Trinity, Cults, and the Collapse of Conviction

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Channel Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding, scripture, and truth by Channel D. Ross, YouTube channel.

Channel, last time, I think I gave more Brandham quotes in one episode than I have given in any other episode when we were talking about the Trinity, but I did so. I wanted to prove a point because there's so many people that think he was on this Pentecostal. In fact, I just met with the theologian in a, you know, meeting two days ago, and we were talking about exactly that.

He thought it was a on this Pentecostal sect, and I began explaining that when when William Brandham would go to this audience, if they were trinitarian, he would preach a trinitarian sermon, and pray to the persons of the Trinity in his prayers, and then go to the next service, and condemn anybody who did this as having accepted the mark of the beast. That's the vast difference between how his stage personas were, and I came to the conclusion, he didn't have any convictions, because if you have a conviction, if you truly believe this is the mark of the beast, you're not going to do the

thing that gives you the mark of the beast, right? So, and he claimed from his early years back in the, what was it, 1930s, he claimed that he had always taken that position, and no, it's not it. So, anyway, I filled the podcast with so many quotes that I really didn't give you much time to talk.

So, let's have Trinity part two, and let's, let's dive a bit deeper. Well, I mean, those quotes, I thought were necessary and helpful, because part of what I was wanting to document was the influence that William Brandham had on Dr. Freeman, once he began associating with charismatic and pentacostal people, but I mean, from my side, John, I don't think I did a very good job on heath and the Trinity, so I needed another crack at it anyway.

I think part of the reason is just the, the difficulty of the topic. This isn't talking about squirrels and hollow logs, you know, where we can just kind of roll that over on your tongue and keep on going.

We're talking about some really significant things, so that's probably part of the reason. and I don't think I did that great of the job, but that being said, I just didn't do a good enough job period.

It doesn't matter what it was. I don't really have anything else to blame it on. Hey, but before I take off on that, I had a surprise phone call yesterday, a surprise phone call.

And I'm sure you have gotten your share of these from people in the hierarchy, people at headquarters. So someone had given me Kathy Kinsey's phone number. Now that's Bruce Kinsey's widow. That's Hobart Freeman's middle daughter.

And in real time, you and I are talking during the week when we will have our meeting greet on Saturday of this week. By the time this airs, we will already be past that.

But in real time, we're on Wednesday leading up to our meeting greet in Warsaw, Indiana, on Saturday, end of this week. And I had called Kathy. I just got her voicemail. I just left her a one minute message saying, hey, Kathy, this is Cheno.

Telling her a little my history with her former husband, Bruce, that whenever Bruce was getting ready to leave faith assembly, he found me as an ally. So we had some communication. He sent me a letter and said, here are the reasons why I'm leaving faith assembly, not following Dr. Freeman anymore.

And I just wondered if Kathy would be willing. I said, I'm just wondering if you have any interest if you'd be willing to talk with me, chat with me at all. That was a minute phone call.

About three hours later, my phone rings, I look down and it's Kathy Kinsey. And it was a three minute and 33 second phone call. I timestamped it all and tried to quickly make notations of what was being said.

But she called to say she had heard my message, and she called to warn me, to warn me of speaking against God's man. Five times in the conversation. I mean, it was really sad to listen to someone this age, five times to warn me about what I was doing.

And this was God's man. And he followed my father followed Jesus 100% of the way. And she's definitely aware of the podcast because I could tell from some of the comments that she's made.

Either she's heard bits and pieces of ones that you and I have done or other people have told her. But she said, she made this comment. She said, these people out there are just babies.

And they don't know all that my dad taught. and they haven't heard all the message, they're just babies and you're putting things in their head that you shouldn't be putting in their head. So it was a three minute and 33 second monologue.

I didn't interrupt her. One time when she made a comment, because I had said in my message to her, that I really wish her husband was still alive today, I would love to talk to Bruce.

And so at one point of her response to me, she said something about Bruce had been in a really dark place, but before Bruce died, she sent, which he did in 2008, which we talked about on two earlier podcasts. She said he came back to the Lord or he was close to the Lord or something and I said, I'm really glad to hear that. Then her monologue continued and when she got to the end, I thought it was the end. I had not interrupted because I wanted her to say whatever she wanted to say, but I had hoped that once she said, but she wanted to say this normally the way conversations

occur person A speaks and person B then person A and then person B. So when she got to the end, I said, well, Kathy, I want to say I really appreciate you calling me back and I thought somewhere along there, you know, there'd be a pause and there'd be a chance for me to say something.

