Loaded Language in the Charismatic Movement | Christian Thomaßen

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 co-host and friend, Christian Thomason. Christian it's good to be back and we have had an overwhelming number of people say bring him back, bring Christian back. I don't know if you noticed the comment feeds on the first video that we did but it got such positive feedback that you and I started talking we thought we might do some more of these and the subject that

you picked today interestingly is one that I've been thinking through I haven't yet formed a in my strategy of laying these things out where people can understand them. I've not yet formed that strategy so this will be my first attempt at trying to think through this but the idea of language it is so significant and the reason I say this which I'll get into later in the podcast whenever I was in the cult and in the cult mindset I had the loaded language which everybody's familiar with that term who has been listening to our podcast

we had specific language that we whenever the the minister or our central figure would mention this language it might be a word it might be a phrase but it means a whole theology to us so then whenever I go to a new church and that word or phrase is spoken it hijacks my brain because the the minister may be talking about something good and healthy and pure but in my head I'm thinking this other thing that he's not even saying and it derails my thought process so I'm glad that you chose this topic I want to get into it deeper because that's

just one area of the issues with language that we have there are many many issues with language from you know it's like we have a Christian tower of Babel across all the denominations anyway thank you so much for coming back let's let's talk about language can you give an example for for loaded language out of your own experience yes if I were to talk about in loaded language if I were to mention the seven things some kind like like Trinity right if I mention the seven seals for example this this was overloaded we're talking about the

seven seals from the book of Revelation in you know in message cult and after leaving but in the message There was this whole theology that was wrapped around that, because the Seven Seals and the theology was also bound to the Seven Church Ages, which was dispensationalism, and parts of the Book of Revelation were hijacked to mean America and Rome and Russia, and so all of these thoughts come into my head when I hear the phrase Seven Seals, not to mention this weird cloud thing that if you studied Brannemism, all of these followers have, and some of their churches,

have this cloud thing, so all of the mystery of the cloud and the mystery of the seals, and the idea that Brannem himself was the one who revealed the mystery behind the Seven Seals, even though the Book of Revelation says no human is worthy of this, so all of that programming goes off in my head whenever I hear the phrase Seven Seals.

Is it like the cloud reminds me of the Bill Johnson cloud, when he's describing there was a cloud in the airplane, and from the cloud there was coming gold glitter and stuff, such a kind of cloud, or...

Well, we could talk about this probably in depth in another podcast, because there's many aspects of this that I've not yet covered on the podcast, but the short essence of the story is, William Brannem was supposed to be outhunting in Arizona to bring forth the revelation of the Seven Seals, we were told after the fact, and while he was out there, he got a phone call to go rescue a transgender prostitute murderer from death row, of course, and so he leaves the state, while he's out of the state, President Kennedy has the missile defense system operation...

The secret operation to build the missile defense system, and they detonated this massive missile over Arizona from Vandenberg Air Force Base, it made this cloud ring that floated over the state of Arizona, and William Brannem gets back to Indiana, having left Houston, Texas, and Arizona, and he says, I was there, I was standing right under this, that was Seven Angels, they came down to give me the Seven Seals.

And we believe this stuff, right? And he was not even in the state at the time it happened. It's very interesting, like, false teachers always revolve around these kind of topics, like the Seven Seals, revelation, the clouds, the gold, the diamonds, Emirates, and stuff like that. Very interesting, it's always the same story, but with a different package, right?

Absolutely, it's because they are, if you study their history, how they came to be, what they bring forward, the doctrines they're teaching, the whole root of all of this is, even a step beyond knowledge.

austicism in history you actually go back to the mystery cults the mystery cults what was it it was a person who says we have the secret we have the knowledge of the mystery and if you're in our group you understand the secret funny part is nobody in the group understands it the leaders just a con artist he's tricking the people but they all they all gathered together they think they have the secret but it creates an us versus them mentality we in the group have the secret you outside do not and it ties back to our language discussion because to further solidify their

belief in the quote unquote mystery they create a language around it that nobody else knows but can be spoken in plain you know in in my language is plain English but spoken in plain words I should say so that people who are outside the mystery cult they hear the words and they have no idea what this group is talking about but if you're in the group the language itself is the carrier in Germany we call it dautungsshoheit so there's one specific person or a state that is allowed to say what a meaning a word has he's the one to define the terms he's the one to define

