Kingdom Power vs. Holiness: How the Pursuit of Miracles Replaced the Pursuit of Christ

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 today I'm going to be talking about the subject of holiness which I'm going to actually cover this one by myself. One of the things that I've learned in working with all of the people who have exited all of these cult groups that we share the stories every Friday on the leaving the message podcast and on the website, I've learned that whenever a person leaves a high-control group like I

myself did, the first thing that happens is that the group will begin to attack the character of the person leaving. It doesn't matter the circumstances of their leaving, it doesn't matter even if the person is leaving to remain a Christian which my family and I did, they will attack the character of the person leaving as though they are not Christian as though they're reprobate. And so whenever you begin talking about the subject we're getting into today, which is holiness, the cults will often attack the people who are leaving and so it makes it very complicated when I try to bring this subject up with other hosts

and guests on the podcast. I don't want the cults to be attacking the people who work with me or who share their stories because their stories are their stories. It's not something that really, in my opinion, it's not something that should be open to attack. So I'm going to do my best at covering this one by myself today. I will preface this by this statement here. I am by no means a Bible teacher or scholar. I never intended to be, never want to be. It's just not my calling. It's not something that I do. I do enjoy history. I'm fascinated by

history and I think that a lot of people could really learn a lot from history if they would just take the time to study it. However, there are some topics that we're going to get into today that actually does require a little bit of Bible discussion and so I'm going to try to frame it in such a way that it's not me really teaching. We're just going to all mention some passages and if you want to study or if you want to ask your pastor about it, feel free to go and ask the pastor what it means. Interestingly, you can often find whether or not you are in a

destructive group by the way that they answer the questions for the passages that I'll be bringing up. But on the subject of holiness, there is a distinct difference between what is considered holy today and many of these NAR Charismatic Pentecostal groups and what the Bible and what Christianity would consider holiness.

So when I'm using the term holiness, if you're listening and you're a researcher who's interested in these groups, understand that I'm not talking about actual scriptural biblical holiness. I'm talking about what these groups have framed as holiness and what they're teaching and instructing the people as holiness, and that differs from group to group.

So it's not something that I can paint with a wide brush, but instead what I intend to do is I want to go to the history behind the movement so that you can watch how this word, this holiness, how it kind of developed and changed and morphed over time to become what it is today.

And if you look at the standards that are set today, people who are on the outside looking in, they think, oh my gosh, what is this mess? You go to, say for instance, the Royes report.

You go to the Royes report and you find all of these scoundrels who are just abusing the people who are under them and with authoritarian control, they're abusing their positions of leadership, usually for purposes of money or sex or who knows what all else.

And if you understand the difference between that type of movement and Christianity and you're on the outside looking in, you think, well, they have no concept of what is holiness. But from a person who is on the inside, which I was, I can tell you that what they're teaching and framing as holiness is completely different.

It is by no means the same and today I want to get into that. But rather than just talk about the scriptural differences because I'm not a scholar or a pastor, I want to talk historically of what the differences are.

And I think people might get a better concept, a better way to understand it. And since I'm doing it by myself and I'm doing it from the history, it's not very easy for the cults to attack the people who are working with me, which they would.

If I brought this subject up, this would be opening the door for attack of all of the people working with me. So we're handling this a little bit differently than usual. Hopefully it comes out enjoyable and people can follow along and kind of understand what is the difference between cult holiness and what is the difference between Christianity and what the Bible teaches.

Now I, as I said, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a Bible scholar. I have no intention to ever become a theologian or pastor or anything like this, but when I left the Brannum called, my grandfather was the pastor at William Brannum's Brannum Tabernacle for almost 50 years, I believe it was, I grew up in that mindset and so I grew up in really the home church for what much of the NAR can claim as his historical lineage.

That's why you find people like Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley, Bill Johnson, many of the leaders of the NAR today will reference William Brannum, the referencing my grandfather's church, and their concept of holiness, I can tell you exactly where it comes from because I was in this, but when I left this I read the Bible over and over and over and over again to try to wash all of the programmed and indoctrinated responses to Scripture and programmed hyper-loaded language of Scripture, things that really they had indoctrinated my head with, I read the Bible over and over and over again to try to wash all this out.