But all I heard was click. I mean, there was no goodbye. And you know, when I got off the phone call, I said to myself, where is this normal under what circumstances does a woman in her late 70s call a man, give him a three and a half minute monologue and then just hang up. I mean, who behaves in this way? It reminds me and I hate to say it, but it reminds me of something you do in the seventh grade, you know, in middle school, when you have a little tiff with a playmate out on the playground

because they got your boyfriend or your girlfriend and you're mad at them and you call them up and you say, well, I'm not going to be your friend and I'm going to collect all my marbles and I'm going to go back home and I'm not going to play with you anymore and then you hang up on them, you know, and I don't mean that in any rude way towards her, but I'm sorry. I have to ask myself who behaves in this way. It's so immature and so childish, but I have to say she learned from the

best, you know, her father hid behind a pulpit and was able to prophesy against people and threatened people and say all these things, but he was a complete coward when it came to actually talking to anybody face to face. So I'm sure you've had these kind of conversations called people are famous for this. They simply...

I don't know, John, they lack the, we know all critical thinking is gone out of their mind. We know they lack the ability to engage in a conversation, you know, it's like the blood of Jesus against you.

I might get a demon. I might be deceived if I even listened to anything you have to say. So in a high pitched, fearful kind of rapid kind of empty hollow sound, it just, it just reminds you of someone who's been under mind control, who doesn't have that flexibility, who doesn't have the ability to catch nuances and ask questions and inquire and verify and, you know, did you really mean this by what you said?

It's just, they got to get it all out and boom, hang that phone up before demon comes through the line and possesses you. And I'm sure you've had some conversations like that. I've had more than my fair share, let's say it simply, you know, it used to bother me and not just in telephone conversations, but I'll often get emails that are like this.

So, you know, read through the email and the email is worded in such a way like you said where it deserves a response. They open the door for dialogue and then I'll get to the end of it and realize that either A, they didn't give me a respond email address or B, they gave me a fake email address that it's going to bounce when I send it.

And I'll go through this heartfelt response, you know, trying to be open and honest as I can. And when the email comes back to me rejected, I'm like, oh, man, I just wasted, I wasted brain cycles unnecessarily, right?

And it used to really bother me until I, until I started studying psychology and understanding how the cult mindset works. We've talked about it before, but inwardly, you have this authentic person that always exists, even if you're in a cult.

The mind control will create a cult identity that forms in your mind and whenever you engage that person in any way that challenges their indoctrination, the cult identity surfaces. But the problem is this is like a split personality disorder.

You've got person A, who's the cult identity, person B, who is their real authentic self. The development of the cult identity doesn't always match the development of the actual person. So they may seem like they're seven years old, they may act like they're seven years old because literally the cult identity has never matured.

And you have to look at it like this. Once you begin to understand it, you, instead you start to feel sorry for them because they really can't help, they don't even know that this is a problem in their head.

They don't realize this cult identity. And after they escape, they're like, what in the world, it's like I had a symbiote inside my body that was staking over my mouth. Yeah, it's, and I can remember.

Remember these kinds of conversations, honestly, I can remember them from 40 years ago. If I had tried to talk to any faith-assembly minister 40 years ago, it was just pleading the blood of Jesus and they couldn't listen to you.

But it's interesting, it's almost like they do have this split approach because if they are talking and they're happy to talk to a cult member like a Jehovah's Witness or Christian science, they love debating and arguing with them because they're gonna get their Bible out and prove to those people how they're in a cult.

But if you ever get your Bible out and try to prove to them that they're in a cult, oh, they don't wanna have anything to do with it. You know, so it's like a double standard that they really operate with.

They are happy to talk about other cults and expose other cults and even engage with cult people that by their definition would be a cult member because they want to share what, in their opinion, is the truth of God's word with them and they will turn to passages.

But if you say, hey, I would like to challenge or discuss anyway your understanding of Mark 1124, Mark 1122 to 24 or Hebrews 111 or Romans 1017 or Romans 1423b, or any of these passages that were famous with Hobart, oh, no, do they wanna engage on that with you on that and not at all, they just cut you all.

No, I wasn't mad at her at all. I felt sorry for her and I think you're totally right, John. Probably in other parts of these people's lives, they function more or less normally, socially acceptable.

But man, when it comes to talking about it, talking about their cult leader, whoa, and I mean, they defend their cult leader, they defend their cult leader more diligently than they defend Jesus. In other words, if you were talking to someone who doesn't even believe in Jesus, who denies his deity, they're willing to engage with that person to try to prove that they're wrong, that Jesus is God.

So they will, they'll engage when it comes to Jesus, but if it comes to their cult leader, their cult leader is like the most important person in their pantheon of beings. And if you say anything about their cult leader, I just think it just strikes them so profoundly because they are the very ones, you know, we know who have heard for so long, touch not mind andointed and do my prophets no harm.

That stuff was just hammered and hammered and hammered into them. And so as I listen to Kathy speak, I just, it's, you know, I couldn't see her, so I don't see. I can't accuse her of glazed eyes, but I just hear this hollow, empty, just repetitious, a lack of sensitivity to nuances and to being able to have an a normal adult discussion between two adult people over a topic that you may disagree over.

But hey, welcome to life. There are a lot of people that we disagree with about a lot of things. That doesn't keep me from being their friend. It doesn't keep me from engaging with them.

