The Brownsville Revival and Other Questions Asked

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

Charles, it's good to be back and to finally go through all of these questions that keep flooding in about the charismatic movement, John Wimber, N-A-R, Brownsville Revival, so many things that we've had feedback.

I think we have shocked the world. I don't think many people were aware of all of these connections, and when you understand the framework that was laid by Laterane, Brandhamism, etc. and everything that's built on top of it, it's weird, and I find it very troubling, I guess, that so many of these ministries have just covered up their past, and they may be good ministries now. I'm not anyone really to say because I'm not in them, but there's a reason why they cover up their past, and I think it's a little shocking to people when they understand that history. So we get everything from praise, to backlash,

to, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? That's pretty funny, John. We've been, we've been, we did a lot of episodes, John, so I know we finished up our second podcast series here, and we wanted to go back through and look at the comments and try to, you know, answer any questions that maybe some people had that we didn't get to in the series.

We've recorded so many episodes, John. I went back and looked. I think we had, like, 117 episodes that we recorded, and so we've pretty well covered the message history from, you know, from maybe a little bit before the message kicked off up through all of William Brownham's life, and then our second series that we did, we did the post, the post-Brandom years of the message history, and then with the last five episodes of that, we did a little bit talking about how the new Apostolic Reformation connects do it all as well. So, not all of our episodes

just came out yet, actually. So we're recording, we record quite a few episodes ahead, so we're gonna go back and we'll look at the comments on the ones that have came out, but the new Apostolic Reformation episodes are still in the progress of coming out.

So maybe we'll do a second Q&A episode after all those have come out, but yeah, so how about we just dive right into it? So the very first question, we'll target it, came and this one is on a video we did seven months ago, and the question is you mentioned a couple times that Brown'sville Assembly of God was connected to full gospel fellowship of churches and ministers international. I was not aware of this and have not been able to find documentation of the connection.

Could you point me to documentation of the connection? Thanks for all you do. So on this one, so if you go back to the 90s, I think our listeners are all aware that roughly in the same time frame that the Toronto blessing happened, you also had the Brown'sville revival. Those were two big revivals that happened in the same time frame that both feed in to all this movement and ideology. And so the Brown'sville revival is indeed connected to full gospel churches. Now the Brown'sville Assembly of God itself was not at that time really connected to

the full gospel to the full gospel fellowship. But the evangelist that came in and held the revivals where the Brown'sville revival happened was his name was Steve Hill. And I believe, John, I believe this is even on their website. We'll look, we'll put it up if it's still on their website, but even on their website, they talk about how a full gospel businessman, a full gospel preacher had a prophecy that the last day revival was going to start in their chair in Pensacola.

And Steve Hill came to Pensacola after hearing about this prophecy that had been in full gospel gospel circles that the last day revival was going to start in Pensacola. And he holds the revival meetings that turned into the Brown'sville revival. So yeah, I mean, it was spawned by a prophecy that came out of full gospel churches. And it was full gospel affiliated ministers that came to that assembly as a God church and more or less spearheaded that revival from the start.

Now the full gospel churches, if our listeners remember, when when when you go back to the 1950s and 60s, when the healing revivals were kind of fading out, the full gospel fellowship churches were started up by a large group of preachers who had been most of them had been either kicked out or voluntarily left assemblies of God because assemblies of God rejected their practices.

And they were a lot of them were actually defrocked assemblies of God preachers that started full gospel fellowship. And full gospel fellowship was actually the voice of healing denomination, John. It was the denomination started up by Gordon Lindsay and the healing evangelists. And yeah, I mean, it was primarily preachers who had been kicked out of assemblies of God at the time.

And so, you know, these things add and flow. And you can see there's always been this, I don't know what the right way to put it in. There's always been this where they rubbed together.

They were assemblies of God. And yeah, they come back. They still have friends and assemblies of God. And you know, somehow full gospel business, full gospel guy gets invited. back to have a revival at a full-gotten assembly. It's got church. There's where the, there's where it happens. And that was the, yeah, the Brownsville revival. So, anyways, those are the links there. And it was absolutely. It was manifested, sons of God, last day revival ideas that inspired that prophecy and the full gospel in the business, in the full gospel church, which then led to the revival. And yeah, you got an element of that influence happening there, literally from

the very beginning. So, that's this something we could talk a whole lot about. John, we could probably do a whole episode on the Brownsville revival, too, if we wanted. But those are the connections that that's it. And I'm, like I said, I'm pretty sure they're even up front on the Brownsville church website that that's where the stuff came from. So, like I said, we'll put it up on the screen, go look for that after we record the episode. You have to understand there is a lot of cross-pollination happening, whether it's directly or indirectly connected. If you understand

the theological framework and how it differed from mainstream Christianity, at its from its inception, you can start to see the differences between the two. And then if you look at what is happening today and understand what is built on that foundation, you can kind of tie the pieces together. What's interesting is I recently, actually just yesterday, I received an email from a guy who he was studying the Baptist, the Southern Baptist. And you would think that's totally disconnected from this. But he sent me the thesis. But in, I think it's the year 2000, this person who's getting his doctor of divinity wrote a paper called a strategy for advancing