the meaning of totally void words like like wonders or exciting or I have I have an eindruck I have a revelation yeah whatever that means right yeah and that's really when you trace what we have today all of this weird mess that we have today the revelation and the language really that's the root for it because all of these these con artists I'll just say it outright these con artists trick people into thinking that they knew these secret divine mysteries and that if you join our group and learn our mystery you can become just like God that was really what they

were selling which is really ironic if you go back to the book of Genesis and you understand the very the concept of what happened in the original sin it was the fact that Satan said you too can you can have this divine knowledge I have a question for you do you know the secret there was a DVD called the secret is it known in the USA there was a DVD and there was a book and I was fascinated with this whenever I came out of the religion that I left Brannem as I was I was studying at that

point in time I was studying narcissism and I was learning about the thenosis the secret knowledge I had not yet went back to the secret the mystery cults but I was understanding narcissism and I was like what is this man this is this is like narcissism but packaged in a book and people are people are just eating this up and there was a murder trial I can't remember the name of the lady but she killed her husband and she was a I guess she was a Mormon, and they had all of this new coverage of this trial, and she

had this very confident face, like a con artist, and what she was doing was she was trying to practice the secret. And the secret basically was, if you think positively towards something, it's like positive confession and care is mania.

If she think positive, she can sway the outcome of events. So she believed that even though she killed her husband, she would be able to sway the jury by using the secret. Yeah, that's one kicker.

Here's a very interesting story. When I grew up, I came to know the secret as well. It was widely popular in Germany, and I don't know if it's similar in the USA, but isoterics in Germany is nothing special.

It's not even recognized as occult. It's so normal, you can go into any random library, and there will be a huge space just for esoteric books, just as normal, like in America, motivational books or cultures or these, like Donald Trump, how to be successful books, yeah.

That's how normal esoterics are in Germany, and the secret as well. But the secret made it even more popular because it offered a more exciting language, especially for the concepts of the law of attraction.

And as you mentioned, the PSA, personal self-affirmation, positive thinking, all this kind of stuff. So when I was growing up, my whole environment, like the generations after 68, the hippies was saturated with this kind of thinking, this type of thinking, worldviews, concepts, and of course, the language.

So much that at some point, the media started to turn on them because it was getting ridiculous. Everyone was like the huge yoga guru, everyone was enlightened. So the media started to caricature these people in, we had weekly formats like the Wochen show, and there was always a guy like presenting the yoga guru using this language to have a laugh.

And there was a movie called Kein Orhazen, and I will never forget this. In the beginning of the movie, Till Schweiger sits down, he is like some kind of reporter, but he hates his job.

And this is one of his last interviews because he can't deal with it no more. In front of him is like an ex-German. in California for a time he comes back like shining full of energy. Let's make it happen. Let's make it real. That's that kind of language. It was ridiculous. The whole similness were laughing because everyone could relate to this person like totally overhyped with his you can make it real. Just talk about it. He can talk it into existence because everyone had such a person in their life. So when I came to faith and my environment started to develop this kind of language

through Joyce Mayer, we talked about him. It doesn't matter. Jesus culture, Bethel, Bill Johnson, guys like that. I was aware of what was going on and I started to distance myself and I knew from the get go language might be one of the most important topics. One of the most important battlefields are faith because language is everything or nothing. And if we go back to basic and see how God created through his word, interacted with his creation by language, then we have the Tower of Babel. We have Pentecost. We have the beginning of the book of John in the beginning

was the word. We can see there is a language, the word, the written word takes a special place in creation and in our faith. And I think because of that, it's worth fighting for a very precise, a very true language instead of developing or allowing more and more isoteric and occult language in our congregations. Even more interesting, the words that are used in the Christian version of the language are not quite of the same meaning for the words that exist outside of the Christian language. An example of this that I studied for probably over a year, I was studying

prophecy. What is prophecy? And I began, because I'm studying the ancient world, I'm studying the evil path. I'm looking through all of the different, you know, the different pagan religions. I'm looking at the Oracle of Delphi, people like this. And I should say the Oracle is of Delphi.

