Radicalization: The Hidden History Behind America’s Religious Fringe

Hello, and welcome to another episode. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of WilliamBrandomHistoricalResearch 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 is good to be back, and today we're digging into some of the most recent news. It interestingly ties into our research, so I know we've talked about it a few times on the leaving the message video channel, and you can see some interviews out there.

Jed and I have talked about this, Dr. Steven Hassan has talked about this, but I really wanted to dive deeper into the history, because in both instances, as we're talking about it, I'm looking at the comments and the emails coming back in, and I realize that people are just largely unfamiliar with all of this history, because so many of these groups have covered up their history, and I thought it would be good anyway, if we dive in deeper, we're talking about Vance Bolter.

He is the Minnesota gunman who went in, and basically assassinated the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and news is branding this as a conservative christian killer, which I take a bit of a fence with.

You have two groups of people, you have the liberal Christians and the conservative Christians, and if you change that narrative where you're taking out an entire half of the Christian population and saying, this guy's associated with this, it's very denigrating to Christians, and at the same time, this person was, it looks as though he was changed into a radicalized

preacher using some of the religious themes. I'm choosing my words carefully, that's why I paused there. With some of the groups that we've been discussing and involved with, and there's some history in those groups, so I want to dive deeper into that history and talk through that, and before we start, I will say that they're also linking him to Christ for the nations, and Christ for the nations.

As we talk through this history, they likely don't believe some of the things in its own history. They've changed significantly, so we'll talk to the history, but it explains a little bit of a queer thing.

things ended up if we get into it. So let's talk through Vance Bolter. Don, I'm looking forward to having a little talk about this today. I'm not super familiar with the situation. I've read the headlines like everybody else and saw a little bit.

So I mean, I can comment some. He fortunately, I say fortunately, was taken in alive, right? So the good news is at some point down the road, obviously, there's going to be a trial.

And I'm sure the police have already interrogated him and everything, I'm sure whatever has happened here will come out in the trial and whatever the motives were, what have you, will all come out and everybody will have a firmer understanding of what motivated the whole thing, right?

Right now, there's not, I mean, other than some details that have come out in news stories, there's not a whole lot of firm explanations as to what motivated this guy to go on his murder rampage.

I heard in one news article, John, that he had a hit list of 70 people that he was going to kill and they were all Democrats. So I mean, that kind of gives you, you know, an idea of, you know, who he hated more anyway.

Yeah. And, you know, when you talk about stuff like this, you know, the two of those controversial things in the world, you can talk about John or politics in religion. My God, we're already talking about religion all the time and you add politics and on that, boy, we, they might, you know, want to do something bad to us.

So I'm super careful, you know, I generally don't get into the politics side of things too much. I'm pretty conservative person myself, right? But, you know, when you, when you look at this, yeah, I'm coming at this, this is not a political angle, you know, and I think for people who live in the political space, it's hard to understand, maybe what I'm talking about right here, because for some people, politics is their religion.

For other people, their religion is their politics, okay? And if this guy is like the people that you and I know, John, the people in the cult, their politics is not their religion, their religion is their politics.

And, and they don't look at this thing, like even when we're in the message in these cults, where you don't look at this thing like your typical liberal or conservative, right? I mean, yeah, there's things we care about with energy policy.

Yeah, we got opinions on national defense. Yeah, we have preferred tax policies, yeah, all that's true. But that is not the prism through which you look at the world and choose your candidates and have your political, it is a, it's an entirely based on the prophetic things and scripture, it's all based on demons and angels, like your entire world political view is that.

The prophecy has come forth that this great leader is to do this and that, and we will do whatever is necessary in order to advance the kingdom, you know, that is the prism you're looking at it.

And it don't matter what their tax policy is. It don't matter what their national, like that's all. Secondary to the fact that God has divinely commanded these things to happen and That is the mindset of these people right and and when you come at it from a conservative liberal angle You just you're not even in the right universe of what motivates or motivates the minds of these people, okay And John, we know because we were these people forgot sake. I mean come on. We were these people You know for for a large part of our lives. We are from a cult that is a branch of this thing

And so anyways that that is disclaimer number one for me John As we start to talk about this and whether or not necessarily Mr. Vance Volter was one of these people It certainly seems that way based on videos that we see I mean this guy would fit in in a message church These preachive videos. I've seen this guy give out But is this is he one of those guys? I don't know necessarily so anyways. We're speculating a little bit here Well, I guess while we're throwing out disclaimers. I've mentioned this often But it doesn't seem to resonate when I say it

I have no interest at all in politics I think both sides are corrupt if I were to say I Voted for one side or the other people might take that as me having an opinion I vote because it's a freedom and I unfortunately regret some of my votes but all of that aside there are some very politically charged religious themes and The problem with it is on both sides whether you're a Democrat whether you're a Republican whenever those key words have been said in the news The people just like we were in the cult Charles the people have loaded language

associated with each of those words and so What happens is people completely shut off critical thinking so for the sake of this episode I'm definitely not voicing my opinion at all you guys can You know guess what my opinion is if you want, but I'm not going to say it however. I will say it like this What has happened is the news media has?

scoured through the internet and they found this guy preaching and I've listened to some of the preaching I know Jed has Jed did deeply because as he was Going through his own family's history. He found some deep connections to this guy and um that's that came out in the podcast I did with Jed you can go back and listen to it But what the news media did they scoured to find anything that they could use That would incite anger from both sides And what's the biggest way that you can incite anger if you can find the guy preaching

Against abortion So that's where they went with it They found the guy preaching for abortion and here's the sad part Charles because I mentioned the word abortion You're going to find in the comments of this Podcast in my email everywhere that you can look about this podcast people will show off all critical thinking and you'll find the people who are Democrat, who are in favor of abortion, they're going to fight as hard as they can in the comments against the people who are on the side where they are against abortion, usually in the Republican side.

