Derek Prince, Branham, and the Spirit of Deception

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 go through questions and answers. I never expected people to get so excited about us answering questions as they have. I don't know if you watch the comment feeds, but somebody just yesterday was posting, oh boy, some questions and answers. And when we were

in the message and I was sitting in that hard wooden chair in those uncomfortable seats in the tabernacle for two and a half hours a sitting or longer, sometimes longer, whenever it was a questions and answers sermon by William Brandham, I hated it. I did not like those because the questions themselves, I really questioned whether they were actually written by the crowd or the audience because some of the questions were just so skimming the surface. Everybody had deep questions and you would think they would submit it to the ones that were more difficult to answer and they're sending just the silliest stuff in some

cases. And in most cases, the question seemed to be strategic because it would be, I don't know if you caught this, but a question would be quote, unquote submitted. And then it would lead to other sermons about that question. So it was like, I'm going to put this question out there. And then I'm going to build a whole doctrine on top of it. So we're not doing that. We're asking, we're answering the questions at the end of our series and people can go search the comment for you. And you can see where we actually got them. But it is so much

different than what I grew up with. We can Brownham's question and answer series are pretty legendary and also legendarily funny too. You know, if you even look through the comment feed, you'll see some of the people say, we know you people in Jeffersonville are all idiots because we read the questions you asked the profit.

You'll actually see that in some of our, I've seen that as the responses to why, you know, the people in Jeffersonville are illegitimate message followers because they asked the profit dumb questions and the question and answers series. And I have to agree, pretty well every question every people ask, William Brownham, boy, it was a really dumb question. And you're correct, John, those are not the questions that everyone had on their minds, which, yeah, you know, did anyone even ask some of those?

questions. I mean, there might, there was a few mentally ill people that probably asked some of those questions, but for the most part, I mean, who knows who put those questions in the pot? It was probably, you know who. It was probably the one answer in the question who put that one in the pot. I know what our church is, too, John. Question and answers was a thing that continued afterwards and the same thing, right? They wouldn't read the questions that they didn't like. Then they tended to just re-questions that advanced their agenda, right? It's just kind of how it is. But we're not doing that necessarily,

John. We're just actually going in our comment feed and reading real questions. So we'll put them up here on the screen so you can see. We got lots of comments on these videos. I know there is one, one video that we got a lot of questions on that we're actually not going to answer any questions in this Q&A here on it. So we'll be real upfront about that one. And it's actually the Sarah Brannum Disappearance video. I can totally understand why people have all kinds of questions around that. But there's certain things around that

that you and I have decided. It's just not in the best interest of everyone involved to discuss those details any more than we already have in the podcast. What I will say, John, is there is actually a bit more in my book and this is free on Kindle Unlimited. I'm trying to sell you a book, but there is more in this book than I think we feel comfortable publishing in our YouTube videos and YouTube channels about that situation. So that's out there free on Kindle Unlimited if you wanted to check that out. So yeah, Sarah Brannum. Now let's jump to our, maybe our very

first question here, John. And I don't have these in any particular order, but we're basically looking at the episode with questions that came off of our NAR videos, New Apostolic Reformation videos. When we recorded our first Q&A, those videos hadn't all been out yet. So let's just look at a few of these here and see some of these are questions, some of them are comments. But the first question here, John, is what's wrong with five-fold ministries? Derek Prince never worked with Brannum. And yes, he did mention that Brannum had an evil spirit, but you forgot to

mention that on the same statement, he said, Brannum also had a good spirit in him. And he learned this through someone who worked closely with Brannum, not his own discoveries. So let's unpack this statement here. All right. Well, I'll save the what's wrong with the five-fold ministry, but it says your Derek Prince never worked with Brannum. Well, that's wrong. They did work together.

They shared the platform together. Derek Prince introduced Brannum at the events. It's on tape. They worked together, right? And actually, Derek Prince tended to deceive people when he said, when he pretended at times like he learned this from someone who worked close with William Brannum, he tended to do that. He was actually trying to...

trying to evade the fact that he had personally worked with William Brownham. There's only a couple times on tape that I'm aware of the Derek Prince actually admitted they worked together, but they did.

They did work together. And the person who told that to him that worked closely with William Brownham was earned backster. That's who told that to Derek Prince, even though Derek Prince, they have a way of doing this and you'll notice message preachers, we're not gonna say any name, but everybody knows who they're talking about.

Just say their name for goodness' sake. You're talking about earned backster. And what that does is it kinda obfuscate things and kinda makes it thing a little mystique, but he's talking about earned backster.

Earn backster did indeed apparently tell Derek Prince that William Brownham had a good spirit and an evil spirit in him, and Derek Prince believed it. And there's actually recording where Derek Prince says that he was in the meeting and discerned that himself.

So it was also Derek Prince who came to that belief through working directly with William Brownham again, it buys on words. Now here's the thing.

Does it matter that he had a good spirit? I mean, if you had knew he had an evil spirit in that enough, I mean, if it's half bad, isn't that enough to stay away?

So again, Derek Prince here, New William Brownham had an evil spirit and chose to work with him. And this whole thing too, John, where someone could have an evil spirit and a good spirit in them at the same time, this was a big deal for Derek Prince.

