Finding Authentic Faith After Leaving a Cult

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Branum.org and with me I have my co-host and friend Bob Scott, former co-founder of the Kansas City Fellowship and author of three books. The latest is some said they blundered, breaking my decades of silence on Mike Bickel, the Kansas City prophets, and the international house of prayer. Bob it's good to be back and to finally start going deeper into some of the mess in the chaos that is in the

church world today and you were talking, I guess it was two days ago, three days ago, but what we could talk about in this subject which is going to require me to open up a little bit more than I usually do. So that's good. It puts me off of my element. I don't do that very often. I try to just distance myself from the research, let the history speak for itself, but interestingly, this is a history that you don't know about me, but when my first YouTube channel launched, after I can't remember how long I had been in deprogramming when it did launch,

the cult eventually took that website down, that YouTube site down, they they attacked it in a very insidious and very highly technological way. So when it came down, all of the content came down with it. I had some backups, but in the end I just decided I would start with a clean slate anyway. But at that point in time, I had began a life that was so far out of my element. I was doing a 30 to 45 minute, I don't know what you would call it, the closest thing would be like a sermon at. But essentially what it was, I was going through the Bible, I was

trying to show and portray to the people who were listening, and there weren't a lot at that time. It grew to, you know, a significant size, but compared to what it is now, it's not a lot. But what I was trying to show and portray was that by misusing the Bible, which the cults were doing, then the Jesus that they were showing was not the Jesus of the Bible. And so I was walking through, basically my strategy was very simple. I was we were attending church. We actually went to a few different churches. But I would hear a sermon that was so far

different than what I grew up with for the same exact passage of Scripture. I would go back and I would read that passage. And then I would read sometimes the whole book, if it was short, but mostly the starting point within the book where the segment changes and the context changes to fit the statement that they were preaching and then read until that section ended. So I was getting the full context of the passage and low and behold what they were preaching in these, I'm not going to mention the denominations, but what they were preaching in the churches was the

exact opposite of what I was hearing in the cults and what I was hearing in the cults was the exact opposite of what I was reading if you read it in context for itself. So I began this journey with a 30 to 45 minute sermon at. But here's the problem that I had. And I'm setting this up for what we're going to talk about today. The problem that I had was the Jesus they were showing was a different Jesus. By no means was it the same as the Bible. And yet I was working with support

groups where there were people who were entering the very first stage of their journey, which if you compare it to the old, you know, the Old Testament where they're burning down the temples, they're literally coming in with an axe and they're tearing down false Jesus in their heads.

When you do that, what's left? You've tore down the false Jesus in your head. Well now you're starting with a clean slate. And the more I was talking about these things, it was it was very abrasive to a person who first enters that journey. They almost like the best way I can compare it is if you are dealing, if you're an abused spouse and you finally get your divorce and somebody says, hey, let's go dating. I'm going to show you some men. And the woman has been beaten, you know, brutally beaten. She's not going to want to instantly go see other men.

People who are brutally, verbally attacked in these cult churches, which is what is happening, beaten over the head with the false Jesus. They don't want to hear the name Jesus again. So what I'm setting all of this up is we get, in fact, I just got another one today. We get the emails in the comments so frequently. You guys expose the history and the truth that is very painful to understand, but you're not leading people towards what they should go to after leaving a cult, which is the setup for today. Interestingly, you and I both have experienced this recently. I

actually had multiple deaths in my family just back to back to back here recently. Very painful. When you are around the cult people in that setup and that scenario, There's a different thing that happens, which is unusual.

The people who are gathering together around the grief, the burden that's happening in the funeral, the false Jesus that they bring with them suddenly takes a back row seat to the human that's there in the room, and things become altogether different.

So this makes another level of complexity, which you and I can talk through, but funerals change everything, and I know that you recently have gone through the same sort of thing. Well, yeah, because my Facebook account was hacked way back in March, I haven't really had a platform to communicate with a lot of my friends, and the news was, is that my mother passed away a week ago.

I think, yeah, a couple of there's, anyways, and so it was interesting because a lot of my family's Catholic, so I get into Chicago, and they want to have a funeral. And I looked at my cousins and I went, my mom was 97 years old.

We lived an amazing life. I have so many wonderful stories. You all loved her. Why are we having a dursh? I want to have a celebration of life. I'm not interested in a funeral.

And they all kind of stared at me, and then they kind of smiled and went, I guess you have a point here? And I went, yes, we're celebrating 97 years of a life well lived.

I'm not here depressed. Now am I going to miss my mom absolutely, but my mom has been reunited with a whole lot of people that she loved, and there's very few people at 97 in her life that are left, that are her peers.

So I said, I'm happy for my mother, right? So that was really interesting. What it reminded me of, actually, was a famous quote by Marcus Aurelius, who actually probably didn't say this, but he gets credited for this, which is this.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth, right? And so the reason why I use that quote a lot is I've had, you know, for 40 years, worked in the whole issue of racial and conflict reconciliation, and a lot of people approach things dogmatically as though they have the facts, right?

And so we have a collision of facts, and I try to explain to people, I go, no, you have a perspective. You won't know if you have a fact until you get on the other side, and you have the complete revelation, right?

But right now, you just have a perspective, and remember that, so back off your dogmatic there's a little bit. and lighten up, and let's just have a conversation, right? So anyways, we had a really beautiful time, but a couple of things I thought I might share with our audience that I thought were interesting takeaways from the whole thing.

There were three things. First of all, well, there's more than that. First of all, it was very funny because my mom wanted the battle hymn of the Republic to open her funeral. And so it was hilarious because everybody's kind of sitting there and I could see the puzzle look on their face, right?