And they fight without engaging critical thinking. So they shut off all critical thought and they don't really recognize the fact that the news media has just played both sides. The news doesn't care what they want to do in the news media is they want to incite anger because if you get the people talking then all of the views go up, the stats go up.

From technology standpoint, Charles, I know how this works. You get people talking and you get them angry. And if you can anger both sides, you've won. It doesn't matter what you said. But the history of this is very similar, as I've mentioned a few times, to some of the history that I covered in my latest book from Christian Identity to the NAR.

There are some terms that we need to define and we'll do this as we go. But in the, I want to say it was the 19 early to mid-1920s, a party rose up very similar to this, but they had different sets of religious issues.

So instead of abortion being the big thing back then, there were other things that were the issues. One of them was the theory of evolution was turning into a hot religious political debate. And the Christians who were in the fundamentalist crowd rose up with the Christian nationalist party.

And this became a theme you had Christian nationalism. And the direct affiliation to this was the Christian identity, which was the extremist version of Christian nationalism mixed with a whole bunch of other things which we'll get into.

And just like today, whenever I mention the word abortion and you watch all of the fighting that ensues, well back then, if you mention the word evolution, the same thing was happening, but they did not have social media.

So instead what you had were all of these speeches and people would talk and accuse one or the other of who knows what all. And just like today, everybody shut off critical thinking. So I'm going to ask for the sake of this podcast.

When I mention the word abortion, don't shut off critical thinking because there are comments that come after this and the abortion isn't the issue here. It's more about the radicalization. It's very interesting, John, because as we've looked at the history of this movement for, I don't know how many episodes John now, I mean, we've put, I don't know how many hundreds of hours we've recorded kind of looking into this ideology back to its, back to its roots really in the 1800s, a lot of it, it, there is, there is this will, very radical element, always within this idea.

There's a particular fringe of it that is crazy, radical, militant, doomsday. You know, they're crazy. And they're embedded within a larger movement that is less crazy. And basically what happens is you've always got

this fringe within it that has the certain certain really crazy beliefs and crazy things happen in it throughout the history of this thing, John. And now as we talk about, as we talk about maybe the connections of this fellow Mr. Vance Bolter just a little bit.

So, you know, according to the news media, like you said, he, you know, we've got their sermons that he's preached. So, you know, we have a decent idea of what he was preaching. We've got, we know some of the churches and groups that he attended.

And we know that he attended also Christ through the nation's institute in the past for education. And what a lot of that does, John, if we look at the nexus of all of that, this man is from a splinter group of the latter reign.

And his entire religious career is from what I would certainly describe as latter reign, latter reign influence groups. He's from, he's from the religious movement that we're from just another, just other branches of it, John.

And, you know, this is the same movement that produced the New Apostolic Reformation. And if you go back in time, and you look at who some of these groups were before they, you know, before they started, some of these churches groups he was involved with, yes.

I mean, they have roots in, they have roots in the healing revival, they have roots in the deliverance movement, they have roots with the message, with William Brantum on the latter reign. And embedded in all of that was this radical fringe group, which I say it's radical fringe.

I mean, they was a sizable percentage of the overall movement embedded in that. And then the rest of them, people in there are indeed influenced somewhat by those beliefs that are in there. And so, you know, did this guy get influenced by those beliefs?

I mean, I would say anybody in these movements are influenced by these beliefs. That'd be my answer. Because elements of that ideology, you know, the same ideology that produced Christian identity, the same ideology that produced the Serpent Sea teachings, that is the same ideology that produced the pyramidology.

That is the same ideology that absorbed up in the positive confession. That's the same ideology that birthed a lot of these deliverance practices in those years. You know, it is part and parcel all of the same ideology to be quite honest with you.

And so, they just deemphasize the racial elements and they keep some of the other crazier elements that state managed to go a little bit more mainstream. That's how I would look at it, John.

Right, that's exactly how I would look at it. Because I don't... really see a lot of different. You know, if you take, if you take the Christian identity people, the actual Christian identity movement, I'm talking, you know, the crazy, alien nation side of things. And you put that up against one of the more mainstream descendants of the latter reign movement. The only real significant difference in their underlying beliefs is that one side more strongly emphasized the racial elements in the serpent sea piece and the other didn't. Otherwise, a lot of the rest of the underlying beliefs are compatible.

The, the, like I said, the positive confession, a lot of them, the obsession with Doomsday and even some of their eschatological beliefs all spring from common groups. Their obsession with pyramidology, a lot of that stuff is all the same in the underlying pieces of the ideology. And as they branched out, it's just like one side of the movement, you know, the, the Gordon Lindsay's a great example. Christ for the nations is a great example.

