Charismatic Chaos or Spirit Led Faith? A Conversation on Balance

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Benjamin McNair Scott, author of The Apostles Today. Benjamin it's good to have you on and have what is an unusual podcast for me as you and I were just discussing. I do a lot of very very critical podcasts about the critical histories and I focus heavily on the things that are concealed because it fascinates me. Why cover up your own

history or your past? But every once in a while I get somebody who is in favor of some of those histories in those past and I'm hesitant to bring on to the show a cult member, somebody who is just very vigorously defending the cult because they tend to want to argue in battle. But I did want to bring somebody on who would speak favorably of the Charismatics. You got to talking to me, you sent me introduced yourself in an email and I got a little bit excited because you are uniquely positioned to do that in such a way that is not an argument or a

debate. So I wanted to hear from you what your thoughts on all of this weird mess that I have on my podcast. So today instead of diving into critically analyze, I guess we're just going to talk and discuss and talk about what is this weird thing that we call the Charismatic Movement today. Well thank you. As you highlighted, I came across your work online and then I got your book as well and thoroughly enjoyed it and you highlighted areas that I was not aware of particularly with the Christian identity movement and things like that. I have, as you pointed out, I've probably had a more positive experience

of elements of the Charismatic Movement. I was converted into conservative evangelicalism and then kind of stumbled into a evangelical Charismatic church but it was nicknamed the Thinking Man's HTB based in London with a very godly minister called John Irvin who himself was very much steeped within evangelicalism but actually was also helpful in putting together the Alpha Course as well, but what I really discovered, particularly within that community, was people who loved the scriptures, but really to still believe that there was an active ministry of the Holy Spirit beyond sanctification, that there were caracens of the Spirit that

was still available and could be used in a manner that built up the fellowship of believers. Now to be honest with you, there were elements not necessarily there that I saw within the charismatic movement that you could see were, I don't know, I would say kind of fleshly, I'm not sure if that will mean much to your listeners at terminology, but clearly sort of people in an emotional state that you felt was not necessarily indicative of the Spirit moving. Nevertheless, I think I certainly saw and people whose love for God was increased after being associated with the charismatic movement. I would even say there were a few

experiences that I myself had which I didn't feel led me away in any way, but led me to God and His Word. As I said, my experience was much more positive and certainly the ministers that I met were very uncult-like, but most of them had all come from an evangelical stable.

But the reason why I'm on here is in many ways is because I ended up delving into a subject that I know that you and Charles have looked at and that was to do with the fivefold ministry.

Again, it wasn't a major feature of the preaching at all within my charismatic evangelical centre. You didn't really hear about it at Holy Trinity Brompton or St Barnabas where I was at. Nevertheless, Holy Trinity Brompton had been a kind of gateway, not only just for John Wimba, but actually John Wimba had introduced them to a number of the Kansas City prophets who had come over. Interestingly, my vicar was actually very suspicious in that regard and had been I think at the huge gathering that happened in Wimba Lake. This was the thing you're probably aware of

this story where Wimba was kind of betting his, in many ways, his ministry at that point that Revival was going to come. So you brought the Kansas City prophets over to Wimba Lake and for any help.

The rumor was that my wonderful godly vicar was picked out by one of the Kansas City prophets and he just said, I don't think that's god, so that's just, you know, to highlight that, certainly there were, you know, within the sector I was in, it definitely wasn't, if anybody sort of announces certain things prophetically, they are to be accepted, it was far from that.

That's interesting, you know, if the same event had have happened here and everybody was familiar with it, John Wimber pushing that this revival was going to happen right here in the city, I think there would be a lot less in the Wimber call, a lot, lot less members of the Wimber call, but they have almost literally concealed that history. Nobody in America who is a part of this big fan group, I think the vast majority are unaware that he had these predictions and that's the reason why the Kansas City prophets were there. But as I hear you talk, it's kind of funny because I relate to you in many ways. I have had experiences

that I can't explain and there are things that have happened to friends and family members. I have family who was not in the brand of cult, but who are very much charismatic, who often get into somewhat not heated, but somewhat very enthusiastic discussions with me. I'll say it like that because I usually just truth bomb them and they usually, they want to go to the emotions, I want to go to the facts and that's the difference between the two of us. But it isn't that I just discount what they, what their opinion is, they have a valid

opinion, mine is different, but I don't, I don't lean so far heavily skeptical as people take me to be with the podcast that I do because I have had some experiences that I just, I truly can't explain. My problem really, when it comes down to the very surface of why I do what I do, I was, what's a good way to explain this out. So I started my, my world was an IT world. I had an IT business consulting that grew into doing different contracts where I would come in and my team of people would be literally the entire staff of the IT team

for different companies. And I presented myself in a very, in a way that they knew they had confidence in what I was doing. That was, that was the air that I presented myself with.