They're like, what in the heck is going on here? Nobody plays the battle hymn of the Republic at their funeral, right? And so I had, you know, I was the first guy to get up and speak, and I had to explain to everyone.

I said, listen, I said, you all know my mom is this sweet, grandmotherly, great-grandmotherly woman. I said, but my mom was on the forefront of civil rights. I could tell you stories of where my mom took her black lady friends and marched them right up to the front seat of the church or at a meeting and just dared people in the 1960s to challenge her.

I mean, she was that kind of woman. The whole Catholic abuse thing broke in Milwaukee where we grew up at St. John's Boy School for the Deaf. I mean, that just sent my mom into, you know, into war mode.

You know, that was one of the reasons why she dragged us all out of the Catholic church, you know, in 1970. She was mad, right? So, you know, people have always wondered, you know, why are you so active in Africa and issues that deal with, you know, injustice and all that?

I think I get it from her, but I was reminding, well, I was sharing actually with family and friends that I have a buddy from high school that works in the hospice industry or he did, he just retired.

So, he's 40 years, he's worked in this world and he's transitioned 6,000 people into death. And I asked him a time I go, John, so what's the takeaway? Like, you sat here, you've had a front row seat of people dying and what, you know, what's your takeaway?

Like, give me one or two things that you can look back and go, oh my gosh, this is so vivid, right? These truths are so vivid or these perspectives are so vivid. He said, the first one is, is that when you run out of time, you re-evaluate how you spent your time and a whole lot of people wish they would have pursued and invested more in their relationships than their pursuit of status and stuff.

So, take that piece of wisdom, go home and hug your spouse.

Love your kids, love your grandkids, like he just said, it's just amazing how many people who were very successful regret it because they wish they would have been more relational. So that was one takeaway. The other thing he said Which was really interesting. He said I can always tell how people lived by how they died And he said, what do you mean? And he said if you were a sore of discord if you were self-centered If you were somebody who had a big ego, he goes He goes it's crazy what goes on at the hospice. I mean, there's conflict everywhere he goes

I can't tell you how many times I've had to call the police But he goes to lovers of God who were lovers of others who laid their lives down and cared about other people They have a glorious death and all of their Family members celebrate them and so that Reminded me of my home my mom's situation and I thought well mom you did you lived a life well done You know you lived a great life. So that was really good, but then Where this kind of dovetails into what we want to talk about I started having a conversation with my cousins and

And I think because they know that I've been a church planner in the past They were starting to ask me a few questions and one of the things that came up was How do you find a church?

And as you know, what do you mean? they go well We're having a hard time here because you know We're trying to find churches and everyone we walk into feels like I'm going to a theater production Some sort of a show it's it's just like weird It's it's like it's not what I Thought church should be or what I was hoping church would be and some of them are trapped Sitioning out of some more to you know traditional denominations. We're looking for something a little bit more lively and what they've ended up finding on the evangelical or

You know You know charismatic Pentecostal side is this production called a Sunday morning service and It really was discouraging and so one of the questions that I Found myself thinking about on the drive home was well, what should a church be and if I was looking for a church What would be the things I would want?

But you know what I mean? It's and the reason it it kind of also I thought would be a great conversation was this people on Our feet have asked that question, you know There's a number of people that have come out of cults or bad church situations that have made comments like well What do we look for?

You know, and so I thought well, that's a conversation. I love to have with John because he's one of those guys. So, you know, my question to you is, is when you came out of the cult, what were you looking for?

You know, it's funny. I mentioned I had an email just today that I was answering with this very question. And some of what you just said reminds me of a phone conversation that I had yesterday with the same question.

This, this, I kid you not. This comes in every single day. I get somebody in a comment feed or an email. I try to respond to everyone equally if I, you know, sometimes I get backed up.

But when I left the cult, I was shell shocked. I did not really know what I was looking for. And to put it into proper perspective, my family just went through, like I said, multiple deaths in the family.

In fact, one of them, in my head, it's still yesterday. I'm still that much suffering. My grandmother and my grandfather both died on my mother's side. And these were the people that I was closest to in my life.

They were, they were the best people. I'm still struggling with my grandmother's death. And I had the conversation with my wife about a week and a half ago or so. And she reminded me that that was a year ago, John.

And so I'm still dealing with it. But I'm dealing with it freshly because her husband, my grandfather also died. So in the complexity in my life, I had my grandfather who was the pastor of the Brandham Tabernacle.

When he died, it was exactly, I'm told, as you said, I wasn't allowed to be there because, you know, once you expose a cult, the cult doesn't like you. I'm told by people that were there as he was dying, that the fighting got so bad, attorneys got involved.

So on one side of the family, you have that going on. On the other side of the family, I am, whenever my grandmother died, because of the cult situation, the people who came in to help the funeral processions, literally blocked me and my family from coming.

I could not go grieve my, her brothers and sisters who were not part of the cult, because they wanted to keep me out. They blocked everyone. Nobody can come. So the whole family's up in arms.

Why won't they let us pay our final respects? So that's part of the reason, yeah, that's part of the reason I'm still freshly suffering with that. Well, then my grandfather died. Same exact thing.

I can't go even to the funeral. And he was my best friend for, until I came out of the cult, he was my best friend. My grandfather on my mother's side was very genuine, a very genuine loving person.