They moderated. They moderated with time, right? Whereas the crazy year area nations type when they stayed radical and violent and dangerous, you know, in an extreme way. But you look, you look at some of them like Gordon Lindsay, like it seems like somewhere as you come into the mid and late 1950s. Honestly, in the time that they start to fall out with William Brannum, they moderate. They seem to moderate. Like I can't find any example, for example, Gordon Lindsay promoting this stuff after the mid 50s. You know, something changed in some of them where they dropped some of the most extreme radical elements. But

then they kept some of the, we'll say the less radical elements, but still radical, right? And they just carry that ideology forward just in a, in a sort of a reformed way. So let's talk a bit through that radicalization process because I think where people get lost whenever Dr. Hassan and I were talking about it and I think to some extent, Jed, I think people don't really understand what that is. And I made the joke, which it actually was more in truth than it was joke. I said the problem, Jed, is because people have been radicalized

themselves. They don't understand radicalization. And that's largely true for a lot of people. And I painted with too big of a brush when I said that. I apologize. But it is true. If you look through the comments, you can clearly tell those who are radicalized. But here's the issue, Charles. Take somebody who is in, I don't know, some extremist Islamic group.

And you have really good people who can be radicalized. So you have somebody who's a really genuinely good person, but is in this ideology that is really dangerous. Come to the United States, you can ask every one of the neighbors before something bad happens. And they'll say, well, I knew that guy. I can't believe this happened. This was such a nice guy.

Well, what has happened is the person has been radicalized and their thoughts and intents are usually good, but something triggers them. They've got something in their head, triggers them into doing something really destructive. Radicalization doesn't always end in death like it does with this, you know, with bolter or as I'm talking through some of the radical extremist and Islam. Radicalization can also just be somebody who gets violently angry at another person. They've been triggered. Most of the people who have angry comments against us, Charles, many of them I know personally and they're good, good people, but they're radicalized.

So whenever you say one of their trigger words, it sets off all of that programming in their head and then it comes out their mouth. And I make the joke, I sometimes say it's like constipation of the brain and diary of the mouth.

There's something wrong up here and it just comes out. Well, in this radicalization process, where the news media gets it wrong because I've had news media representatives contact me and ask me this question. When something really, really bad happens, they want to try to find a doctrine that said to do the bad thing. So in both there's case, I'm sure there are journalists who are trying to find, okay, where did he get the notion that for somebody who believes in abortion that he should kill them? And they'll never find it because that's not how radicalization works. Instead, what has happened is he's got all

this programming up here that is making a spaghetti mess out of his logic. And then something triggers it and that spaghetti mess, it's like a train going down the tracks and then suddenly there's no rails. It could go towards death. It could go towards just spouting off at the mouth. You don't know where it's going to go because it's so scrambled up here, it just comes out. And as I mentioned, Christian identity was the racial offshoot of this. Here's a weird example I can give.

So you had all of these groups that were fighting against the liberal Christians back in the 20s when we're talking about all of this information. You have one guy, we've mentioned him, Charles, Gerald Burton-Winrod, who goes to Germany, takes counsel with Nazi Germany, before Nazi Germany, as it was emerging into what became Nazi Germany. Suddenly comes back with a large sum of money.

This guy was poor, almost a destitute. I mean, he had very little money, I'll just say like that. Ghost of Germany comes back with a massive amount of money and starts spreading the protocols of the learned elders of Zion, which was one of the most anti-Semitic pamphlets or books in history, in world history, spreading it all through the United States. And he starts connecting with key figures in the fundamentalist movement, some of which, were deeply involved in what became the NAR, Charles Fuller, for example, Fuller Theological Seminary, where C. Peter Wagner was a training and teaching.

He was part of the movement. John Wimber was there too, and you can't say, well, John Wimber's anti-Semitic, but there's some history here that radicalizes people. You can also link Gordon Lindsay, who was the founder of Christ for the nation's institute, two Christian identity.

He's speaking in Christian identity conferences. He's spreading Christian identity doctrines. Can you say that he was anti-Semitic? I can't find any proof of it. But what I can tell you is that the doctrines that they're teaching, which are complete nonsense, if you know what it is that they're teaching, those doctrines were spread all throughout the Laterane movement through Gordon Lindsay, one of which is this idea that the UFOs were in angels coming down to prepare the church for whatever was about to happen.

There were themes of what we kind of see today as dominionism. There were themes of rapture. They had different views of what this was. But the UFO doctrine was something that was deeply, deeply embedded to Christian identity.

And what they did was they tried to, as they were doctrinalizing the weirdness, they were trying to spiritualize it, such that you had a celestial body and you had an earthly body, and the UFOs were going to come marry those two together.

And you find those weird themes all throughout Gordon Lindsay, is that anti-Semitic? No. But it is radicalized. He's teaching a radical, extrabiblical, nonsensical doctrine. And people are radicalized to the extent they believe the nonsens.

And if you were back then to say, I don't believe that these lights we see in the sky have anything to do with Christianity, you guys are nuts. Well, it would be the same thing as today if we say abortion, just the word abortion.

If you said that to the UFO crowd back then, you would have people fighting and some of them would take up swords, man. That's how weird this is, because they were radicalized with nonsens.

So can you say Gordon Lindsay was anti-Semitic? No. Can you say he was radicalized? Absolutely. I mean, go back to the early origins of this, and yeah, a lot of their ideas are based on pseudo-science, pseudo-archeology, you know, pseudo-estronomy.

Really weird, basically notary conspiracy stuff is what a lot of this stuff was based on coming out of the 1800s. And it really helps to know the background of this ideology. The, even looking at, is it anti-Semitic or not, that's not even the right angle, because you know, when you go back to the early days, all of this was embedded in an ideology under under the umbrella of British Israelism.

That is where the roots of this stuff lay. And in that original ideology, it was not anti-Semitic. The original ideology of British Israelism was not an anti-Semitic. In fact, it was, you might say it was very supportive of the Jewish people.

And in the original versions of British Israelism coming out of the 1800s, they basically believe that the English speaking peoples were the 10 lost tribes of Israel, okay? And they believe the Jewish people were the other two not lost tribes, okay?