And it's part of how he justified and excused all kinds of things. I mean, that very premise, can a Christian be demonically possessed? Right?

I believe, John, the overwhelming majority of Christians would say, no, that is not possible. I believe the scripture would indicate to us also that is not possible. And Derek Prince is already out in the land of outside the Bible, honestly, the plain teaching of scripture, you know, to even suggest that a person can have both a good spirit and a bad spirit.

I mean, in fact, Jesus, the words of Jesus would seem to contradict that. So anyways, those are just some very serious problems with these comments here already, okay? So he did work with William Brownham.

Does the Bacannia, can a Christian have an evil spirit? No, I don't think so, not according to the Bible. And if you think that you see that in the Bible, you are confused, I think.

And yeah, Derek Prince has talked about urn back to her and won't say it. Now what's wrong with the fivefold ministry? Well, the fivefold ministry came out of the latter reign movement, okay? The fivefold ministry teachings, as taught and developed in the latter reign, are not the really plain reading from scripture.

Maybe we talk about that just a little bit more at length, but the fivefold ministry is the whole basis of the shepherding movement. It's the basis of the leadership model of the message. It is an authoritarian leadership model that tends to put the leadership, the, you know, a singular prophet or a single puzzle.

in a leadership position of unchecked power in which they generally use that to effectively turn their group into a cult, where the leader has unlimited power over the people. That is generally what happens in these five-fold ministry models.

I've mentioned a few times that whenever I examine the new apostolic reformation movement today and its many branches in the apostolic networks or the charismatic movement that preceded it or any of the splinter groups that develop from Branemism that created the scenario in which all of this could exist, that I see these similarities and not many people really understand that if they're in the movement.

What's interesting is I can have a conversation with somebody who is never affected by it and they're like, oh yeah, I knew that. It's like, if you're in the movement, you are so blind to it because you've been indoctrinated in such a way that you can't see it.

But on the outside looking in, everybody's like scratching their head. Why can't they see this? What the movement did was it took something of substance that was biblical and then twisted it just a little bit so that any time they mentioned the thing that they're twisting, they can say, go back and read the Bible.

Well, they've twisted it in your head so it means a different thing than the Bible, but you go back and you find, what is it, Ephesians? It talks about the five-fold ministry. It's there.

But what they're not telling you is that in Ephesians, it was a flat system. It was equal. Messenger, everybody was a servant. There's Jesus and then there's everyone else. I don't care if you're a pastor, I don't care if you're a apostle, I don't care who you are.

There's everyone else. There's Jesus, everyone else. But the way they did it in this movement because you had showmanship, you had a stage act. The stage act needed to be greater than the people.

Otherwise, why would you come pay to get a seat or offer tithes or however they did the money exchange? There's different ways they did. Why would you support this? Why not just go into your prayer room and your house and pray and say, hey, God heal me?

That's really all that you need to do as a Christian, but they're trying to present themselves as something that they're above you, they're greater than you. How do you do this? You create a pyramid scheme.

What they did was they took the fiefold, I hate to even use that word, they used the five offices that are mentioned in Ephesians and they stack them so that the apostles at the top, he's our general, then there's the prophets, he's the guy under it.

And what's funny is then they began fighting over who got what? And eventually it ended up where there isn't really a fiefold ministry that exists in the movement. And Brannemism, for example, the apostle was the prophet.

There was no greater office than the prophet. He was the head honcho, the messenger for the age. So there was Brannem taught fiefold ministry and we've even heard somebody sent me a clip Joseph Brannum, William Brannum's son talking about, I believe the fivefold ministry.

No, you don't. You believe in, William Brannum is the one and only fold ministry. And if you look at all these movements, like this guy with Derek Prince, Derek Prince is his superior being.

He doesn't believe fivefold ministry. There's no five or four other offices that go with Derek Prince. That's how this works. And to your point, the notion that Christians can have an evil spirit. And William Brannum was both good and evil.

He was both Thor and he was Loki at the same time. What kind of a message is this, man? What kind of a movement is built off of something that has both Thor and Loki?

You don't know what statement's going to be coming from the devil and what statement's going to be coming from God. And the whole movement surrounded William Brannum as though he's spearheading the movement. Well, they're spearheading a movement by the devil.

That doesn't work. That's not how this works. And again, what they have done is they've taken scripture and they've slightly twisted it to their financial benefit. Because if they can teach you that somebody can unsuspectingly have a evil spirit hidden within them, and you need my deliverance ministry to cast it out.

They don't even know they've got it. But if you come to me, I can detect it. I can do, William Brannum had the vibrating hand. I can do a vibrating hand and I can feel your demon and I'll cast it out.

Where everybody's going, oh, no, do I have one? And they come to this thing and offer their tithes. So it's not a movement by God. What it is is they've taken biblical concepts, twisted it slightly so that it looks and sound scriptural.

And then the people sadly don't read their Bibles enough to know that no, this whole thing, the entire foundation for the movement is false. That's very well said, John. Because you know, you're right.

You read Ephesians 4 and 11. There is five types of preachers. They're mentioned or perhaps four, depending on how some people read it. But four or five types of preachers there. And yeah, the possible Paul said that Jesus sent those kind of preachers into the world, right?