Yes, he was an occult, but he would associate with other people of all kinds of different religions and faiths. And he would treat them equally with the same respect, which is largely why I have modeled myself after him When I talk to anybody who's on the podcast. I don't care who you are. I will treat you with the same respect I got that from my grandfather so in my life you've got those two opposing forces It's it's like the Thor in the the Loki it really is So when I left the cult what do you look for? Do you look for a Thor? Do you look for a Yoke?

Thor a Loki? Well, I was still confused by the denominations thing What what is a denomination? Why a denomination? Why are there people that segment themselves from other Christians? So I wanted to understand that further We were taught falsely falsely in the cult and it appears to be very common among all of the cults You're taught this absolute truth. You must have the absolute truth and you must have it now There is an urgency if you don't have it now Then you're risking your whole family going to hell so you must have this urgent urgent correctness, right?

And they teach that the denominations think they have the urgent correctness Which is a total false statement denominations don't look at religion this way So I just wanted to experience denominations So when one of the first things I do when people ask me what church do I go to after leaving a cult?

My first response is this don't pick one Go to several see what you like take notes take notes This is what I agree with this is what I disagree with but be very open To explore the reasons why you disagree with them Because a year from now two years five years even ten years or more you may suddenly come to the realization that Yeah, I disagreed with that, but now that I have a better context of what the scripture means I may fully agree with whatever this is that I'm in disagreement now So the answer to your question is

My advice is don't pick one try several and see what you like see what you dislike Well, what thing for sure is I think

We all got to figure out what our value system is You know what our values are and the reason why is your values are your Sort of your plumb line, right of how you evaluate things, right? So you have these values So what are you what are your values because it's important that you align yourself with people that have Similar values, right?

So what are those you know And we have to be careful here because as we're talking about You know, there's different stages of life When I was a young dad With three kids You know, a church that had a dynamic children's ministry was really at the top of my value system because I valued my kids, right?

They were up there. And so, you know, I wanted my kids to have fun. You know, I wanted their spiritual experience to be enjoyable. And so, I found myself, you know, even when we were building Kansas City Fellowship, it's like, you know, here I am.

I'm the guy hiring everyone. It's like, I got to hire the most dynamic children's ministry pastor I can find, right? The guy that knows how to do all the puppets and keep the kids excited and, right, be entertaining, right?

So that, and that was kind of my mentality back then. You know, now that I'm nearly 70, and I have a whole different, you know, way I look at things and what I'm looking for.

So I want to be respectful of the fact that where you are in life often impacts your view of what you want in a church. One thing we probably should say, because we don't say it, because we spend a lot of time kind of pointing out some of the mess, the significant mess that's out there.

But there's a lot of good churches. There's a lot of good people in the ministry. There's some real problematic people, people that I find absolutely lacking in integrity and motivated by self-centeredness. And those people, I just, you know, I just have a radar go off inside of me like get out of here, you know.

But there's also a lot of really good people. So one of the things for me, and again, remember, this is my perspective, I'm not saying these are the facts, this is just my perspective.

One of the top things I look for in a church is are the people authentic, right? You know, one of my real problems, and I think this came out in my discussion with my cousins so much of the modern church world, because of what we have talked about in the past, the introduction of church consultants into the ministry world, where they've focused all of this energy in your methodology, right?

And your process is in your procedures, and your marketing, and all this kind of stuff, because the end goal is to grow your church, right? I'm just not a guy that I know that goes in the ministry that doesn't go into it to grow his church.

So they're being motivated by growth, because growth in their mind establishes whether they are sick, successful, right? In other words, my church doesn't grow on a failure. That's pretty much the ministry world. That's how you get evaluated. Right or wrong, it's just how it is. And so there's this enormous pressure on guys in the ministry to grow their churches. The problem with that, when that becomes the number one focus, is authenticity. A lot of times get sacrificed and presentation and facade and image and all of that then becomes the sort of dominant focus.

And at my age, at this particular point, and I think you're probably like this, you can smell it. You can sense it, right? You know, I was thinking about what you were talking about, about your exodus out of the cult. What's hard about what a lot of us have been through is how it happens is we get teaboned. It doesn't happen nicely, right? You're never gently let down.

It's not like you're having this wonderful conversation over a period of time and you change your mind. It comes out of crisis. Right? It comes out of crisis in relationships, crisis in faith, crisis. And it goes way backwards before it goes forward. Right? It's a massive, you know, people talk about deconstruct. I go, no, it's not deconstruct. It's destruction. Right? It's not like, you know, okay, let's, what layer by layer peel this back, right? No, it's a bomb. It's a, it's a tea bone, right? And it's a car wreck. That's what I was trying to explain to people when my friends

got killed in Zimbabwe. It was a train wreck at high speed, right? You're, you're so excited about the world you're in and you're so focused and you're a hundred percent committed to fulfilling the vision and then suddenly you get teaboned out of nowhere and discover everything you thought isn't real. That's devastating. Right? It's, it's crushing relationships blow up, you know, finances blow up, careers blow up, you know, your whole image of God blow, everything just blows up.

And so one of the things that I try to get people to understand in that situation because they panic, right? There's, you go into a panic mode because everything, it's like you're suddenly disoriented, right? And when you lose your disoriented, you panic, right? Your fear becomes this thing.

Well, I try to calm people down and go, hey, you're normal. Like this, what you're going through right now is normal. Welcome to the human journey. Welcome to what millions of other people have gone through already.