There were many, but there was one appointed as the Oracle. But because of that structure, because there was one Oracle of Delphi, it had, you know, these sub-profits or whatever, I can't remember how you called the others. It, to me, because of my framing of the language, I associated them to the word prophecy in the same way that I did Christianity. And it took me almost a year to realize that the two can't coexist as the same thing. And why I say this is, So, there was in the United States, there was this idea, I don't know exactly where it came from.

I think Mormons may have been the first one to have the concept, but basically the school of the prophets. Come to us, we will teach you to become a prophet, and you will speak with prophecy.

This doesn't really match Christianity, and Christianity, the prophet, is nothing more than a mouthpiece. He or she may not even want this thing, but suddenly they open their mouth and God is speaking through them.

It is a tunnel from which God can have his voice spoken and others can hear his voice. And it is spoken in a language that those listening can understand because God wants to speak to them.

Now, fast forward to what we have today, which developed in a weird way because of Pentecostalism, and a con-audress that we talked about before the podcast was recording Charles Fox Parham. He had this notion that prophecy would come in the form of spoken, you know, speaking in tongues, but before the speaking, it was actually writing in tongues.

And I've got on the website, you can see the scribble marks, it looks kind of like a tic-tac-toe game even. Somebody scribbled some chicken scratch onto a piece of paper and said, this is God speaking to us.

And the first thought that hit me, I've studied at this point the different pagan religions, et cetera. The first thought that hit me was not even the pagan religions would accept this because nobody can understand this thing.

And so after this, the con artist tells all of the people in his con commune that we're going to go conquer and claim dominion in the name of Christ, the entire continent of China.

And we're going to go in and we're going to speak this gobbledygook and they're going to hear us in their own words. They go do it, nobody can hear them, nobody can understand, they almost starve and they come back.

That was the premise and foundation for what developed. Because from that route, developed a notion that a, it's the human in control of the words for prophecy. That's why we have the schools of the prophets.

B, the humans don't really need to understand it. The prophecy itself, having the experience is more powerful than what God is speaking through the person. And see, you can have this thing and it might be incorrect.

But if you get two or three of them, we take the batting average and we try to see which parts are correct of this mixture. So for me, when I heard the word prophet, for me, this was a loaded language.

It was a loaded language to mean that it is an inaccurate, boastful, nonsensical experience. And that experience is the greatest thing on earth. That's how I was taught. And I'm in a normal church that doesn't have any of this, it wasn't a charismatic church.

And when they started talking prophecy, my head went that direction, but they were actually talking about an event where God is speaking to the people, they clearly know what God wants them to hear, and it is 100% correct because God is all knowing.

That's the path they were headed. My path was completely backwards. I remembered one of the guys I talked about in the beginning that was John G. Lake. I remember his, him very specific because some of the people in my congregation started to read his books.

And one of his magic formulas was to declare what you will or what you want to speak into existence. And I don't know how much declair is used in America or in the UK, but in Germany it's a very old term, Ich deklariere, and that's a very old term or even a more lost specific term to declare.

So when these people around me that I knew from youthhood started to talk like, Ich deklariere imnamen Jesus, that was ridiculous. And you could tell they started because of the books from John G. Lake, and I mean you don't have to be an English expert to Google for him and to find out that this guy is really a fallen, he was sentenced in the USA and fled to Africa to just start a new cult because he couldn't do his thing here in America anymore, or of course in your country I'm in Germany, but you understand what I want to say.

And one other interesting thing is because of our first interview, I got contacted by people from all over the world, from Australia, America, from Germany, from Austria, I think you called it Austria, right?

Very very interesting, and there was a, I'm really thankful, I learned a lot through our interview, I even learned a lot more because of all the engagement afterwards. And one thing that was in some kind of way, it's a strong term, but I use it, some kind of healing for me was when I met another brand of might here in Germany, he's a very cool guy, we talked for hours, I was walking with him through the park like half of the night from like it was wonderful, wonderful engagement, wonderful discussion, and I talked I told him my story, my U-Ford, my time in Carismania, and I don't know why, but we talked more

specific about a charismatic center here in Baden-Württemberg called the Glaubenszentrum. And I told him that my experience with the environment from the Glaubenszentrum was very strange and one of the reasons why I distanced myself from the congregation I was in. And as I talked he was like snapping in and he was, you know what? I know the guy that founded the Glaubenszentrum, he's the ex-manager of William Branham. And we started to google it and that's very interesting.

