From Catholic to Confusion: Understanding “Movie Star Christianity”

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Joe Schneffke. Joe it's good to have you on and to tell your story. This will be a little bit different than the ones that we typically have because your background is quite a bit different than the others who have shared their story. However there are some similar elements and for me honestly I'm just more fascinated because I want to learn

more about what it was like for you. So your background was in your Catholic growing up and suddenly after leaving Catholicism you came into this weird world of the charismatic movement which to me that's just fascinating because as I went through my journey and I left the destructive cult falling of William Branham. I left that and I entered into what I considered to be mainstream Christianity and we tried several different churches. Many of them were mainstream but some of them had influences that edge very closely towards the charismatic and anyway for me it was kind of a shell shock but having been raised a Catholic

and then coming into this world I can only imagine what shell shock that would be for you. So thank you so much for joining me maybe you could start and just tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Okay John well thank you yeah thanks for having me.

Yeah I was born and raised Catholic and when my older starter was born I was really a miraculous sign and I just I wondered like what I believe there was a God but I had no idea that this God was this amazing here you got this miracle comes out of my wife and then they hand it to you. Yeah I mean it just grabbed held to my heart so anyway that just kind of started a journey of just seeking out after the truth I went through the I kind of thought the Bible I had been

exposed to the Bible of course and buddy of mine and give me an IV study Bible that I used to to read a lot you know read to read letters when I was going to college but anyway I came to that I came to a crossroads of well either this is a really good book written by some good people about this God I believe in or think I believe.

event or this is the inspired word of God that God itself robed by his spirit through men. So I kind of was in a, you know, in a quandary there. I wasn't, I kind of figured he wrote it, but I really didn't know it. So I was all cocky and I said, listen, God, I know you're there. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to read this thing and you are going to let me know either you wrote it or it's just a good times bestseller to book.

So anyway, I fervently read through it, you know, when my baby was little, then we had another baby. And yeah, I starting at the Old Testament and reading through it from my background is, I actually thought my Bible, my NIV was a misprint. Like this isn't, this isn't right. It shouldn't happen. You know, some of the Old Testament stuff. But anyway, God used my pride and arrogance because of course part of the driver for me doing it was proven that I was right, proven that being a Catholic was right. And all these Bible funpers didn't really know what they're talking about. Well, it didn't end up working

out that way. I was, I was kind of shocked really. But anyway, I got done and I didn't hear no voice or was a no audible voice. I didn't have a dream or a vision. But I was just, you know, the finality of finishing it and then being done was like, oh, wow. And then it was kind of like, well, Holy Spirit, you know, Holy Spirit, because it's kind of saying, ah, okay, son, what are you going to do now? You know who wrote it, which I didn't know.

You know, I, I, but if I halfway done, I knew God wrote it. There were so many different passages that really gripped me. You know, like Proverbs three, five, you're just like, wow, you know, and, but anyway, he was like, what are you going to do now? You're going to be like, most of them set it up on the man on and then you know, once and twice every couple of years, you got, you got something that you can't control and you grow up there and start rubbing it. Oh, God, I need you. Oh, God, help me. Oh, God. Or are you going to live by it? And I was just

like, well, you can't live by that. That's the craziest thing I ever read in my life. I mean, bizarre. I mean, come on. That's impossible. I was busted. I knew this is what the creator of heaven and earth, the creator of my babies. This is what, this is what he'd give us as a manual.

So every since then, that was like 1995 when that journey started and every since then, I've been seeking after the truth. And I'm really thankful for your, your enlightenment on, just the foundation of like, you know, because you just sit there and go, what, what, where did that come from? But you got kind of like the psychological and then the whole, the whole gamut of how these things that I stepped into after I left being the Catholic and the here too.