I can remember telling my church years ago because we just never adopted that mentality of if you don't agree with us, we can't talk to you. We never had that mentality. What I always tried to explain to the people in my church was this, you should be willing to engage with anyone about anything because I can see two scenarios and both of them will be good.

Either this person that you're engaging with actually ends up being right in the argument, in the debate, in the discussion, and you had the privilege of learning and changing your view. The other option is you figure out after all of this discussion that they are wrong and you walk away confirmed in your own belief.

So either way you win. You either walk away confirmed in your own belief or you walk away having been convinced by the logic, by the scriptural background of this other person's argument. So I mean, what is there to fear?

But it's this bookie man thing. Something's bad is gonna happen if you listen to someone. I've never believed that. And so consequently, I think John in places in my life where I've been wrong in the past and I was wrong following Dr. Freeman.

But because I was willing to look at the other side, you can always reject it. Just take the time to look at the other side. Listen, understand not a strong man view of their position, but really understand their position.

And hey, at the end of the day, if it doesn't hold water in your mind, you're always free to reject it. And then what has happened, you've kind of learned your opponent's arguments and you're even the stronger in your own position.

But as I said, there are many times where I was able to change my position because I was willing to listen to what another person had to say or in some theological textbook I'm reading, I'm listening and reading and processing the arguments.

And I go, you know what? What he's saying is absolutely right. And there's no way I can get around it. He is right. So I just have to change my position. So it involves some humility, some integrity, some honesty, and those are things that we should all cherish.

Well. You know, it goes back to psychology, so if you are in a non-cult healthy church and the pastor is saying something that's false, if somebody outside comes into that church, sits to the service with you and then goes home with you and says, you know, your pastor said X, Y, and Z and they're completely wrong. When they're not entertaining this, when they're not in this cult mindset and they don't have that cult identity, they would simply say, oh, is it really? And then they would go look it up because the attack isn't against them, it would be against the pastor. And so they're

seeing it, they're disconnected, you're going, you're attacking their pastor, you're not attacking them. But when you've been indoctrinated with the cult identity, you become one with the cult leader because that identity is in you. So whenever they challenge the cult leader, they're actually challenging your person as a cult member because that's inside of you. And interestingly as it relates to this discussion here, I don't know if you've read the book The Kingdom of the Colts by Dr.

Walter Martin. Walter Martin, yeah. It's a great book if you haven't read it. I followed him extensively whenever I first left just to understand what a what a cult was. It's not that I'm a huge Walter Martin fan or not. I just he's just another figure in the kingdom of the cult research.

But I was watching with interest his definition of what it means to be in a cult. Some of which I disagree with, I'll say that up front. But where it got interesting is he started investigating the United Pentecostal Church, the Oneness Churches, etc. And there there's this big conference that he got in where he is actually debating and he's talking with different people who are in the Oneness faith. And he's trying to understand is Oneness Pentecostalism? Is it is it is it a cult? And do they oppose Trinitarianism in the same way that a cult mindset like like what we're describing here?

Would they attack it as though it's their identity versus just simply answering questions? And I can't remember the names of the people involved, but these were leaders in I think the UPCI, different groups. Their responses were exactly what you're describing from from Kathy and what I have seen with the other cults. And his conclusion, I can't remember if it's in kingdom of the cults, but I know it was in one of the documentary videos that I watched. His conclusion was that they had the cult mindset and they they had disfellowshipped any other Christian could not

even consider them to be Christian if they didn't accept their views on the Godhead. And so he labeled the entire thing as a cult. I don't know if I would go so far as to label it that, but if I base my reaction on the responses that he got, which also match what you just described, it's very much like a cult. I think one of the things that people can learn from these podcasts are not only when we come upon a particular point that we want to make, which today will be a little more on the Trinity and Hobart's view on the

Godhead, but it's also just witnessing how you go about untangling these things and logically discussing these things. So for instance, I always say and I've been saying this, I teach this weekly study on the book of Revelation. So we're looking at, we're in chapter seven, we're looking at verse by verse, but I always tell the people not only are we looking at verse by verse, but we're trying to understand what does, you know, the fourth verse of Revelation, chapter seven mean. Not only are we really focused on the actual content of that verse, but by our discussion of it, it shows what your hermeneutic is that you would use on any passage

of the Bible. And I think these these kind of podcasts do the same thing. Not only we talk about a specific issue, but we're looking at the broader issue of how do you disagree with someone else and how do you converse and how do you have a conversation? Of course, some people just don't.