So they were not against the Jews when all this started. They were incredibly supportive of Israel, incredibly supportive of the Jewish people, okay? But what happens is as you come up into the 1920s, the 1930s, you know, right, coming up into World War II, through the influence of literally Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, Adolf Hitler and Nazis, this ideology evolved into two branches. One of the branches decided, no, wait a minute, the Jews are not really the 10 lost tribes. We got these learned protocols, the Zion, they're not, they're imposters.

And they turn on the Jews and they become a very simpatico to the Nazis. That's one branch, John. And that's the branch that ends up in area nations. But there's another branch of this movement that never makes that shift, that never turns, that continues to believe, no, the Jews really are the Jews.

And we, but they still believe they're the 10 lost tribes and they're still incredibly pro-Jewish, the like the original group, okay? And, but when they make that split, the key difference is one part of the movement stops, you know, turns on the Jews, the other part of the movement doesn't.

But all of the rest of the back end ideology is still the same, right? You know, their end time beliefs about Israel, the restoration of Israel, all of these sorts of beliefs all remain the same in these two movements.

And the key distinguisher between them is one becomes rapidly anti-Semitic and the other continues to be pro-Israel. It's the, and there's a period of time when these two groups are still interacting together, the anti, you know, the anti-Semitic branch and the phylo-Semitic branch remain friendly with each other, John, for a period of time.

And they remain friendly in the 40s. They remain friendly into the 50s. And it's in the 50s, really, that you see the late, the early 50s and mid 50s, when you see the two branches start to diverge, the anti-Semitic branch goes one way and the phylo-Semitic branch goes the other way.

Well, the anti-Semitic branch produces Aryan nations, the Christian identity movement, Church of God, Jesus Christ, they produce that group, those groups. Those are the people that, you know, march the swastika and all of that terrible stuff.

Well, the branch that stays phylo-Semitic, John, is the group who becomes the latter-rain movement. It's the latter-rain, is the phylo- Semitic branch of that movement, okay? So we're talking George Houghton. We're talking William Brannum.

We're talking Gordon Lindsay. They're in the phylo-Semitic branch of this movement. Absolutely they are. I mean, there's not even a question in the people who say they're not you have not, you have not looked into this.

You just have not looked into this. That's exactly what happened. And as you come up into the 50s and the crazies are getting crazy, that is the same time that the key figures in Laterane start dropping the 10 lost tribes idea, right?

George Warnock, Holt, Gordon Lindsay, FF Bosworth died right in there. You see them for whatever reason, right in that same time frame. They just stopped talking about the being the 10 lost tribes. They just totally stopped.

No, not all of them do. I mean, George Houghton continued to the end of his life. You'll find elements of key figures in Laterane that continued to promote the full British digital stuff right to the end of their life.

But the guys who dropped the 10 lost tribe stuff and they dropped the phylo-symetic stuff, you know, the 10 lost tribe. They still remained phylo-symetic, John. They still remained deeply supportive of Israel. They still kept all the rest of the ideology, the UFO nonsense.

They kept that. The pyramidology nonsense. They kept that. The positive confession manifested sons of God-taped ideas that they imported from the South Coastian mysticism. All of that was kept in this branch of the movement that went into the Laterane movement, okay?

And this is what that movement looks like in the 50s and the 60s as it births the second wave of Pentecostalism. It's the same people. It's the same movement as the same ideology. And I think that it's just so important to be aware of, John.

And you're correct, when you get to the radicalization, okay, when you have a cult, you can look into what creates a cult. What brainwashes and controls? You need certain pillars, right? You need a brainwashing technique.

You need an authoritarian leadership model. And you need to care it for the people to chase, right? Those are the three things you gotta have to really produce a destructive cult. This ideology furnishes all three.

And it's not the phylo-symetic versus antisemitic that makes it the cult. Now, it's the framework around it that makes the cult. And what does this ideology have, John? And I'll tell you, it's the same.

If you go over to the crazy side of it, it's the same thing that makes it a cult. John, they have the authoritarian leadership model. What is that? It's called the fivefold ministry, which is also the product of the same ideology.

If you believe in fivefold ministry, you believe in the same ideology that the British Israelite forefathers invented back in the 1840s. That is the authoritarian leadership model that puts everyone under the control of either singular profit or possible.

And as far as brainwashing technique, that's what positive confection is. Positive. confession is a brainwashing technique. You have to say something is true and that you believe something regardless of all the evidence you encounter. You may be sick, you may have your cough, you may be bleeding out, but you're saying, praise Jesus, I am healed. I am healed. I am healed while you're bleeding out on the floor. I'm healed. I'm healed. It tells you you have to believe and say something no matter what. I am prosperous because I say I am prosperous. Forget it that I

have about to go bankrupt next week. I am prosperous. I am prosperous. I'm prosperous. Positive confession is a brainwashing technique and you can apply it to anything. It's mind over matter brainwashing technique. Okay. So now, five-fold ministry, authoritarian model, positive confession, brainwashing technique.

Now you need your carrot on the stick and the carrot on the stick comes out of the manifested sons of God teachings. John, all of these people are take chasing the promise of manifested sons of God. Some people call it the dominionism. Some people call it perfecting of the saints.

A lot of people tie the rapture to the end of it. Some, you know, they tie a perfect world at the end of it. There's a carrot they're chasing. I've got my authoritarian leadership model.