thousand. You help bring it home. I've mentioned before on the podcast it's really shocking to me how many Christians have never read the Bible and whenever I actually read the Bible whenever I was in the cult and after I left the cult I um one of the first things that I wanted to do was just try to read it over and over and wash all of this nonsense out of my head. I had been reading it through the lens of what I was told it said rather than here's here's what it actually said and kind of like your

experience once you do that once you actually start reading it it's completely different and you start to wonder well why are they preaching like this why are they doing this and one of the one of the big things for me was after I left I started reading the ESV version and it was a little bit I don't know it's like shell shock at first because we were taught that King James was the only version but I had come across in my research where the King James translators in the preface of the King James version they said we only have a limited number of scrolls and we have an even more

limited knowledge of the language so this translation is probably not quite accurate I mean that was the translators and I'm paraphrasing greatly obviously but they openly admitted that and so I studied it out and I started understanding that yes it was very limited number of translations they have and now it's like I want to say it's like 5,000 different families of scrolls they've identified and so some of the newer translations um you know it just it does read differently and it doesn't feel comfortable to me still because I I like the poetic style of the King James version but

it like you said it does sort of sort of change you so anyway so this happened to you and what was it that led you into the you know into the evangelical world I think you mentioned before the podcast that you started out in the was it the assemblies of God so you know you you have some some some dear friends and in Christ it's it's guided me and you know they're they're men who with no doubt of me have a hard after God and so yeah you know because you look back and it's just it's really just kind of like mind-boggling certain things that I had come across so

we went to we started going to a church of my friends you know kind of a charismatic type church and yeah I really enjoyed it and and I looking back I guess I had I had a lot of zeal for God you know I'm born raised in sports and you know God blessed me to be you know competitive and stuff and I didn't really is this competitive thing is a touchy thing when it comes to the Bible and Jesus Christ walking on this earth. Not everything is a competition. So, you know, gotta be the best, gotta be the best,

gotta be the best. And so, mixing that in with everything and then continually reading through my Bible, you know, going through certain parts of the Old Testament was just fascinating. Me and these Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and then I'm starting to see this parallel to what the country I'm living in and these parallels to the these up this Old Testament and just the whole whole wall of wax. And as I look back at it, it's like this this misplaced zeal, I would say, emotionalism and and and kind of like not that the not that the leaders are the leader of the

church really promoted this, but it's just like how you said on some of your podcasts, this is just like the framework of of how things are now. Like you say, they they they have good they have good motives, you know, they they love God and they're they I sincerely believe they're they think they're serving God and proclaiming the good news of God. And

somehow it gets into the I kind of come to peace with it. This movie star Christianity like like, wow, the world has taken over the church. We're supposed to not we're supposed to be separated from the world, but but but we're it looks to mean like we're the world's running us, you know, we got the we got the head guy, the head movie star, you know, and then you got the entourage around them and then all the people sitting in the seats or or the or the fans, you know, and the fans fans, you don't talk bad about the movie star or you know, you're not going to be a fan

or in this area, you're going to have to find a different movie star. Again, we're sharing many similarities because once I left the brand of cult and I got into this this unusual world for me and I'm looking at all of the, you know, not just the denominational Christianity, I'm looking at televangelist and all of this stuff and I'm starting to like you, I think these are like movie stars, man, this is crazy. And then to get deeper into my research and understand that the the Kardashian family was behind some of this and the what was it? The nephew, I think it was

of the Kardashian patriarch started the full gospel businessmen's fellowship and he was closely tied to latarine figures like Brannum and you know, deeply tied to the charismatic movements. So it was quite a wonderful mess that I had realize that I was getting myself into. And anyway, it was shell shock for me and it kind of sounds like it was shell shock for you. So I'm interested. So after you left this, you got into this church. What types of changes did it make in you? Because I clearly remember this as I was leaving the cult when I was entering into the non-cult churches. There was this focus on self-growth

and self, you know, bettering yourself and being coming more like a Christian. It was all focused on you and how how we can improve you versus in the cult. It was all about the cult leader and how we can, I'm using the word loosely, but how can we worship the cult leader? And I'm saying that word loosely because Brandon Colt, you know, I hop whatever Colt this is that you're talking about. The movie star preacher, they want you to always keep your mind focused on them and whether it's not outright, whether or not it's outright worship, you're still focused on them

and instead of focusing on bettering yourself. So for me, this was a big change. What was this like for you? At the time, you know, when I had a bunch of young kids and, you know, I was on fire and on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible and trying to be transformed and being a man, I got, I mean, I still fight in these layers of pride that you just never knew. And so, I mean, I was before I started in the scriptures, I'm the most prideful, nicest, selfish person that's going to be in hell. The way I see it, you know, I know my

family and people would argue with that, but, but, but I worship, I worship everything but God. God was about eight or 10th on the list, you know, but no, get me wrong. I checked a lot of boxes and everything. But yeah, yeah, that it's like you kind of get pointed to this, this revival. And like I've heard you say, like this treadmill or what do you call it? The squirrel wheel. The squirrel wheel where you just, you know, you're constantly running for days and days and days, looking after this revival and emotion, another emotional high, not that not that God was absent or anything like that.