It's a monologue, but that's not very smart. It's very immature and childish. It doesn't get you anywhere. And Lord knows, you know, if I'm wrong about something, please engage with me over it so I can learn about it. These people won't engage. They'll just pour things on you and and then quickly run. So anyway, enough on that back to the Trinity, where I don't know that I did a good enough job last time. So what I'm really after here, so let me put out a couple of goals, my goals in talking about this, because it definitely ties into brannemism and to the whole

business of parts of the charismatic movement. My first goal is I wanted to explain to people document Hobart's transition from orthodoxy to heterodoxy. And my second goal was to show whenever he made that transition and his he was making an attempt to improve on orthodoxy, I think he failed and I think he made matters actually worse. So first of all, his transition from orthodoxy to heterodoxy and I'm not going to re-read things we looked at last time, but coming from a southern Baptist background to begin with and then a grace brethren denominational background after that,

a doctor frame was definitely orthodox in his view on I'll use the word the Godhead, the members of the Godhead, because when you say Trinity, of course that does bother some people. So whomever you're making God, it's often referred to as the Godhead.

Then Dr. Freeman was orthodox there. He felt, he believed as the church has taught for hundreds of years that God was one in essence. He was immutable. He was eternal. He was unchangeable. That the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal. They're co-eternal.

They're co-unchangeable. They're co-immutable. So he believed that God was one in essence. God was three in person. And in his little booklet that he wrote when he founded his church in his home in Winona Lake in 1963, he wrote out the creed. And that was the creed in essence.

That God was one in those senses in which I just described, but he was three in person. In 1966, when Hobart Freeman went up to Chicago and in March of that year, he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and joined the charismatic Pentecostal movement. Then he became,

he became even more critical of everything that the denominations had taught. He was already critical before, but he was a brethren. He never renounced being a brethren when, or not prior to 66, even when his church became charismatic. It was still the brethren church in Winona Lake. He didn't change the name of it or change their identity or their affiliation, even though they were now charismatic. It was still a brethren church. But he had always been critical. And as his life went on, he became so critical. He became so critical that if anything was even taught by a denomination, then by association, there had to be a flaw in it.

He just hated the denominations and he was critical of everything they taught. So it's not a surprise to me knowing that's kind of how Hobart thought that whenever he was introduced to Brannemism and he had some contact in Northern Indiana with some oneness Pentecostal people that he became enamored with Brannem. He always said, Brannem was God's prophet. And so, when Brannem would teach on the occasions that he did teach oneness, I just think that in Hobart's mind, he felt there has to be something here. He already was anti-denomination. So they teach God is one in essence and three in person. Hobart came to think, well, there's no way that can

be right because that's the denominational view. Quote unquote. And so when he heard oneness and people teaching oneness, he became enamored with it and he was fascinated with his subject. of the baptism in water in Jesus' name. So fascinated, as I documented last time, he wrestled with that question of the formula for baptism for six years. He was not baptized in Jesus' name in 1966 or 67 or 68 or 69. He wrestled with that for six years. He knew somehow all of this is tied in to your view on the Godhead in his mind, and it wasn't until six years later in 1972 that he fasted

and prayed in a motel room for three days, and he said God gave him the revelation of the baptism in Jesus' name. And we talked last time about another man that he had met who had a 40-day fast, and at the end of 40 days and 49th of fasting, he was given this other minister. He was given a revelation of the Godhead that was beyond anything that could be communicated. Evidently, we're not up to date, John, by the way, on fasting, because I saw from the comments that a lot of people said they've been on a 40-day fast, and I just flat out said I doubt this guy went on a 40-day

fast. I will have to say I wasn't there, so I don't know. And I'm definitely not going to tell the people that said I fasted 40 days that they haven't. If they have, they have. I do want to make sure by fast, I mean fast, and that means water, but nothing else. No fruit juices, no supplements, no vitamins. That's not the kind of fast I would be talking about. It might be some type of fast, but when I say fast, I mean nothing except water. And if people have done it for 40 days, who am I to say they haven't? I'm in full agreement. I know I have it. I think three days is the

maximum for me. So when Hobart's got his orthodox view, and now he's heard some oneness teaching, then what he wants to do is synthesize or conflate these two views. God won an essence, God three in person, to simply God is kind of one period, because he was hearing one this people accuse trainitarians of trithiism. The one this people will say, if you've ever talked with one, you'll hear them say this, that you trainitarians, you believe in three gods. And Hobart agreed with that. Hobart did not like the word trinity, even though he does use it, and he does say it

isn't okay word. He doesn't like the word, because I gave you this quote last time, when he was teaching on the Godhead to faith assembly, here's the statement he would often make. He would say, that I'm almost quoting, can you think of God in any other way than through No, he would say. That's what the denominations have taught you, that God is three, God is not three, God is one. That's almost a quote of what he often said. So he, you can tell there is confusion in his mind. He knows I cannot reject the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We see

them at Jesus baptism. We see that elsewhere. He knew enough about the Bible. He couldn't do do that. But he was afraid to simply reject what he was hearing from the wondrous people. And so on one tape teaching on the Godhead, he said, one this is not heresy. On another tape, entitled eternal personifications in the Godhead, he said, it is heresy. Both of those tapes, both of those messages are online. And for some reason, we're somewhere shortly after the four minute time stamp. That's all you've got to do on both of them. Start at four minutes and listen.