But it doesn't say all of the additional concepts that the fivefold ministry teachers build on top of it and around it, right? You know, we could get into lots of things around those verses.

But the key thing that really empowers it and takes it off the rails to me, it isn't actually the verse 11 that those five, you know, preachers were offices were, you know, sent forth by Jesus.

What really makes it go crazy is what they do with like verse 13, 14 in there. Because they take those verses and say, it is the job of the last day set of these preachers to perfect the church, to give us perfect unity, to bring us to the stature of the fullness of Christ.

And we must submit ourselves to this last day ministry, we must have... the special last day ministry in order for us to become these elite people, and then they subject themselves to it, just like the shepherding people did. That is exactly the rationale, you know, a version of that, which sent off the shepherding movement. It's a version of that that empowers the preachers, you know, in the message in every branch of this ideology.

It's the belief that they need these preachers in the last days in order to achieve verse, you know, 12, 13, 14, which comes next. But here's the thing. You can actually read that verses, those verses in such a way, and I would actually suggest the natural reading of those passages is the exact opposite of that. The Apostle Paul was saying that Jesus gave, the word gave is past tense, isn't it? Gave in the past these preachers. So before Paul even wrote the book of Ephesians, Jesus gave these ministries. And so they were already given when Paul had wrote it down,

and what Paul really there is saying is that everything you need to get to verse 12, 13, 14 has already been given, and that's what we have in the Bible today, John. Right? So you don't need

a last-day ministry to get to verses, you know, 12, 13, 14. We have everything that was given in verse 11 for. So, you know, we could, I could talk so much about Scripture, John, but that's probably not super helpful for our podcast series, but that's the basic premise of it. You know, verse 11 is past tense. Paul is talking in the past tense in verse 11, right? So the past tense already gave what is necessary for the future tense as you come into the next verses. So anyway, John, that is, I think that's the best answer I know to give to that question.

And there's another question that goes hand in hand with everything we've been saying. This person writes, I was discipled by Andy Zoppelt, who was in turn discipled by Derek Prince. He told me that when he came against Bob Mumford's discipling movement, he's talking about the shepherding movement. By pointing out leaders should be servants, Derek backed him. And so this goes back to exactly what I was saying. They have indoctrinated people in such a way that if you're on the inside looking out, you can't see it. If you're on the outside looking in, everybody who reads the

statement, say, wait a minute, you're part of this movement where you're looking to people like Bob Mumford, you're looking to people like Derek Prince and they're not your equals. They're greater than you. And yes, they claim that they're servants. But what does that mean? You've got people who are servants who are rising to apostles in the movement. Keep in mind, this shepherding movement is what became, this was the very foundation for what became today's NAR movement, where basically you each apostle in the movement is your grand shepherd. It's like the grand puba of the religious world, right? So they set up this framework and they all go back to this

movement. In this movement, it wasn't just, you know, Derek Prince rising. gets Bob Bumford. If you I'll let you talk to the history, but if you understand the history of this, all of these guys were doing it, whether they said that they were or not. Right. You know, when I look at this comment, I mean, it to me, it doesn't make it, it's not quite logical to me.

So Bob Mumford's discipleship movement, what's that? So Bob Mumford joined the shepherding movement last, I believe, Derek Prince. It's Derek Prince's shepherding movement. It's Derek Prince's discipleship movement that Bob Mumford joined. And what you have is each, each group, each, each of the major leaders in this earn backster, Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, Derek Prince, Don Basham. Each of these guys were more or less the head of their own semi-independent network of churches is really the way to look at it. And they are, the five of them are cooperating together, more or less bringing their networks into cooperation with each other. And yes, each of them

kind of have their own sphere of influence and their own group who is, you might say, loyal, more loyal to them. So yeah, there were people who were more loyal to Bob Mumford. But the whole thing was a pyramid up to the top, which Bob Mumford was in that top pyramid level with Derek Prince. But Derek Prince was already in the top level before him, right? And so I understand maybe from some people's perspective that maybe Bob Mumford is separate here, but he's not.

He's not. Bob Mumford got the discipleship movement ideas from the same place Derek Prince did, and they worked together, and it was both of their discipleship movement, okay? It wasn't Bob Mumford versus Derek Prince. It was both of theirs, right? And there's actually the letters where Derek Prince very openly and vocally defended all of this stuff when it was first challenged in the 1970s. Now, Bob Mumford side of things, I do understand was one of the more, they were one of the more became some of the more radical side of the shepherding movement that I

am aware of. But I don't know. I mean, I might say earned Baxter's element was actually the most radical of all, probably the most like the message of it all as well. But anyways, I mean, it's hard for me to know just how to respond again to comments like that, because obviously this is just when you're inside these movements, right? You've been often sold a line, given a line, and you have a way of looking at things that's trying to exempt your hero or your idol from any culpability in this thing, right? But Derek Prince is not absolved from any culp- I mean, Derek Prince was one

of the key principal guys for launching the shepherding disciple movement. So it wasn't Bob Mumford's discipleship movement, and that's kind of a, I don't know, I feel like that's just a little dishonest to even put it like phrase it that way. The only thing that I'll add to this.