So I guess that's what I'm trying to piece, you know, that's what I'm trying to move forward on. Like, like, yeah, I've heard you say with, with some of your guests, you know, let's move forward.

Let's look, let's learn from some of the mistakes we've been in and let's, let's seek the Lord Jesus Christ and humility. I mean, humility for me is the whole key because if I, if I'm not on check, I mean, I can go down so many different roads of pride and self-esteem and self-righteousness and self-exaltation and self-preservation.

And you know, the 5,000 selves that we have, so humble yourself before the Lord, look to Christ, the whole Bible points to Jesus Christ, the resurrected Savior. Exactly, that was the big change for me, is understanding that shift and focus.

It's not focused on the movie star preacher. It's more focused on Jesus. And like I said, I read the Bible over and over trying to wash all this nonsense out of my head, but so your assemblies of God church, you mentioned, was it the main branch of the assemblies or was this the independent assemblies?

Because in my research, I began to understand that through Laterane and the extremism that was developing because of Brannum and others, it caused this massive split right down the middle of the assemblies of God, and it broke into factions and you had the independent assemblies of God.

They were basically rejected by the main branch of the assemblies because they sided with the extremism. And then you had the main branch of the assemblies of God. They denounced the Laterane and they declared it to be extremism, but then there's this weird gray area where you had rogue districts and rogue states that would basically remain in the assemblies of God and somehow keep their status, but still align with the Laterane.

And do so under scrutiny, under the eye of the assemblies of God. And then what happened is that scrutiny continues to grow and develop until they just get rejected or cast out, asked to leave the assemblies of God.

What flavor of the assemblies were you in? The church I went to and come from an assembly, a God split, like I think that the best of my ability and they wanted to become an assemblies of God, but the assemblies of God boarded directors of the state or whatever said, now there's too many assemblies that got around there.

So they just was a non-denominational. But it was to me, they were a non-denominational assembly. God, you know, from best, I know, like I said, I had a Catholic background. But I was blessed to pastor there.

He was really a student of God's word and really spoke about, you know, spoke, you know, was a student of the scriptures. You know, they love the scriptures. And so the transition kind of, and so then there was a lot of Brownsville from my friends and a lot of the Brownsville revival, John Capatrix, Steve Hill, Michael Brown, and, you know, that caught right on with my emotionalism, you know,

the emotional and fired up and getting them, which, you look back, how do you know? I mean, I'm coming from Catholic where you can almost be asleep and, you know, and there was some priest that spoke God.

words in the sermon and you had your readings in that, but I mean it's basically just on autopilot remote control, you stood up, you kneeled, you done that, you know, I mean, and now you're in this hole, I mean this is a whole another world. So, so I'm, you know, I'm like excited, I'm trying to raise my kids and I look back and it ends up, you know, because I'd like to talk about the Bible and it was just strange at church, people didn't really want to talk about the Bible.

It's just so odd, isn't it? Like, like I said, I am shocked that Christians, most Christians don't read the Bible. There are statistics out there, you can see that there are very few Christians who have actually read it and actually studied and understand it. And how does this work, right? You're sitting in a church and they're preaching about the Bible, but you don't know if what they're saying is actually in there. And I think really that's the problem, people have disengaged all critical thinking so they just take it for granted, whatever said behind the pulpit,

and they assume that it's in the Bible and I don't need to read it because this guy is telling me what's in here. So without critical thinking, you just basically, you sit there and your mind just kind of goes to sleep and unfortunately, people with ill intent can hijack your brains whenever this happens. I started down that path and you and you've said it, you said the critical thinking somehow and in some ways gets shuts off and you think, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