And then once I started to act, they could see that my people know what they're doing. I know what I'm talking about. All of it fits. It all makes sense. But then when you go into this Pentecostal Charismatic world, it would be as if, instead of me, somebody had sent a person who was a clown in a, in a circus, who has no idea about IT, but can talk the language really well. And people are sitting and just scratching their face looking at this guy, well, he's dressing like...

clown but he talks really good. He doesn't fit. I don't know that I believe him but he talks really good. That's the feeling that a lot of people get. But what happens is that is that clown starts building up the emotions. They go, it feels so good. These emotions. I like this clown. This is a funny, funny clown. And I know that's a ridiculous example, but that's how it is with some of the ministries, not all, but some of them. You take a step back and you look at it and you think who is this clown and why is it using the name Jesus in his speeches? No, I get that. I mean, I think

the carer's mania, some of it is deeply unhealthy. And certainly when I looked at the different sort of perspectives on apostles and certain things that were coming out, you could see that some of the ideas were very tenuous in terms of biblically, historically. And had the propensity, I devoid it up looking at three types of apostles. As I categorize them, apostle type one, apostle type two, and apostle type three, and apostle type one is the kind that you associate with C Peter Wagner and his kind of understanding. I nickname them the hierarchical supreme or apostle. And that was the one that I was particularly concerned with just because I think it has

has a propensity to become very cult like. And I think there are examples of that. And I think your podcast has drawn attention to a lot of that, which I think is great, which is really important.

I was more sympathetic to apostle type two, which actually is where Wimba went to. He referred to bigger capital letter a apostles and little a apostles. And he rejected this kind of the office of apostle, but went for the function and apostolic kind of pioneering church planting, but not a kind of authoritative figure, which you tend to get within the NAR. And I thought I thought that was justifiable exegetically. That's where I came down in the end. And actually, I felt that it was something that the church Catholic with a small sea has inherently recognized through

its many centuries as well. Yeah, so I don't know if that gives you a little window of where I went. But the thing that interested me and one of the reasons why I contacted you, because I know Charles was drawing very much.

upon the five-fold ministry linking it to the latter-rain revival and so forth. And I know, actually, I watched your podcast today and he also tied it back to Edward Irving. And I actually went a little bit behind that as well, but not that they were.

I don't think they impact to Edward Irving so much, although but within the Anabaptist movement, strangely, you had some who referred to themselves as a possible server to apostles in Munster. But I think they gave the concept of bad name.

So I think that kind of got dropped. But Edward Irving, I think, was the man who really put this kind of thinking on the map. I don't know if you've done much in relation to Edward Irving.

I have. I've studied crazy histories that people just wouldn't believe what I have dove into. And for me, the concept itself, like you said, it predated latter-rain that you can go all the way back to Ephesians and you can see that there are these different offices.

What latter-rain introduced was the pyramid scheme behind it. And everybody was fighting to get at the top of the pyramid. They basically, if you read Ephesians and you understand what it's saying, it says, we all have a work to do. Some are called to do this work, some are called to do this work.

Everybody is really equal. There is no pyramid hierarchy described in the text. But what happened with latter-rain was somebody said that they're a teacher and they started teaching. Well, another guy says, I'm a prophet. And I have the spoken word of God. I have the thing being revealed right now for us today where everybody started leaving the teacher and going to the prophet. And the prophet started teaching, which is kind of weird because it wasn't the gift.

Branum, Branum would often go into these things where he was teaching. And I think Ernst Baxter said his calling wasn't dead. His calling was even below the prophet just healing the sick as how Ernst Baxter said it. But once they started fighting for prophet, then those who were listening to the prophets and claiming that their spoken word of God was divine started using them as teachers. Well, the people who were apostles felt left out. And what does the apostle do? The apostle is the one that sent out. Well, I'm out in some foreign country and all

these guys are getting all the fame back in the United States and all the money back in the United States. Well, they wanted to come back to the United States and they wanted to be these apostles.

And I'm an apostle. I'm superior to the prophet because I also have the gift of spoken word. I also have the ramah, all of these things. But I also have the element of leadership. And so essentially they rewrote the DNA of what was fivefold ministry to create a pyramid where the Apostles at the top, then the Prophet, and literally everybody else.