I've got my mind over matter thought control. Okay. And I've got the carrot that I'm chasing with all of this. That is in the ideology and in all of the bells and whistles around it are not entirely relevant, right? Because whatever the leader whoever decides to make the, here's the steps you must chase in order to get to this carrot. This is where the demons and the angels and all of that come into. I need leader X in X political position carrying out X agenda in order for me to have the manifested sons of God. And by God, I'm going to do whatever it

takes for me to get there. Let's get out the vote. Let's do what we got to do because we need leader X in position Y in order to have our, you know, manifestation to come. It's the last day revival, ladies and gentlemen, you've got to get out there and do your part. That is what this ideology does. And the last day revivals and the whole thing, John, I mean, I can talk about this thing for hours. I mean, but this is what, this is what this ideology is. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition

through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Brandham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, 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. Charles, whenever you are saying leader X, my mind goes all kinds of weird directions.

And I was thinking of one of my favorite movies was the Batman from the 90s and the Joker stood up there and he in the television commercial and he says, she's been using brand X.

And as my mind was going there, I started thinking of all the similarities and it suddenly struck me. Here's a good way to break it down that we can use the Joker and Batman and to go ahead and clear the air right now, I've been accused of a lot of things and I'll just say it like this.

You never see Batman where I am so you can take that as you want or leave it. I've been accused. But anyway, as we break it down using the Batman movie, what Joker did is very similar to what we're describing here.

They were trying to, it was one of the greatest detective mysteries for the Batman. People were turning into having Joker face and they would go insane and crazy and why are the people in the city going crazy?

Government couldn't figure it out, police couldn't figure it out. And Joker's got these advertisements where he's selling makeup of all things. And Batman went into the bat cave and started to understand that, wait a minute, if you use the lipstick, nothing happens.

If you use the face powder, nothing happens, use the hairspray, nothing happens. But whenever you combine all of those, the chemicals that are put into the body cause people to have Joker face and they went crazy, bat crazy, well, if you look at this theology, dominionism, if people were to preach true Christianity and then this nonsensical version of dominionism that's in the inner today, does that radicalize?

Not really, it's quite incorrect and they're incompatible and you start to understand, wait a minute, we're preaching this dominion thing and we're preaching true Christianity, one of these doesn't look like the other and then they'll throw out dominionism.

But take the positive confession where you've got the brainwashing element and preach dominionism. You can combine these things in different variations or orders and you can radicalize somebody and make them crazy. So now, Charles, let's take this radicalization to a much broader scale.

Whenever Jesus was talking about the coming kingdom and I mean, even one of the great, I've mentioned this a few times, one of the greatest scenes in the New Testament is where Satan comes and shows them all of the kingdoms of the world and says, all of this can be yours, Jesus.

And Jesus says, my kingdom's not of this world. So if you're preaching true Christianity and you mix it with dominionism, you start to say, well, wait a minute, that doesn't fit, that's not what Jesus said.

Now take it back into the history that we've walked... through. So Charles, I'm going to try to sum up as quickly as I can. I know this podcast can't hold all of the podcasts we've done. But let's talk through this a bit. So I mentioned the evolution theory, the Scopes trial, some of that history a few times with you and with Jed and Dr. Stephen Hassan. So back in the early 20s, mid 20s, I guess it was, the clan was in disarray. William Branham's mentor, Roy Davis, was deeply embedded into the theological aspects of the clan as it was starting to merge with Christian identity, which was the anti-Semitic

racist version of British Israelism, as you just said. Evolution was the keyword. Today, again, we have today, you mentioned abortion, you mentioned homosexuality, we have different keywords today that were the triggers. Back then, it was evolution. And the threat, according to Christian identity, was that our nation is being invaded by, and this is an offensive word, I'm going to use it because that's what they did. They would say they're mongrels. And what this is essentially is, like a cult mindset, there's us versus them. So they were trying to say that everybody who isn't of our ideology, they're mongrels, and they come from the bad side. Under Christian identity,

this would be the people who aren't of the lost 10 tribes of Israel, usually Jews or somebody who has some weird connection to any of the people that they were denigrating, I'll just say like that. So what they wanted to do is they wanted to create a kingdom in the United States that was more supreme than the one that was currently established. And so they created this organization called the Supreme Kingdom. William Brannum's mentor was touring with Caleb Ridley, who is deeply embedded in this thing. And this was more, even though it was a business organization

and a pyramid scheme, it was more of an ideology than anything. The people who we don't agree with have now taken over our government. And interestingly, it is flipped. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party flipped because of all of this history. So if you go back far enough, you'll find the people of your party that you're fighting against one direction or the other, you'll find it in the opposite direction. And they're saying we need to get those people out of office. We need to take over America, we need to restore it. We need to claim dominion over

this thing that exists. And their ideology is so far vastly different than ours, we must push them out. And that was the way things progressed. So they're teaching the kingdom theology, the dominion theology, the very foundation for what we see today was being taught back then. But for a completely different set of political religious values. And this escalated, as we'll, you know, as we went through in our podcasts, this escalated into many, many different things, especially in the 60s. But the premise for all of it really was this idea that we should take dominion back because our ideology says that we have

lost that dominion. So we're going to take it back. This is our kingdom. This is our nation. We want it back. We want to be, we're nationalist. We want to support the United States, but we're Christian nationalists while they are not. And so you start to see the Christian nationalist movement being birthed because of all of this. So as all of these threads of history that we're talking about are starting to emerge, you have the birth of what became the foundation, the very foundation for the radicalization that we see today. Christian nationalists is such a loaded term, John. I,

myself, you know, I've tried to avoid it. It's just to be careful. But you know, there are people who, there are people who, when you say Christian nationalists, that just means the majority of the people in the United States are Christian. We got a Christian culture. Well, I mean, that's, yes, it's always been that way. Yes. And that way it is a Christian nation. For other people when you say Christian nationalists, it means I'm taking over the government setting up a theocratic state.