the spirit-filled renewal movement among American Baptist pastors. And the reason why this came up in his research, he was researching the NAR and he started seeing weird connections that just shouldn't be. But what has happened is this movement has by and large impacted American Christianity, not just within the movement, but like Charles said, you have people who are rubbing toes together. They're in the same circles of people. They may not be in the same denomination, but they're cross-pollinating their theology. And so what we see in Brown's bill, if you're not in this movement, if you were never charismatic and you're on the outside

looking in, you look at it and you say, oh yeah, that's that same thing. And you don't even really care how it came from. But it looks feels, if it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. That's pretty funny. You know, the man who said that phrase, John, if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, the man who coined that phrase was Indiana's very own James Wickham Riley. Yeah, the Hoosier poet from the, yeah, from the late 1800s, early 1900s. Yeah, he's the man who coined that phrase, which is really ironic,

because we got a lot of people that walk and quack like ducks in Indiana. Yeah. So we inspire that. Jim Jones is from Indiana. William Brandon is from India. You go down the list. There's a lot of crap pots that came from Indiana.

But overall, it's a pretty nice place. Ladies and gentlemen, I mean, we have my pants. Right? Hey, we got something going for it. So, um, all right, jumping to the next question, John. So this is more of a comment I thought was worth responding to.

This one, uh, asks says, I always heard we are the ecclesia. It made me uncomfortable because the Bible says we're the body of Christ. And there isn't any super powerful group listed. So I wanted to hone in on that word ecclesia.

So in the Bible, that's the Greek word for church. But yes, in the latter right movement, that word took on special meaning. This is one of the books that came out of Sharon orphanage.

This is actually by George hot and this one. And in this ideology, John, the ecclesia, you know, Jesus said on this rock, I'll build my church. And so on this ecclesia, I'll build my, or on this rock, I'll build my ecclesia.

So the ecclesia is indeed what this ideology would use in some branches of it to describe the elite branch, the advanced elite who would become the manifested sons of God. And that's exactly what this, this is all about.

This is a pamphlet about how the ecclesia, the elite group becomes the, the elite, the true. So you notice it's the true church, the true ecclesia, how they become the manifested sons of God and how all that happened.

So yes, there are branches of the latter reign movement where the terminology varies. Now, in the, in the branches we come from, John, we didn't use that word, right? That's a little too, that's a little too, you know, theologically turned, right?

That's a, that's a probably a word of man's reasoning. So we wouldn't have said that word, but yes, and in some of the branches of this ideology that are more like Derek Prince, that like to sound refined and all polished, you know, they polished it up with words like ecclesia, but yeah, no, they're, they're just doing the same thing and just trying to polish it up and make it sound more, more, I don't know, professional, educated, polished sound, like, yeah.

And it furthers the point that we've made a few times about loaded language. Some of these ministers had no theological background or history or study. They, they literally were making it up, pulling it out of their butt as they go.

And they would find a word like this and run with it. And this became a key word that was loaded with all kinds of doctrines. So the person who's asking the question, this is a big deal to that person.

But to other people who have heard, you know, and understand the word, it's just a word. It's nothing important or significant. But in these movements, that's the way it works. Find a good word that nobody in your audience has heard.

Use it as though you know it and run with it. And they'll thank you are some divinely sent spirit from God to give you the message of the last days. Yeah, but it's so.

important to know that the language is different in these groups. Because, like I said, it's very easy. And I noticed this in some of our comments, John, maybe when we don't fully explain the language. And that's part of why it also makes it so complicated to talk about is because people from normal, more typical Christianity can totally misunderstand what we're saying. And it's hard to talk in. It's hard to talk in a language that everybody can understand. We actually, one of the comments we have here, I'll put it up. The question is here, why do you use the term ideology rather than, you know, why do you keep saying

ideology? Why do you keep calling this an ideology? Well, the reason I call it an ideology is because there are very few words that I think everybody can agree on in this. So, I've generally approached all this, John, in a way that I try to make it acceptable or accessible to our message listeners. That's really my target audience, John, is people in the message.

I know we have people outside of the message, but in the message, theology is an evil word. If you have theology, you have something that's going to damn you to hell. So, we can't use the word theology, ladies and gentlemen. And religion is a word with lots of baggage loaded, too, in the message. So, we can't call it a religion. Like, there's, you have very huge word choices. And so, I try to use words that don't come that, that mean the right thing, but don't have all of the loaded connotations from the message. So, yes, I call it an ideology.

I think a lot of people in normal Christianity, you would call it a theology. But theology in the message does not mean the same thing as theology in normal churches, John. And, you know, theology is, in the message, we, the message has no theology. The message, if you use the message definition of that word, the message has no theology. The not a single true message believer has any theology whatsoever or believes any theology whatsoever. Theology is of the devil. It is man-made, man-made, inspired reasoning. In the message you do not have theology, you have revelation. And revelation comes from God. And theology comes

from man. And revelation will save your soul. And theology will damn you to hell. And there's all kinds of words like that that mean different things in this ideology. And so, that's why we use the words we do. And I understand if you're not from the message and from our background, you just have no idea about any of these things. And so, yeah, it may sound that we talk a little bit funny, or I say things that sound a little bit odd.