And one of them, he says, one this is heresy. On another one, he said, one this is not heresy. Well, what is it? I mean, oneness in its truest form, as you alluded to earlier, maybe everything that you PC people believe is not heresy. But oneness in its purest form is definitely heresy.

It would have been, it would have been rejected by any of the church councils, even though they were not dealing with the Trinity per se, the Trinity did come up. And it would have been rejected by any of the early councils. So, and you know, something else, and I'll pause and give you a chance, John, when I talk about, when Hobart talks about heresy, this is another fascinating thing with Hobart. He would say, whenever heresy came up, he would say, now heresy, according to second John, the little epistle of second John, heresy is anything that has to do with a doctrine

of Christ. And I've had people bring that back to me when I would say, well, Hobart was teaching something heretical. And it would be in some other area, like manifested sons, that's a heretical teaching. They say, oh no, heresy only has to do with a doctrine of Christ. Well, that's just what they're parroting again from Hobart. But you know, if you deny the reality or the personality of the Holy Spirit, that's a heresy. If you deny, I mean, pick your doctrine. If you deny the inspiration and an heresy of scripture, that's a heresy. If you deny the eternal bliss

of the righteous, that's a heresy. You know, a heresy is any kind of weighty issue. It's not what's your view on the date of the minor prophet, Obadai. Some Old Testament scholars will date Obadiah in the ninth century BC and others will date him after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 That's a matter of opinion There's a lot of scholarly debate. No one is going to be able to conclusively resolve the date of the little 21 verse Old Testament book on Obadiah and that's not a heresy whenever you think unless you think it was written last week

That would probably be heretical Other than that, that's an opinion, but all of these other things. Oh, it doesn't have to just do with the doctrine of Christ any significant doctrine within the Christian faith if you hold a Header of Docs view on it then that you're a heretic. That is for sure Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism Transition through the latter reign Charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic Reformation You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website William-Brannum.org

On the book's page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen McGummery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements If you want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top 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

You know you mentioned the fasting and I saw the same comment that you did if you go back to the episode We were talking about Franklin Hall and Hall is one of the people who started advocating for this 40-day fast So it's not that people can't do it Hall was doing it and people were getting sick and I'm I'm almost positive. I read that people were dying from doing this and if you think of what fasting is when you fast Your body starts to consume itself So when you have extra weight extra fat. That's how you lose weight so fast if you're a heavy set person

You can absolutely fast for 40 days But someone a skinny as you Chino. I don't know that you would last for 40 days So it's not it's not that they would die By and large, but it is a very very unhealthy thing to do and if you look at the lifestyles of the people that lived in the ancient world They sometimes went for days without food just because they were hunter-gatherers or there was no food to be had During those times if they were to try to fast for 40 days, they might not have made it

I think that was the point I was trying to make but with regards to the Trinity This was something that was very problematic for me when I left the message. So for 37 years, I was indoctrinated with Oneness Pentecostalism.

Brannum's twist, I should say, on Oneness Pentecostalism. And so I was fully programmed with every one of the verses and there are many that Oneness Pentecostals use to define their version of the Godhead.

I knew it, I believed it. In fact, I was still of that mindset for quite a few years after leaving. And I watched the Dr. Martin videos on, you know, his position against the Oneness Pentecostals.

I, that's where it gets interesting. I was out of the cult mindset. I no longer had the cult identity. I disagreed with his position on the Trinity at the time, I watched it. Yet at the same time, I was open to listening to what he said because I did not have that cult identity.

And I listened and his, his argument while it may have been good and everybody may support it, it wasn't enough to sway me from believing what I had believed because I believed it for years and I knew all the verses.

And his argument and position wasn't really enough to change me. But it wasn't until I started studying the early church. And then I began to realize that every argument made against the Trinitarian doctrine.

Every argument was made either an outright lie or misrepresenting facts and misrepresenting truths. Because if you go back and you study all of the different views of the Godhead, which was emerging and forming and evolving even during the days that the Bible was being written, that's why you really don't find a standard definition.

This is what the Trinity is in the Bible. They were forming their basis of understanding God when the Bible was written. The early church fathers were facing things like modalism, which is the idea that modalists will often use your finger.

God is like your finger. The father is the first segment, then you have Jesus the second, then you have the Holy Spirit the third. Modalism was condemned as heresy. I want to change that word, not heresy, but condemned as wrong by the early church fathers.

And some of the early church councils, I think you can find the modalistic debate. Heresy is an interesting word. Because as the religion is being formed, the theology is being formed, you really didn't have heresy.

What you had was instead proto-orthodoxy. You had the ideas that would develop into Orthodox beliefs of Christianity, and you had men who were standing up and saying, no, this can't be because we have this whole collection of the Bible and the idea that you're pushing on this view on the Godhead, while it may support some passages of Scripture, it can't support the whole of Scripture.