So instead of firefold, it really becomes threefold. Apostle, Prophet, and everybody else. Yes, yes, yes. And you actually get that within the Apostolic faith church, which grew up in Wales. They had a very hierarchical view as well, and an indispensable role for the Apostle two.

And you do find that obviously with where Edward Irving, he birthed the Catholic Apostolic church. Ironically, when that happened, he sort of, within the Catholic Apostolic church, you would have Apostle, Prophet, and then you would have an angel slash bishop, and then a priest and deacons.

And they're all Edward Irving, you know, he then had to submit to the Apostle, having in many ways been the guy who had initiated this whole thing.

But intriguingly with the Catholic Apostolic church, I mean, I kind of understand the rationale and wonder, but they were hoping for and praying for the restoration of the Apostolic office. But they only had 12, that was all that there was going to be.

Until another kind of prophetic assurance happened, I think it was in Germany, and they started a new church, the, I think it's the new Apostolic Catholic church, which is still, you know, it's actually quite a big denomination around the world now with numerous apostles.

And the group literally flips Pentecostalism in the United States on its head, because in Americanized Pentecostalism, they dubbed Charles Fox Parham as the first to speak in tongues, or his group was the first.

And they Edward Irwin's group, as, what year was that? It was in the 1800s that they were playing to speak in tongues. 1830 around that time, yeah.

Yes, yeah. I mean, I think there are a number of scholars who very much see him as the full runner, because he started going on about the baptism and Holy Spirit and tying it to gift the tongues as well.

And in many ways, there is a interesting parallel, because the first person to speak in tongues, I think it's Mary McCloud, and then Irving kind of authenticates it, and then similarly with his Agnes Ossummon, wasn't it, in the Parham's Bible school?

So, you know, real similarities between them. And interestingly, I know that Alexander Dauy, he very much looked back to the Irvingites, and he also had a concept of, you know, an apostolic office, he's seeing himself as a larger, but not just that.

there was gonna be another 12 as well, a limited group too.

And then even just before him, you've got the moments on the scene talking about the apostolic office and profits. In fact, one of the reasons why they weren't so, they didn't think that the candle lights were the genuine thing is that they didn't have the apostles and the prophets, whereas the Mormons did.

But then they've managed to kind of work out where we've got 12 apostles, but they can keep being filled, as it were, so they can continue on. I think Dowie was the reason why I came across Irving.

It became this huge rabbit hole while I was writing my book on John Alexander Dowie. I discovered the connection to Irving, and I can't remember what he said, but there was some, if I remember correctly, it was a newspaper article, and Dowie would always phrase and title his sermons with a statement and then another statement with a completely different title.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but it reminds you of the old, oh, what's that show with Mr. Peabody? And anyway, there's this old cartoon, but they would give a title and say train tracks or being carried down the field on top of rails, something like this.

Well, Dowie sermons were always like that. It would have a title then a second title, and in one of the second titles, if I remember correctly, it had something to do with Irving or Irving Heights, and I got to reading the article, and there was a little bit of contention there if I remember correctly.

So I went down that rabbit hole, and I'm like, oh my gosh, man, how did I not know this history? And why did the Pentecostal historians cover this part up? Because they'll usually go back so far as to parham, and then they'll stop right at the trials where he's being accused of multiple, not just one, but multiple sexual assaults on young children.

They stop before they get to that, but they never go back to the actual history where other charismatic existed far before Charles Vox parham. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what's interesting about Irving and the Catholic Catholic Church is that they tried to locate some of their ideas prior to them as well, and just saying, you know, we're not a totally new thing either.

There are other examples of some of this stuff beforehand, and they wouldn't go necessarily, it wouldn't point out mountainous, because they knew that he was discredited and things like that. But they were very keen to show that they were in line with elements of the Church's tradition and history as well as being rooted within the scripture first and foremost.

I mean, interestingly with Irving, you felt that, yes, he was influenced by utterances very much so, but... He very much tried to ground his belief within Scripture. And certainly wouldn't, I don't think he would lay claim, certainly if you read his sermon and stuff like that, you know, to various prophetic utterances within them.

Having said that, he was clearly very influenced by prophetic utterances as well. But yes. And so there's where you and I probably differ a little bit on the nature of the prophetic utterances. When I look at the pit and coastal movement today and look at some of the things that they proclaim, like the Wimbler's, I don't know what you call this, it probably wasn't a prophecy, but I know that men he was with painted it as a prophetic utterance that there would be this big coming revival.

