, I can't remember who wrote it but it was written by a Cloverdale Bible way and they did like it, they took something or a scripture from the Bible and then matched it to whatever William Brannum said and Mum and Dad would sit at the breakfast out every morning and read one a day from us. So that was very very interesting. Yeah those message books were everywhere for me growing up. Both grandparents on both sides of my family had them. One of my grandfather's had this big special cabinet that was completely specially

made to hold these books and then had little slots for cassette tapes and on the doors as they would open it would be pictures of William Brannum and an eagle and all kinds of message relic stuff. It kind of reminded you if you went to an altar by some, I don't know somebody who does like family, dead family worship maybe in Mexico or some of those different sex. This was the shrine that they went to and got their message books and I read through those constantly and I listened to the recordings constantly. So I was like you I was a little bit different too. I did

go to public school but you know you're trained to isolate yourself so even though I was there, I wasn't really there if that makes any sense. Yeah yeah no it's very hard to relate.

to the kids in your classrooms because you're so different and you have all these weird thoughts and they're like, they're excited about Santa Claus and you're like, Santa's not real. It's a made up holiday. Even though we celebrate it Christmas, I know a lot of people in the church didn't. Specifically, the ones who came to South Africa, I don't know why. Most, yeah, I think some of them do now, but yeah, you're talking about that, the eagle paint, yeah, picture. I think we have one of those in our house. We definitely, but picture of Jesus. Everyone has that picture of Jesus in their house. The

definitely was the eagle at church. I think there might have even been a picture of William Brennan at church as well. And I know there used to be in the pastor's office. It was like probably every book that they had the, what was it, the revelations books, but I can't remember what they were called. Yeah. And his life story, I read those numerous times. They always, they always fascinated me. And I just remember when I first started listening to your podcast.

And I was like, oh my god, like, no, this is true. I already had my suspicions that was, you know, occult. But then when I started listening and you guys brought up this evidence, and I was like, wow, that like really makes so much sense to like everything. And yeah, I don't know. It was actually insane to hear about it, because I'd grown up obviously thinking, I mean, even though I left the church so long ago, I never really put two and two together, I just thought he's probably not a bad person. Everyone's at church was just a bit extreme.

But yeah, and then I kind of delved into it. And I was like, yeah, no, I grew up in a cult. And I never, I never really can thought it would be anything like to have a witness or exclusive brethren. But that really is, it is one of a kind. And everybody is, yeah, they, all isolate themselves. I don't really feel like a lot of have friends outside church. You do have the odd people that are very much out in the community. And they're actually not so strict.

But yeah, no, that is so interesting. Like when you grow up, when you actually become an adult, you really think about these things and like, oh, I really did grow up in a cult.

Yeah, it's kind of painful looking backwards, because so you mentioned Christmas, your family celebrated. Well, many families didn't. The interesting part about this is most of the quote unquote royalty families, most of them celebrated Christmas, because when you become, I don't know why the difference is, but when you become in this royalty status, the royalty knows the other royalty. And they know that William Brannum celebrated Christmas in his house.

But in his public stage persona, he denounced anybody who celebrated Christmas. So you rank and file a member. or who didn't realize that he had a Christmas tree in his home. He had presents in his home, gifts.

The church would give him gifts. He even mentioned this on recording. He mentions all of this on recording, actually, if you go look at it. So while he's touring and he's just criticizing anybody who celebrates Christmas like they're inviting demons in their house, he's doing it.

And all of his inner circle knew that he was doing it. So the Colt Royalty does this. The Colt Royalty also were aware that he had a television in his home while he was just blasting everybody who had TVs, right?

So you grew up in this double standard. If you're in the Colt Royalty, you get to do things that nobody else could. There were large periods of my life where we had TV and then we didn't.

It would kind of flip flop for whatever reason. And there were segments of time where I had it. And I remember those movies or TV shows, whatever they were, where it's portraying a child who's in high school, who is isolating himself and is very in a destructive state of mind and then something bad happens because he has a mental health issue, he's isolated himself.