There were several things that really hit me. I've mentioned this a few times with the hosts that I have on the podcast, but there were things that hit me as vastly different from the Christian worldview and the cult worldview.

But as it relates to holiness which we're getting into today, the main concept to understand is that Christian holiness is something that is progressive and it transitions in a good way. There are several passages that talk about this, second Corinthians, I think it's three, it talks about being transformed into the same image of glory.

In other words, Christ came, he taught the people how they should live, how they should act, what they should become, and we're all to be transformed into that image. Yet in today's world we see transformation into something else.

Whenever you think of fruits of the Spirit as a good example, when you're thinking of fruits of the Spirit, Galatians talks about love, joy, peace, etc. And you look at the Christians today and look how within their groups they will emit these fruits of the Spirit.

You can see peace, love, joy, happiness, let's say this is a happy place we're in. But if you're outside of this group, there is no love, peace, or joy to people who are on the outside of it.

And so that's not really a Christ-like spirit. It's something that progresses in a good way, and it's something that Christians are supposed to strive for. But if you look at the world today, especially in today's New Apostolic Reformation, the NAR or NAR groups, what is transitioning is it's a evolving into something that's far worse.

People are becoming less Christ-like if you understand what the word Christ-like means. However, if you're in one of these groups, there is a clear, distinct difference in the way that you're taught. I can say from experience, when I was in the groups, I really believed that we were living holy.

We were holy people. We, it was a pride of holiness to the groups as usually comes out in the form of pride. We were prideful that we are part of this thing that the world around us is not part of.

Even if the world around us is Christian, they're different Christians than us. We are better than them. We are the elite where there's different names. We called it the bride. We're the bride churches and that church down the street, which believes in Jesus, which teaches Jesus in salvation.

We were taught that they were not the bride because they did not accept the things that we had. So, we'll get into how this evolved and why. But to do it, I think the best way to do this is historically.

And I've thought often about how is the best way to introduce this as a historical past where people can grasp the difference and why it evolved into the way that it did. And the biggest problem is where do you start with this?

If you trace Pentecostalism, if you trace the New Apostolic Reformation through Charismatic Movement, through Pentecostalism, well, where do you stop? Because you can go all the way back to Nosticism, which if you don't understand what this means, I highly recommend that you go do even just a simple Wikipedia study on what is Nosticism.

You'll understand that Pentecostalism really is just Nosticism reinvented. And the idea that a group is better than the other groups around them, that's not a new concept. The idea that one group has a secret mystery that nobody else has or has an elite status that nobody else has.

This since the inception of Christianity, when Jesus Christ came and then after He left the scene, there were many groups who came out of pagan mystery cults and these pagan mystery cults just kind of invaded Christianity.

They produced all of these disparate groups and they were called Nosticism, and you can understand how it evolved into what it did today by tracing that lineage. But I thought for this discussion, it would probably be good just to cut it off, just right before Pentecostalism, so that people can kind of understand that, yes, this did exist far before Pentecostalism.

You can go back as far in time as you want, but the inception of Pentecostalism, that was an event. Most Pentecostals, Charismatics, and even your... apostolic reformation people will go back to the Asusus street revival and say this was the sudden outbreak. This is whenever Christ decided to come back and in the form of the Holy Spirit into his church and now we're being manifested with all of these gifts. They will frame it like this.

And the churches in many cases will teach that you must have these gifts in order to have a church that is holy. And people who weren't a part of this movement, they look at this and they think, well, what is that? That's not what the Bible teaches as holiness. So we're going to go back and we're going to start with some of the history that was evolving and shaping itself into what became modern Pentecostalism and then developed into all of these groups. And the first place to start, best place to start, is a person named Frank Sanford. You also must understand the concept

of British Israelism and what it meant whenever leaders who were indoctrinated with British Israelism were talking what they were talking about when they were mentioning the coming Elijah. They would often reference the end of Malachi, the scroll of Malachi and say that Malachi four, whenever it's talking about the return of Elijah, they will say that that is pointing to the end of days, not John the Baptist. And even though the scroll of Malachi was one scroll without having chapters or verse numbers, they will say that chapter three points to John the Baptist and chapter four is pointing to the last days, basically. And this is because in British Israelism,

the idea, which is a false notion of false history, is that the descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel emerged and landed in the British Isles and then later the United States was adopted into this. So the United States and the British Isles were the descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. And men and women began to reinterpret Scripture to frame it such that when you read the Old Testament, anything about the ancient Jews, you're reading in a twofold manner. The history as it related to ancient Israel was written as history in the Bible, but it was also written as

a shadow of the things to come today so that when you read a verse, you could apply it literally to both the ancient history, whatever is the historical context, and the modern days for whatever is the era of the person teaching British Israelism. Frank Sanford was one such individual who did this.