And when it didn't happen in the UK, then they started saying it's going to happen in Kansas City, the chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl, and then suddenly this great big revival is going to break out in the end of the world.

That's how it was pitched. And you look at that and you think, well, that's not prophecy from God. If it is prophecy, it didn't happen. It clearly did not happen. We watched the chiefs win the Super Bowl finally, and I'm a chiefs fan, so I watched this happen.

And I, you know, I can look at this and I can see that this is clearly a failed prophecy. Everybody needs to run screaming from this place. But yet the movement still exists. And while they're in the movement, they still look back to all these quote unquote prophetic utterances and say that it's still divine prophecy from God, even though it didn't happen as they said, we just don't understand it.

And I look back and I say, well, that's confusion, that's, that's not real. Just to say, am I, she on the same page as you? I'm very wary of those kind of prophetic utterances.

I'm afraid I'm just using the parlance that was used by Irving and the others, but I'm not going to, you know, call something that has clearly been shown not to be a prophetic utterance, to be a prophetic utterance.

I do, you know, I do believe there is such a thing as prophetic utterance, but I then actually think that that's, yeah, I think it's, I'm thinking about the situation in one Corinthians 14, which I would see is not, I wouldn't actually see that as expository preaching that Paul is what he's talking about because he's seeing, you know, people within the community one to the other.

But I would suspect that much of that is not to do with this is going to happen to you type scenario. I would imagine these encouraging words that are rooted in Christ and for the, you know, the, at the building up of the body of Christ. So yeah, I'm Yeah, I'm kind of with you. I mean, I don't know whether you would agree with that particular understanding of prophecy or what way you said on that. But yeah, I think most prophetic utterances as far as I can see from Scripture are not necessarily to do with the future at all.

Yeah, that was the biggest surprise to me because so to answer the question you didn't ask, I don't yet know where I have landed on that. I still am kind of re-evaluating everything. And the reason for it is this, what we were taught by and large in the Brannum movement was that fortune telling, which is prediction of the future, was prophecy. And you go back to each one of the quote-unquote prophetic utterances, we've almost disproved every one of them.

But anything that was claimed as prophecy, the ones that got him famous were predictions of the future where it became problematic is once Brannum's fame started to spread and people believe that he was now in this pyramid and he's at the prophet level of the pyramid, they started wanting to know more. Well, tell us like the people who were like whenever all of the people gathered around Moses and said, Moses, go back, tell us more, we need more, we want more from God. And what God has given us is not good enough yet. So that's how it was

and the people was starting to circle Brannum like this. After the Revival, as Brannum would hold these one on one, I don't know what he called, he had a special name for these things, but one on one with a person to tell them they're basically their fortunes, their futures. And they would ask him, how's my job going to come out? I'm one who can get married, is this the right woman? I mean, things like this. And that clearly is fortune telling, that's what they were looking to understand their fortune. So I was manipulated to believe that this was prophecy. And once I left it and

realized the difference, how not just unbiblical, but how evil that is. And it's actually anti-biblical. Once I realized that, I started looking around to the charismatic movement that exists. And I'm not saying that they're all like this, they're not. But when you go to the ones that are more showmanship, the big stage acts, the big names that I won't mention, they all seem to have that air about them. I know from God, I have special insight. And therefore, I know the future, I know what's coming. Come listen to me. That's the attraction. And they all go towards it. And I

compare that to the prophets of the Old Testament, which many of them try to claim that they are, they're likened to the Old prophets, I should say. The Old Testament prophets was not, there were some futuristic prophecies, but in general, it was God speaking saying, because you've done this thing wrong in the past. And because in the past, I promised you, if you did the good thing, I would bless you and you did the bad thing.

I would curse you, because of that, your future has this curse that's coming or this blessing that's coming, one or the other. So it really was not futuristic, even though you can try to twist and say it was, it was more about what they had done and what God had told them to do long in the past.

Yeah, absolutely. And I do think this is an area which is just fraught with, well, broken lives as a result of what I would see as kind of charismatic at witchcraft if I'm honest with you.