As you mentioned, Derek Prince, there are even, you can go to the Full Gospel Businessmen's website and you can see the lineup of speakers, sometimes Derek Prince is speaking right before William Brannum. They're all cross pollinating their ideas and their doctrines.

Earned Baxter, the Baxter half of the Brannum, Baxter campaigns was part, one of the leaders of the Shepherding movement. So all of these guys emerged because of Brannumism, but what they did was they took the worst parts of William Brannum's doctrine to create the Shepherding movement.

It's like, why would you pick the worst things? One of the doctrines that William Brannum taught about Shepherding, and I'll just, I'll read you his exact words, but his idea of a shepherd, again, it's like you take the Bible thing and you twist it just a little bit and you make it say something else.

Well, he took morality, I guess, and twisted it a little bit and made it completely something else. Brannum's Shepherd doctrine was that a shepherd must break the legs of its sheep so that the sheep doesn't go astray.

He gives an example, he always did this in quote, unquote, parables, but he would say, oh, you must be a cruel shepherd to break your own sheep's leg. No, the sheep wouldn't mind me, so I had to break her leg in order to hold her, pet her, love her and give her a little special food so that she would love me and follow me.

Brannum's idea of a shepherd is somebody who actually breaks the legs of the sheep, and this is the guy working with earned backster, this is the guy that Derek Prince is introducing as the, you know, Brannum was the featured speaker in some of these events.

This is a shepherd who believes that you can break the leg of your sheep. Let me give you another comment here, John. We can put up for people to read. And before I read this, let me preface this one.

You know, I've mentioned before how, you know, you'll get a lot of people that say, Derek Prince left the movement and he repudiated and all that and a lot of them will say he did it, you know, in 1980, that is supposedly when he left, that's when he, I know for sure he quietly seemed to have left the movement then, but he never really publicly came out against it in any way that I know of until roughly 1997.

There are things he would say here and there where he would blame demons for having got into the movement and kind of make things, but actually rejecting the movement itself and the underlying ideology.

I'm not aware of any comments like that from Derek Prince until about 1997. Now, here's a comment, though, and this is what was going on in this period and this is why it's hard to, it's hard to know just how to characterize what Derek Prince was doing in these years because he flirted and continued to go along with this ideology sort of under the table for quite a lot of years.

So here's a comment. Our writer, our reader says or our commenter says, I was surprised to hear that Derek Prince had left the movement in 1980, right? So we had some comments objecting that, you know, that we didn't mention he left.

Here's one of the surprises that he had left. She says, or he says, in 1980, as I fell a foul after he had visited my care's men, church in Belfast in 1984. I was in my 20s and only joined this particular church the year before, so it was pretty unfamiliar with the charismatic ideology, etc. but his name kept cropping up regularly.

So when he visited that year, the church was overjoyed and spent a lot of time talking with him. From the start, I'd heard about the shepherding, but as a Methodist, I resisted getting into it for as long as possible. However, it became a mandatory element of worship after his visit.

So in 1985, I submitted to have a married couple's husband take on the role. From that point on, things rapidly went downhill in my life as a direct result, and actually just goes on to describe the things that happened. And in this ideology, the shepherd over your life controls where you work, where you live, who you marry, all the stuff. So just keep that in mind as I read this next part.

He says, I left my job as a vet nurse after he insisted I was in spiritual danger, as my boss's wife was into spiritualism. Then as that made me homeless at the time, I went to live with you and his wife in a servant capacity, and I'm going to stop reading there, and the situation for this person just goes downhill real quick.

But what I just want to point out to you here is Derek Prince, I mean, despite what some people say, was still going around and still promoting the majority of the elements of shepherding and fiefold ministry throughout the entirety of the 1980s, and even into the early 1990s for sure.

The key elements that led to the abuse and the problems Derek Prince never recanted that stuff, as far as I know, into the mid and late 1990s. And so while again, we've said before, we're very glad he recanted, we're glad he changed his mind on a lot of this stuff. He continued to play with this ideology all along, and lots of harm came out of it throughout the years.

It's interesting to me that all the comments that we're looking at that came in about Derek Prince or the questions that came in, they take the indoctrinated idea of the method, where something is biblical but is slightly twisted, and then they believe that it is it is scriptural, even though it has been twisted slightly. This person commented and said, I've listened to Derek Prince for years, I may be different than the average Christian in that I've rejected a lot of his demon deliverance info. He had some weird ideas about certain subjects, but he was very good at spreading the gospel. I think he loved Jesus.

You have to understand that if it is a different gospel, it can't be called spreading the gospel. Whenever you use the phrase spreading the gospel, it implies you're talking about the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. But if the foundation is different, the foundation is such that Jesus came, he died for your sins, to save you, and the work that he did on the cross isn't sufficient. That's the key. That's what these people have done. They've taken what Jesus did, and they said, it's not sufficient, so you need apostles, you need a prophet, you need deliverance

The Holy Spirit can't protect you, can't lead you, can't guide you. You need us to do this. We're the mediator between God and you. You have to have us. You don't need the Holy Spirit.