But I'm dancing around the loaded language of the cult we come from with the way I talk about things. So, the next question is one that interests me greatly because of an event that happened early in my research. This person wrote, I have been a laterane minister since the mid-80s and believed nothing that either of you are saying or we held to. The laterane church that I grew up and didn't believe any of this, I can tell you with certainty that Thesda Church and Detroit, which was the largest church in Latter-Rain with the Bales, did not

subscribe to this belief. The only difference between Latter-Rain and Classic Pentecostalism was worship. Now, if you understand what this person is saying and understand the difference between Latter-Rain and Classic Pentecostalism, his whole argument is not really an argument at all, but his point is valid. And I want to highlight that point. Within Latter-Rain, you had a wide variety of different churches, different beliefs. It was like a Heinz 57 religion.

Anything was welcome, even in William Brannum's first publication that came out specifically dedicated to the Latter-Rain. It was called an Inter Evangelical Association. So everybody's welcome. And they even had articles, I think you and I discussed them, where it said something that if somebody has a difference of doctrine, don't fight about it. And that was published in the voice of healing. I'm paraphrasing greatly. But when I began my research and in my sect of the message, we were kind of disconnected from any of the history of Latter-Rain. I had no idea this existed. In Brannum's later years, he said that he was not a Latter-Rain minister. And

that's how we were like stuck in that time frame of mind in that time period. When I discovered that he's in Latter-Rain, my whole world fell apart. I started researching Latter-Rain and publishing on the website. And I attracted, I'm not going to give the person's name or the website name, but I attracted a well-respected Latter-Rain historian. And he started reading through my research.

And he was astounded at the things I was finding. I'm publishing newspaper articles. When I write on the website, I kind of write indifferently. So it wasn't, I wasn't putting him down or Latter-Rain down. Just here's the history as it was. And he got excited about it. And we actually collaborated for a bit. The moment in which I published the articles that tied William Brannum to this, he went berserk. I'll never forget it because my family and I were at an amusement park.

And I bet the guy called me 20 times while I was in that. I lost count of the times, but he was getting very angry and upset that I had, no, William Brannum was not part of this. You don't know what Latter-Rain is. Latter-Rain was, it was more about the worship. And that's where he went with it, too. But if you understand that the independent assemblies of God, led by Rashmason, was the main core of the Latter-Rain movement. And Rashmason was working closely, I think, William Brannum called him a bosom friend. These guys were in cahoots. And Rashmason's biggest partner

was Joseph Matz in Bozay, also a quote-unquote bosom friend. And that's the research that I published and the guy went berserk. No, I will not accept this. And the bail church was directly connected to it.

They were directly in the influence of Rasmussen and Mats and Bozay. And ironically, the bail church that he mentioned, if I remember correctly, and I'd have to go back and read the book The Raven, I'm almost positive.

That is the church where Jim Jones was preaching where he received his so-called anointing in that bail church. Jim Jones, as we've mentioned, was being groomed to be a leader in this movement. He was, for all signs, all intents and purposes, it looks like he was going to be, he and Mats and Bozay were going to be the replacement for Gordon Lindsay for a period of time.

He's being groomed for this. He's going with Mats and Bozay on these tours. One of the churches is this laterane church that Bethesda Church. And this is the worst of branimism that they're inviting in this church.

It's not like this is just the worship or they're selectively choosing who they're bringing. They are bringing Jim Jones into this picture. So for this person, I believe this person is sincere mentioning this, but you have to understand that there's a whole lot of history that people aren't aware of.

It has all been covered up. The church may, by the time he's in it, the church may have actually not been that bad. But in its history, Jim Jones, the person who killed all of those people and convinced them to drink the cyanide lace coolating, Jonestown, Guyana, was also in that church.

This was not bringing reputable people as leaders of the movement. I'll just say like that. You're correct, John. So the church here, this comment is referencing Bethesda Church in Detroit. The pastor was a lady named Myrtle Beale.

And you are your correct, Jon, I'm reasonably sure that Myrtle Beale is the woman who prophesied over Jim Jones and commissioned him as a prophet in the latter reign. Your church is the one who initially commissioned Jim Jones.

And yes, he was invited to highlight headline revivals there, which really launched his, after we worked with William Brandon, which more or less got in his start off in this thing. Anyhow, then he introduced Joseph Matzimboze and all of that.

So yes, but here's the thing. And this is why, I mean, it's so hard to, it's so hard to interact with comments like this because it says the only difference between latter reign and classic Pentecostalism was worship, okay?

Now, dear commenter, the church, you're saying was one of the very first churches to be expelled from latter, from assemblies of God for this stuff. That is not what the expulsion letters and all that stuff say, right?

So here we've just got, you know, this is just, it's either dishonest or it's just somebody who doesn't know. Oh, they were already in fivefold ministry stuff at this point. They were already in manifested sons of God stuff by the point that they broke away from assemblies of God.

Bethesda was an assemblies of God church before they got broke out. And here's the thing, John. So here, again, I'm just going to go back to a few of these Sharon orphanage tracks. Here's a book by George Houghton, The Abrahamic Covenant.

What is this book? Brutus Church Realism. Look at this book. The ceiling of the sons. What is this book manifest at sons of God? And look at this book. The increase of his government.

What is this book about? The manifest at sons of God taking over the world. Okay. Now, who are these by George Houghton, the leader of the Latter-Rain Movement? Okay. In 1915, 51, he set up the original fivefold ministry structures, John.

And when he did that, he went around to all the other prominent preachers in the movement back then and told them they needed to submit to North Battleford and him as Senior Apostle, right?

Myrtle Beale was among the people that he did that to back then. Myrtle Beale said, no, thank you. And she broke away into her own branch of the Latter-Rain at that point. Now, don't tell me that the Latter-Rain is not this stuff.