You're not weird, you're not odd, you're not whatever. Yes, I get it. This is painful. Yes, this is costly. Yes, this is going to change your whole, I mean, everything in your life is going to be affected by this. I get it, but embrace it, right? Embrace it, right? Go for it. But what it does, and I think what you're talking about is what I call spiritual scar tissue. Funny story, I was in the Boy Scouts when I was a kid, right? And they made us go camping in the winter. This is Wisconsin, you know? You know, we got to be men. So we're going out there at sub-zero temperatures, sleeping

intense. Well, guess what, we ended up doing. We spent most of our time around a fire, trying to stay warm, right? But it was the weirdest thing because as I stood close to the fire, it felt like I was getting these little bites on my skin. And I was really confused because I'm like 11 years old, right? And I'm like, it's the middle of winter. How could I be getting bug bites?

Right? So anyways, finally, I went back to my tent to go to sleep and I took my flashlight out and looked at all my bug bites. And it turned out that it wasn't bug bites. It was scars. And what would it, what was weird? And that's because just FYI, it was that kid, you know, who did all the things he weren't supposed to do. So, you know, like I had three broken arms and, you know, five head concussions and like I was that kid, you know what I mean? So I had a lot of scars, you know? So

anyways, but I realized, I like, oh my gosh, my scar tissue is far more sensitive than the other tissue. And so the stinging was because of the heat was, you know, was causing my scar tissue to hurt.

Well, I think that natural phenomena plays out in our spiritual journeys as well. And I think one of the things that you develop after you've gone through a very painful experience is very sensitive scar tissue, right? So makes going to new churches or having new experiences really difficult because there's certain things that you then have to experience, that's thing. It's like, it's like really familiar and I don't like this, right? And there's this instinct you have, at least I get it. It's like, I got to get out of here. You know, this is painful. Like, I don't

like this feeling, right? And so it's like, I got to go. So I have to confess that I have probably walked out of quite a few church services about 10 minutes into the message going, I can't do this.

So for those of you that can identify with this, that doesn't make me a bad Christian. It just makes me someone who's very, very sensitive to things. And the first thing for me is a lack of authenticity.

I can smell it a mile away, right? I just, I can sense it. It's like something is really off here. Like this just isn't authentic. This person, great presentation. You're very handsome. You're very dynamic. You seem to know the scriptures really well.

You're putting on quite a show, but there's something about this. I'm sorry for cussing, but this is bullshit. So I have a BS meter. It goes off inside of me. I can't help it.

Now, is it more sensitive than probably the average person? Yes. Because I've been through some painful stuff in my life, right? Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter rain charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, William-Branham.org.

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You know, as I said at the beginning, I was going to open up a little bit more than I usually do. And I'm going to try to be very cautious here because I don't want to step on anybody's toes. But when we first left the cult, we went into a church, I've talked about this one a few times, that they wanted very much, even though it was not a charismatic church, they wanted to restore pieces of what felt like the five-fold ministry hierarchy of authoritarian control.

In fact, the last sermon that we listened to when I was there, they took the book of Philemon and changed the context. And the whole sermon was literally this. In fact, this was a quote from the sermon. Paul could have pulled out his apostle card and came down hard on this situation.

Because If he was an apostle and the whole sermon was structured around the idea that if you're a Christian in a church, you need to submit to the authority of your pastors because they're your shepherds, which is essentially the shepherding movement all over again.

This was horrific. I walked out of that church. I started going to new churches. One of them, they had a very grace-filled sermon. I think I've mentioned this a few times. I went to five services there.

They were talking about how we're in the new covenant and all of these other churches, not naming names, are preaching Old Testament law and trying to restore the Old Testament laws and ways that they should not because we're in the new covenant.

Then sermon number five, he comes out and he says, now I'm going to talk about something that's going to make everyone in here uncomfortable, how we need to pay tithe. Not teaching the part of the tithing system where the priest gives it back to the people.

I got up and walked out and on the way out, I grabbed a piece of paper, which was their financial report. They were required by law to publish it, so they did. They were about to lose their 501-3C, had planted a massive mega-church when headfirst went under, I guess, in this and ran out of money, so needed money to fund the expense to cover the expense to save the 501-C3.

This was a big mess, so all of this to say, my experience coming out of the cult wasn't a good one. When I started going to churches, I did find a good one, and I'm not going to mention the denomination name, which I'll explain why here in a minute.

At the same time, all of this is going on, and I'm doing these 30, 45-minutes sermon ads, while I'm starting to realize two things that are significant. Number one, as I'm doing it, I'm trying to understand the theology in its correctness, according to the Bible, but there's so much of my background that was hindering that.

I realize that unless I go to study theology for a decade, I'm going to be ineffective at doing this, so instead I'm going to try to help people out of the cult and let people who are far more experienced than me do the things that they're better suited to do than me.

While I'm doing this, I encountered a problem. Well, two problems. The first of which is, I had been bruised like you had described with this Jesus that wasn't the real one. This was a domineering, very angry Jesus who would come down and condemn you, who wanted you to suffer.

If you didn't get anything wrong, we're being taught the God of vengeance and wrath. This God of vengeance is in the back of my head, and when I hear the These sermons, I could go to a mainstream Christian church, and it's very odd because they're preaching the right Jesus, but every once in a while, if they get an angry itch in their year, they'll come out of the angry Jesus comes out of their mouth.

Well, I'm sensitive to this because I've been bruised by this, so I'm sitting in a good church that has a good sermon, good crowd loving people, and suddenly I see the dark side of the pastor come out.

And I come unglued, like you, I get up and walk out. I still struggle with this. So while all of that is going on, I'm also dealing with cult members who are escaping, we formed this underground network of cult support.

So I'm helping the people, I'm just pointing them to resources, all of this stuff. What happens is men who, and mostly men, but some women who had the, whatever the human trade is that they want to be very overpowering, overbearing, and in control, wanted to control the doctrine of the group, and it was not a group established for doctrine.