And I never really stopped to think, wait a minute, I'm doing the same exact thing. I have never heard or never heard anyone say in our church that Christmas, like William Brunham did Christmas or he didn't do Christmas, it was never really, I think with maybe my grandparents were painting crosses before there and then my grandma was Catholic.

They kind of did it, so I think it was just always a thing. But I don't know, I can't believe the pastor did it or didn't celebrate it, but I know that he had a TV which was very interesting.

He always had to have like quite flash interesting things but his kids and his wife never had flash things. He invested in himself and what he wanted to do, but he would never invest in like that sort of stuff.

So I remember like going to their house and they had a TV and I was like, okay, that's interesting that we don't have a TV. But we're not, now that I'm older, my parents have a TV but it's not connected up to the channels.

It's purely there for them to watch videos from other people's churches. They watch a lot of like, I don't know, the big names. They used to, they used to, and they often sit down and listen to a William Brunem soon at night, just every night actually.

So yeah, they have a TV now, but they, and now watch the rugby world cut them to us only enough, which is a big thing in New Zealand. But when we were growing up, that movie's like, no, absolutely not.

But my grandmother and my papa had a TV, the ones that helped start the whole church. We were allowed to watch like Rugrats occasionally although my parents were not a fan of that. But because they're at my nannies, you know, that was just, that was okay.

So my nannies and papa were really stripped. but funnily enough, my Nana, who helped set up church. She actually left the church. And I never found out before she died if she didn't believe in William Brown anymore, but I think she was going through, she didn't think that people were in there for the right reasons.

And she just felt like it was an evil place, I think, at the end from what I remember. But it would kind of be interesting to know because I was listening to one of your podcasts the other day and you were talking about, was it legal, and a bunch of other ministers at the end realized that maybe William Brown was a fraud and all that sort of, like, wasn't that real?

I kind of, then maybe think maybe she was also on that same sort of spectrum of them. So yeah, it'd be nice to know, but obviously, she can't talk to him also. Yeah, it's interesting that she was like part of the startup and now she, and then she left the church and no one could get it to go back.

My auntie couldn't get it to go back, my dad couldn't get it to go back, no one could. So she was always like, I will stay home, I'll read my Bible and pray every day.

And that was what she did. Yeah, it's interesting the timeline because it was about, I want to say it was the mid 1980s. Somebody realized that William Bram and one of his sermons, he says that he was in Houston, Texas.

And somebody recognized that the date he's talking about, if he was in Houston, Texas, he could not have been under the 1963 mystery cloud. And so suddenly this opened up a can of worms that spread throughout the globe in the message circles, especially among the cult royalty.

Everybody, everybody's like, well, wait, how do we explain this? If he's in Houston, he can't be in Arizona. And he says, I was standing right under this, holding up the, what was it, Science Magazine or Life Magazine article about the cloud.

And so if he's in Houston, he had to have been lying, how do we explain this? And so Rebecca Brannum Smith published that, I think it's called the Road to Sunset and created a timeline to try to reconcile.

And that was published and distributed around the globe. Everybody's like, oh, well, there's a timeline. Now we understand it. But then other people started looking at her timeline and wait a minute, that doesn't match.

What will Brannum said at all? And this just kind of cascaded throughout the globe. And I really think that that's what started the ball rolling. Many leaders of the message had to come to terms with, he was really lying about being there.

He wasn't there. What do I, what do I do with this? And there were a handful that said, okay, he wasn't there. He made a mistake and openly admitted this, but I still believe the message he just wasn't truthful in this one aspect.

And the others, they just kind of, like they can... sealed it. They knew that it was a problem. They knew that he was lying. And they said, okay, we have to keep the secret. We can't let the general public in the message know, because everybody's going to leave. If you take the cloud away, you've really taken away the message, because everything that was built on top of that is the spiritual supernatural sign.

Everything that he said that was built on top of that comes down with it. I mean, maybe I'm too, was too young for this, but I don't even know if any of that reached like our small family, but probably did. But I mean, if it did, I would have said that they would have kept that hidden, because they don't want people knowing that sort of stuff. They need they need people to not be in the church. But so like, I mean, I wouldn't have heard of that.