This is the guy who introduced Latter-Rain to Latter-Rain right here. She learned it from him, okay? And not only did she learn it from him, she said, no, thank you when he invited her to join his fivefold ministry structure.

And so, John, I mean, this is, to me, it's just kind of a dishonest comment. Bethesda was into this stuff. They may have reformed over the years like a number of other groups have, but they were one of the primary hubs of this ideology in the 1950s and 1960s.

You're absolutely right. And they are the church that played of all of them besides William Branum and Joseph Matson-Bose, probably the most important role in the most important role in popularizing Jim Jones. I'll put up the next one here.

Next question. So, this one, someone asked, how do you get my book? You can get it on Amazon. I'll just, real quick, that's all that is there. So, John, this one is very, very interesting.

So, somebody asked the question, what is, what the heck is the deity cult? Well, it's actually we're saying, deity, deity, not double-deed, deity is in, you know, deification, the deity. So, the deity cult is people who believe that William Branum is God in the flesh.

And in fact, if you will look actually just a little further down the same page, I think I can give you an example of somebody on, in the comment feed, just a little further below you who is from the deity cult.

Let me, let me give you one of those. This commenter says, I actually checked on this, clicked on this because I thought this was something pro-Branum. So, this is a deity cult member who accidentally stumbled up.

on one of our videos. And he says, quote, William Brownham was God in the flesh. Yes, that is correct because that is scriptural. You're entitled to your opinion and we are entitled to our revelation.

Let God be the judge. So this commenter is in the deedy cult. So that is what the deedy cult is when we say that. And now here's another very interesting comment. I think this would be excellent.

So if you go to about three comments down on the exact same page, as that last one I just read, here's another comment, stop lying. Nobody is worshipping brother Brannum. You just don't understand the message.

This is the message, John. I mean, you got one comment, who, what's the deedy cult? The next one, William Brownham is God in the flesh. And then the next comment, nobody worships William Brannum, you're liars.

I'm glad you pointed out. I actually missed what they were asking because of that. It's pretty funny. So yeah, the deedy cult is a portion of the message, which worships William Brannum, as God incarnate, which you see some of our commenters pretend it's not a thing, but it absolutely is.

And in fact, the deedy cult controls all of the central institutions of the Brannum cult message to the present day. And here's a real interesting question. Somebody wrote, every time you mention rapturing faith and how it's tied to the vital importance of church attendance and not being a foolish virgin, I can see elements of that freeman probably picked up from Brannum there as well.

We were always striving to have faith at that level and that qualified us as the overcomers rapture. The overcomers were equated to the wise virgins and people definitely planned their lives, houses, lifestyles, and careers around being in church.

That is absolutely correct. That's the way it was in Brannumism. And if you understand the history that Chino, Ross, and I have been going through in the podcast, Brannumism, by extension led to the Hobart Freeman cult.

I just, Charles, just yesterday, I'm scanning through some documents that Hobart Freeman had in his files. One of them was the contender, the church publication from your church, and it was definitely interconnected. But what this guy is saying is correct and for those who weren't in this kind of movement, you have to understand that number one, the rapture theology itself is only a couple hundred years old.

If you go back and you understand that history, it'll unravel your world if you believe in the rapture. Number two, Brannum's version of this was taking it a step even more destructive because he was claiming that while all other Christians believed in Jesus did everything that the Bible said to be saved, but did not believe his quote-unquote message, they were to be compared to the foolish virgins that Jesus spoke of in the parables.

And anybody who basically believed Brannum, they were the wise virgins, and therefore they could be... escorted to heaven in the rapture. How that played out, there's different ways, that's why I pause, because different flavors of the message have different ways in which that is projected. But that notion, that ideology, it destroys people's lives. Like this person said, they build their entire lives around the church, and people don't plan for their future. There are people who are contacting me, who are elderly, who've never put into retirement ever because of this theology, and now they're suffering because they've got, you know, as retirement age, they have no money.

It's really, really sad what has happened here. You are correct, John, and it's a very interesting thing how the different branches of this ideology do, indeed, slightly adjust the terminology. I think that's just the rapturing faith is an excellent one. We hardly use the phrase rapturing faith in the churches I come from, John, although we believed in it. We absolutely believed in it, but we didn't use the term rapturing faith. We tended to just describe it every once in a while. You'd hear preachers say rapturing faith, but more often than not, our preachers would call it the thunders, you know, the thunders, which is the same thing as the rapturing faith,

when Bram said the rapturing faith in the thunders. So it really was the same thing. But in your correct, all of these groups are chasing this thing. We thought we would get the thunders in the last day revival, okay? Just like you, you know, we thought we your sect thought you'd get the rapturing faith in that tent meeting, right? I mean, we all have this way that in the last day revival, that's the generic term, we would get the rapturing faith, that's the generic term, but each branch of the movement would term it a little bit different, really, really, right?

But the essential concept is in the last day revival, we'll get this advanced thing. And the rapturing faith, guess what happens when you get the rapturing faith, John? You become a manifest it's on a God, right? Guess what happens when you get this overcoming faith, you become a manifest it's on a God. This is all part of manifest it's on a God ideology at the end of the day, right?