I always thought the Glaubenszentrum, the people there, the language there, is so strange and sometimes even occult, these people are wackos, okay? These people are wackos. And now I know the reason for it. When William Branham lost his congregation his entire business, you can say it's the business, yeah, lost his entire business, his manager was fleeing to Germany just to a new called, that's called the Glaubenszentrum. And if you know that, then everything else makes sense.

There's one last example. They have a fellow called Maria Prean. It's a very, like like like Joyce Mayer, like the nice old lady, yeah? And she's talking wild stuff. One of her stories is like she was sitting in a plane talking to God, like there were casually chatting, she's describing casually chatting with God. And then God says, you are not the savior of Uganda, literally.

That's so she was like, ah, that humbled me. And there was a huge stone falling off my shoulders because I was not responsible anymore. God would do this for me. Yeah, I'm so thankful for that because God is now raining Uganda. And I don't have to do it anymore. These kind of stories are so these people are wackos, really. These are business people sucking every cent and every euro from their congregation with these wild stories, unbelievable. And now I know where it's coming from because I met the German Branhamite, unbelievable. And there's a deeper, unbelievable story there,

which I these it would be a podcast in of itself, probably a series that we probably should do because you're in Germany. William Brown's campaign manager when he went to Germany, there's a lot of conspiracy around this. And it ties to this because of deceptive language. So this was a man, his name was, he was the adopted cousin of Werner von Blumberg, the minister of defense for Hitler.

And his name was, his name was William T. Freire von Blumberg. He was in the United States, I think he was a director of the organization that became what is called now the Fellowship International, the family. This is the one who holds the National Prayer Breakfast, who influences all of the politicians in Washington, NAR is tied directly to this because this is a big deal.

This is a way to basically to sway political political politicians. It's describing a huge rabbit hole, right? This is a massive rabbit hole. But where I'm headed with it is this. So he was William Brandham's campaign manager, interestingly at the time in which Jim Jones of Johnstown, Guyana, the one who his cult created this this commune in Johnstown and committed mass suicide. That's the point in time in which he joins into the movement. And William T. Freire von Blumberg was quite open in his homosexuality, but not to the people. It was a little bit deceptive.

And there's evidence that strongly suggests he also was not Christian. But he ran an organization that was establishing similar organizations that could push political votes in other countries. So it was like this global dominion thing that he was setting up. The CIA has declassified some of the documents. They were interested in him partially because of his homosexuality. Because here's a guy who's in this movement who openly blasts anybody who is even questioned as being homosexual. And it's being led by a man who is openly gay and who is having, I don't know if you know the word, call boys, but basically prostitute, young prostitutes. They were bringing

young prostitutes into his hotel room at night, apparently. And he almost got caught so that so the see either the CIA or the FBI, one of the two was following him because of this. You can find that document on my website if you type in William T. Freire von Blumberg. So he's setting all of this up. And they eventually set up a commune through him. They set up this organization in Germany that was working closely with Paul Schafer. Paul Schafer is the one who goes to South America, sets up the compound in South America that the Nazis referred to as the colony because the Nazis

would escape Germany. into the colony, didn't go to Argentina. He was the security detail for the organization whenever it was in Germany, led by William T. Ferry von Blumberg. So that rabbit hole is a massive rabbit hole. But take a step back from all of that and think about the language.

So these people talk with Christian words. Many times they don't really believe the Christianity behind it. This guy, he clearly, if you understand his life and his lifestyle. This was, in my opinion, this was not a Christian man, but he's leading Christian organizations of men, some of which I also question among those who he chose to lead, whether they were Christian as well, but they use words in such a way that it sounds Christian, but has a twofold meaning.