So people were coming in contact with the same authoritarian control that they had left, but now from my peers in the group who were helping with the support networks. And this turned into a mess because we had people in the support networks who were suffering because they had the wrong Jesus.

They had the God of wrath type Jesus in the back of their heads. We're starting to hear similarities in the support networks from people who are supposed to be trying to help, but are actually doing more damage than good.

One of them contacted me and actually more than one. I think there were three in a row within the course of a month said, John, I know that we've left this thing and it was entirely wrong, but if Jesus looks like this, I won't know part of it.

That's a narcissistic God. And he left Christianity forever. I'll never forget that first one. It hurt. That's painful. While I'm dealing with this, I'm still dealing with the narcissistic God. And I'm trying to hang on to that.

I'm trying to some part of that must be real, right? But it turns out there wasn't an aspect of that God that was real. Eventually, I came to the same point of those who were burned in the support groups.

I had to tear down the false God. At that point, I had no God. I had no Jesus. I had nothing. So when I tore this down, now I'm in a support group with these other people who are just so controlling and domineering and I'm watching all of this.

And I said, look, I'm going to Jesus win. And what did he do? He went to the people who were open. pressed us. The centers, the prostitutes, the ones nobody wanted. I left all of those support groups and I went into the one group that was remaining where it didn't matter if you were atheist, if you were Buddhist, if you were agnostic, whatever you are. I went into that one and I said, look, I've been burned by all of this stuff. I'll help manage this and I did. For several years until I guess last year, I finally walked away from it. But I had been burned, I had been bruised

and where I'm heading with all of this is people ask me, where do you go? What do you do? And it's very difficult for me to tell them the very first thing you have to do is the God, the false God that you had programmed in your head, you have to get rid of that. And that will be actually, for me it was more painful than walking away from the cult. I had to tear down the false God in my head. Did you have an etch of sketch when you were a kid? I did.

So you'll understand this. I call it the etch of sketch moment for our generation because almost all of us had an etch of sketch, which if people don't know what that is, it was like this little thing with two knobs and you could draw things on it by controlling that. Anyways, when you got done making something, what did you do? You shook it, right? And everything disappeared.

So when I deal with our age, I'm always going, well, you're having an etch of sketch moment. Now look at me. And they start laughing because it's like if they had one, they know exactly what I'm talking about. It's like you built this thing for so many years, right? And then all of a sudden, you're doing this. And it's like everything's gone, right? And you don't start all over again.

And that's hard. That's a hard journey. Not only, well, it's hard for a couple of reasons. One, you're not naive anymore. But the second reason why it's a hard journey is you're wounded to the point where you can barely function. So it's not like you're starting in neutral.

You're starting in a deficit, like a huge hole. Because you're hurt and you're wounded and you're angry and you're disillusioned. And in some cases, it's like God, if you even exist, I don't even want to be around you. Like I am not it. If this is your world, I'm not it. I was there when I was 11. I told God, you know, take a hike. I said a little bit more graphically than that. But I mean, you know, that's because Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, all kinds of stuff happened in 68.

I remember it. That was disillusioned. I got to tell you another story that I think kind of ties into this authenticity issue. Especially in the 80s, it was the whole thing. Everybody is trying to be apostles' prophets. That became a big deal. I don't remember that before.

that it might have been there, probably you guys had it in your cult world, but for me as a Catholic and then an existentialist and then even as an evangelical, it didn't, it wasn't a thing, right?

Until I came to Kansas City in 82 and we launched the church and suddenly I was presented with all this and there was this pressure coming from so many so many in that charismatic, panel-costal world to define ourselves as a possible prophet, like we had to slot ourselves into one of the five full ministries, right?

Well, are you familiar with home arcards? Yes. So, home arc is headquartered here in Kansas City. And in the 1980s, they had a New Zealand photographer named Ann Gettys who had all of these images of little children that she dressed in adult clothes.

It was very cute, right? So, you'd have a little boy kind of wearing his dad suit, right, and his baggy pants with a little rose handing me to a little girl that was dressed like a maw, you know what I mean?

So, she, and it was, I mean, this thing was huge for home arc. I mean, huge, right? Because everybody loved these images, they were sentimental, they were cute, they were everything. So, I've been a home arc store and again, you know, take it for what it's worth.

I felt like God talked to me, like I had this impression, like I felt like the Holy Spirit was saying something to me because I hear this little voice inside of me go, that's you guys.

And I'm thinking, that's us? Yeah, you're one of these. Your little children pretending to be adults. Yeah. And I was so impacted by that because again, I wasn't even thinking along those lines. My whole focus was, who am I, what am I?

You know, am I a possible prophet event? You know, where do I fit in this? And suddenly, I'm hearing this little voice inside of me going, you're a kid.

So, anyways, I come back to the church and we're having a staff meeting and during the staff meeting, I share my experience and oh my God, I tell you, you could have dropped the pit or a feather in the room, like it was just dead quiet.

Like nobody knew what to do with that. And I just said, I'm not trying to discourage any of us, but can we be so reminded here? Like can we just like have an adult conversation and really evaluate, are we really apostles?

We're 20 years old, right? It's like, are we really prophets, right? The only thing that's been hard about that, honestly, and again, I'm just being vulnerable here, is, and I've wrestled with this, is, like, do I have an idealistic view of what those things are?

Because I don't really know anybody that's any of those things, right? And whenever I, again, this goes back to this authenticity thing because I find myself really struggling when guys stand up or women for that matter and say, I'm an apostle.