I think it's, it's, again, I feel relatively fortunate that certainly in some of the circles that I've been, they tended not to be that way inclined. Everything is kind of, okay, well, if something said, if you don't feel or have a sense within one that's in line with scripture, or you have, I mean, the kind of language that is used, you don't have a, a settle piece about it, bin it, bin it. And you certainly don't get the kind of, I mean, again, I feel slightly removed from this because this is a sort of scene I was in a number of years back, but that was certainly

the kind of impression one had there. I didn't really meet people who were saying, well, a prophet is saying this and you have to do that. I think it was all rather, I was going to say, British. So yeah. And I do think that some of that was the kind of vineyard spirituality that was coming through and not the kind of Kansas City stuff. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, www.William-brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You're joking whenever you said it's somewhat British, but I have started to notice that there is a significant difference between the two. And I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because all of these cults that we're gathering in the United States, you had some and...

in the UK, but there weren't that many. And while the United States is, the cults are flourishing, and the people are being trained to understand life and worldview according to what their cult teaches.

When they leave one cult, they can very easily go to another. And sadly, because some of the, before it becomes destructive, some of the people of cult leadership get strong, become strong influences of other Christians.

So you have this cross-pollination of doctrine, basically. So in the United States, it evolved much differently than in the UK. I have UK friends who are just, they're totally different. There are many of them, even though they may be in a ministry that I question.

They are more skeptical from what I can tell. They're more fact-driven and emotional-driven from what I can tell. And so it has evolved, Christianity has evolved differently. One of my friends, for example, who is in, I would say he's in, somewhat of a cult.

I won't go too far with that. But he's describing meetings where, oh, what's the guy's name, Bart Irman. He's describing meetings where Bart Irman is holding a convention talking about the things that he understands in the New Testament and how it differs from a lot of, especially evangelical Christianity.

Entire churches in the UK will go listen to this because you can learn something from anyone. And so I'm scratching my head, thinking, wait a minute, your entire church went to see Bart Irman?

Oh, yeah, we loved it. And that's just the different, in the United States, they would chastise him as a demon. In fact, they had, you can go watch them. And the people would just never go.

But I find it interesting in the UK, they're more open to facts and criticism. That's interesting. That's interesting.

I wonder if you come across, and the guy I did my doctorate with was a lovely man called Andrew Walker, who wrote the kind of definitive work on the house church movement. And I remember talking to him.

And I think we were talking about, it was to do with the difference between America and Britain as well. And whether the fact that the British, that we have an established church, may also be one of the reasons why we're less likely to have so many sort of,

cult-like movements, probably. Because you've always got something to, even if you might disagree with them, there's something there that you're kind of going up against. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know if that rings through or not.

I don't know, I've put long hard dot into it because having been in a cult and having escaped it, you want to understand why. And you look at the, from the early, foundation of America, we were religious freedom was one of the premises for the establishment.

But if you look at what was being established, it was more of a separation. There was a schism. There were people who did not like the mother church or whatever they called it back then.

So they wanted to create their own desperate groups. And then what's interesting is that those groups splintered. So when they splintered, you have divisions upon divisions upon divisions. And like you said, there is no, there is no global standard in America.

So many of the divisions turned even more cult-like because you had some leader that is laying down the rules. We separated because of this thing that I don't like. Therefore nobody in this group can do this thing.

And so they would form a movement off of it. So it became a movement of splintering into other movements for the sole purpose of dislikes. And so it's very negative. If you really think of how it evolved is really negative.

Whereas if you have a global established church, whether you like that or not, usually the groups that come off of that form some kind of a positive movement. So you have a group of negatives and a group of positives.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And just jumping back to the failed prophecy thing, we have the most lovely seventh-day Adventist, Lodja, and she really was just super, really a deep affection for her. But it was so fascinating here in the beginnings of that movement, with jumping on the back of William Miller and what's it called, the Great Disappointment, which they sort of own.

But then they had to reinterpret what an earth, the prophecy meant that Jesus hadn't come back. He's just gone into the holiest of holies. But it just does show that certainly within the charismatic set to this, the area of predictive prophecy usually falls flat when it's face.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Owning the failed prophecy is something that you don't find many times in this group. Whenever I was studying the early formation of Pentecostalism, and I'm looking at groups like Frank Sanford and his group, this was a well-respected Bible college.

I did not know until I started studying Dauy, how respected Frank Sanford's group was. There were people from all over the world that were coming into this, what was it called, Shiloh, I think, was his place.

So he was well-respected, and what he became was so far destructive, you look at it and you think, how in the world did people all over the world come to see this guy? And during the height of his fame was also during the height whenever they were pushing They're pushing for money to evangelize globally, which I think impacted him significantly.

He was part of these other movements that different ones that kind of indoctrinated him to believe that he could be the spiritual elite, apostle or whatever it was he called himself to go out and convert the world.