In other words, you can say it and a Christian might believe that you're talking about the Christian thing. If you're not Christian, you would understand it's talking about the other thing. So it's a very divisive, very, very confusing language. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen 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. We have a similar cultural phenomenon in Germany, because we have this culture of their good-to-deutcher, the good German. And over time, I realized that many of my fellow Christian brothers are deceived by thinking that being a good German is like being a good Christian. They would mix up German values with Christian values. And that's a huge problem. The disconnect there isn't, in some kind of way, it's a similar language. It's a similar morality, but it doesn't have the same basis. It doesn't have the same

source, and it doesn't have the same goal. And that's very interesting to me. That's something that I learned over time in Germany, we have a huge problem with being a good German

while thinking that's what it means to be a good Christian. And in this, you can talk about this very interestingly, in contrast to the American people. The German people

we call it Staatshörich. Like the state over everything, everything the state has to say, is the truth, we follow the state, we love the state, our politicians always want the best for us. So if you asked in the past, how could this happen in relation to World War II and Hitler, there's your answer. I don't know where this comes from, but there are books written over it, there's you will find thousands of videos on YouTube about this topic, the good German and why Germans are so like a dog in relation to their state. I don't know a good English term for it,

but it's dog-like behavior, we call it Staatshörich. Like the state is their god, okay? And it's for us, for the German, it's most important to be a good states citizen. There's a very specific feeling for being a being part of the bureaucracy, like the Amtazine. It's a very special branch of like, yeah, my English is not good enough, but it's interesting for me.

These people are good Germans and think of themselves, we are good Christians because we are good Germans, but these things are sometimes even diametral in difference. Yeah, very interesting. It is. We have this somewhat in the states, we call it patriotic, we're very patriotic and there is, you know, when you're thinking in terms of American religion today, there's what is called Christian nationalism. And what it is, it has bread. I know Doug Wilson, I have a huge library here from him.

I don't, I don't share every view of him, but his books on education are very good. The idea is that to be a good Christian, you must also be a patriotic American in some of these circles, which I have really no problem with this.

where it gets a little bit crazy is that the ideologies of what they consider Christian aren't sometimes from the Bible, they're from the lineage that it comes from, and their ideas of what it means to be patriotic isn't really American, it comes from all kinds of other influences.

So in the end, what they're calling Christian patriotism or Christian nationalism, it isn't quite that. And interestingly, it has some ties back from influence from Germany. So likely this is where it came from, this word that you said.

Yeah, the problem starts, I think, is when we start to measure our fellow Christians by patriotic measurements, like if you're not patriotic enough, then you're not Christian enough. It's a good Christian thing to be patriotic, stuff like that.

You can make countless examples like that if you take worldly measurements for your own fellow Christians, that's never healthy. Right, absolutely. And it's so confusing too, because so takes the younger crowd, people who are relatively new to Christianity, they have only what their parents have taught them, and then they're coming into adolescence and adulthood.

That stage where they're really moldable, but yet don't really understand the deep understandings of the Bible, they understand basically the superficial things of the Bible. And like the good Catholic that always goes on Christmas to church, like that, I believe in God, right?

Exactly. So take that type of person as they're being molded by a pastor and they're hearing these things, some of the things that they hear and the language they hear, they're applying it to Christianity and not understanding the difference between the two.

So here's where it gets a little problematic for me. You can actually have a church with a person who is extremely over-the-top patriotic, and half the congregation, the adults, they realize that a lot of what he says is not, maybe himself doesn't even believe it.

It's just over-the-top, it's more excitement, and it is entertaining. They attract people into these crowds because it's entertaining speech. Well to the younger generation, they don't know the difference between what is the entertaining speech and what is actually in the Bible, and they associate both with one and the same.

Well, when those children raise into adults, their views are so skewed, and we're starting to see the fruits of that today, as people are now entering into the ministry, having a different version of what they believe is Christianity in their head that comes from this lineage of this entertaining speech.

And it all goes back down to the word spoken, the speech patterns. The speech patterns, if not accurate and correct and biblical, in a Christian setting, can lead to a different religion that is not even Christian.

Anity, but bears the same name. Yeah, it's exactly what we are talking about. We have a similar kind of problem because of the huge esoteric background from the hippie generations raising up children. And now we have like Christian leaders like Johannes Hartle.

He's engaging and bringing language into Christianity like Indyne Kraftkommen in Resonanskiin, Bidja Bliben. Yeah, things like that, resonating. I think you get it, coming into your power. And he's engaging, especially young people, and that's very interesting, he's Catholic, but he played a new game.