There's just something goes off inside of me, like, uh-uh, right? It's just like, I cannot embrace that. Why? Because I have the standard of what an apostle should be that's significantly more influential, more impactful, or whatever.

Or even profit, right? That's one of the reasons why, despite what Mike was presenting to everyone at Kansas City Fellowship that we had three prophets. I kept saying, no, we have three guys that are wannabe, right?

Three guys that have various giftings, but I would not consider any of them as being profit. Why? Because I had this standard, in fact, what got me into trouble is that I kept trying to explain to people, guys like Alexander Solz and Eatson, were far more prophetic than anybody in the church world because he was prophesying exactly in 1970 where America would be today, right?

These are guys who spoke to the nation, right? And had this plumb line, right? And called this back to certain things. And there's some, but I don't see them in the church world. I see them outside the church world.

Now, are they Christians, yes? But none of them would define themselves as prophets, which makes me go, that's why you're a prophet, right? In other words, it's like they don't take themselves seriously like that.

So that's why this authenticity thing is so huge to me because it's like, quit pretending. Like it's like, sometimes I feel like I walk into church and it's like a big theater stage or it's a production and we're pretending, right?

It's like, we're all want to be. And what I really am interested in, I get myself in trouble for saying this all the time. Give me the broken over the, you know, the holy.

Because the truth of it is, I've never actually met anyone that's really holy. I know they all claim it and they do all the kind of things that don't smoke, they don't drink, they don't dance.

They read their Bible every day, they pray every day. Like they have a routine that makes them look holy, right? But then as I drill down in their lives, I find out the absolute mess that's behind the scenes, right?

Where, you know, I've spent years dealing with drug addicts and... and people in prison and all that. And there's a certain authenticity and brokenness that comes from people like that. And it's like, I find that, you know, I find broken people just way more real.

In fact, now I'm gonna really get myself in. You talk about, you got me opening up here. In fact, I have said to my friends, why the heck don't we open a church in a bar?

Because I find bars way more authentic than churches. Right? It's like everybody at the bar is just kind of, you know. And it's just, especially after they have a few drinks, right? And then it's just like, and I'm like, I just struggle with this.

These are things I struggle with. So it's like for me, looking, you know, it's like the things I always look for. So let me, I'll just give you a list and you can just jump off on any one of these things.

But I look for places where the church and the leadership are authentic. That's kind of at the top of my list. I'm looking for places whose priority is to build relationships over population. Like, who's really interested in me?

Am I a statistic, you know what I mean? Am I, am I bragging rights? Am I another number, am I another notch in your belt? Do you even give them about me and my life and what I'm going through?

Do you care? Like, do you ask questions that are probing and drill down that make me know that you're interested in what's actually going on in my life? Or do you just want to give me a nice Christian?

Bless you, brother. God loves you, right? So again, I'm just laying it out there. I look for places that are populated with peacemakers, healers, and unifiers. People who want to resolve conflict, right? People who want to mend relationships.

People who work really hard to hold diversity and harmony. I don't want everybody to agree with me. I don't want everybody to have the same perspective to me, why? Because I want to learn.

I want to understand. I want people to have a different point of view. But I don't want people that who are so insecure and so arrogant that they need to be right and so everything is a war.

Everything's a religious war to prove me wrong. Just share your perspective with me. I, that's what I want, right? I avoid narcissistic leaders like to plague. And like I just said, I got a BS meter that just goes off.

I've been around so many of them. And unfortunately, and again, I'm, get myself in trouble here. Unfortunately, they tend to be in a certain population within the church world. Usually, guys running churches of over 5,000 people.

I hate to say that, but I'm just telling you after 40 years in this world, there's a high probability that the guy that you are going to see at your mega church that's very entertaining probably is not very good at interpersonal relationships and very good at the show.

These are the P.T. Barnett, right? So I avoid the Sunday show. If I go and I feel like this is a show, I'm out of there. I look for churches that keep it simple, right?

You know, there's 40,000 different denominations out there. I mean, what does that say about us, brother John? You know, you need to baptize by immersion. You can't sprinkle. I don't know. You don't agree with me.

I'm going to go start another denomination, right? You know, it's just that kind of a thing. You know, something, again, this is another weird bobbism, but I just find communion in the modern church-rolled interstate, because what is communion based on?

Like the whole communion right for whatever you want to call it, ceremony is based on something. And you know what it was? Fellowship. Yeah, but it's the last supper, right? And what was that?

That's a Jewish festival that's family and relationships, like you're just talking about. And it's not a 10-minute ceremony. It's a whole evening of friendship and fellowship and celebrating our history, right? It's this huge and it's relational.

A couple of weeks ago, I go to this church and it's communion. And the other guys come by and they hand me a packet. And I was like, what? It looks like a dip you get at Chick-fil-A, right?

Is this barbecue or hot mustard, right? And I opened it up and one signs a little cracker and the other signs wine. And I'm like, oh my God, it's even got to the point now where we've got a whole product.

We've got a communion product now. We have a whole industry around communion. And I'm like, God, I can't do this. I just can't do this anymore. It's like, can we just get back to having a meal?

Like, can we have fellowship? You know what I mean? It's like, what happened all that? Sorry, I'm ranting, but it's just really bothering me, right? It's like, we get back to simplicity again. Well, you're leading me into the last point I was going to make.

Interestingly, it's quite the same as yours, but a little bit deeper, I'll go with this. What you're describing is community. You need to find a church. If you're looking for a church and you're asking us, where do you go after leaving a cult?