And sadly, there are many countless people who believe that they are either the return of this Elijah, which Frank Sanford convinced his followers that he was, or they will say that they're Moses, or David, or some spiritual divine figure that it was sent to leave God's people, and they claim all of the authority given to whatever is the biblical figure in the Bible, they'll say that they have that same authority.

And so by nature, this develops into a hierarchical religion where you have men or women who are using and abusing passages of Scripture to claim that they have a right to be an authoritarian governor over bodies of people.

So when you look at the inner art today, and you find all of these men who claim to be an apostle or a prophet, it goes deeper than just a apostle or prophet in that theology frame, in that theological framework, because the apostle and the prophet, the apostle for example, it means a person who is sent out.

As Christianity was spreading, you had the apostles who would go out and spread Christianity. Many, very few of these leaders, many of them claim that they're apostles, but very few of them actually go out and are sent as a missionary type person.

An apostle using the term as a leadership mechanism, not as something to actually spread Christianity. And the reason for this is, whenever these people interpret the Bible in this British Israel way, it is a, it's not a doctrine that is to spread and grow Christianity.

It's a doctrine to bring people in and consume them and prepare them for the return of Jesus Christ with the idea that they are living in the last days. There's no hope, hope left for the rest of the world.

I grew up hearing sermon after sermon after sermon where there's no help. They're all lost and you grew up with this mentality that you don't even try to go out and spread Christianity. So the word apostle itself takes on a different meaning.

What it means to be saved or find salvation takes a different meaning and holiness becomes the thing where it is a pride that we're part of the last remaining group. That's what it means to be holy.

This misunderstanding of what it meant to be an apostle can be traced all the way back to Sanford. And there's many, many things that we could talk about with Frank Sanford that are just outlandish.

If you, if you want to know more, you can go to Wikipedia or do some internet searches and find that he almost killed all of his followers. It was a devastating tragedy. But as it relates to the modern day apostles, you have to understand his theology.

The modern day apostles do not go out. They believe the... they're part of this elite group. And this can be traced back to Sanford because Sanford in the climax of his ministry, whenever he purchased a large yacht, I think there were two boats that he purchased, and he was going out into the world. He wasn't a apostle who actually did go out, but he did not really attempt to convert the people of the other nations. It was more preaching at them instead of preaching for them. And in some cases, he would take the boat up to the shore and just preach at the entire continent, as though him and his group were better

than the people of the continent. We have no reason to go down and try to convert them. Let's just preach at them. And that concept preaching at people instead of preaching for people is something like I said, it can be traced back to Sanford, but it can be traced all throughout many of the Pentecostal Charismatic groups. The idea of bringing new people in in the more destructive groups is a foreign idea. We, like I said in Brannemism, we had no intention to try to go convert the world.

We were part of the last ones and many Bible verses were twisted or even actually altered by William Brannem to say that there's one in a million, and we're part of that one. Let's ignore it the million. So whenever you understand that salvation and especially this idea of being an apostle is different from the biblical versions of those two concepts, you can understand how this progressed into what it did today. The second person, which I've mentioned before, and I actually have a book if you want to read it on John Alexander Dowey. There are many men and women who used and abused

their spiritual authority to govern bodies of people in ways that were not Christ-like, that in ways that were not displaying true Christian holiness, but none so wealthy as Dowey. Dowey abused his power and his claim to be Elijah to gain 15 million dollars by 1902, which in today's money is over half of a billion dollars. And Dowey's version of holiness was such that he was the return of Elijah, therefore he was the one who was to govern and lead the people into the afterlife. And so the people who willingly submitted to Dowey were submitting their entire

fortunes. They would come and they would join into his communal. He actually had a communal city that people were forferding all of their possessions and giving their money to Dowey. And he was becoming wealthy while the others were submitting their total lives to Dowey. So Dowey set this precedent that really continued throughout the history.