I don't know. My parents had never told about it. I think my parents would be completely lost if they realized that they were in a cult. They wouldn't know where to turn. Which is really, really sad.

But yeah, they really just, I think this man is the one. And yes, absolutely crazy. You know, that's a good point. People who, there are people who recognize they're in a cult, while they're in it. And what do you do with this? Your whole life is built on top of it.

All of your friends, all of your network, your people, as humans, we need a network of support. And some people, if you cut off that network of support, they really can't survive. Mentally, sometimes physically, they can't survive. And I'm certain, well, actually, I know, because I've talked to people who have gone through this. I know that there are people who make a conscious decision that, okay, everything that I believe is false. However, the man used the word Jesus Christ in some of his sermons. Interestingly, not all of his sermons. That's kind of a funny thing. But the man used the name Jesus Christ. So I'm just going to ignore all of the fiction

and just focus on Jesus. And what's interesting is the people who make a conscious decision to leave, they do the same thing. But the moment you say, I no longer believe William Brannum in the things that he said that he lied about it, no longer believe the lies, they're instantly cut off from the call. And many times they're shunned, sometimes they're just emotionally shunned, families, the family units, not the same. But there are people who are inside who are doing the same exact thing. And not everybody recognizes that. I haven't personally seen anybody that they don't.

Well, maybe I have my parents. I can't, but I definitely haven't seen anything to anybody inside the church. My parents, differently, there is favoritism. You can see my parents choose five of us, my two older brothers, they are both still in the church. And you can see the favoritism towards them. They adore them. My sister, my older sister, to meet the three of our three girls we are both.

not in the church, but my older sister, not long ago, she'd had a bit of a mental breakdown. She was like having a fall on panic attack and she just couldn't get out of it.

And she must have like run dead or something and he like prayed for her and she like,

she was like, oh, I'm like, made this word and she was like, okay. And then he was like sending her like, he was telling her like, talking to her heats and like, telling her like, oh, about the Bible and this and stuff.

And we don't have for about a week and then she kind of was like, well, actually, I don't really like, and then he stopped talking to her. And yeah, it's just so, and like, you can just see the favoritism, like my brothers have done some bad stuff and it's just this whole attitude of like, forgive and forget and like, move on.

And it's like, okay, but in the real world wouldn't really be like that. And a lot of the church are also the same. They've all like, they'll take people's side because they've gone up in front of the whole church and they've admitted what they've done and they've said they've prayed for God for forgiveness and they've run praise for them.

And like, I mean, I'm not in church, I'm not even, I don't go to church at all. Like, I'm not in that sort of thing anymore. But I found that it was really big within like that community of, there was no really like punishment for anything.

And boys always held to like a higher level. So they were always like, okay, you've been forgiven, like that's fine. And so I just, and even like our pastor at the time, so like don't, he was like, so under the rug, he switched everything under the rug.

There was no consequences for everything, even if there was sexual assault on the church, just switched under the rug. It was pretty bad, he's a teen on charge anymore. But yeah, there are some pretty interesting things that happened like in that church.

I mean, maybe I'm just gonna go on tangent about them, but we had this one Sunday school teacher, he made us read a message book every week. We had to read a message book, and then he would pick out, help people, couple of people in the class to like report on what that read.

I got kicked out because I wouldn't read them. I was like, no, I was also like 12 to 14. So you can imagine I'm not really interested at that age. And I'm not gonna read them, but instead of encouraging someone to sit in, and maybe even just hearing about my encouraging, I'll let no see later.

So I didn't actually go back to Sunday school after that. I think I was like, well, I was anywhere from 12 to 13, but I do remember, I cut my hair when I was 12, and this same guy, he, I went to Sunday school the day, and he saw anything that day in church has also been about just about.

and I was like, this is about me and she was kind of laughing, well not like on the inside because I was like, this is so interesting. I was like, I just pointed at me and I just did not care.