That argument, the whole of Scripture is what really started to change my opinion. on the subject. Then I got into the Councils, I think I mentioned last time, Brannum and others, especially in the clan when they were fighting the Catholic Church, would say things like the Trinitarian doctrine was formed because of the Council of Nicea, which is absolute nonsense.

It was actually formed to fight what was, by then, I think it was becoming deemed as as heresy. But you have the early church fathers were condemning any doctrine that tried to say that there were not three distinct persons in the Godhead, and they went back and referenced passage of scripture that I was familiar with that had been slightly twisted with a one as Pentecostal stent. And the one that really pushed me over the edge was trying to understand that there's a scene in the Bible that Jesus declares, if you ask the Father, he will send you a helper

who will lead you in guide you in tall truth, that helper, as we know, is the Spirit. When you think of that scene, you can't have one of the one that's Pentecostal verses is I and the Father are one.

Well, you cannot have that if he's saying that this other figure who is the Father is going to send it without taking the manifested sons of God approach. This was a human being. Jesus was not a deity.

He was not divine. I'm going to ignore all of the scriptures that say that Jesus was divine. And I'm going to say that he was a human vessel that contained the manifestation of God. That's what Brannemism taught. That's what Hobart was building his theology from as this is developing.

But yet to do this, to understand this and believe this, you really had to object to certain passages of Scripture. And I reached a point in all of my journey where I just simply could not reject what I was being told I must reject. And this is what I said earlier in this podcast, John, is this is not a theological podcast. Yours is a historical one. So it's not the place we don't have the time and opportunity to delve into this too deeply. And I'm simply trying to show how Hobart evolved from one position to the other. But you're exactly right. After the Jerusalem

Council in Acts 15, which was an important council when they were trying to decide what are the grounds for acceptance into the Christian church and who can sit at the table. You know, there was a Jewish Gentile on table situation there. Then we didn't have a council until I see in 325.

And in the fourth and fifth century, we had, you know, four or five big councils, but the councils because the Bible is not and never was intended by God to be a textbook on theology. It is a collection of prophecies and letters.

and poems, and all kinds of things given by God, the Holy Spirit, from, you know, early times until the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation. And it's not systematized. And you know, you don't have in chapter 14, verse 17, a definition of the Trinity. You don't have a definition for really anything. And that's the beauty of Scripture. And the nature of Scripture, it takes time and effort and diligence and study to synthesize and come up with what you think is the right position on doctrine A, B, and C. And you describe your own journey there perfectly. You don't have

to reject everything you've ever been taught today. You don't have to reject it tomorrow. You have to take your time. I mean, everybody's been taught things by other people, and it's time to make up your own mind what you believe. And you've got all the time in the world to do that. You know, you're not under any deadline at all. But calls will put you under a deadline, and they will force you. You have to believe what we believe. Faith assembly was like that. You know, you believe what we believe are our way or the highway. Don't let the door hits you on the way out. That's not the way

you treat any other fellow human being. You let them come to their own conclusion. And yeah, if you are feeling you're a pastor or Bible teacher, it's your responsibility to teach us the Bible.

Do it to the best of your ability. And then after you've done that, guess what? And now it's all up to us. Now it's up to us to use the best of our ability to decide, did what that guy just tell me is that right or is that wrong? You know, there's no blanket approval on anything and no blanket requirement to approve anything. It's simply up to the people. So in those first few centuries, what caused the councils, they weren't saying, you know, let's sit down and figure out something about the Trinity. What always calls any of the councils was when someone came along espousing a view

and it was a person who had a lot of clout, like Areas did, who was one of the leaders in the church in Alexandria, Egypt, who was teaching Areanism in the early four century, which was the calls for Nicaea, when a person with a lot of clout came on the scene and began to teach something that sounded, and when it was new and novel, that sounded like this might not be supported by the biblical record, then arguments, debates, discussions were had, and then finally a council was called and Nicaea was that council in 325. And the early councils, I think I can say this about all of them,

there was Nicaea in 325. was Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431, and Calcedon in 451, and then there were some others after that. Those were the first early big councils. They were all called under consideration of what I just said. Someone is teaching something new. This person has a lot of it doesn't sound right. Let's convene the theologians of the day, and let's discuss this and see where we end up. Those councils all had to do with Jesus, because here's the thing with Christianity. Jesus is the central figure of the New Testament. He is the central figure of

Christianity. We carry his name, Christians, from Jesus Christ, and the New Testament does not give a systematic theology. We see him being born of a version. We see him in Luke's gospel growing in knowledge and in favor with God and with man. How is that possible? How can that statement in Luke's gospel be made about Jesus that he grew in favor with not only man, but with God as well?

So the early councils had to do with who is Jesus? How does he relate to what everyone believed in New Existed God the Father? Is he God the Father? Is he less than God the Father? Is he equal to God the Father? They all had to do with Jesus. What is his relationship with God?