And myself, like, what am I doing? I've done some crazy things. You know, I'm jumping around, I'm jumping off the walls. I mean, I'm doing, you know, I look bad. I'm like, well, I really don't know, I'm not saying, I would have to say it was, I was hyper-emotional, you know, I mean. And the the problem that you guys have said, and you know, you know this, but I mean, it's like the critical, somehow this critical thinking, which I wouldn't word it that way, but that I think that's the exact proper way. But you just smooth over all these things. You put all these little red flags,

not red flags, but these little alerts that come into you and then you explain them away with scripture. Oh, touch not God, it's anointed one. You know, judge not, let's not be judged. You know, all these, all these things that are taken totally out of, well, well, how come you're going to judge angels on that? And you know, you know, first Corinthians two, you know, what's, how do you line that up with, you know, Matthew seven? You know, I mean, there's a lot of different, it's the whole picture. It's you can't just take these one scriptures and touch not

my anointed one. I mean, that one there, I mean, that that that's blow, that's one of them that just blows my mind that in a seven mountain mandate. That's just it. Like I said, whenever you're shutting off critical thinking and you think that they're saying that something that's in the Bible, they can take little verses and twist them out of their context. And for me, like the big thing you mentioned the Seven Mountain Mandate, Jesus says very clearly, my kingdom's not of this world. So how do you do that without taking a verse out of context? How can you make it all fit together? Well, you can't. And

what it ends up with is it's a different version of Christianity. You become a different version of a Christian. And the Christian that you become is what they're wanting you to be indoctrinated to be instead of what's in the Bible. And like I said, people just don't read it. They don't know what's in there. They don't they don't recognize that what they're doing is preaching an agenda rather than the gospel.

Just starting to question things and really starting it just, yeah, like I could say, the scriptures, you know, to me, being a Christian is is believing in the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus of the Bible, you know, biblical Jesus and practically applying the word of God to your life every second of every day. That's a, you know, we practice being a Christian by applying God's word to our life. And, you know, we, we, of course, we want it to be a lot more simple. I think that's where you have to, that's where you have the submission, the humility,

it's like going, to oh, you can't figure right out. You need to submit and humble yourself before God and let him show you. Well, that's, that's a lot easier said than done in our world, especially when you're like me, you're just so crazy busy. How do you, how do you do this?

But, you know, again, whenever you're shutting off critical thinking, you don't really comprehend what it is that, that is their agenda and you don't recognize the differences between what they're saying and what's in the Bible and back to the seven mountain mandate. A lot of times, you don't even pick up that they're teaching it, but what they're doing is they're laying bread crumbs ripped out of context, but laying these bread crumbs that your brain can follow and they lead you to the conclusion for whatever is the agenda like the seven mountain mandate and people, you know, they don't openly preach, hey, this is, this is the thing we want to take over the world.

So people are led by these breadcrumbs and many times people just really don't even pick up until it's too late. I had no idea what the seven mountain mandate was. Just like the lady from, from IHOP said on one of your podcasts, yeah, yeah, well, that makes sense, you know, be a Christian. John, oh, you're into entertainment. Well, yeah, we'll go and shine a light of Christ and the entertainment business. That's just it. It's not about control. It's about becoming a light to others. Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. Right, exactly. And it

leads to weird things. I'll never forget the shock when I'm reading about John Wimber and he's getting involved with these revivals and movements. And he says, I saw a guy next to me on the floor, like a pig in the spirit.

And I'm just thinking, how is that of God, man? How are you gonna oink like a pig in the spirit? And you have to spirit speaking through you. Well, what are you doing? You're speaking to pigs.

None of it makes any sense. Did you see anything like this when you were in this movement? No, I never seen any oinking. I just seen tons of the shaking. And then you look at this, you know, they talk about this Kundalini, which I don't know, I don't know, but I do know one thing.

I know that one thing that biblically, that the enemy of, enemies of God have power. Now, I don't understand where they get all this power, but you know, Moses threw down, or Aaron threw down the staff in front of Pharaoh.

And well, the magicians threw down their staffs and they turned into snakes.

But the key was then the snake from Aaron's staff, God will not ate the snakes from there. That was supernatural. They threw their, so I don't understand it. So I know that nowadays the enemies of God have power also like that.

I don't buy that that, you know, I'm not saying there's a demon behind everything. So I'm trying to find that actual thing. I mean, you know, he's God. And I've seen a lot of shaking, a lot of praying for, a lot of getting pushed down.

You know, it's that psychologically to wear a well, you know, I must not be very spiritual because I didn't fall out of the spirit when the guy prayed for him. 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 Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

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You know, I look at some of the things that are happening in the charismatic movement and now the new apostolic reformation and as a person who's just read the Bible many times, I have trouble associating what they're doing with Christianity.