The fivefold ministry will bring us the thunders, will bring us the rapturing faith, will bring us the overcoming faith and we'll become the manifest it's on a God. And the increase of his government will take over the world. Some of us just believed it would be after the rapture and some believe it would be before the rapture, all right? And you're correct, John. I mean, the way we believed in rapture and in the message, that belief is really only about 200 years old.

That is not a very ancient belief. There is, though, an older pre-millennial view on those things. So the does go all the way back to the early church fathers, but it is substantially different than what we believed in the message. There's so much nuance there's there's it's a lot to talk about. 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 www.Williams.com 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. 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.

Let me jump on to the next question we got. Somebody asks, do you know of any academic studies of the history of the full gospel businessmen fellowship intern national, or is something like that yet to be written?

And as far as I know, the answer is no. I am not aware of any sort of a really good comprehensive study into that. Now there are a lot of authors who have touched on it in passing as part of other works.

David Edwin-Harell has some stuff about it, you know. There is stuff in some of these other books that we've recommended over the years, the shepherding movement books, some of the Brannum biography books, you know.

But no, there's nothing that I'm aware of as sort of a comprehensive, full depth study of that movement and sort of exposition of their history. In fact, John, I'd say the things that you and I have published are probably close to the most comprehensive thing out there on them, which is nowhere near comprehensive.

I mean, we scratch the surface with those guys. We are the cutting edge. I've had universities contact me, multiple universities, to get some of this history because it does not exist. And there's a reason why none of this history has been recorded as it happened.

It's instead been recorded as the cult leaders said that it happened in the past. And so which history do you believe, if you look at William Brannum's history, I think we've identified something like 25 different versions of his life story based off of the weird things that he said.

So as a historian, you look at the guy and you expect this to be an honest person. William Brannum should be honest, but he wasn't. And so you're looking at a minister of the gospel and all these people following him, you also think, well, if he told his life story, five different ways, ten different ways, twenty different ways, surely some of his cult members would pick it up and put it in their biographies.

So what happens is a historian will look at the biography of Brannum, look at some of the biographies that were written by other people and they realize this hodgepodge mess you can't make any sense of it.

So what do they do? They pick the one that they feel makes the most sense, which isn't always the one that is historically accurate. So there is no accurate history of any of this.

I had, I got engaged in a somewhat of an email battle, which I always avoid, but I didn't catch in time that the person was trying to debate me. He was talking about Gordon Lindsay and he just reeled me an email because I had mentioned that Gordon Lindsay was speaking at Christian identity conferences.

And it wasn't that I was saying it or making it up, I literally was showing a newspaper article of Gordon Lindsay at the Christian identity conferences. And he sent me all kinds of hate mail and I thought it was a question at first, but I started responding and it went back and forth and it turned into this mess.

Well he linked in a representative from Christ for the nations and they outright rejected by email any notion of Gordon Lindsay having been ever involved with Christian identity. Even though the subject that we're discussing is the newspaper article where he's at the Christian identity conferences and they totally ignored some of the books that he published.

They don't exist. They're not in publication anymore. So they say, well, he never, he never wrote any of that theology. He was never mixed in with that and it's not that I'm faulting Christ for the nations or the person that contacted me.

It's the fact that the history itself has been erased by these people. So as we're putting this information out there, most of the world has never seen this information before. And the first thing we get is backlash until they look at it and go, oh my gosh, these people covered it up.

Why did they cover it up? Why are they hiding their past? And the answer is pretty simple because of the boom and bust cycle of this ideology, they have to pretend they were not connected to the dirt bags of the past generation.

Yeah, really is that simple. And then they have to say, oh, they messed up. The dirt bags, the leaders of the past generation, yeah, this thing was sour. Hey, let's, you know, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater though.

The leaders were dirt bags. Let's start over. And they start over in the cycle repeats. I mean, that's just how, that's just how it is, right? It's unfortunate, but that is exactly where this ideology comes from.

It's one generation to the next and it iterates. It iterates. They do change a bit from generation to generation. So here's our next comment, John, our question. This one asks us, why do laterane promoters not believe in the rapture now?

And so that's a pretty good question. So I think we've mentioned before and this episode might actually not came out yet. So this might help. It's coming out. So the laterane movement, the early laterane movement broke into two branches fairly early on and this break happened roughly in 1955.

The laterane movement split into two main variants. of manifested sons of God belief. One branch of it was pre-millennial. The other branch was A-millennial. The pre-millennial branch continued to believe in a rapture and the manifested sons of God coming as a prelude to the rapture and then coming back and conquering the world after the rapture. What the A-millennial branch did though is they did. They eliminated the rapture and in their beliefs, the church becomes glorified on earth, right? They become the sons and then the increase of his government, okay, without a rapture in between. But the message churches and the pre-millennial

branches of the sidiology, the shepherding movement was pre-millennial. Our branch, John, the message is almost entirely pre-millennial. We put a rapture between these two things and that's how we do it where we come from. Now here's something really interesting, John, and I'll point this out to you, not all of the message was pre-millennial. And the one group within the message who is generally not pre-millennial is the old school deity cult, Fred Soffman and all of those guys. They were not, they were A-millennial and they believed William Brannum was the second coming and they believed that we were living in the millennial age already, right? And so the deity cult branch