Come to us. Give us your money. That's what Derek Prince did. I mean, yes, he used the word gospel. Yes, he used the word Jesus, but he took the concept that is in the Bible and he twisted it slightly so that you need these people.

And because he did this, whether he recanted in the end or not, I have my question whether he was sincere when he did it, whether he did or not, because he twisted the gospel, other people built on top of his twisting.

And so now you have people like this commenter is a key person of point. They do not understand the difference and that's the sad part to me. They think that you have to have your spirit guides who are human beings that are on the stage.

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You know, when I look at this comment, I would, in some ways, I'm almost of the same persuasion on elements of this comment, because, you know, Derek Princes, I would agree to reject his demon deliverance info.

That is definitely a bitter pill in the whole thing. And the challenge is, is when you have some crazy harmful stuff mixed in, you know, what do you do with that? You know, you said before, John, the example, if you have a really delicious cake, and you have some poison in that cake, you know, the cake may taste delicious, but I like kill you, too, right?

But the icing on the cake doesn't, you know, negate the poison. And so, you know, Derek Princes' ministry, maybe at the end of his life, things ended well with him, but for so much of it, he mixed the really problematic stuff in there.

And you never knew what you're going to get. I mean, when you go this day, what are you going to get? Are you going to get the icing? Are you going to get- the poison, like what are you going to get today? And you never know with Derek Prince and the fact of the matter is in a lot of his sermons, maybe even the majority, they're mixed together. He mixes these harmful, laterane ideas in with the gospel, right? And you end up with something that is, you know, they say a half the truth is still a lie, right?

And that's what you end up with. And, you know, the problem with Derek Prince, as we mentioned in our episode, we got a lot of comments on that one, is that he popularized this stuff and he did it in such a way like I'm describing. He injected the problematic stuff alongside good stuff. And I would, I would more or less agree with this, you know, listener that he had some good stuff and some good subjects and some good areas. I would agree with that.

So did William Brannum. So did Jim Jones. But that doesn't redeem the whole thing, right? And, and, and, and, you know, the person may come and, you know, come to saving faith in Christ and, and, you know, come to a good end in their life, but that's that their work is tainted. And Derek Prince is in that category for me. His work is tainted. And, and he's kind of, he's, he's a slippery character. I got to say, and you see just how slippery is the way with all these people act about him, right? He's a slippery guy. He did a lot

of stuff that wasn't good. He, he, he, he was around the edges of all of this abuse, all of the time. He was injecting the same concepts, but he never wanted to actually be accountable for it. He never was really responsible for it. He never really took it on head on and did anything about it. He, he flirted around on stage with William Brannum and then pretended that he didn't have anything to do with him. And he would always do these weird things that were excellent at making excuses for bad behavior. Oh, we can have a

good spirit and a bad spirit. Oh, it was a demon. Oh, it was your flesh. Oh, it, you not responsible. It was that demon over there. You know, he, he had this way of just excusing everything and, and making a whole lot of problems, honestly, in my opinion. So anyway, that's Derek Prince. And we just got a lot of comments on him. So we're just kind of, uh, responding to a few of those here and there. Um, here's the next one. Um, says, why are not churches like vineyard, Bethel, and Hillsong riding most of the worship music that churches throughout

the world have been singing for the past 40 years? These, our churches are soft on preaching the word, but they have made great inroads in influencing many churches through worship music. So that this is a great question, you know, of how, how this came to be. And the answer really is the fusion of the latter rain, um, and their influence into the early Jesus people movement. Um, you know, some of the early Jesus people movement, John, were, you know, um, Hollywood hippie music types, right? You know, A lot of the people out of the summer of love was the great music sensations back then.

The mom is in the poppas and all of that stuff. Back in the day, we're out there at the summer of love. Music was a big thing for the Jesus people. When the Jesus people came in, as we've mentioned before, there's a branch that took this ideology and ran with it.

There's another branch that didn't, but from the beginning, those branches of the Jesus people movement were producing music that had a broad popular appeal, because music and that way, modern music was a big thing for them.

As you come into, I don't know, necessarily Calvary Chapel, Calvary Chapel had Maranatha, but then as you get into the vineyard and what happens there, the music stuff almost becomes institutionalized. John Wimber, and I think we could almost credit John Wimber and Peter Wagner for this stuff.

They had the church growth model. What they did is they took their church growth model and they partnered it with some of this laterane ideology that they were absorbing in back in those days.

They found the music was just a great way to hold and attract the people. They developed music that appealed to their audience and also had mass appeal, and that's really where it started. That's really when all of that worship music stuff and that, I don't know, you almost call it the contemporary Christian gospel music industry, trying to all got started in this.

At the same time, they're right there, they're close to Hollywood. They've got music stars and stuff in that area, there's some of the people are connected to Hollywood. Wasn't John Wimber was in the righteous brothers?

John Wimber was in the righteous brother, right? Lonnie Frisbee was a dancer on one of those 70s music dance shows. I don't even remember what we weren't around back there. We were never allowed to watch nothing like that.

John, we have no idea. We just don't have concepts of this where we come from, John, but he was on some of these famous dance TV shows and quite a few of those people that were from the dance shows and were from these famous musical bands.