I was like, I've cut my hair, not a big deal. We used to, we used to tell Mum to cover here because she'd split ends and it wasn't looking so healthy. She said, no, no, no. And at that point, we found out that William, Brandon's wife and kid used to cut their hair. I was like, well, he, they did it. And she was like, no, but it's just not right. And I'm just saying, he did it. So why can't you do it? It's not a double standard. You're just, you're following what he did. So I mean, yeah, maybe he preached against it because he would also let his wife

and his kid do what he was preaching against. You know, it's kind of funny because I grew up with all of these personal photographs of William, Brandon. Now, I think a lot of the message people have them, which is even more interesting if you really stop and think about it. But I grew up having them because my grandparents were really close to William, Brandon. My aunts and uncles played with William, Brandon's sons and daughters. And so that we have all these family photos, right? And you're right. Me to Brandon cut her hair. As did most Pentecostals of that era,

they, they did believe that you had to have long hair. And they had these little debates on what does long mean. You know, if you look at the world today and you, or well, that era and you look at they had what they, what they call bobbed hair and just did not originate with William, Brandon. But it was about to shoulder length or so. Well, anything below this was long hair compared to the rest of the popular fashion of the era. So you had Pentecostal women who had hair that was just slightly longer than shoulder length, some longer than that. And there are photographs that exist of

the Brandon family wearing everything that would be condemned by the modern message church, everything. They had skirts that were above the knees. And I can't tell you how many sermons that I've heard about these quote unquote scandal skirts. Because if you show your knee cap, that's going to turn a guy on. That's going to really mess. And it's going to be your fault sister because you showed him your knee cap. And I was growing up. I'm sitting there. I'm going to, you know, I'm an adolescent male listening to this thinking, you know, I'm not that really

impressed with the kneecaps, nor the feet, nor the sandals, all of the things they preach that. I'm like, that preacher's just a little bit weird, you know. And I'm listening to this. And I've seen the photographs. I know that the Brandon family had the Brandon family boys wore shorts, and that's in the photograph. In fact, for the visual audience, for those who are watching instead of listening, I'll throw up a photograph. And you can see the the shoulders, the, you can see some of the shoulders and some of the pictures.

You could see the knees, you can see that the hair has clearly been cut of the women, and the boys are wearing shorts, and there's even a photograph of William Brannum himself wearing shorts.

So, what you saw offstage by all of the people who were in the inner circle did not match what he said onstage, and that's what created this double standard. Yeah, my funny story about the whole skirt thing, my auntie, she looks all sort of as a pivot now.

She actually, one of the main reasons she moved here was because of the past through the time, but she was wearing a skirt that had slits in the ankle, probably like that much. It was really a small amount, like it wasn't nothing crazy, but apparently you can see her ankles, and the past through the time, pulled her up on a better.

I think you pulled her up twice on it, and was like, you can't wear that, like you can't have your ankles out, you know, men will get turned on by then. She was like, absolutely not, like that is ridiculous, if men are going to get turned on by that, that's their problem, like not my problem, they have a problem.

She is very headstrong, she's still in the message to this this day, but she will tell, she told her, like, her mother, she was like, I'm not changing, but I'm wearing a very modest skirt.

This ankle slit is not a big deal, like, yeah, but I mean, this, like in the modern church that my parents are still in, it's very different to how I grew up. A lot of the girls, definitely dress a bit more trendy, I mean, I dress so ugly, a lot of girls dress very ugly back in the day.

Very trendy, the pastor's daughter herself, she has her nails done, she wears jewelry, she gets a hair dyed, that turns her eyebrows or whatever, everything that we were not allowed to do. And I was like, when I saw her, because she's an Instagram, and I follow her, and I'm like, what the actual hell, we would never have to do any of that, no one would have to do any of that.

It was a scandal when the old pastor's daughter turned up at church, pregnant at 16, like, it was an actual, it was a mess, but I mean, to be honest, she's still the church, and the other pastor has four kids, they were left, none of them in the church, has wife divorced him.

Which is funny, because William Brownham talks about divorce, and is that the men can remarry and woman can't remarry? Is that how it goes? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so my, so he actually got remarried, that pastor of the church, he actually got kicked out of the being pastor, because his wife left him and divorced him, they said, no, you can't be a pastor anymore.

But he got remarried a couple years after that, to some lady who was the pastor of another small church in a town over, and... A lot of people didn't go to the wedding, but not for the reason you think.