of the latter rain does most closely align back ideologically to the A-millennial branch of the latter rain. However, the overwhelming majority of the message is not A-millennial. They are pre-millennial and the overwhelming majority of the message is not the deity cult. That's just how it is. I've mentioned before meeting somebody who went to my grandfather's church and told me that we were already living in the post-millennium because Jesus Christ had come and gone. He was referring to William Brannum. I was completely oblivious to all of this. I had no idea because my family migrated from coast to coast, different churches in between. And when I came back to Jefferson

ville, I was a little shocked at the divisions in the church itself. You had the people that worship Joseph, the people that worship William Brannum, and the people that sided with my grandfather, at the time, I thought that they were just different than the other two. But over time, I began to realize it was like this hodgepodge combination of both sides. They kind of believed William Brannum was God. They kind of denied it. It was a really weird thing. But the fact that the cult leader presented himself in such a way that people would even go there. That shows that there's a

fundamentally flawed problem with their foundation and their theology. Otherwise, people would worship Jesus not the cult leader who's on the platform. All right, John. Well, let's jump to the next question. This question asks Brother John and Charles, can you please explain to me and my family who wrote the book of the Church Ages? I mean, these years that each Messenger preached the revelation of the seven seals, but actually the Bible is clear about the seals if you read it It's not like is a big thing, which is wow in the message Let's peel the layers of that on you know, okay

So who who wrote this book? Okay, so there's there's two layers to who wrote it the original manuscript was taped was typed up by JT Parnell's one of his polygamist wives, okay That is who made the initial printed manuscripts and the initial manuscript was a transcript of William Brannum sermons The book that was finally published was, you know, was deeply edited by William Brannum and Lee Vail and Lee Vail and William Brannum at this book ended up being published after the seven seal sermons was preached and they Integrated a lot of his seven seal sermons into here. There's audio letters where William Brannum is on record going through this book

Page by page, you know, dictating how to edit it to Lee Vail So we can be quite sure that this is William Brannum's work So but Lee Vail is the one who ended up Writing it in the sense as a as a ghost writer editor to publish it and the initial printing versions of this John were Published by voice of healing Gordon Lindsay's people publish these books back in the early days for the message John they were still the printing The printing apparatus before spoken word publications came together Now that's that's who Wrote it in all of that sense

But where did William Brannum get the idea of all the dates and all the messengers? Well, he actually copied The dates and all of that out of clearance Larkin's book so clearance Larkin Had all the dates for the church ages and so forth in his book he got it from there And then as far as the church age messengers William Brannum got the church age messengers from two different sources one of the sources is Charles Tays Russell Charles Tays Russell named seven messengers to seven ages William Brannum recycled some of his and the rest of his messengers come from a book called how did it happen

By Rachel Hazelteen and we know that because William Brannum said so in his audio letters to Lee Vail When they were editing it so you can listen through that audio letter and William Brannum to actually says where he got The rest of the church age messengers from that differ from from from Charles Tays Russell. So That's that's where the church ages come from Not from angels visiting William Brannum room surprise surprise

Unbelievable you would think that this guy would tell the truth at least once in a sermon You know I've worked with many many people who have escaped the cult and I've worked with the support groups This is one of the key indoctrination Subjects that comes up frequently when a person is in the cult they believe that William Brannum brought something so unique so different that this changed the course of Christian really in itself. That's how you're indoctrinated to believe. When they come out of the cult and they've not really processed everything that they have learned that has been uncovered

critically, one of the first things that they do is they're still hang on to that indoctrination. This is new and this is different, but they will admit sometimes if they've come across the Clarence Larkin information. They say, yeah, he copied some of that, but what he brought was new and unique and different. There is even somewhere out there. I can't remember the guy's name, but there's even a message. He kind of claims that he's some sort of a defender of the message, and he walks you through that. He says, what William Brannum taught was copied and plagiarized from Clarence Larkin, even though he said it came directly from an angel,

and we know that he said that he had Clarence Larkin's books, and he goes into this big spiel of how it is significantly different. That's one of the stages, interestingly, of your journey out of the message. So I kind of encourage this guy who does the debates, because he's one foot out the door, basically. But then there's the next level that you come to after this. Once you realize that what he taught, anything that was outside of the Bible, the extra biblical stuff came from other sources, and it all did. Then you wipe all of that away,

and then you come back to what does the Bible say. When you weed it all away, and you take out all the extra biblical stuff, it's really kind of written in the Bible. The things that he's talking through, he's actually reading the Bible, as he says it, he just injects all of this other stuff.

He violates the verse that says, do not add to it or take away. He adds all this extra stuff into it. But when you wipe away all of the extra stuff, you're left with, well, he really didn't say anything that wasn't already in the Bible, or that he copied from somebody else. So the very last stage of this, and you walk away from the messages suddenly, you realize, well, I don't even need this. I can just read the Bible. I don't even need this guy telling me all this extra stuff.

That's exactly right, John. And the great irony is, the ones who say, yeah, he got this piece from a book, but this piece over here is divine revelation. It's because that found the other book yet.

It's not divine revelation. You just found the book that it's in. It all came from his library books, right? I mean, it's, yes, and you're correct. It's just, it shocks. It shocks and appalls. I mean, and it's like a knife in the heart, because I mean, it's like the ultimate betrayal when you find out all these revelations were not actually revelations. There wasn't an angel come into his room, telling him all this stuff. John, he made it all up. What a, what, what, what a sad thing that is to find out is a message, believe her. Oh, we got another question here, John. This one is

a question that says, this is the first time I heard that Brandon did not die due to a head on collision with a drunk driver, where could I find more information about this? And so to be clear, William Brown did die due to a head on collision, but there is no evidence that it was with a drunk driver.