that developed into the New Apostolic Reformation. When you compare Dauy to many of these leaders who are using and abusing their spiritual authority to govern bodies of people, they're doing it through the framework that Dauy had established. As it relates to holiness, what Dauy and Sanford brought to the movement that was developing was the idea that the leaders themselves were to be the spiritual elite and those who adhered to their doctrine and believed all of the things that they said about the in-time vision of things to be. If you believe this, you were part of the elite group and

therefore you had salvation that was attached to being part of that body. Those who were not part of that body, those who questioned the supreme authority of these two leaders, those were the people who were preached at and condemned. So even if you were a Christian and you're outside of Dauy's sect or outside of Sanford's sect, you were the ones who were preached at, not preached for, and this brought the mentality that salvation and what it meant to be holy was literally to become part of the group. If you were part of the group, you were holy. If you were outside, you were not

holy. But what Dauy brought to the equation that far beyond what Sanford had was literally the money. Whenever Dauy started losing his mental faculties, their newspaper articles that say that Zion City was just flooded with people who wanted to be the next prophet because Dauy had established and widely publicized all of this money. Everybody wanted their chance at getting this money.

This is where the founder of modern Pentecostalism, Charles Fox Parham, comes in. Parham had visited Frank Sanford's sect to see how Sanford had achieved this ultimate authority over his people. And he also visited Dauy's sect to see how Dauy had achieved this financial empire that he had created and how he had achieved this authoritarian control. And the other thing that Dauy established is that the leadership could not be questioned. This would play an important role, especially as it developed through the laterane movement into the NAR because the apostles and the prophets, the figures of authority, cannot be questioned or if the people who were questioning them

do question. They're chastised, they're cast out, they're condemned, and they're preached at. You know, you're not part of the group if you're questioning the leader. There were hundreds of scandals that Dauy was at the center of focus for. In fact, there were something like two to Osuits that Dauy was involved with, everything from fraud to people who died because of his doctrine or his abuse of power to neglect them of medical care.

I've documented a lot of that in my book, Militant Christian Extremism, a critical examination of John Alexander Dauy. You can read more about that, but what Dauy was bringing was a public version of the doctrine that, if you're on the outside, you saw Dauy from the lens of the filtered version of his doctrine.

And he had the private doctrine that was secret for those who were part of the elite sect. This would set a precedent for the groups that followed and emerged after him. One of those doctrines, for example, was polygamy.

Dauy was teaching in private, the views on male and female sects were skewed within the movements. And Dauy was teaching polygamy in private, later he got caught and was exposed for this. But there's a passage in First Timothy that says, a woman will be saved through child birth, and many of these groups, I'm not certain if Dauy was using this verse or not.

But I know in Brannemite sects, they used this to unbelievable extremes. But the views of how a woman is saved and how a woman remains holy are separated from how a man is saved and how a man is holy.

The women are, since there's this hierarchy that is established for the cult leader and his sect, they further this hierarchy to say that the men have also an authoritarian control over the women and that through sects the women can be saved.

So the more women that you have to save, the better the doctrine according to how the polygamous versions of this movement have been established. Dauy was one of the people who was teaching this.

So as it relates to scandals and conflicts of Christian interest and morality, Dauy was the epitome of somebody who is anti-Christian. But yet he could not be questioned by the group because if you're part of the movement and you question the group, you're not with the group, you're there for on the outside and your chastise.

So that's the precedent for what would come later. This is evident in Charles Fox Parham, who is the founder of modern Pentecostalism. Parham is one of the people who came as one of the Elijah's to claim Dauy's throne.