And you would think that people didn't go to the wedding because he was married previously and he used to be passive people. No, they didn't go to the wedding because she had been engaged previously to some guy who broke up with her because I think he was Indian and she wasn't Indian, something like that. His parents wanted her to be Indian. But yeah, a lot of people didn't go because of that factor, which I thought was very hypocritical, but very unsurprising for message people. I mean, he can remarry, but she can't, even though she isn't engaged,

but she wasn't actually particularly married, but they say that engaged is married in God's eyes. So yeah, it was absolutely wild to me because my mum was really good friends with that lady. They're also good friends anymore. She was very upset the mum didn't go to the wedding, and I was like, it's not a big deal, Mum. Like, maybe you don't agree with what she's doing, but at the end of the day, you're willing to lose a friendship over that.

It's, I mean, you don't have to like what everybody does. You don't have to agree with what everybody does. But they're still the church. They're still great people. Well, the pastor isn't, but his wife is very nice. You know, like, why would you, I don't know, why would you risk your friendship for that?

But they're so set in their ways when it comes to certain things that they will not be in on that. And it's shocked me when I found out that was actually the reason why people didn't go.

So here's the interesting part about the marriage and divorce doctrine of the man can marry, but the woman cannot after they have been married to another person.

Not many people know this, but the original message community up until I can't remember what year it changed, but from William Brannum's stage persona during Laterane, probably from the 1940s or so, up until long after he died, no people who were married could ever marry another person while their spouse was still living, because that was general Pentecostal doctrine.

But what happened was William Brannum's son, who was, there's a lot I could say about the things he was doing, but I'll just limit it to this. William Brannum's son married another woman, got engaged to be married to another woman, actually went through the marriage, and the rumor is that he also had a child, which I, you know, the records are kind of sealed. I can't go in and verify that, but I have heard that existed as a problem. He filed for divorce or she did.

I can't remember one of the two files for divorce. If you go to my website, you can look up in Billy Paul Brannum. You can actually see the government documents. Fall for divorce, they separated and William Brannum is presented with a problem because Billy Paul is still dating other girls and so William Brannum gets, he blows his stack. He's so angry and he tells all of his following that I annulled their marriage and therefore they separated. But that's not what happened. It's an actual divorce and you can see the court documents. There was an actual divorce. I have actually spoken to his first wife, Billy Paul's

first wife and we've actually had quite a few conversations and they were married. There was a lot more to that story than I can even tell right now. But William Brannum gets pissed and he starts just railing against the problems that exist today and the fact that men are so constrained and he preaches the sermon marriage and divorce and he says we have one male deer and many female deer. We have one cow and many female cow, one bull and many female cow. He goes through all the animal kingdom and he basically says that men are like raging bulls and they need lots of

women. He's saying this in the sermon and he says awful hideous things like women are designed solely for the purpose of sex and it wasn't so from the beginning Satan designed him this way and therefore the men should be able to have as many women as they want but one at a time. That's essentially what he said but he said this is only for my church don't let this recording out and so only the people who were localized to hear that sermon and they're all being recorded like everything the man said was recorded only the people that were sitting there got to hear it because they

withheld the tape and then there came to be this battle which Charles and I are actually we just recorded yesterday how that tape got released and why so we'll get into that it'll come out probably I think it comes out before this one comes out but we talk about why marriage and divorce got released to the public that's what created the doctrine of he can remarry but she can't interestingly at the same time it did that because of the way he tried to defend this nonsense it also introduced polygamy into the message and that spread around the globe there were many many

ministers who even in the states where it is not legal they were practicing polygamy. 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 Brandham historical researches webs site, William-Branum.org.

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I'm actually excited to listen to the episode of how marriage divorce came out because I had, it's one of the ones I, I don't even remember exactly what was preached, but I remember hearing about it a lot.

We definitely listened to it a lot. It was played a lot. I don't know why, it was, well, it's very misogynistic sort of presence, obviously, in this, in the message, and so that was definitely one that I heard a lot.