You don't see the things that they're doing in the Bible and the oinking link. pigs. You know, I use that as an extreme example. And I know that by and large, many Charismatics would condemn this. But then at the same time, they're doing things that they openly believe is a scriptural blessing, I guess they call. I don't even know what you call this. They consider this to be some kind of spiritual thing. And you don't find it in the Bible. And I've mentioned this in a podcast before, but even the what they call speaking in tongues, I know that they say that

they find it in the scriptures. But if you really go back and understand the history, Charles Fox Parham wasn't the first, but he, through Parham, entered into the Pentecostal movement, this notion that speaking and speaking in tongues, et cetera, was divine language from God.

But one of the very first things that happens in Pentecostalism is before the speaking in tongues, there was writing in tongues. And you can go on my website. You can type in Charles Fox Parham and find an example of this. It's chicken scratch. And they're trying to say that this chicken scratch is Chinese. Once today's world, everybody knows what Chinese looks like. You've seen signs and movies and whatnot. And you recognize that, no, this is not Chinese at all. And Parham sent his missionaries over to China who couldn't speak a lick of Chinese saying that, well, we have

written in tongues. God has given us a message in Chinese to go witness to the Chinese people. So we're sending missionaries with no training, no language. They're going basically unprepared. And they get there and they realize that the obvious, they can't speak Chinese. So they come back.

And then what happens is because of that, because they recognize that, no, this isn't an understandable language. The movement shifted to believe, well, this is an unknown language. And that's not how it works. If you read the scriptural understanding of they will speak in different languages and understand them, well, where's the understanding, right? You can't go missionary, you can't go as a missionary to a country and speak gibberish and the people be converted to Christ. So it takes the focus off of Christianity and instead puts the focus on the individual. For me, I have trouble

understanding this. It's not that I'm condemning it or, you know, I understand people believe this, but how is it biblical? That's that's really my question that I've been asking. And when you understand the difference between what it is and Christianity, I have trouble even labeling this.

I don't really see this as speaking in tongues. I see it completely as something else. What is this? What do you call this? Whatever, whatever. We're going to call it. But I know that some of it wasn't right, for sure. I mean, I could feel that being getting pushed and I'm trying to hold myself up with somebody's pushing on. And I mean, and I don't see that in the scriptures.

Correct me if I'm wrong, is this is this falling out in the spirit when you get prayed far by the Prophet or the priest? I mean did Samuel pray for people and they fall out? I mean, I don't know, I don't remember reading it. I don't remember Paul. I remember they took his hanky and people got healed, but I remember Paul laying his hands on people and people falling out all over place of this hanky healed people I would think. You know, but some of it's gradual, but then some of it is just it's so obvious it just powers right through your your application of the scripture

to life. It's very subtle, you know, as you're in these churches and if you shut off your critical thinking and you're assuming that what the minister is saying is in the Bible because he says it's in the Bible, without the critical thinking they can move the goalposts and as they're moving it gradually you really don't see the goalpost moving until it you know it moves far from you, but even then because you you're not critically thinking the goalpost could be a mile away and you don't recognize it because you've watched it move every little increment along the way not noticing

the shift. And so it's very hard to pick up and you know like you said there are some things if you come from such a different background like you and I have that are pretty obvious, but some of the people that are born and raised in this type of movement they don't pick up on it because they were also the goalpost had been moved before they were born. So at you know as they're watching the goalposts move they think this is a natural thing. So from your background coming in as a Catholic and then coming in and seeing this and watching all of this happen

did you pick up on it? Was it were you able to recognize some of the very unscriptural things or was it also very subtle for you? Oh no I didn't recognize that. I didn't recognize it till the last you know probably five years honestly. What happened was my oldest daughter was very you know very you know studied her scriptures and was very done very well in school. So when she graduated we had we had been introduced to I have Mike Beko and you know listen to these guys Luingle, listen to these guys. I was a big Luingle fan and you know prayer. I got a big prayer

supporter obviously pray without ceasing. I mean you know I've been working on that for 30 years. How do you pray without ceasing? Well it's in there. It's commanded. But anyway so I might be I had a bit like my daughter. I think she should go to Ohio. Oh wow really.