You find one that's a healthy community, and you'll know if it's healthy. If you walk in and you have to conform to their community, it's not a healthy community. If they accept you, they welcome you, show up in dirty bib overalls and see how you're accepted.

If you're in healthy community, it doesn't matter what you look like, dress like. It doesn't matter if you walk in and you're the lowest center on earth. That's what Christianity was for to save the center.

To walk up and look like a lowest center and see how they treat you, but deeper than that. In the Brannum cult, and this is common among many Pentecostal circles, we had the communion, but we also had the footwashing.

Picture this scene, everybody in these Pentecostal style cults, they go bay, they put on their fresh cologne, they're wearing these fancy suits and ties and clean socks, and they walk in. You need to wash each other's feet.

And everybody's getting down on their knees and they're washing clean feet. Now they're referencing the passage in the Bible, you're familiar with it, where he's doing this. But picture of the ancient world, this was the lowest, nastiest, grossest thing that you could ever do.

These were people who wore sandals, who might have stepped in camel dew. This was nasty. This was the lowest thing. The concept behind, if you understand what the passage means, it means that I'm Christ, you want to become like me, then you need to become a servant for others.

Not a hierarchy where you're esteemed, the apostle, the prophet, all of these things. But see, what has happened in the churches? People aren't asking the right questions. They're not coming in saying, why are we doing this?

What is this tradition we're in? I said I was going to open up, I'm open up way more than I don't think I ever have like this. One of the shell shocks that I had, when I started going into mainstream churches, I do not understand their culture and their tradition is Christian tradition in America.

Every denomination seems to share some of these traits and beliefs and things that they do I didn't. So I go into what is this, why are you doing this? And they'll give me passages of Scripture, but if you read the passage, it's like the footwashing thing.

That doesn't make sense. That's not even close to resembling what it was. So we had this tradition footwashing, well, Jesus is saying become the servant. What I tell people when they leave and they go to another church, do you feel like the pastor is your equal?

Much like you said when you were talking about the children wearing the clothes, I know many pastors. I know many people, so-called prophets, etc. These are guys just like you and me. They put on their pants the same way I do.

Yeah, exactly. There is. In fact, some of them, I would say, even back in the cult, I would say they were far worse of a center than half their congregations. They were doing awful, awful things. But the people had put them up on this pedestal where you go in, you had to submit to their authority because they're greater than you. They're more spiritual. When I started entering mainstream churches, the first one we attended absolutely the same way. The minister had, I believe, I'm not a psychologist, but I believe there were some narcissistic traits. I felt it. You can just feel it when it's like

this, right? I was uncomfortable with this. Second one wasn't that way, but they had some other issues, but you can really tell the churches where the minister is down to your level and the minister who wants you to respect him as higher than your level. If you're going into a church and your minister wants to become, wants you to believe that he's more of a human than you are, this is the wrong place to be run screaming. Well, I think the Apostle Paul kind of defined it pretty vividly because he defined himself as a bond servant, right? I mean, that's how he introduced himself,

right? I'm a slave to Christ. I'm at the bottom, right? So I think you're absolutely right. I think that's what we got to look for, you know? So much talk to me. I feel uncomfortable. I've opened up way too much. Well, you know what? I think people will appreciate it honestly. I mean, I think right now, I mean, obviously with everything that's happened with the Charlie Kirk thing that happened last week, I think there's a lot of rawness right now. I mean, I think a lot of people are feeling very raw and I think are interested in having authentic and honest conversations.

One thing I will share, one of the reasons why I encourage people to embrace the disillusionment, and the access catch moment where you start off at zero. I have to tell you, you know, I grew up Catholic and then quit going to church as an 11 year old and then had a spiritual experience at 18 and then got shipped off the Bible school. So here I am, you know, and as the spark colorado at Bible school, only to discover I'm the only kid at the school who didn't grow up in an evangelical home who didn't grow up in Sunday school, who didn't know. Like all the other kids really didn't

want to be there, but their parents were sending them there, right? For their Christian education. So the reason why this is so funny was is that the very first day of school. The teacher said, turn to Luke 12th, I have no idea, or Luke 12th is, but I remembered that all books have a table of contents, right, so I flip over to the table of contents and I'm going down through all these books and I get to Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, right, oh, I turn to the guy next to me and go, where's the Atlanteans?

Yeah, he just looked at me, like, you idiot, right, and it was like the most contest ending, look, but I was so sincere, right, because it was like, I said, oh, my go, there's all these ancient civil, where's the Atlanteans, why are they not in here, right? And he's just like, look at me, right, and then he just realizes, I'm really struggling, so he just begrudgingly grabs my Bible, flips it over to Luke 12th, throws it back on my desk and I go, oh my God, I didn't know the Good Samaritan story was in the Bible, and everybody in the class just starts laughing at me, right, because I'd grown

up Catholic, right, and they always said, reading from the gospel of, but nobody ever told us what a gospel was. So I never knew that a gospel was in a Bible, right? So my whole point in this is that my introduction to the Bible was me with no prejudices, no preconditions, so I'm identifying with what you're talking about in your journey, because you start off like everything's open, everything's a pot, right, you don't come at it like I know, because here's the problem, is that I realized that so much of Christianity and so much of

what happens in church is you're told where to look, you're told what to see, and you're told how to interpret it. So what you really have is you have this whole world of echoes, right, you see this all the time, and the reason you can tell who's an echo and who's a voice is all you got to do is ask them a few probing questions, and eventually will you get to, well, I believe it because my pastor told me they can't actually explain it, right, and then you realize they really don't know what they're talking about, they're

just an echo, and which is most of American Christians, right, now they really don't know, but what it did for me, and this is why I tell everybody to embrace the journey, is I just read what was there, right, and I had the same kind of reaction you did, like I am sitting here reading, Jesus is healing the Roman centurion servant, and I understand a little bit, because I'm a historian, and I understand a little bit like this is the Nazi guy, like this the Gestapo guy, and what's Jesus, like this is the enemy, right, and I'm like,

I, okay, wasn't expecting that, right? And then you read the good, you know, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, and I'm like, wait a minute, that's the enemy. That's the heretic, that's, in fact, they have their own temple and their own priesthood and their own scriptures up there.