That's it, and really the burden of proof is the other way around, someone needs to prove there was actually a drunk driver involved. No record associated with this accident that has been found, recovered, does anything to say that the person who ran into William Brown was a drunk driver.

By all accounts, that appears to be a story that was made up by Billy Paul in order to justify what happened. And in fact, the eyewitness testimony of William Brown's daughter who was in the back seat when the accident happened, said that he was having a heated argument with his wife looking away from the road when the accident happened.

And it is entirely possible that William Brown is indeed the one who caused the accident. There was no drunk driver involved. Billy Paul made the story to up, to cover it up, right? And in fact, when you read the newspaper articles about the story, it is ambiguous.

It can actually be read in such a way some of the newspaper articles that they're saying that William Brown have caused the accident. So what I would do is try to read the newspaper articles without the idea planted in your head that the other driver was drunk and then see what you think those newspaper articles are saying because I will tell you, if you take that out, it sure sounds like a couple of them are saying William Brown have caused the accident, all right?

So I'll just kind of leave it at that. And it's one of the many examples that we have. The way William Brown was able to do what he did instead of owning the burden of proof for anything that was outside of the Bible or outside of actuality, actual history, he would set things up so that you had to prove that something didn't happen.

And it's impossible to prove a negative. You cannot prove that something didn't happen. You can only prove that something did. And he used that to his advantage. He would say, say it's not so, prove it's not so.

And he would set things up like, one example was the light that come down over the river. He said, clearly there was this light that come down over the river. And he even gave the newspaper that it was published in.

And he said, in different versions, God spoke from the heavens and said, this is my beloved prophet here, ye him. Different words, obviously, but that's what he was saying. Well, come to find out the newspaper that he mentioned had gone out of business before he made that claim.

He was fully aware that nobody could look that up. What we have had to do to prove, you cannot prove a negative, but what we have done is gone through every newspaper that's in the archives.

And we do not see anything for that date range that matches it. We still can never prove that it's false because you cannot prove a negative. He used it to his advantage, and that's exactly what's happening here with this question.

All right, on to the next comment to look at here, John. This one is from Kenny Jansen, and this is a message believer we all need to pray for ladies and gentlemen because he doesn't believe the message. His comment is, brother Brandon never received any money from the tapes. That's also another lie from Charles. Remember, guys, God Almighty is patient, but certain. I hope I do hope you repent.

So, John, I mean, this poor man, I mean, he don't believe the message, he don't believe the truth we're telling. I mean, he's kind of in no man's land here because you and I both know the prophet on magnetic recording, John, on the holy magnetic recordings, John clearly said that his royalty was 25 cents a tape. And you can find it in the church order books. It is in magnetic recording, you know, from voice of God recordings. I mean, this is practically, you know, from the lips of God himself through his humble servant, the prophet, a 25 cent royalty, okay?

So, yes, William Branham did receive money from those tapes. The royalty was paid back through the franchise that William Branham set up. The franchise was owned by the William Branham Evangelistic Association. The royalty was paid to the William Branham Evangelistic Association.

Who do you think owned the William Branham Evangelistic Association? I mean, just by the name, I mean, what would you think? I mean, any chance, William Branham? What's the guy running the William Branham Evangelistic Association? Getting the royalty?

Oh, there's pretty good odds there, but at any rate, yes, William Branham was indeed getting money off the tapes. And I mean, and if he didn't, then I guess William Branham lied to us on tape. So, I mean, what do we say about that? I mean, I'm sure he did lots of times.

Anyways, this is such a problematic comment. I don't know how to help you. And I want to point out that 25 cents back then, it's like $3 today. And to the people in the audience who are aware the cost of distribution and the royalties you get, that is a significant royalty. I wish that I got it on my books. You don't get that in today's world. That's quite a bit of money, and he made quite a heck of a lot of money. But we were taught that he couldn't scrape two pennies together. So, indoctrinated to believe that this guy is not making any money,

and he would often make statements like, I'm never taken an offer in my life. He would tell this to the people, and then you go to the next city, and he would say, now we're going to take up an offering. And I'm going to play this clip here in a few seconds, but they have heavily edited the recordings to cut out all of the stuff that people are indoctrinated to believe. They missed a significant one. William Branham is with Franklin Hall. And Franklin Hall is making fun of William Branham because he is so focused on money. Franklin Hall says, what are we going to start out

today with, William Branham? And Branham sheepishly says, some money. And here, I'll play the clip. What are you going to start it with? I'm going to start on money.

I'll help you strong, alright, so that's fine. It's hilarious, John. I mean, the evidence is all there, but when you're in the message, you're brainwashed, all right, like you're brainwashed to think that are the humble prophet lived in a small little home in Jeffersonville, poor, broken down, not even a Cadillac in his garage, you know?

But I mean, it was all, I mean, none of it was true. I mean, William Brown, I'm owned multiple homes in multiple states and he did have a Cadillac in his garage and he did have an in-ground swimming pool and he did have this and that in the other room.

Goodness gracious, and you see those guns? I mean, he had, I mean, he was by the standards back then, a very incredibly well-to-do man. He may have been poor when he was a kid, but he was not poor by the time you come into the mid in late 1950s.