Thank the Lord God Almighty for for a God-fearing wine. Oh yeah. Because because my wife uh yeah she just didn't like the idea and you know we just you know we kept praying about it. I always tried to base the- things with the kids in prayer. I mean, tried. I can look back and see where I flunked a lot of the tries. And so it ended up that she didn't go because a lot of different things happened, you know, I ended up moving to Detroit and so on and so forth. And she went to school to be a nurse. And

the, but we still got, I was still kind of, you know, we went to the one thing conferences and that. And so then, yeah, this, you know, the 24 hour to I have prayer room, you know, and these guys, Michael, I mean, he was, he's a, he's, he's like God. These guys all are, are the elite, the spiritual elite. And I don't see that in the scriptures is a problem. But, but, but, you know, I'm trying to be humble. So I'm honoring, you know, God's people. I don't want to touch God's anointed one. And so many

times it's, it's all related divisions and dreams and all these things that there's no, no way that can be proven or disproved. If you disprove it, the only way you could do it is kind of like how you some of the stuff I've seen on there, William Brannum, the, you know, the, the visions kind of change over the years. They kind of got adapted and the prophecies got adapted and where I'm at it. I'm still trying to sort all that out because I mean, I totally, no doubt that there's prophecy in the Bible. And I have a hard time when they talk about the Old Testament and one time he,

the one prophet says, thus say it's a Lord and he's a stone, I think. Oh, yeah, that's it exactly. You know, when you read the Bible and you're actually critically thinking, you start to understand that what they're calling a prophet today is totally different from what they, what prophets of old are, prophets were usually speaking out against the kingdom, against the, you know, you could call it the politics of the, of the ancient world, but they weren't speaking a popular message and they weren't speaking something that was, you know, aligned with the agenda of politics of the

era. They're speaking about correction. They want to correct the people, bring them closer to God, not to take control of the kingdom. These people, some of these people, I mean, this is, this is almost a comedy show. And it's really kind of aggravated and kind of frustrating. I mean, I hear the one, this one prophet, he came to our church one time and I hear people say, word salad, you know, that'll pop up. I mean, the guy literally talked for five minutes and he didn't say one thing.

I had no idea what he's talking about. And I don't want to mock, but I get all Also, you know, if I sat here a second, I could go on a five, one, a five minute, but a minute prophecy about breakthrough and future and God's the, you know, and it's always about John.

God has a plan for you, you, John. You, I mean, where's this, where's this Jesus is at the, at the top of the pyramid, guys? And we're not even on, we're not even in the pyramid.

He's at the top. He's at the sides and he's at the bottom. Well, that's your sit when you have the movie star type religion, you're focusing on the movie starts, all about the movie starts, not about God.

You don't really, you're not looking for God and you mentioned pyramid. It's kind of my, my mind went a different way because some of this came from British Israelism and when it was turning into Christian identity, they were teaching that God was the pyramid.

Pyramid was written as a Bible of sorts, I think they called it. But these people, what they're doing is they want to shift the focus of heaven down to them, they are the heaven.

They are the kingdom of this world. They want to be the monarchs of this world. And in doing so, what they've done is they've, they've shifted the focus away from God, away from Christianity.

And then while they're in this weird state, they're claiming all of these prophetic things as though that they're talking directly in the heavens. In fact, some of the even goes so far as to say, I've visited heaven or I've spent time in heaven and it's nothing new.

You go back to the lateral reign movement, William Brannum before, you know, writers, the lateral reign is really exploding. He's touring with this guy, little David, this little kid who his entire platform was number one, I can levitate, which is a funny story for another day.

But he also says, I spent five minutes in heaven and because the audience widely accepted, they did not question, okay, is this levitation real? Is it even Christianity? Did this kid really go to heaven?

Why is he preaching to me? Instead, they thought, oh, wow, he went to heaven. And then you find that theme repeating, you know, all through the lateral reign to doing it today, it's as though they're living in heaven.

My gosh, these people go to heaven every, every other day. They're in heaven constantly. And I don't know, man, I have to doubt that. I have to doubt it too. I mean, anybody who's critically thinking, you have to take a step back and say, wait a minute, is this real?

Is this fiction? Is this a movie? Is this movie star preacher? Is it real? You know, and where it leaves you is, once you wake up from this and you snap out of it, you have to start going through this self examination.