And that is, no, that's not good. And we haven't had that and we don't need that. So I just throw out those two caveats and you're talking about the latter. You're talking about the people who want to set up a, basically, a theocracy in the United States, which is, yeah, what, I mean, come on, we fought the revolution over that stuff, right? I mean, we had a, we had a theocratic state. I mean, the Church of England is the official church of the United Kingdom. The king of England is the head of the Church of England, right? We used to have a church in state merged

before the revolution, right? So they were, anyways, the people who want to do that want to undo the revolution, I want to re merge church and state back together and have a theocratic state.

That didn't work out so well the last time. I mean, you look pretty well in most every country in history that did that. It didn't work out very well. I mean, come on, we're going to end up with Pope if we do a thing like that because what happens when, when it's the Christian denomination that don't like you that gets power? Uh oh, then you're in trouble, right? I mean, I mean, if we do a Christian national thing, I mean, who's going to rule us? I mean, do you want to be ruled by the Baptists or

do you want to be ruled by the Presbyterians or do you want to be ruled by the Catholics? Like, it sounds good in theory maybe to the Christian Christians of some sort, but when you realize that, you know, your sliver of the pie is going to be apostate to all, you know, get, you know, thrown into prison. It's don't sound so good anymore. Does it? I mean, come on. It's not a good idea.

But going back to this, John, the way you mentioned how they flip flop, political parties. Again, I think really demonstrates how this thing is not political in their traditional sense of conservative or liberal. You're right. I mean, you could back- To the 1800s, these guys were all Democrats.

They were all Democrats, William Bryan Jennings. These were, was their guy. They loved William Bryan Jennings. He was the hero to these guys, okay? And they're not representative of the entire Democratic Party back then, not by a long shot.

Any more than today, they're representative of the entire Republican Party. They're a radical fringe minority of the larger movement. But they loved William Bryan Jennings. And they were all Democrats back then. Absolutely. They were Democrats up to the close of the 1800s.

And then you come into the early, the early 1910s and 1920s is when a shift starts to happen. You know, as William Jennings, Bryan, William Jennings, Bryan dies. And they, there's something that happens.

I mean, I don't, I'll be honest. I don't entirely understand why necessarily the shift happened. A lot of it has to do with Roosevelt and the fact that they thought Roosevelt was a communist, okay?

And their prophecies told them that Roosevelt was the gunna bring on the end of days and stuff. So this is what they didn't stop being Democrats because they were opposed to the Democrats tax policies.

They stopped being Democrats because their leaders prophesied that Roosevelt's gonna bring on the end of days. Like it's not, this is not typical conservative liberal stuff. And they shift over and they, gradually they are all become Republicans.

You know, by the time you get into the 1940s and 1950s. By the time you're into the 60s, they're all Republicans, okay? I mean, that's just how this ideology evolved. But the truth is, John, it's just, it kept shifting.

I mean, they flipped a lot multiple times through these years as to what they are. It's just whoever the leaders are prophesying against and for that really affect which side of the aisle or who they're supporting in what given situation.

I think that's just so important to pay attention to notice that that's happening. And it's not typical conservative versus liberal thinking that makes these changes. It is something entirely religious, entirely within the realms of this political, this religious ideology that makes them shift back and forth.

You know, honestly, I think that's why everybody has so much trouble trying to pinpoint exactly what is this mass because you can't really say it's one religious party the other. You can't really say that it's one political party or the other.

Like Joker said, it's the combination of all of these things. It's not Brand Dex. You can't really point it to one single brand and say that's what happened here. If the politics were the foundation for what's happening here, if the political parties were the foundation, it would remain that way forever.

But because religion has been mixed with politics to try to shift political votes, then it becomes a situation where the ideology itself is the party. You're either a... affiliated with this ideology or you're not.

You're either with us or against us. You're either in the cult of whatever is the ideology or you're not in the cult. And that cult mindset, I think, is the problem. And you hit the nail in the head when I was thinking through that as you were talking.

I've never really formulated that into words, but it is true. Positive confession brainwash is you. And it's just one of many doctrines that these guys, I think they have to know that if you can give somebody a doctrine that, by definition, the doctrine means you must completely shut off critical thinking.

By definition, if positive confession, I have this, I have this cancer. I go to the doctor, the doctor shows me clearly the cancer's growing inside of me, but positive confession, I'm gonna tell that doctor, well you're wrong, your machine is wrong.

God said that this cancer's not in me, so therefore it's not in me. When the doctor can argue till he's blue in the face, you've shut off all your critical thinking, you are essentially brainwashed.

That's positive confession. Same thing with the, I was going through, as you were talking, I was going through all of the different brainwashing doctrines, prosperity gospel. I'm as poor as dirt. I work at a fast food restaurant.

I'm trying to support a family of 10 people, not me. I'm using this as an example. Trying to support all of my 10 kids. There's very little opportunity for me to make money in this situation.

Right now, I don't even know how somebody in fast food industry can survive. And then there are people, I know some of these people, Charles, they watch the television, they listen to these prosperity gospel teachers, they have no means to make money, but they will send the guy money, because if they send him their money, they're being told that they'll get rich.

Brainwashing. I mean, how clear of an example of brainwashing is this? You go through all the word of faith movement. If you start to use the Rema, if you start to use, we call it the spoken word, the voice of God.