The of the Jesus people were getting absorbed into this early on and instead of making righteous brothers videos, John Wimber starts indoctrinating people to join cults. This is what happened, ladies and gentlemen, so that's how all that happened.

I would actually argue that it goes back before this. It all depends on the entertainment of the era and as far back through history as you want to go, for instance, the tent revivals.

Why are there tent revivals? You had a bunch of people who were out in the country. Many of them did not have television radio with something that was cutting edge back in the day and what was their form of entertainment?

circuses or these other Different entertainers would come through and they would have a tent They would always have a tent to keep the rain out so that they could produce revenue even if it's raining and people from miles around would come to the entertainer Well when the gospel Start spreading through Pentecostalism and all of the branches that led to Pentecostalism It was a form of entertainment. It was just religious entertainment and yes There are some ministries that were doing this were good. There were some that were bad I think I've mentioned in a few times in the videos that have had AB Simpson

The guy made a heck of a lot of money and was misusing funds according to what you read in the newspapers He did it all in the same way you you gather the people around they all had music in their Ministry this is part of it, but it was one feature of the entertainment What now what C. Peter Wagner and what John Wimber did differently was they capitalized on the things that were most entertaining so if you take the tent models that existed in the early days and People come they love the music that was part of that was a big part of it

You come because you hear the bluegrass band at the beginning of the concert and in leading to the sermon Well, they they realize that that's that's what's attracting the people they like that sort of thing It's fun. Well, let's make it the foremost focus of it and let's diminish the speaking Let's diminish the gospel. So what's happened with the Wimber model with the C. Peter Wagner model The gospel gets somewhat diminished while the entertainment gets Raised up for the church church growth model you can grow your church faster if it's more entertaining I would agree with that and and how that their groups, you know, the Bethel's the Hillsong's the Marinette

How all of those kind of broke out and became You know Mainstream is you know by the time you come into the 60s and 70s right like the music where you and I come from John Well, we're old-fashioned by then Our music of all we believe it's falling out of favor. Yeah, that was cutting edge back in the 20s and 30s and stuff Right, but by the 60s, you know, that's not you know, the people are you know as William Brown Might say boogie-woogie into the Beatles, right? I don't know about that stuff, but that's what was going on, right? And so

You know all those little rickies wanted to hear They wanted to hear the Beatles type music and so there they basically those people know all the modern melodies and how to do electric guitars and You know all of the stuff that the cool crowd liked back then right and so yeah, I mean it it just it worked Well and and yeah, I mean John Wimber all that they knew how to connect to the right recording studios how to make all that stuff happen And it it it just took off and they actually I would say they institutionalized it in a way that it hadn't been institutionalized before

They actually turned it into an official institutionalized part of their church growth model and for For the people who do not know our loaded language of the cult, Ricky's refers to it directly relates to what we're saying here.

Ricky's was evil because William Brannum did not like the name Ricky, and he would target the Ricky's in the entertainment industry. And you were not allowed to name your child Ricky in the movement, or your child is going to instantly have a demon because of his name.

Think about the difference between that concept and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is two separate things. They're not the same. It's a different gospel. It's the gospel of don't name your kid Ricky or Elvis was the second one.

Don't name your kid this because his name will send him to hell. That's the difference in the gospel. And these guys built their ministries off of William Brannum and this different gospel. And little Ricky was also the son of I love Lucy.

And William Brannum frequently preached sermons against I love Susie. Oh boy John, what the places we've come from. All right. I got the next question here says after the Toronto episode began, organization vineyard leadership went to Toronto to investigate some of the things that were being displayed there.

When the organizational leadership confronted the pastor there, the pastor tried to interpret and explain that the happenings were scriptural heavenly things, but they did not really have all of its base in scripture. They rebuked the pastor, but he did not repent and was going to continue with the status quote, leadership then removed Toronto from the vineyard organization and separated the two entities because of the base of the signs and wonders event was quickly becoming something that was not biblical.

And so, you know, I, for the most part of this is accurate, John. I mean, I think it was, I think it was your 93 or maybe even 95 that this actually happened. So maybe two to three years before John Wimber died that that separation actually happened.

And yeah, Toronto was actually put out of the vineyard movement after the Toronto blessing. But here's the thing, John. And you see just how I just want to point out to you how if you're in this ideology and this is your viewpoint, I just want to maybe challenge your thinking here just a little bit.

So John Wimber says, holy laughter, that's an okay, you know, manifestation of God, but holy barking is not okay. Now, but here's the thing, John is holy barking is not in the Bible, is it?

But neither is holy laughter, right? So, you know, you're, it, it, where do you draw the line? I mean, the slippery slope that you started down was already with, with John Wimber, right? The slippery slope that led into this stuff started well before Toronto, right?

But you're already doing signs and wonders and miracle stuff under John Wimber's leadership that is not biblical before the Toronto blessing ever happened. And so when you go into the Toronto blessing and you tell them, you're doing stuff that's not biblical.

Well, you're just the pot column, the kettle black, right? You're pot column, so that's, you know, that's... kind of my observation. And yeah, was Toronto blessing way more extreme than what had been going on before? Sure was. It sure was. But was what was going on before already unbiblical and some level of radical and extreme? Yes, right. And what you have here is not someone trying to pull people back to scripture, somebody who's saying, well, we want only to be a little radical, not a lot radical, right? And so it's just, it's just really a debate over how radical that they want it to be.