He understood that to raise the Catholic congregations, he has to engage with charismatic teams because they are uneducated and they live by euphoria, basically. And if he uses language like, come into your power, get into resonance, stuff like that.

It's void language, but it sounds exciting. And you can project, I don't know if that's the right term in English, but pro-Jetzirn, you can project your own identity, your own superficial illusion of God into these words.

And they will make your experience with God, with the church, with the Holy Spirit. Yeah, that's a huge problem. And to explain to these people that this kind of language isn't Christian, no matter, it doesn't matter if the person like Johannes Hartel is morally good, a morally good person is not Christian.

A Christian person, someone that is, excuse my harsh language there, God is enslaved to Christ and to Christ only. That's what makes a Christian, someone that throws his life on Jesus. That's all, that's the entire thing you can call it.

And everything else is just circus, just fireworks. And you know, that's part of the reason why I question where there's some of the groups that have descended from this movement are even Christian, because the way that they present themselves, if they are to take the name Jesus out and put some other religious figure in it, you can make it fit.

Almost, it's like an open mold of religions, right? You can make it... anything fit. And it's all about the feel-good aspects of it. If you can make the audience feel good and entertained, they're going to come and listen. It doesn't matter what you say. And to the children who come and listen, they're not even trying to decipher what is Christian words and what is not. They just take it all in as church. This is our church. We're hearing Christian speech, so therefore it must be biblical. And so they assume that this religion they're in is

Christianity. But what it becomes is it's as we talked about last time, it's a cult of emotions. And those emotions are driven by the words used because if they can prey upon your emotions with the words and they can bring you to this, you call it the state of you for you, there's different states that you can bring people into. You can bring them into mourning or needing how all of these things. It's it's cult of emotion and manipulation. If you can do this with your words and then towards the end of it, you bring them to this very happy feel-good climax, which is like almost

every charismatic sermon you've ever heard, right? Into the charismatic climax of the sermon, well, it's actually the words that brought you into that euphoric state. It isn't the God, it isn't the Bible. It's really the way that they have structured the words. And again, you can take any, you can take any religious leader you want, stick him in that frame and you would have people devoted to that cause. Yeah, like a legal bulk custom, like like a, I don't know the word for it, like like legal, like a recipe, like, yeah. Now we are talking business and that's exactly what

it is because in Germany, there's a word we call it etiquette and schwindel like a packaging fraud. So in Germany, we are in a state where people are willing to pay triple or even more money on a banana that's vegan or bio. It's the same banana, but if there's a label on it that says bio and vegan, it's triple the price and has this special kind of feature. In Germany, we call it schoozatz notes and imzinnitus marketings. So it's not a real feature, it's not a real inherent feature, but in the sense of marketing, you can declare it onto it. So it has this feature

for the person you want to catch. So this is the exact same phenomena. You take whatever is a terric void, fantastic firework language and put the stamp Jesus on it. And in that moment, it becomes Christian. Talk about music, talk about books, Sarah Young, we were talking about is like a prophetic writing.

Several young was one of the fellows here in Germany selling a books like, my love let us to Jesus. Angels were talking to me. I was writing it down. I experienced the same stuff, just for making fun of it.

I wasn't a congregation that was having a prophetic picture prophetic picture evening. And really, I went to one of them like, ah please give me a prophetic word. And he was talking to me like, I have a revelation, I see you as a beautiful flower and your smell attracts people.

Hahaha. I wasn't laughing then. I was just there to experience this, to talk about this, to reflect this with the people of the congregation. Some of them were my friends. Like, guys, what are you doing?

He was talking about me like, I have a revelation, you're a flower and you smell as attracting people. What kind of buffoonery is this? Yeah. Hahaha. Unbelievable. Back to business, yes. For these kind of people in Germany, like Johannes Hartel, it's just a business, nothing else.

They will use every label, every feature that's morally good in the eyes of the people, like any trademark, like any trademark for my cloth that I can identify with, yeah. Like soldier cloth, hyper attractive women cloth, you get it, right?

It's ridiculous. And the people buy into it, especially because they are young and are not well-Christian-educated. We have the same thing in the States. It's called false advertisement. You advertise something, but what you're advertising isn't true.