It kind of just sounds like he hated one of it, but I don't know why, like, you would go on a tangent like that if you didn't have some sort of hate against one, and it sounds like maybe he could not, maybe if it was Billy Paul's wife, that divorce, like, proceeded with a divorce, maybe he just wasn't happy about that, but yeah, it's, I didn't realise that it came about because of Billy Paul, but it doesn't surprise me that he just made that up out of, out of something that happened because, yeah, it was always a big thing.

I do remember one, there was a divorce lady in our church, and another divorce male in our church. I think they were spending a bit of time together, don't really know what happened, but they eventually were told that they had to stop, which is so wrong, because they're told to stop us, say, man, having to not remarry, you know, it makes absolutely no sense.

I don't know if it was, but it's probably because she was actually divorced, but her ex-husband ended up coming to our church, and with his new wife and their daughter. All was fine, I think she threatened not to come to church, I think actually they walked in one day, and she walked out, and I think your daughter's walked out as well, because they were like, no, but I think they still go to the church, I'm not really sure, but yeah, it was so many like random marriage and divorces that are like accepted, but then they have this whole marriage and divorce sermon, and it's like, is anybody actually following

that? Because William Brunnen said... this, and no one's really doing that. So he also said, he also demonized interracial marriage. I do remember having a conversation with my mother, and I'm pretty sure she said something about this couple of our churches interracial were married. And I was like

not a big deal, but I don't know if she still has Caesar view, but you know it's odd because I went to churches all across the nation. We, growing up I went to something like I lost count like 13 different schools, but from Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between we went to churches and then I visited several churches, etc. And what's interesting is whenever somebody got divorced and then they remarried, they were pretty much scorned in the church. Initially they were outcast even though that they would continue to come because they had nowhere else to go. Like we've talked about it's your entire support group. So

they're taking a lot of heat for several years. What's interesting is there comes a point of time for I haven't put the connection. Maybe it's the ones that pay more time. I don't know, but there are certain people that can do it. And then they overcome this and then they're well respected.

They're asked to pray in the church and all of the scorn just magically disappears and people forget that they got divorced and remarried. But there are people who overcome this. There are on the other side people who are condemned for the rest of their life. It is a branding and you are branded male or female no matter, you know, even William Brandham said he can but she can't.

Well, there were men who were scorned because of this, right? In fact, one of my best friends, this was the case. They created a problem for him. But all of that existed. What we didn't know at the time is before William Brandham preached marriage and divorce, he clearly stated that neither one could remarry after they had one spouse. But yet at the same time in the same court that had the documents that I got with Billy Paul, William Brandham is helping perform the marriages of his brothers multiple times. Some of his brothers that I know were well respected and came to the

Brandham Tabernacle. So he's helping them trade women like baseball teams, trade baseball players. Yeah, I listened to them. So recently we talked about it. I was like, I beat you. A lot of people in the church do not know that. Know what they want to know that because then they'd be like, oh, looking at remarried. And he was remarrying them. And yeah, they don't want to know that. But yeah, no, I thought it was so interesting. I mean, he goes back on what he does. Everything, he sees something and then he does a different thing. So it's not really surprising. But it's

shocking when you hear it for the first time. So you have an interesting history. And I'm curious what it's like in the other side of the globe, whenever somebody decides to leave the message.

What was it like? for you when you left the message. How, what made you decide to leave? How did it happen when you left? And what were the after effects? So, I think it kind of set, I've never really believed in this whole thing.

I think when I started hanging out with a lot of Christians in the homeschooling group, that actually don't know the national Christians and they could be pants and do whatever they want. And then I really wanted to go to high school.

I wanted to be like every other kid. And I got my first period of genes when I was 12 and mum threw a fetch. She was like, we the howdy to get those from.

Like, why do you have those? And it just kept on going like little things. And then I got to high school and I eventually was just doing whatever I wanted. Not one all whatever I wanted, but I was wearing pants and dressing kind of how within what I wanted.

But I think I was still going to church when I started high school. I was like 14. I didn't really want to go, but I wouldn't anyway because I think mum and dad kind of said, maybe when you're 16, you can stop going to church.

So I was still holding on, still very disinterested, falling asleep in church because they all just yelling about what can I kind of do and I was like, cool. So I went to a friend's church, Pentecostal church.