Like they're the cult from the guys down in Judea, right? They're the cult. And he's like having this open air conversation in the middle of the public square. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute here, right?

And then I start, what that did was lead me down this whole road of the crusades. Like it's like, wait a minute. Like the history of Christianity is, if we don't agree, if we kill him, right?

Which is what you experienced in the cult. Like I'm like, oh my God, you left the cult. So what do we got? We got a killed John. That's like, it's been going on. There's nothing new like that, right?

But my whole point is, is that embrace the disillusionment and start over, because it's something really for you, freshing. Jesus said we gotta be like little children to enter the kingdom of God. That doesn't mean we need to be stupid.

It just means like start, go back to innocence. Like pretend you don't know and pursue things, whether you're reading the Bible or you're looking for a church, go back to the simple things. Go be a little a child.

Look for what's genuine and real and authentic. And go back and reread Jesus again, as though you didn't ever know him. Because you just discover all kinds of things that will just shock you.

That you weren't told. And the only thing I'll add to that is, there's not one single Bible verse that says that you won't enter into heaven if you have a theology that isn't perfect.

But yet, whenever you leave these things, you'll find this swarm of people, some of them have never been an occult before. And they're saying, you gotta be careful, these people who leave, they have to have the correct theology that I have.

I have the correct theology. And you're like, well, that next guy over there, he says he has it too, and you're in conflict. Which one is it? There's not another 40,000 different versions do you want?

Right, exactly. You know, and like I said, I cleaned my slate entirely. I mean, I'm down to the point where I'm asking the simplest questions like, I'm pretending that I'm seven years old again.

And I'm saying things like, okay, I'm told that Jesus was born of a virgin, was he? And I open up the Bible and I'm reading through, okay, why does it say this? I'm down to that level.

I'm like, this is a new religion to me. I want to pretend it's new. I want to relearn everything. And again, you're gonna have people, if you take that pathway, that's the harder path.

Because you're gonna have people where if you ask the basic questions, they do not want you asking them. Thank you. Oh, he's questioning Christianity. He's going to become an atheist. We must stop him. We must we must halt this thing, right? Well, in my opinion, I've said this a few different ways. If you were in a cult, and you had a different God, you must become an atheist before you become something else before I tend to agree with that. In fact, the way that I define it or that I explain it to people that are on the journey is I said

he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he wasn't your God. Yeah. Meaning that for most people, they were handed down a tradition, right? You know, it was, you know, was the religion of your parents and your grandparents, right? And you were conditioned. You were programmed.

You were 12. We're told where to look, what to see and how to interpret it. But he was never yours. You never had a relationship. You didn't discover him on your own. Not of this is you, right? You're just, you're just mimicking what everybody told you, right? So I think, I mean, it's going to sound wild to people. I think it's the mercy of God to teabone you, to let you go through disillusionment, because what's he after? An authentic relationship. He's not interested in your religion. Gosh, if there isn't a thousand, not a thousand, but if there's in dozens of

verses in the Old Testament about how much, you know, from the prophets amount, how much God hates religion and root. You know what I mean? He's like everywhere. He's like, I don't care. Do you love the poor? You know what I mean? I don't care about your money. Yeah.

You know, are you giving it to people that need it? You know what I mean? That's what he cares about. Like he cares about motive. And I see this. That's what I was my big discovery in reading the New Testament. You wonder about the theology. It was about the motive. Why are you doing what you're doing? What's driving you? You know, it's funny. I came to the same realization, but my words were different. Back then, and I'm sharing way too much now. People are going to kill me. But back then, I think you're being honest. And again, you're sharing a perspective. And so anybody that goes after

you, I just think is like, come on, grow up, you know what I mean? Well, back then, I came to the conclusion that a large portion of Christianity had turned the Bible itself into an idol.

That's a podcast we could have on another day. Right. Right. Exactly. Thank you for doing this. This was far more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. I'm opened up way too much. No, no, no. I just, you know what it was? It was authentic. It was authentic John.

No, no, I appreciate it. I honestly, as your friend, I appreciate it. Everything you've shared because it's, you know, it's like, I want to know you. I want to understand your journey, right? That's what, to me, Christianity is that it's very essence. It's like, well, who's John?

And what's inside of him? And what's his story? And how does he see things? So no, I'm very thankful. day. Well, good. And you reminded me of one other last point that I was going to make. Your journey, because you've been taught this false sense of urgency in the cults, you think the journey must happen quickly. Yeah. I'm still on a journey. And I don't know that in my lifetime, I don't know that I'll finish this journey. And the people that you choose as friends, if they're real friends, they respect you and help you on your journey rather than condemn you because you're on a journey.

Yeah. So exactly. With that, I'll end it. Thank you so much. No, no, this is good. This is really good. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. And for more about Mike Bickle and IHOPKC, you can read some say they blundered, breaking my decades of silence on Mike Bickle, the Kansas City Prophets, and the International House of Prayer.