And so therefore it is illegal in the United States. There are penalties that you face for it. But in the churches, this is where the gray area hits. Yeah. The product they're selling isn't a tangible product.

It's a spiritual product. And the government does not know how to put laws around the spiritual product. And in fact, many of the laws are written such that they can't put laws around the spiritual product.

But here for me, this is where it turns into the gray area. They are selling tangible products. They're selling books that have these false advertisement claims. People who saw angels in dunes. And here's something interesting for you.

In Germany, we call it Hals Versprechen. We have Versprechen der das Heil. Things like that are called Hals Versprechen. You know, it's such a problem. Because the books they're selling, the video is there.

If you go to the brand of called headquarters, they're talking about the life story of Brandham. They're selling this life story. None of it's true. I mean, there are maybe five out of 50 details that are true in it.

The whole rest of it is fiction. So at what point can you say that the product they're selling, these life story videos and DVDs, etc., at what point is that false advertisement? And it turns into this really gray area because the government does not want to come into the church and take over the legalities of the product sold by the churches.

Yeah, on the one hand, it's a huge kind of freedom that you have there in the USA. On the other hand, it's a huge problem because on the Sean Reinshow, just a week ago, look it up. On the Sean Reinshow, there was a specialist. He has some kind of cultural roots as I have, like skating, hip-hop, music, stuff like that. And he was making marketing videos for companies like Oakley, the Sunglasses company, like Snowboarding, all the wide stuff.

And after he came to faith, he made some experiences with guys like Joel Osteen, like praising you, the heaven on earth, just give me your 10th. Give me your money and you will get it 10 fold back, yeah. And so he started a business specializing in exposing these guys with the help of the CIA because there's a interest in the American state for not wire fraud, but tax fraud. So when everything can be called a church, is it a 401?

There's a special, like we have a Verein for you, it's a 401. But I think it's 501. 501 ruling. So as soon as you call it a church, you don't have to pay taxes anymore, yeah. And guys like Joel Osteen, let's take him as a prime example, know that and started to make a business out of it. And one of the examples in the Sean Ryan show was when this guy was interviewing guys in the jail, some of them were really talking like when I'm out of jail, I don't found a new mafia, I just found a church. That's the bigger scam.

Unbelievable. And that's exactly what we are experiencing now with these young, uneducated people that don't have the time or the experience, nor the wisdom to read the Bible for themselves and understand what they are reading. Absolutely. And the fact that this has an build people to literally turn their structures of church into a business and pray upon the people in such a way that literally it is false advertisement what they're doing.

It's so troubling that this has been allowed to continue for so long. And no matter which trail of history you go into, every one of those histories goes into this entertaining form of speech.

You find the old revivals that happened throughout the history of the United States, some in different various countries. What happened was there was somebody who had a motivational speaker as what he was. Got a lot of people very excited and created what is really could be considered a rally.

You get a bunch of people rallying around what you're saying, but using the word Christ with it. And some of these movements turned out awful, but the speech, this pattern of speech is what attracted the people, not the God that they were pretending to announce.

I'm very outspoken of this. I would say let's take for example, Mormons or here's a very interesting, I talked to a friend of mine a few weeks ago. And I explained to her that in Germany we now have a problem of some kind of lost language.

It wasn't the past when you were reading a lot. In literature there was a difference between let's say the badwin people, the people from Persia and the Mohamedana. So older literature would make a huge difference between a Muslim and let's say a badwin or a Persian.

This difference is no longer. You don't find it in literature, you don't find it in the common language, every day language, you don't find this difference in the media. So we are putting badwin people, Persian people in the same matching part with Muslims.

And I'm sorry, Muslims are no Christians, don't believe in the same God as we do, don't believe in the same Abraham, don't believe in the same God as the Jews. Let's say a completely different thing, just like the Mormons, there are even similarity, very interesting similarities between the history of the Mormons and the history of the Quran and Muhammad, their entire narrative is very similar and their teachings are wild, the conclusions are wild.