So they went out on two ships and several people died scurvy and different things. But before all of that happened, he started proclaiming that he knew when the end of the world was and marked down on your Bible folks at this exact minute.

I think he had the exact minute. This exact minute go up to the rooftops because God's going to carry you up to heaven. And so newspapers reported all these people on the rooftops and nothing's happening.

And you would think that the group would just suddenly implode when this happens. This guy's been telling us this false thing and we realize it's false. So the other problem that I have when I critically examine all of this mess is that good or bad, some of the groups use elements of mind control, whether they know it or not in the movements.

And once you're under that mind control, the prophet can say that the world's going to end on Tuesday at 5 p.m. go on your rooftop when it doesn't happen, they're still under that mind control.

They're like a zombie. So they say, OK, well, that didn't happen, prophet. Tell me when is the next one. And so they're given next one usually. So this goes on and on and the cycle repeats.

Without you mentioned, you know, the church, the church of England, with a very structured church, you have the exact opposite of this. There isn't mind control, but the charismatic movement would say there's no emotion.

This is a dead church. And that's, you know, I think largely that's why people split and came to America. Initially, this was a dead church, they would say these kind of things. So there's this fine line between, OK, on the one extreme, it's so rigid, it's dry, it's structured, no mind control.

And on the other side, you have people who are getting into such a hype that they become what, like, I hate to use the word, but they're like that close to mentally insane, trying to see the thing that doesn't exist.

And they're always going after that, like, like a carrot on a stick, they're always going after that carrot and never finding it. We build up into this hype, which turns into this anxiety and the anxiety turns into all kinds of mental health issues.

So where in between this is the balance? And honestly, whenever I got your email, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Where do you find the balance in the middle of this?

Yeah, it's a really difficult one. I remember suddenly when I was doing my MA, I had a Catholic lecturer. And he said he talked about the early church, and he says the early church was radically charismatic and radically the turgical, which is very interesting, because I hadn't really logged the liturgical point of it, but I think he's correct. The early church was charismatic, and it had a lot of problems. It had a lot of problems, and a misuse of that.

But it's interesting, I feel that Paul doesn't go, well, we don't want anything, that smacks of emotion or anything like that, but he gently kind of guides it back into a more wholesome manner of being. So I do think it's a tricky one, because certainly within the communities that we've had, and it sounds like very different experiences. I mean, prior to being converted within an evangelical setup, and it was a conservative evangelical setup.

I had been to a traditional church, sort of Christmas Easter scenario, and I went to boarding schools where we had chapel, you know, a number of days in the week, as well as on Sunday and things like that, where it was incredibly stayed in the turgical. And so I didn't really have a model of anything different. I mean, I just think there's gotta be wisdom that we glean through looking at the church's experience through millennia, and learn, okay, I mean, one of the things that, one of the reasons why I did my doctorate, I was inspired by a Catholic

Pentecostal, actually, called Father Peter Hocken, who wrote kind of the definitive work on the charismatic renewal history in Britain. I don't know if you came across it, John. I do wonder whether it's slightly, I mean, this is why I've been very grateful with your stuff and Charles, because I feel that you've unveiled a lot of the warts and things like that, and you're right. A lot of the Pentecostal histories oftentimes don't draw attention to that, and that's a shame. And therefore, I think, you know, it does injustice.

Nevertheless, he had this wonderful kind of paradigm where he looked at Romans 9 to 11, and he said that the issue between the Jews and the Gentiles within the early Christian community is that the Jewish believers didn't recognize what God was doing amongst the Gentiles, and that they neither changed their mind, and except the blessing of what God was doing.

But similarly, the Gentiles needed to take note from where they had come, as it were, the riches where they had come, they had come through the Jewish community. they'd come through that rich history.

And what he suggested is that oftentimes within the church's history, you will find movements that are, there's something good there that's coming forward. So let's take the Methodist revival, for example. I think most people can look back and say, there was something positive coming through that.

And the challenge, therefore, was for the older church to say, what here is good, that we need to wrestle with and maybe incorporate. But similarly, those new movements need to never have the arrogance to think that they don't need to learn from what is gone before and the riches that are there.

So there becomes this, and so I think what he did for me with this paradigm is to ask myself, the key, what in the charismatic movement? What is it drawing attention to? That actually could be good and right.

But on the other side of it, they mustn't have the arrogance to think that this is all that there is. And they need to look back at the church's tradition because most things have happened again.

They're just repeating themselves. But there may be some good things. And I think one of the great gifts of the charismatic movement, as far as I can see, is, well, there's two parts to this actually because one's a negative and one's a positive, is that initially, it was the idea of empowering people for service and empowering the laity.