I remember trying to speak things, Charles. I don't know if you did this. I was brainwashed. I was trying to make something exist that did not exist. Pure definition of insanity, but that's what you've been programmed and manipulated to do.

And I can already see the comment feedback. You'll say, well, Jesus said, speak into the mountain and let it be removed. And I responded to one person in the comment feeds. I said, well, the moment in which you are able to actually do this, the moment in which you can move a mountain, it will answer your question as to whether Jesus was speaking in metaphors or speaking literally, because I have yet to find a single Christian who can speak a mountain to move.

But they've been brainwashed to think that that passage means that they can literally move a mountain. They've been brainwashed. Every single one of these doctrines that are... the foundation for the New Apostolic Reformation today, almost every one of them are brainwashing doctrine or a political doctrine.

And that's the problem. Like the Joker, like the different makeups and hairsprays, etc. You have a combination. You have this cafeteria style religion where I'm going to be not the word of faith crowd.

I'm going to be instead the prosperity gospel. I'm going to send money that I don't have to these people. I'm going to be brainwashed and I'm going to believe maybe they're teaching dominionism. Maybe they're teaching one of the other ones.

It's a cafeteria style means to brainwash people. And that's really scary because what they have done along with this, like you mentioned the fivefold ministry doctrines, they've actually hypercharged the doctrines that were used in Latter-Rain to create the authoritarian cult structures.

They've actually made them worse today while using the same indoctrination techniques and all of the same variations of ways in which you can brainwash people. And today it seems to be, and this is my opinion, it seems to be even more leaning towards the political side than it did back in the 20s and 30s.

So we have a bigger mess today with a bigger means to brainwash the people and try to program them to sway political votes one way or another. And what's the purpose of all of this?

I just take a step back and I say, well, what does it matter? Because if you look at the parties, the past few presidents in my opinion, this is my opinion, they were buffoons.

It really didn't matter which party you pick. You literally got the choice of buffoon A or buffoon B. But you find people so radicalized and so brainwashed that they think buffoon A is an intelligent person.

Buffoon B is an intelligent person. In my opinion, you have to be brainwashed to like either candidate. When you talk about, you know, this ideology, you go back to the late 1800s, the early 1900s, the preeminent figure in this ideology is John Alexander Dowey.

He is the kingpin, the top of this ideology, okay? He started a cult commune in Illinois, just north of Chicago. And who and born in his cult commune in Zion was Gordon Lindsay, okay?

His parents had been in the ideology before he was born. He was born into this ideology, he was born into this movement. His family went through multiple schisms. They followed of Detral's parham who was also a British Israelite.

He also adhered to elements of this ideology. He was baptized under Charles Parham. From there they went following John Lake, who was also one of John Alexander Dowey's lieutenants out of Zion. John Lake ordained Gordon Lindsay as a minister, right?

Gordon Lindsay, John Lake was a British Israelite. caught large elements of this ideology. George Gordon Lindsay then becomes a church planner working in four square. Four square was the last significant denomination within Pentecostalism has still embraced this ideology as you come into the 1930s and 1940s.

Gerald Winrod, the Kansas Hitler was preaching at their churches. Angela's temple, their headquarters, they were publishing all this in their literatures. Gordon Lindsay's right there planning churches for them. In the adjacent district to him, four square planet, Sharon Orphanage, where the latter rain movement started, also adherence of this ideology, okay?

William Brannon partners with Gordon Lindsay. Gordon Lindsay is more responsible than any other person in the world for popularizing William Brannon, John. And you know, as people who've escaped the message cult, you and I are lifelong members of the message cult of William Brannon.

We are from the first and second oldest churches of the movement. We were both from levels of, could very highly connected to the levels of senior leadership in the movement. Our families were in this from the early days as well.

Gordon Lindsay bears responsibility for helping launch the message cult. The message is just as much one of Gordon Lindsay's legacies as Christ for the nation's institute, okay? There is no message cult without Gordon Lindsay, okay?

And it's just so absolutely dishonest the way people twist history. Gordon Lindsay came to my church, John. Gordon Lindsay came to your church. Don't you tell me he didn't have nothing to do with us?

You bunch of silly people. Gordon Lindsay came to our churches, okay? And after his breakup with William Brannon in, you know, as that happened, Gordon Lindsay produced Christ for the nations. But what was Christ for the nations, John, before it became Christ for the nations?

It was a deliverance seminary that he co-opted and worked with William Brannon in. And John, who went to the miniature seminary that turned into Christ for the nations? Did you know, Ewald Frank went to that seminary, John?

Oh, well. Ewald Frank's the guy working with Paul Schaefer and Colonie Dignidad. He went to that seminary, yeah, in 1958, he did. Who else went to that seminary? Hobart Freeman, who killed like 200 of those people in his congregation back in the 80s?

Do you know how many people were in that seminary and did really horrendous stuff a whole lot of people? And you know who else was in that seminary? Most of the early leading preachers in the message were in that seminary too.

After the breakup with William Brannon, Gordon Lindsay transitioned that into Christ for the nations. It was the same seminary, right? And I am so glad that Gordon Lindsay moderated. I am so glad that Gordon Lindsay changed his mind on some of this ideology and turned his back on it and moderated.

But it is an absolute outrageous deception to pretend that none of those things ever happened. And I personally offended that people from Christ for the nations want to say they have no connection and nothing to do with this.

You're dishonest. That is absolutely an outrageous lie and you need to stop doing that and it's I'm glad that they've moderated and they're not the crazy people that they used to be. Praise the Lord for that, but don't deny the reality of the history of this thing that happened. Gordon Lindsay is just as responsible for producing the message cult as anybody else in this world. That is the truth.