And unfortunately, this was not the state at which John Wimbur, he did start to wake up here, but it wasn't until I think a couple of years after these initial four rays with, it's Andy. Randy, Randy, I can't think of his last name off the top of my head, but. Andy Clark? Randy Clark, that's the pastor here again. Why do I just say the people's names, right? Randy Clark is who that this is talking about that they confronted to try and take out a leadership here and it didn't work. There's another question that kind of ties closely into this one. This person writes,

latter reign is not the second wave of Pentecostalism. The second wave is the charismatic movement that begun in 1959 through 1960. It hits home for me. This question hits home for me. This is the very reason why I do everything that I do. Many of these ministries, no matter which one you look at in the New Apostolic Reformation today, if you try to trace their lineage back, you're going to find that somewhere along the line they have covered up their history. And so if you read from a historian who is sympathetic to the movement, they will discount latter

reign and say it was not part of the movement. They're discounting an entire era of history that all of these guys trace the roots back to. And yes, latter reign was a big part of this and it was different from the early version of Pentecostalism. But because the historians who are sympathetic to the movement try to erase parts of history, it looks like there are less waves of Pentecostalism than there actually are. So for me, this is why I do what I do. It's because these guys are covering up their histories and depending on which historian you read, you're going

to find some of it is accurate, some of them tell the truth. They're usually not sympathetic to the movement, while others who are sympathetic to the movement hide their past. Oh, John, I have here the Healer Prophet by Doug Weaver. This is, I would say, the most scholarly work ever wrote on the life of William Brannum. It is not merely as deep or as in depth or as detailed or behind the scenes as the stuff you and I have published. But this is, this is the most, I would say the most credentialed historical person that has a wrote a biography on William Brannum

right here. And the introduction to this book is is authored by David Edwin Harrell, who wrote the all things are possible history of the charismatic movement, I believe during the 1980s. And so these are the most scholarly people

who have ever wrote on this topic, okay? I just wanna read a line out of here. It says, Branum's legacy is alive and well. Because of his role as a divine healer turned profit, the major emphasis of his thematic biography, Branum has been called the principal architect of restorationist thought for new Charismatics.

Popular restoration profits Bill Hammond and Paul Cain, for example, cite Branum's significant influence upon their ministries. These men, among others, have spread Branum's legacy into Charismatic groups like the Kansas City Prophets and the Vineyard Fellowship, the Toronto Blessing and the Brownsville Revivals that have attracted national attention for their controversial emotional practices, and include a focus on apostles and prophets that find their roots in Branum's teachings, okay?

John, it's not you and I saying these things, okay? This man wrote this stuff while we was still brainwashed cult followers in a message, John. Ladies and gentlemen, we're not making this stuff up.

You can go and you can read the same book, you can get the same sources, and you read through here, this book will tell you, quote, William Branum was the leading figure of the second wave of Pentecostalism.

And you're correct, it did kick off among Charismatics, but the Charismatics who kicked it off were the ladder rain and deliverance movement people from the first at the end of the first wave. And William Branum was the leading figure in the second wave at the start of it.

All right, it's just, it's what happened, right? And did kind of pretend like that's not what happened is just, I don't know, it's dishonest, John. It's just dishonest. This is awful, this is insidious.

When people cover up their histories and pass, and that's honestly, like I said, this is why I do what I do. And if you don't understand that that history exists, then you also don't understand why John Wimba is so important to the New Apostolic Reformation's formation.

There is a transition point there that you have to catch, but if you've erased that history, there's no way that you can catch it, which is why these guys erased their past. All right, John, I got one last question and I think we'll try and do, and maybe I can just do a little show and tell when I answer this one and say, so this question is, I've searched for the letters by John Wimba, you reference, but have been unable to find them online.

Is there a link you could provide to access them or some of the way I could read them? Thanks. Well, you can get the John Wimba's pastoral letters. I, this was on Amazon as where I got it, but I think Vineyard still shells it in their bookshop.

So Amazon, I think it was $10, I think, for this. And what you'll find in here, my understanding of what this book is. this kind of as you read the preface and stuff. There was some sort of a recurring newsletter type thing that went around the vineyard churches.

And from time to time, John Wimber would write a column in it. Well, the first half or first two thirds of this book is what this is. It's like a compilation of his pastoral letters and this newsletter thing that would go out.

But as you get to the, maybe the middle and the second, last third of the book, it switches over really to John Wimber confronting the growing craziness in the vineyard movement around fivefold ministry and around Signs Wonders Miracle stuff.

And so it just progresses. And towards the end, my understanding again is these were published in some sort of a newsletter right around that time of his death. And those original letters that were in the newsletter and I had actually went and looked up one, specifically the one about fivefold ministry, they were all in the original newsletter as a co-author, right?

There was John Wimber in another gentleman, I believe. It's the same man who edited this book, Derrick Morphew, I think. They're the ones who, he's the one who's also, I think, listed as a co-author on the letters.