And that was certainly, I think, at the root, not the big kind of platform, because I think the stream which you have, you've drawn attention to with the Branum and the healing evangelist and stuff like that, that was not necessarily empowering for the laity.

But I think with another part so the charismatic movement, it was. That's my feeling. But the sadness is that it's often those platform ministries that get all the attention because they're the ones on the Christian deli and all the rest of it.

But I think there was an enabling of the laity, much more as a result of the charismatic movement. And I wonder whether that's the case within the early Pentecostalism as well. But having said that, I know there is a lot of that and there's a lot of rubbish in there as well.

But maybe I'm just too optimistic. But having said that, I think I've seen the good and I've experienced the good. But I've also seen some really unhealthy and wacky things that I don't think were good as well.

But I think if Paul was looking at the church and Corinth, he would say the same thing. and, hey, there's good stuff here, but there's a lot of rubbish too, so I don't know.

Yeah, I kind of think Paul would look at the church today and buy in large and say, all of you guys are just a mess. It's not, you know, what I see is the problem, and you hit the nail in the head.

It's whenever you get in that mindset, you get to thinking of the other side as differently. I can't remember the exact words you use, but whenever you think of the liturgical church and the charismatic church, well, many of the charismatic people that I am friends with or people who are in the groups that I have, they have never, ever set church, set foot into a church that wasn't of their mindset.

I have, I've been in these cold, formal church services where the guy comes out in a robe and he's got a choir behind him and all of you know, he starts reading and you can tell that it's all rehearsed and it's all static and what he's saying is good, but there's no emotion whatsoever.

It's completely, for me having grown up in this mindset, it's completely dead to me. But I've been multiple times and yet at the same time, there were aspects of it that I found that I liked way better than what I had came out of.

There was good in some structure. It needed some structure. And so on the one hand, I can, I'm with you in that I kind of like a little bit of emotion whenever I'm around people.

I don't want it to be dry and dead. But on the other hand, if you don't have structure, it's like a train with no tracks. If you don't have the tracks, well, where is your train gonna go?

So for me, there has to be this middle ground. There has to be this way to keep things into a format or a structure. And the structure usually in the charismatic Pentecostal circles we're going to get the people into an emotional hype.

We're going to introduce the Bible. Usually it's just a Bible verse and they're going to build a context around it. Sometimes they're going to a chapter. But then over the course of the next 45 minutes, I'm going to break them down emotionally so much that they feel like they're so low to the ground that they need somebody to pick them back up.

And then I'm going to pick them back up. Once I realized that format, I started going to church services and I started listening specifically to hear that format. And it's like somebody created an architectural design and everybody bought it.

Let's all break them down as far as we can break them down. And I realized, I don't want to be broken down. That's not right to do that to my head, man. Don't do that to me.

And I have a hard time. I've actually visited mainstream churches that had, you could clearly tell they had some influence from this type of movement because they followed the same architectural pattern. Break them down as far as you can break them and then lift them up.

And you're the savior at the end because you lifted them back up. And it's just not right. there has to be some format that prevents this. Yeah, that's really interesting. That's very interesting. I mean, I'm sure you get some of this in the States as well, but some of the leading figures in the charismatic movement, I think of one who was very close to here, where I am in Surrey.

Have you come across David Paulson? You know, okay. He was a Baptist minister. Methodist initially and then became Baptist. And very conservative evangelical, then had a charismatic experience and then became a leading kind of Bible teacher.

But he was known for expository preaching. He would tend, if you went along to his church, he would be working his way through the Bible. And, you know, he's very highly regarded in that regard.

So you would definitely find charismatic churches on this slide where you would have expository preaching. You wouldn't feel you went in anything but a sound evangelical church. But at the same time, there was always a space possibly maybe in prayer ministry at the end of the service or anything like that.

So on one level, it was just like a normal evangelical service and sometimes the surgical depend which denomination you were in and the same kind of preaching. So I just think you can't paint all of charismatic churches of being of one ilk because they certainly aren't on this side of the pond.

But I imagine that's the same over there as well. Yeah, they're not all the same here. When I say that, I'm usually referring to the ones that are more, I don't know, the more deeply impacted by the laterane movement.

You have this wide swath of charismatic Christianity that whether they recognize it or admit it or not, they have built upon that foundation and they all match the same patterns. It's really the same, it's the same cult structure.