Absolutely the truth. And I have in my email, there was a person who has radicalized the Christ for the nations and Gordon Lindsay, if you're in that cult, there are not all of them, but there are people who are radicalized to the extent that Gordon Lindsay is their central figure.

He's their Mike Bickel, he's their Bill Johnson, he's their William Brannum. And when we published the, we did Gordon Lindsay a documentary, I think we called it, where we walked through the history of Gordon Lindsay. This guy was I rate sending me email, because we just attacked his central figure, he thought. And all we did essentially was just share the history of Gordon Lindsay, the history as it was written, not the history as he had been told.

So he started fighting with me and I don't engage in the fighting. I just said, look man, you can believe what you want. Well, he kept sending email, kept sending email. And he took the greatest defense that he took was that Gordon Lindsay was involved with the Christian identity in the British Israel doctrines. So he say, no, this isn't true. You guys mentioned he published books, he did not. So he wrote into Christ for the nations and the correspondent who responded to him, their PR expert, I guess, responded back. You're absolutely correct. Gordon Lindsay was never involved

with this. He never believed this. He never wrote a single book on it. And Charles, you own some of those books. You have the books, right? I've got digital copies of the books. The way in which they cover it up isn't that they try to skirt the issue or they try to just simply avoid it altogether. Many of the organizations that we mentioned will outright lie to the people to cover it up. And that's why the history has been written so incorrectly.

And it's very strategic. I want to mention this and I know we're running out of time. I could I could ramble on about this for hours. But I want to mention this. It's very strategic that they lie about the history. Because if people come in contact with the history, there's so much power in learning the truth that people will deny the faults. So you can't let the people come in contact with the truth about your organization. There are, I am in contact with some of the organizations that we mentioned. I'm not going to mention their names, but some of the organizations that help start all

the mess actually own their history. And they'll openly tell you, yes, these guys were nuts. They believe some very nutty things. But we've moved on past that. It's our history. I'm not going to deny our history, but we no longer believe like this.

Christ for the nations could do that. They could say, yeah, Gordon Lindsay was nuts. Yeah, he helped start a global movement that was a cult, the entire movement was a cult. We're not going to deny this, but we've changed.

They could do this, any of the people that we mentioned, the organizations that we mentioned, they all could be honest about it and just say, yeah, we've changed. And I would be very respectful of that change.

I changed too. I was not a good person when I was in the cult. I changed. So I'm just going to put it out there as a blanket offer to anybody who is in any of the organizations or ministries that we talk about.

You're welcome to change, but own your past because the past is clearly written and people will discover it. When they do, they will leave your cult. I think that is very, very well said, John, because you know me and you, we're from this movement too.

That's what, John, we were in a cult and we helped spread cult ideas. And you know, according to the Bible, we should be very merciful to people in our situation. You know, those who show mercy, obtain mercy, we need a lot of mercy, John.

Okay. So I'm very merciful. You know, and Gordon Lindsay is like this figure to me who is this enigma, honestly. I truly believe that Gordon Lindsay woke up somewhere in the later years of his life and started to distance himself from it.

I really do. But he never, you know, you still got to be honest about it. Gordon Lindsay just kind of hoped people would forget. I think is what he tried to do. And yeah, I mean, that's, you just can't do that.

You just can't do that. I mean, I'm glad Gordon Lindsay moderated at the end of his life. I'm glad Christ for the nations. I mean, you've interviewed people from Christ for the nations in the podcast before.

They seem like normal people, you know? I mean, I don't, I'm sure that they're not a crazy nut factory anymore, hopefully. But I'm telling you what, Christ for the nations, what it was, as it transitioned in the late 50s and 60s, was a nut factory for cult leaders.

It absolutely was. And some of the people who went through that seminary were mass murderers and they killed and killed and killed and killed. Let's talk about Hover Freeman. Let's talk about Ewald Frank and the stuff that happened in Cloney, Dignidad.

I mean, you go down that list. Yeah. A whole lot of really problematic people attended that seminary in its very early days. But again, very glad that Gordon Lindsay moderated and changed his mind on some of these things in the later years of his life.

All right. So I guess that's where we ended today, John. Yeah. There's so much more we could say, you and I could talk for hours and hours about this. And it's one of my fascinations.

I love the history and I love talking through it, which is why I wanted to do a follow-up to the conversation that we've had. But there's so much more that we could say. But hopefully it gives the people at least some of the background to understand why we had so much more that we had so much more that we could say.

bad things happen in, in connection to some of the Christian movements. And it isn't the political theme like, like this guy, uh, Vance Bolter, they try to target the abortion issue and they want to incite anger on both sides. If both sides could just take a step back and even the news media just take a step back and realize this person did a very bad thing. He was radicalized. You can't control what his radicalization is going to do when it happens. And then realize that every single person who's in the movement has the potential to also be radicalized in either the same way or maybe far worse, maybe not to the same extent.

Every person who takes this mixture, this concoction of bad doctrine mixed with brainwashing doctrine mixed with all of the other things, each person is a potential threat. I think people would take a step back and reevaluate some of these religious movements and just say, you know, we're done with this. You guys can go somewhere else. We do not want these religious nonsense movements in our in our country. Get those out. Don't get the Democrats or Republicans out. Get the religious nut job movements out. I think that's the takeaway if there is a takeaway. 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 William-Brandom.org and Christian Gospel Church.org. For more about the history of William-Brandom 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 Audible.