I stayed a room at a half at night and we rang my parents to them, when I was like, oh, can I go to church there? And they were, oh yeah, like whatever, that's fine.

And so I just dressed in her clothes and I was wearing a dress that was above my knees, but I was wearing stockings and it wasn't a load, it wasn't a load dress, but like it was not for anyone who can see.

It wasn't like a high top, like I'm wearing now. And I was wearing a leather jacket over top and I got home because I was dropped straight off after that. And I walked in and my dad was like, why are you wearing that?

I was like, really? Cause I'm still pretty covered, like. I was like, and all of these things, I was just like, I don't want to go to church. Like it's horrible. My dad's talking about trials and tribulations, how Satan's coming down and he's going to torture us, but we're not going to die because it's not how it works.

He's got, he's in the rapture because he's got his life right. And I'm like, what the hell? And yeah, I think by the time I got to like 15 or 16, I'd stopped going to church.

I didn't go even down then because I had two friends still in the church. And people were quite nice. They were happy that I would come to church, which was nice. But then, because my brother wasn't going to church at the time, there are some issues with my brother there.

So we wouldn't be together in the same room sort of thing. So I, he wasn't going to church at the time, so I would still go to the church and then I stopped going.

And I think I must have been like 16, I just had enough of this, like I just don't want to go anymore. I just do like church camps every now and then I'd go to like potlikes if it was like outside of church.

Everyone was actually quite nice and I would still talk to many of the people in the church today. I want to say I'm quite lucky that the church is so lovely. They don't talk to you and they won't even mention like God or the church anything like that, some will, some won't.

But no one's really like isolated. I would say my parents have isolated me more than other people in the church. Like, I mean I still had some of the elders in the church come to my 21st birthday.

I'm very happy to come along. I mean, though, you know, I guess I would say aunties and uncles, they'll give me a hug. The meaning will give me a hug. But that was obviously a very big no-no like when I was growing up.

But oh, you know, I'm 21 now. Like, I don't go to church and so on. So I'm also, I've been drinking so I'm like, goodbye. Give me a hug. And they would just give you a hug.

Like, they don't, they kind of like that one without just like, it's not really the deal. So I've been lucky in that respect. I know a lot of people were having like completely shunned.

I don't really talk a lot of people, but I do know that my brother ended up going back to that church where he resides now. And the pastor wrote me up and he was like, you know, you're welcome back anytime.

I just want to let you know that he goes here now. And I was like, I'm never coming back if he's there. I'm like, you've got to be crazy to think that I would ever like step foot while he's there.

But as I said before, like, that was also a part of, that's a big part of like why I would never go back is because they support him, even though he's done bad things because he has asked for both forgiveness.

I don't know if it's he wasn't scorned because he's a male and he got up there and he admitted it. And that he prayed and asked for forgiveness. But yeah, like, and everyone's like, oh, you know, he's changed, like, you know, he's not that bad anymore.

But it's funny because he was 27 a few years ago and he was courting a 16 year old from the church. And I was like, yeah, this is not normal. Like, so there's like stuff like that that goes on.

It's just, it's not something for me. And you know, when I was a teenager growing up, seeing all the stuff, you just slowly lose hope. And you're just like, this is not the life I want to live.

I can't do this. And so, yeah, there's the more, let's date. I was like, no, so I just like slowly start going to church and just start to slip on Sundays instead. But as you know, as a teenager should sleep.

So I'm lucky on the side of people haven't shunned me. I'm still really close with one of my friend's moms. Let's go to church and she probably has the best outlook on life as a messenger leader.

very much into God is very much into William Brannum, but she very much accepts everybody as they are. I think that might be because she's a teacher, and so she is, she just, I know she's just a beautiful person, and the person I respect the most in that church.

It's interesting talking about the lady who's a teacher, I've noticed this too, you have people who are in the cult that really isolate themselves from society. And even if they're in society, they kind of shut their brain off.

They don't recognize that there is a world around them, but you have other people, especially like somebody who is forced by their profession to interact with people of other faiths, cultures, beliefs, etc. And you find those are the ones that usually don't shun the people.