Okay, what parts were real? What parts were fiction? And it should never be this way. If you're going to church, you shouldn't expect to hear fiction. And for me, it was just eye opening.

I went on this self, this journey of, you know, bettering myself in many, many different ways, not just reading the Bible, but understanding what it means to be a better person. And, you know, that's not taught in churches. So after you came to understand that, wait a minute, something's wrong here.

What did you do? What was your process? I want to praise the Lord with my breath. I want to honor God. I want to glorify Jesus Christ. Point people to Jesus. Not to me or my church or my cutting edge. We got it going.

We're on a cutting edge in the spiritual and we're knocking down the principalities and which I've heard you talk about all these deliverance ministries. You create so many paths to go down. I could spend the next four weeks on just the one path.

I see so many things. I could have done better. Stick with the scripture song. Stick with the scripture. Which I tried. But I was I was sidetracked and I think a lot of the sidetrackens with all these dreams and visions and we're talking about stuff like that.

Excuse me. We're talking about stuff like that. We're talking about Jesus. Yeah, that's just it. I mean, if it's a Christian church, you're looking to Christ. You're preaching about Jesus. You're talking about Jesus, not yourself, not your prophet, not your apostle.

For me, that's really as I was making the decision to leave Brannemism, that was really what was hitting me hard. We were so focused on Brannem and we weren't focused on Jesus. We didn't talk about bettering ourselves.

We didn't talk about becoming a better person, becoming a better Christian. That's all it was. That's probably my biggest grief is kids. Like I said, I honestly tried to raise them on the scriptures.

Yeah, it's just so hard. In Brannemism, we had this loaded language that essentially the passage that says it's of no private interpretation. Whenever you read that, the passage actually means that there is no exclusivity to understanding the scriptures.

But we overloaded that language and that passage to mean that we could not understand it. And when you're in this type of religion, that's what they want you to do. They want you to shut off your critical thinking. They don't want you to read your Bible.

If you follow that out to its logical conclusion, they don't want you to read and understand your Bible. Because once you do, you have the interpretation, you have the understanding. And you can see when they're teaching things that are unscriptural.

So the whole foundation is false, but worse, in most of these types of authoritarian cults, they teach you that not only do we want you to shut off critical thinking, we also want you to shut off any sort of questioning or any critique of the ministry that's preaching.

And... So when you get to that level where you can't even ask a question, what do you do when your children are in it? How do you ask a question and not be booted out of the church?

Your children will suddenly lose all of their friends and all of their family because now you've asked a question, your whole family is shunned. The system is just so set up that if you say that leading, leading people away from the Bible, they will be able to go on and on.

No, well, here's proof, here I preach the scriptures, you know, this and that. But I think, you know, it's some, some negative things happen. So I mean, some no brainer, negative things happening at the church that you just couldn't be swept under the rug.

And in the continue, like I said, I mean, I take that series to pray through it. I can see where I've made, you know, like we said, I think before you start taking it, when I first read through that Bible, there's some scriptures that proverbs three, five, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge them and he will direct your face. He will make plain and straight your past.

Right. That I've interrupted you, but that's one of the passages that was also overloaded, lean not onto your own understanding. We were trained and manipulated to believe that that meant you had to lean on the prophet or the apostles understanding.

So what brought, what made you suddenly wake up? How did you escape this thing? Look, look and see it. I think that 2020, you know, all the, all the, all the stuff surrounding that and in the was, was quite a, that was eye opening for me personally.

From my, the way I thought biblically and in the way a lot of the other people, which like what you're talking about with the, the fellow with morning star, the other day I listened to, you know, I mean, how do you,

yeah, anyway, how do you, how do you make peace with, with some of this stuff? And, and, and I don't know exactly how to do it, but I'm going to try my best to do it, but even if it's uncomfortable and the older I get, the more comfort, you know, my first was get transition on this.

That comfort, that comforts a powerful thing. We don't, we don't realize the depths of that we make decisions with comfort and control, you know, and significance. Yeah, and that's just it. They want you to be comfortable.

They want to have that level of control. It's, it's awful. Once that happened, I, I, I, I would say for five years, I've been trying to get, get straight up on whatever we've moved.

We've physically moved a couple different times. And so we're still trying to, to sort things out. out and get plugged into a God-faring Jesus, the biblical Jesus, I'm a sinner. I need a savior, just basic thing.