William Brown, him, was a very wealthy man from the late 1940s until his death. He was a very wealthy man. And yes, he was indeed getting royalties. So last comment, I think, John, that we might try to respond to today.

And this one, I pick this one out because it's a, it's very illustrative of the legends of the message and kind of these straw man arguments that they come, that you'll see some message believers come with.

So this one is a comment that says, strange when the man William Brown, him, was alive, nobody had the guts to challenge him. Now that he's not here, we have a lot to say.

That is coward. So the first thing I think he got to point out to this, John, that's not true, is it? I mean, as, for example, the Reverend Best Debate, I mean, he got challenged with debate.

I mean, the Houston debate. William Brown, him, was publicly challenged a lot when he was living, right? And so the whole thing that he was never challenged is just ridiculous, right? In fact, a lot of the stuff and evidence we report and have exposed, you know, through our podcast series is from other people who confronted him while he was living.

You know, lots of people confronted him. But this comes from the cult belief, John, that if you challenged William Brown and why he was living, he would curse you to death, like the man from Windsor or the woman who said, I wouldn't feed this to my cow at the tabernacle.

Like there is this thing that William Brown have had this power to basically curse dead, anybody who challenged him. But that was not true, that was all made up. And he was indeed challenged often throughout his lifetime, including by people in the tabernacle, including by Graham Snelling for goodness' sake, right?

I mean, you can go down the list. I bet we could sit down and easily come up with a list of 100 people who challenged William Brown, him while he was still living and not a single one of them died.

And in fact, I think you could not actually find anybody who challenged him and died, other than made up stories with no evidence, okay? So yes, I mean, ladies and gentlemen, the message is a false religion.

William Brown was a false prophet. Nothing bad's gonna happen to you for questioning him. And yeah, I mean, I hope that people can kind of just get out of that sad brainwashing, John. You know, I've had that comment come in multiple, multiple times, both in the comment feeds and the email.

And I hate to say it. I'm going to, but I hate to say it. This is no different than somebody trying to say, well, why are we looking at Jeffrey Epstein? Nobody challenged Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive.

Man, it is the same exact thing. William Brennan was a lying scoundrel. Maybe he didn't go to the limits that Jeffrey Epstein did. However, if you look at a spirit, at look at the spiritually and not physically, look at the lives that were destroyed physically and spiritually by William Brennan, what he did was actually far worse and had a much, much broader scope, I should say, than Jeffrey Epstein, but we go back and we examine these people.

The difference is the person who's saying this was not in the Jeffrey Epstein cult. If you're in the cult, why are you doing this to my cult leader? No, don't expose everything that he did that was wrong and destroyed lives and ruined people and how he lied and how his doctrine was anti-biblical.

Don't expose that. I have to say it's the same thing and I will continue to expose. I'm going to say something here that's going to be very offensive to message believers, John. So message believers, maybe you want to maybe turn this off right here if you're still listening.

But of all of the ministers that we know who confronted William Brennan, did the ground open up underneath any of them and suck them in like Nathan and Quora? Like, is there a single Nathan and Quora example that we could actually lay our finger on with William Brennan?

And the answer is no. You know, there is not a Nathan and Quora experience with a single minister. You take the 300 ministers that supposedly confronted him at Chicago. I'm not even sure that's a true story.

But did the ground open up and suck in those 300 ministers who confronted him in Chicago? No, they did not, but I'll tell you what did happen. William Brennan died in a car accident in a very unusual, you know, unfortunate deathly accident, right?

So, you know, if you actually step back and you want to use the logic of the message people use, the Nathan and Quora experience was actually experienced by William Brennan, not by the people who confronted him.

And it's very unfortunate that the people in this religion are so brainwashed that they cannot even look at the reality of what happened. It's sad. You know, part of me is very sympathetic to people who are asking these questions because I was there too.

I believed at hookline and sinker. Charles, I was one of the people who William Brennan told my grandfather, all your children and your grandchildren will be saved. I had a free ticket to heaven if I stayed in the message, even if I don't stay in the message, I still have a free ticket to heaven.

But I no longer believe that way. I don't believe that William Brennan had the power to issue free tickets to heaven, but that's the cult that we lived in. That's the mentality we lived in.

It wasn't a Christian religion. It's something that used the term Christianity, but it wasn't a Christian religion. This was worship of William Brannum. I'm glad that my family's out of it, and I feel sorry for the people who are asking these questions.

I agree, John, you know, and it is so sad. I know the churches I come from, especially the last decades, like our pastor there. He actually didn't like us to use the word Christian to refer to ourselves.

And he would even kind of condemn it. He's a Christian. Those are the people out there who are going to burn up in the tribulation. We're not Christians, we're message believers. He would say things just pretty well that bluntly, John.

So, you know, the message is not a Christian religion, and most of them will openly say that they don't like to be called Christians. They like to be called message believers. So, very sad, very, very sad, you know, that they don't want to take the name of Christ, right?

They want to take the name of William Brannum's message, actually, to identify themselves. Yeah, John, I've enjoyed going through these questions with you. I think we've touched some good ones here. I've got some more, but maybe we'll wait till the new epistolic reformation episodes come out.

We can record some more and try and respond to some of those questions or comments as well. Sounds good. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.William-brannum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org. For more about the history of William Brannum and the healing revivals, you can read, come out of her, my people. And for more about the dark side of the new epistolic reformation, you can read, weaponize religion from Christian identity to the NAR, both available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.