If I can put it like that, and I believe Jesus was God and is God, but what was his relationship with God? And also the other thing the councils were talking about were the two natures of Christ.

He's the only being who is one person with two natures. He has a divine and he has a human nature. And those things are not easy to discuss at all. They're not clearly stated in the Bible.

You have to combine a number of passages in a scriptural and in a logical way and that's what the councils were all about. And so there was not a council. Nice to see it was not about let's figure out the doctrine of the Trinity. It was who is Jesus and is he God or is he somehow less than God? Then when you start talking about that issue, then I think the next council and Constantinople in 381, well, there is another figure that we need to talk about.

And we see him throughout old and New Testament and that is called the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. So is that something that is distinct from the Father and the Son or not? And then you begin have some discussions of, well, what is the Godhead? And they never said, okay, here's our definition of the Trinity. They simply went on to explain, who and what? They felt God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit work. And it's not, this is not easy stuff. This is not great school material. These are, these are matters that the early councils met for weeks and months about,

and there was a lot of discussion and debate, which I wish we could have today, but nobody will do it. It's just, I'm in my cult, and you're in here cult, and never the twain shall meet, where we should be able to say, let's talk about this openly, honestly, and fairly. And then if, if, at the end of the council, we just can't agree, and we just can't agree, but people won't even make an effort today, and I wish they would. Absolutely. It's usually an us versus them mentality when you're in the cults. And to his credit, I think Dr. Martin was trying to point

that out and trying to say that it, it has become us versus them in the oneness faith. And that, that was his main point. And, and I also wish I could find that video. I've had people ask me for it because I have mentioned it a few times. This is something that I found just stumbled upon it back in 2012. So it's not, not anything that I saved or bought. So I don't have it. But it is interesting when you think of that mindset. But for me, it's fascinating to understand how the history evolved. You, you find these people in modern day cults claiming

that they're speaking divinely by God. They're basically trying to describe themselves in the same way that anybody else would describe Jesus. And that's why whenever you question them, they say, well, it's people question Jesus too when Jesus was alive. And you have to understand that's not the same thing, right? This is a human being. That's Jesus of the Bible. But that's the way that they have been programmed and manipulated. And you can't help it. So as I, as I went through that journey, like I said, I, I just came to understand that once you read the Bible for what it says,

and not read it for what the other guy is telling you that it says, it's really hard to deny some of the things, some of the arguments that are made in favor of the Trinity. And learning the history was significant. Learning how and why people in the cults have covered up that history is even more significant for me. And that's why I focus on history. If you can explain why they're covering things up, you can usually find their agenda and why their agenda is false. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that, John. And this is not, as I said, a doctrinal podcast. What I'm trying to show

is for Hobart Freeman's followers, Hobart Freeman did believe in the Trinity, although he always said, I prefer to say the triunity of God because that unity from his oneness influenced by and him was so important to him.

He should have just accepted what the church has accepted for 1700 years. God is one in essence and three in person, but he simply couldn't do that. So he came up with his new conflated synthesized view of the Trinity where he said, and everyone who followed Hobart has this memorized to this day, God, what is he?

God is not what we think he is. He's what he reveals himself to be in Scripture and here it is, God is one divine spirit, eternally manifested as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everyone has that definition memorized.

They feel so good about themselves because they can quote that. They didn't understand the Trinity any better because they memorized Hobart's little one sentence definition, but it made them feel good, like, we don't believe in what the oneness people teach and we don't believe in what the denominations teach.

Oh, really, what is your conflation of that? How did you synthesize that? Well, we believe that God is one divine spirit, eternally manifested as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Okay, what do you mean by that?

What do you mean by one? God is one spirit? Are we talking about mathematically or numerically or what do we talk about? No, we're not talking about that. It's almost as though Hobart set something up where people could not engage conversationally once they had this definition in their mind, all they could think of, God's one divine spirit, God's one divine spirit, God's one divine spirit, eternally manifested as Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

They thought if I said that, I said it all, Augustine, Tertullian, the Apostle Paul, everybody would be proud of me if I can quote that definition. It made them feel good about themselves, but they didn't understand the Trinity any better and it probably made things worse because Hobart, I'm telling you, you can hear this in his teaching.

He wanted to hold onto that oneness. He did not want God to be three. He said, can you think of God in any other way than three? Can you in your mind? He would tell us congregation.

Sit there and try to think. Can you think of God in any other way than three? He would say, no, he would tell you, that's what the denominations talk to you and God is not three, God is one.

Well, I can think of God as three when the Son prayed to the Father to send his people the Holy Spirit. It sounds like it's okay for me and my mind to think of God as three.

And Hobart believed that verse, Sean. He said, this is a verse against oneness. It's a verse against oneness. But he still wanted that unity. So he did not like the word Trinity. He wanted the word triunity.