They're usually open, yes, this person left the message, but they believe in Jesus Christ that makes them a Christian. I'm a Christian, therefore we're compatible. That's how I normal human beings should see it.

But there are many people who isolate themselves in your church, so you weren't shunned. I'm curious, was there shunning in your church? Maybe a bit more when the old pastor was in charge, he was definitely big for you have to do right, or like don't come back.

But the new pastor has been quite welcoming of everybody. He's very much, I think they decided it's very much community, and you're welcome if you want to come along, and it's not a big deal if you wear pants and do things that we wouldn't do.

Yeah, I think maybe it's like a ploy to see if some people come back to the church, but maybe like back in the day, there was some shunning, but nowadays, yes, not so much like that.

Everyone kind of is still friendly with everybody, but yeah, I don't know, like I'm surprised actually the lady who was about to teach her, I'm surprised that she didn't get shunned because she actually left her husband a couple years ago, and he saw the church as well.

He was quite angry, and she just had enough, and she was like, well if you know me therapy like I'm moving out, I don't think that they haven't divorced or anything, and she would just want to do that, but yeah, I think it would have been very different under the old pastor's control.

I think he would have been very much like, this is like not okay, don't do this, but I mean my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, she went over and saw this lady and she was like telling her she's not doing the right thing, and she just deal with her husband, and she was like, kindly, no, this is like none of your business, I'm doing my space for me.

And I think that it's, she isn't isolated, whereas like a lot of other people do isolate themselves. I have found that some of the people that haven't grown up in the message of like some of the elders in the church, they came in, like 70s, 80s, because they're quite older now.

I've had that life experience, so they're not as strict, but I feel like some of the ones that grew up in it are a little bit more odd, the ones that stay, but I know that a lot of the elders, kids have not stayed in the church, a lot of them are out in the world, and I know one of the elders, sons and cannot gay, and people have actually accepted it. No one has been moved, like rude to him or anything, they accepted it as a family. So I just, none of this would have existed

15 years ago. I'm trying to think how old I am, and when I was back in church, when I was, that 15 years ago, none of this would have been okay at all. But yeah, there has been definitely a change. I don't know, people are just nicer, more like more community-based now, which is, it's nice to see change. I still don't agree with what they believe in, and some a lot of things they do, but it is nice to see community-based. So yeah, which I don't think a lot of churches from what I've heard are. So what advice would you give to

people who have left the message, and they're trying to establish the footing in the non-court world? You've done very well for yourself, and there are others who, you know, after watching this, they want to do well for themselves too. What advice would you give them?

Great question. It definitely took me a long time, and I think they're going to school, going to university, definitely helped. I think it's just all about getting out there, meeting lots of different people, because you're not finding who you are, and you find different friends around. You find out who you are, you get a career that's got nothing to do with the church, and you're just like, you just live your life, you find out what you like, you find out your hobbies, what you enjoy, which is hard to do, because, you know, you grow up in such a stringent

environment, but yeah, I think it took me a long time to get to this point. It was definitely socialising, not being so isolated, and just really finding out who I was as a person, and it takes a really long time when you have been in the COP. I left in our 16, and I feel probably most at peace now, and now at 27, so I did also move away. I moved away from a lot of that, so I don't have, well, but I'm not saying move away, but it is not.

to just get out there, meet different people, and just do something different. Do something new, find out what you like, find out what you don't like. And yeah, just honestly, just be yourself because you'll find people out there that will actually accept you for who you are, even if you still are a little weird. And you'll just end up becoming this person, this version of you that you never knew you could be. And I enjoy who I am now. I enjoy my life. I know I was so scared, even for a 20-year-old, because I would always remember my dad telling me about

the trials and tribulations, and I was like, oh god, like I guess I'm just having a good time now, like I'll give that to her. And now I'm like, that's not true. Like, I'm living, I would want to say I'm morally right-life, and I'm not bad person. And I am very happy who I am now, son.

Well, it's very good advice. I'm glad that you came on, and thank you for sharing your story with us. No, thank you. I'd be glad to have this experience. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org.

For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Automotive.