I'd want to go back and double check that. But the articles that were published right around the time of his death and those newsletters were co-authored by another gentleman. And so anyways, that's what you have here.

And so I do think it's important to note that although these are presented as John Wimber's letters at the very end of this, if you went back to the original articles, they were actually co-authored by another minister in vineyard.

And so that is part of what is behind my suspicion or wonder is how much of these last letters to John Wimber actually write himself and how much was wrote by the co-author. I apologize for not digging into that a little bit deeper, but that's just my take away.

But anyways, here's the book, John Wimber's letters. Feel free to read it, see what you think for yourself. Don't believe something just because I told you. Let me also, John, just run through all of the books that I read as I prepared for those NAR episodes.

Because I don't just dive into things. I know people maybe think I just speak off top of my head, but I just want to walk through all the books that I went through, and besides that, I mean, just all the other knowledge that we've obtained over there.

I read Chuck Smith's official autobiography, John. I read Counterfeit Reformation, or Counterfeit Revival by Hank Hangraff. This is a real good book on all this stuff. New Carismatics by Michael Moriarty, which I've reported, you know, I've pointed people to this one a lot.

This isn't, this is probably the work I would point people to for understanding the history of this ideology. I read The Jesus People Movement by Richard Booster, and this was recommended to us by a one of our listeners, John.

Very good book, and I appreciate it. I appreciate, I would say his name, but I don't want him to get harassed. I really appreciate your recommendation on this book and all of the kind comments that you sent us, you know, over the years, you know, you know, pointing things out to us.

Thank you so much for that, that was very much appreciated. I read Prophetic Integrity by RT Candle, okay? Don't necessarily recommend this one, but I did read it. Churches that abuse, Ronald and Roth, what do you think this is?

Branches of the Latter-Rain Movement and the Shepherding Movement, all right? Damage Disciples, the casualties of authoritarian churches and the Shepherding Movement, obviously about the Shepherding Movement, the Shepherding Movement by David Moore. This is also a pretty good book I recommended, John.

I mean, if you want to get some information on this, and last of all, John, the story of Charles Fuller, and this is, again, if people aren't familiar with this, you know, you're John Wimber and C. Peter Wagoner, both attended Fuller Theological Seminary together.

There's so much more, I could say, John, you know, than what has been said, but I just want you to know, I did take time to actually look into all of this stuff before we did these episodes, and I have tried to be super cautious as I know how to with these things.

This is not my main interest, as I've said, as we did all those episodes on the Nar-John is, I just want to know where the other place is, the Latter-Rain Ideology went, so I can make sure I steer clear of those places.

That is the main impetus and interest in me looking into all of that stuff, not to make people look bad, or I just want to steer clear of the Latter-Rain Ideology because it is a cult factory, and that has ultimately been my objective in looking at these New Apostolic Reformation and these other branches of the Latter-Rain Movement.

And there's one final question that I'll answer before we end this, but it's a question that I get from time to time, all throughout the series that we did here, people ask, why are you doing this?

Are you not a Christian? And usually that comes from a person who hasn't listened to the podcast and hasn't heard any of the personal statements that I have made about my personal life, but what they're missing is the fact that it isn't that I'm against the ministries.

It isn't that I'm targeting some person, and I'm saying this, like John Wembre, it isn't that I'm saying John Wembre is evil. It's that the history has been erased, and somebody needs to step up and create the accurate portrayal of history that has been undocumented.

I focus on the very critical because that's usually the parts that has been erased. In some cases, there are some favorable things that aren't really commonly known, and I include those, but for the most part, I want to know why they have covered up their critical history, what does it lead to if you take that away from history?

In other words, if you take away the latirane movement, it takes away a whole... A wave of Pentecostalism that these guys are trying to deny existed. That whole wave, that's an entire era of time.

How can you remove this? It's like they're trying today in the government, they're trying to go back and erase the history of slavery. This is a horrific thing, in my opinion, because they're trying to erase an era of time that very bad things happened, and we need to document these things so that we don't make them say mistakes.

But the idea, the modern idea is, well, if we erase our history, we can pretend that it never happened. So to those people who are asking this, it isn't that I'm against the people.

I could care less if John Wimber was a good guy or a bad guy. It's irrelevant to why I do it. I just want to know why the history has been erased, and I want to put it out there so that people can learn from the mistakes and hopefully never make them again.

But thank you for doing this. We've got, I don't know how many hundreds of other questions we could get into, but we're running out of time, so I think we'll end it here and thank you, Charles.

Yeah, I've enjoyed doing this, John. Yeah, we've got so many more questions here. We could go through comments that we had pulled out, but I think we definitely hit the highlight. I think we'll be pausing here for a while.

I know you've got some other great podcast guests coming up that you're going to be doing some really interesting episodes with. I look forward to watching, and hey, who knows what the future holds, John.

Maybe we'll record some more episodes together in the future. For now, I've got a couple other projects I have to tackle for a while, and yeah, so thanks for doing this with me, too.

I've appreciated it, and I've enjoyed it. Well, it's been fun. Thank you so much. 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-Branum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org.

For more about the history of William Branum and the healing revivals, you can read come out of her, my people. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, both available on Amazon, Kindle, and Automore.

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