No, we don't need no peripheral. God can handle and he can lead us and guide us in whatever needs to be done on or this day right now. That Bible applies to, you know, July 9th, 2025, it applies.

Right, and we're recording and we'll release this later. So that's referring to today. Today while we're recording, God is powerful for today. So the question is, after you've been through this and this journey that you and I share some many, many similarities to it, where do we go from here?

We have to, I have to make peace with this. Make peace with this. I don't want to sit here flounder around in my last days here on earth. You know, I'm getting older. I want to make a difference with my kids and I want to make a difference with my grandkids with my co-workers, look at it, look at it with my family, you know, the pride is such an issue.

It's like, it's not that Joe's right. No, no, I'm wrong. We're all wrong. And God's right. Exactly. And that was the intent of the prophets, the prophets were coming to correct, not to point people to the prophet.

We've got a new testament. We got, we're told how to do the church. We're told, I mean, it doesn't leave. There's not a whole lot of room, but somehow we can, you know, I've fallen out of this thing where they just take it and then it's all these dreams and vision and one scripture, 16 paragraphs of dreams and visions and prophecies and one scripture, two days worth of this, two scriptures.

You know, I mean, let's get the scripture interjected more and they're in the context and in the flow of our thing, but the problem is that the movie star don't get exalted. And that right there is the heart of the problem.

The movie star does not get exalted. That's what they want. That's what they feed on. There are these memes and these images. I don't know if you've seen them, but it shows a speaker who's standing on a platform and he's holding a megaphone.

He's preaching to an audience, but the audience is standing on this board and he's hanging off of a cliff. And the only thing that's keeping him up is the audience that he's held captive.

If they were all walk away, he would just fall down the cliff. Well, that's the way these movie star preachers are. They're only in that status because the people have elevated them to that status.

And it creates this world that I just don't understand it. Even still today, I don't understand it. We have, you've probably seen the comment feeds, whenever I add any sort of critical. information to these movements. You get the sudden backlash as though they want to support the movie star. And even if what you say is true, even if the movie star has covered up their histories, they want to fight the history. They want to find the actual facts.

So it just turns into this world that I've done this for a few years now and I still don't understand it. Why would people want to be like this? If you want to be a Christian, why don't you follow Christ? Not the movie star preacher. So anyway, I could go on to a rant for that and I won't. So you've come up through this thing. You started out Catholic, you entered into this movement, got caught away, swept up into the charismatic movement.

If you could go back in time, the very beginning of this, right whenever you first discovered that you started reading your Bible, you started understanding you wanted to be a Bible believing Christian, I think is the word that you used. What advice would you give yourself?

If you could go back in time before making all of these decisions, before bringing your kids into this, what advice would you give yourself? Check yourself, pray and ask that Holy Spirit to guide you into truth. Read your Bible, read the applicable passages, read everything.

You just read the Bible, read it, get it soaked and meditate on it. If you like worship and you like the emotional, okay, read some Psalms, read about King David, read through, you know, first Sam, read through all the stuff about King David and this and he wouldn't do. There's obviously scripture, Saul's trying to kill him and David's got him in cave and he don't do it. I'm not, I'm not touching God. Well, yeah, well God, anointed Samuel, anointed Saul, a king. He was anointed by God through the prophet of God. And so now, this business, everybody, you know, that system and that group, they're all together

and they affirm each other and they, you know, they're the prophets and they're the spiritual I would say stick to the scripture when you get it checked, think, I mean, critically ask the Holy Spirit to help me to, to wait through this. Go to Jesus. He said, come to me, all you are heavy laden and burn you. These things don't just sweep them under the rug, don't just go with these, these tried things out of context, touch not God, anointed. Well, who decides who's anointed? The guy with the most money, he's anointed. I mean, don't,

don't fall for some of this touch not God's anointed judge, not let's tell me judged. I've heard some of these guys preach, oh, you got to throw, you got to throw your brain out, you got to throw your brain out, you got to be led by the spirit. What? Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's it.

do you offer your body as a living sacrifice? You may prove. Well, that's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this. This has been, for me, like I said at the beginning, it's just fascinating because we had very, very different backgrounds, but the experiences that we share are much the same.

We came into this world and either one of us understand it. So that's why I wanted to have you on the show. And I thank you for joining us. So 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-Brandom.org. From 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.