Now I have been to some, I've not traced deeply their backgrounds but I've been to some that have a charismatic flavor and they're much like you described. They're not like what I described. So there are some good ones out there and I caution, I'm very careful saying that because I'll get an onslaught of email saying, okay, where are they? I want to go there.

And I'm not, I'm not one to recommend churches. You find them on church. Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah, very careful. But yeah, that's an interesting thought because I, like I said, I wanted to have somebody who had a different opinion than me because I wanted to discuss, where is that middle ground?

And you're bringing it up pretty good. Yeah, no, I mean, there's some interesting, I feel certainly around where I am in England. There are some of the big... charismatic flavored churches are actually, I would say, quite strong and grounded within their preaching, and some of them, I think, want near to me, which is a kind of independent charismatic church, but it seems to be attracting people from all sorts of backgrounds, but I would say, was quite deep in its spirituality, and rather than just really frothy and everyone chasing after the next thing. So, yeah, and I know that's around as well, I mean, my

goodness. I saw people just exhausted, chasing for the next revival, and that's got to be unhealthy. Have any of them tried to take dominion over your government? That's the real question here. Yeah, I think that's much bigger. I know, I do think that's much bigger in your neck of the woods. I mean, the stuff connected to Trump and the prophecies and the rest of it.

My goodness. Yeah. Thankfully, we haven't had that so much over here. I mean, I know it goes on. I know it goes on. I did see one, something on YouTube when I think this bentocostal pastor was claiming that I think Trump was going to be reelected as well, and he had great roles for Boris Johnson as well. Well, that didn't happen that day that much.

I think the difference is in your neck of the woods, you have God saved the queen, and over here, we have a apostle saved the king. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, believe it or not, we've got a king now. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And the other thing which I thought was interesting is how many of these movements tie in oftentimes to revelation, terrible interpretations of the book of Revelation. And when I saw that, sadly, because actually a lot of erving stuff, I don't know. When I did my MA, I focused on his doctrine of spirit, no, on the sinful nature of Christ, which got him in very hot water. But I had a chance to

read a number of his sermons, and I thought, of course, this is very rich. He's very good with words. You know, not your typical, it's maybe a bit unfair, well, probably not actually, but not your typical kind of Pentecostal preacher that there's riches in here. But then, you know, I discovered that he had all sorts of funny things trying to tie into events that were happening in his day and age and tying it to revelation and then all the rest of it, which yeah, seems to emerge particularly within charismatic circles as well. Well, this has been

incredibly fun. Tell everybody where they can go to find your book. You'll find it on Amazon, but it's, yeah, I have to be honest with you, I wrote it back in 2012, so I feel like I'm revisiting something, which is great, but as I said, it was because of your podcast, but it's called Apostles Today, Benjamin McNair Scott, but as I said, I stumbled across you and I've felt like I've gone down that rabbit hole and revisiting all sorts of things as well, but really enlightening and I think it's great that you're drawing attention to the warts because I do think that is a lack. Having said that, I don't know if you

read there was a gentleman who did a history of the vineyard movement, it's called The Middle Way and it was, did you come across that John? I did, but I thought it was very brave because they focused in, he focused in on Lonnie Frisbee and didn't hide any of that and I thought that was good, that's the way that we need to do our histories, we've got to let, I mean, look at my church, church, Vingland, going back to Henry VIII and all the rest of it, boy, we've got a dirty past, so yeah, but we need to be honest with it. Well, thank you so much,

I've been accused by many people of being the gatekeeper of all of the rabbit trails, but I've never ever been accused of the person who's bringing up the warts, so this is how you think from me. I hope you don't take offense at that, but I think it's important because you know, I'd be interested if you ever do stuff on Smith Wigglesworth, I know his controversial relation to some of his healing, so called healing techniques, but I've seen some of the dirt you brought, you know, you brought for John G. Lake and obviously William Brownham, but I'll

be interested in some of these other characters who sort of are, there's so much hagiography around them. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, we're all, everyone's got feet of clay, you know, and

if there was one other thing I have been deeply concerned about and I saw it the other day because because I'm going to blame you again, but I was watching somebody online who was kind of proclaiming that he never told, he'd never told a lie, and since he was born again and things like this, and then a whole lot of people in his ministry team came out and go, yes he does.

I just think if, if anyone sort of thinks they're whiter than white, that any sort of luminaries in that way that they're walking to dangerous territory. Yeah, we're going to get disappointed.

And if they were, you know, on one level, we wouldn't need Jesus. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for doing this. Absolutely pleasure. Thank you for your time. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.