So when you said a few minutes ago, there's this very strange gray area in spiritual matters, this is some kind of battle I am fighting right now. And you asked a question at which point is something not healthy?

anymore. So if you take a sporty person doing two training sessions per week, going for work, having some time with the kids at the weekend, this is a healthy person. So they start to eat burgers with their colleagues at work, still a healthy person. They start to make party at the weekends and are eating burgers, still a healthy person. They start to make party, eat burgers, start smoking at the weekend when they're at the parties.

Is there still a healthy person? At which specific time can you not speak of a healthy person anymore? And it's very, you can make the same example for Christians. If you are what's to work for it, there's a huge movement of people that are coming off faith. There are two different movements. There is de-converting and deconstructing. De-constructing. So how many false narratives, false superficial views on Jesus, wrong language, wrong books, wrong teachings, false teachers make a Christian, not a Christian anymore. And that's very hard to say, very hard to tell. And in the end, it's not on us to say this person isn't

saved. It's really complex. I'm not using your words like it's really complex. There's a life story to it. There's faith to it, spirituality to it, language to it, culture to it. Absolutely. And that's a deeper topic that we could probably do in another podcast.

In fact, I just had an email today and I'll bet I had three last week on the same subject. There are people de-converting. And the problem is from the example that I'm giving, and I'm not trying to pick on somebody, but this is a very common example and this is how they all come. They see the people who are helping others escape calls, some of which are de-converting, some of which are just simply deconstructing. They see it as a problem because there's not a human controlling where they go. And the email specifically said, we have this problem with de-conversion and deconstructing because there isn't a human

that is helping them along their way. And the question is, for me, it's which God are they de-converting from is the first question because was it even a Christian God? In my opinion, many of them haven't been a Christian to begin with. And many of the people trying to help them also don't really understand the God that's in the Bible. But the bigger question is, the Holy Spirit is the one to take you on this journey.

not a human. And like you said, you can't say that somebody is not saved. How can you say this? Who can know this, but God? And who can know what journey that they have to put somebody through?

God may put somebody through very, very, very hard times, may even take them to the brink of hell and back so that they can have a greater story to tell others and go on and help other people to convert. So you can't really say that a human needs to be in control of this.

That's one of my topics that I get very emotional about because there are people who really, really fight whenever people are coming in contact with critical information. They want to stop it. They do not want the critical information out. And the easiest way to stop it is say, well, these people are they're leaving God and they need a human to be their leader to God.

I think you and I are good examples for God taking our hand, leading us the way, but we never let loose of this hand, right? God was leading us the way. I came to faith in a charismatic environment, strong charismatic environment, but I was still holding on to God.

I could make a difference between truth and people. And this kind of difference takes a lot of, and there's the topic again, maturity. Even let's say it's the same kind of maturity you need when you're on the battlefield of evangelizing people. Here's the good news.

I told you everything I know. And from that moment on, I'm no longer responsible. From that moment on, there must be God touching this person. There must be the Holy Spirit making the words I told them the truth. They will only recognize them as truth through the Holy Spirit. And that's not my responsibility. It takes a lot of maturity, it takes a lot of experience. It takes a lot of thought to be there and to wait for God, to reach out to this person after that happens. When you see the works of the Holy Spirit in this

person, you are responsible. Take them by their hand, show them the Bible, take them to your congregation, share time with them, share your table with them, things like that. But that takes a lot of maturity, experience, wisdom. And it takes a lot of trust and to trust the God that you believe.

Yeah, of course. The big thing, at the ocean. At the ocean, there may be somebody who's standing there calling out, there's danger. water, do not swim out there and there's somebody out there swimming. Well, this isn't the person who goes and rescues them. There's usually somebody else who comes with the rescue crew. So the people who are looking at religion and saying there's danger in this water, don't swim there. They may not be the minister who is helping to guide them or, you know, whatever is the person that, that, that this email is suggesting. But anyway, that could be another

topic for another day. I can probably think of 50 good topics you and I could do. Thank you so much for doing this. There's so much I can learn from this because I actually have to engage in the different language that that always always leads to new thoughts or new ways of describing things and by describing the things I learn a lot, by listening to you to your experiences, I learn a lot. The people that are engaging with me because of the interview, I learn a lot. That's a huge blessing for me. Well, it's extremely

fun to learn and grow and become a better person. So glad you're doing this. If you've enjoyed a show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.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.