He thought he had come up with something new, the correct view of the Trinity. You're not gonna improve on what Nicea said and Constantinople and Ephesus and Calcedon. You are not going to improve on that.

And one little proof of how this makes people so confused is this story that I will give you and close with or maybe we have more time. I don't know. I sat down a long ago, face to face with a couple of ex-ministers from Faith Assembly.

If I mention their names, everyone would know them. We're not talking about some French minister in the Philippines. We're talking about Indiana, Northern Indiana. And when I sat down to talk with them, they knew I had had some objections to Dr. Freeman.

And I guess people somehow think that we just are opposed to its view on divine healing and no doctors or something. That's the one that will kill you if you hold onto that view.

But there are so many other things about Dr. Freeman that were less than orthodox. Maybe not heretical. Yeah, I would definitely say everything was not heretical but it was less than orthodox. And so I mentioned, I said, well, to these two guys, I said, well, I think Dr. Freeman's definition of the Trinity that God is one divine spirit who eternally manifests himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not orthodox.

That is a heterodox view. Oh, no, no, that's not. They wanted to argue over that. And I said, Hobart in his teaching ends up with a contradiction on your hands. Confusion to say the least contradiction to say the most.

And you know what they said? They said, well, there are contradictory things that we just can't understand about God in Scripture. And I said, wait a minute. You made two different statements, a compound statement.

One, you said they're contradictions. And then secondly, you said there are things we can't comprehend. Those are two different claims right there. And we have to understand those are two different claims. So I said, look, and there was a heated discussion over this until I was able to make my point.

I said, look, if you go, if you sit through some formal classes on epistemology, which is simply a fancy word for the doctrine of knowledge, or you sit through some formal classes on logic, you're going to learn the law of non-contradiction that something cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same regard.

When I said that, one of these guys just started saying Aristotelian, Aristotelian. And I knew what he meant. What he- His meaning was, you are borrowing from Aristotle and Greek philosophy when you're trying to use logic.

And I said, just because Aristotle and his compatriots came up with some formal definitions and explanations of things, doesn't mean that he invented that. Any more than Sir Isaac Newton invented gravity. He didn't invent gravity.

It was there all along. He just told us, this is the main fort and this is how it works. And we all go, oh, yeah, now I understand. He didn't invent anything. It was already there.

Aristotle didn't invent logic. It was already there. He just explained it. And so I told these guys, I said, look, there are three different words that we really need to define and understand. One is a contradiction.

And a contradiction is a contradiction to me and to you as it is to God. In other words, if you hear someone say, hey, I just drew a round square. You wanna see it?

There's no such thing as a round square. That doesn't exist because that is a contradiction. That is unintelligible. Always use the example of a mountain. You can't have a mountain without a valley. It's impossible.

If everything was the same height, then it wouldn't be a mountain. You cannot have a mountain without a valley. To have one is to necessarily imply the existence of the other. So I said a contradiction is unintelligible.

No things exist. A second word that we like to use and can found with others is the word paradox. A paradox is something that appears to be contradictory. But upon further study and reflection, we find out that it really isn't.

And then the third word is mystery. Mystery means that there is something that we can't say that it doesn't exist, but we also can't explain or define it. And I said, are there mysteries about God?

Well, of course there are. So for you to say God is incomprehensible, oh, I agree with, but that doesn't mean we can't comprehend some things about God. Can we comprehend God in his purest essence?

Well, no, we're just created human beings, but let's don't call something a contradiction. And I said, I think where Hobart was headed was some type of contradiction where he wanted God, he truly, truly wanted God to be one in a sense more than essence.

He wanted it to be one because of his belief and baptism in Jesus name and because of his influence by William Brown. I'm here with you. wanted him to be one, but he knew he couldn't believe in oneness because that's not right.

So he also had to somehow hold to a threnus. And what I tried to explain to them is it's not that difficult to explain based on the law of contradiction where something cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same regard.

God can be one in one sense and three in another. That's not a contradiction. That's saying he is one in these senses and then you define and quantify what you mean by that. And God is three in this regard, but he can't be one and three at the same time and in the same relation.

That would be a contradiction. And a contradiction is unintelligible and it simply doesn't exist either in our mind or in the mind of God. Well, like I said, this is a historical podcast and I think you've mentioned that a few times, but just explaining my own journey might help somebody else and at least open their mind to be able to listen to the opposite opinion.

Because I think whether the opposite opinion is correct or false, it's not hurtful if you listen to it. And you may learn something that you didn't know even from somebody who doesn't really, who isn't really correct.

You may have information that you didn't have. And so there's that Bible phrase, Iron, Sharpen, Zion, I look at it like this. In fact, I had a person who I won't tell which episode, but one of the episodes, they got quite an irate.

They wanted to challenge everything. And I said, well, that's interesting. You'd be welcome on the podcast if you want to voice your opinion. Never heard back. Because usually that's the way the cult mindset works.

But thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me, John. I appreciate it. 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-Branem.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.