And he himself had been holding these meetings with children and had several allegations and one criminal trial involving misconduct with those children. In fact some of the misconduct was sexual and there are large discussions of what happened during this event and not. But there are articles that give statements regarding his testimony during the trials and Parham admitted to the allegations. What isn't evident and unfortunately is lost to history, it wasn't just one single incident. There were numerous incidents and there were several parents who said similar things had happened and they wanted to also get involved. But we don't have

the transcript of the court trial. What we do know is that there were allegations and some of the allegations were substantiated by Charles Fox Parham's own testimony. Charles Fox Parham, as I mentioned, is the leader, the founder of modern Pentecostalism and his relationship to the movement as a whole has been somewhat disconnected. His student, William Joseph Seymour, is the one who held the Azusa Street Revival who was leading that movement. Parham was his mentor and so modern Pentecostals tried to separate the two and they'll say that Parham, yes, he mentor William Joseph Seymour taught him in the faith but they really don't go deep with how that happened because Parham

had these allegations and somehow narrowly escaped from them. However, when you study holiness between William Joseph Seymour, Charles Fox Parham, Dauy and Sanford, you start to see this pattern that is emerging where holiness is being part of the movement, part of the group and those who are deemed unholy are outside of the group. What John Alexander Dauy and Frank Sanford had established, which would set the precedent for decades to come, is the idea that holiness is directly linked to leadership and the leadership are to be governors of the bodies and if you are in the body and the leader is teaching you the way in which you should live and the way in which you

should call holy, those who are outside of the group, those who are not under the leadership, they are not holy, we are the clean ones, they are the unclean and they're basing this loosely on this notion that through British Israelism and you had the great leaders of the Old Testament such as Moses who led God's people out, the people followed the leader and the leader, the leader had authority over them. Yet if you read the Bible and you understand the reasons why that existed and you understand the difference between Christianity, ancient Judaism and the cults, the ancient

cults of the world, you understand that Christianity is something that is totally different. Matthew 20, Jesus says, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lured over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. So what was established and what would set the framework for the holiness that we're going to get into next is the idea that if you are in one of these groups, your

leader, whoever it is, Charles Fox Parham, John Alexander Dowey, Frank Sandford, travel up through time to the New Apostolic Reformation, Mike Bickel, Bill Johnson, those who are rulers over you exercise great authority over you, which is the exact opposite of what Jesus established whenever he said the way that Christians are to act and behave is not to submit to these authority of leaders. There is Jesus Christ, and then there's everybody else. 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.

When people today look at the New Apostolic Reformation and its churches and its leadership, and many of the apostolic churches that are in the networks that together are combined to form the New Apostolic Reformation, they often look at the leadership and the immediate problems that are the glaring of very obvious issues with church leadership. And wonder, often wonder how the people will stay submitting to these leaders. We've got Jed Hartley, who's talking about the issues that are happening in International House of Prayer in Kansas City under Mike Pickle. You have a leader who has been very much exposed for misconduct

of a variety of issues with, you know, involving sometimes even children. And yet you have a group of people who are still dedicated to that leader. And the question, if you read through the Royce Report or any of the articles that are online talking about this relationship, between the church and the governing leaders that are in these cult-like groups, you start to wonder how could you stay under their authority.

You realize that this person is clearly, there are clearly problems here. Why do not the people just leave and choose a different leader? And you have to understand that it all goes back to this Moses or this Elijah model that's being established by the early leaders who were establishing the Pentecostal faith.

And the best example to understand how and why that hierarchy remains is to look at the origins of the charismatic movement. Chuck Smith faced many similar questions regarding his church model. And his church model goes back to this Elijah or Moses model.

In fact, he himself in an interview declared that he is following that same pattern. There were starting to emerge issues within Calvary Chapel. And the problem was that the leadership that was involved with these scandals, the leadership was often left in their positions of authority.

And people who are outside of the group question, why are you doing this? If you have a predator in your midst, why not eliminate the predator? And Chuck Smith's response was we follow the model, in fact, his exact words.

We take the model from the work that got established in the nation of Israel. So here is another tie back to British Israelism. We are living under the model of ancient Israel is what Smith says.

He says Moses was the leader appointed by God. And he took 70 men. They assisted Moses in overseeing the mundane types of issues that developed within the nation. And there was a priesthood under Aaron.

And he says similarly, we have assistant pastors and they look to me as their senior pastor. So what Chuck Smith is declaring as this is during the days in which the charismatic movement is starting to develop and broaden itself into all of these apostolic networks that eventually became the new apostolic reformation.

Chuck Smith is one of the leaders that is spearheading this. And he is declaring that if we are to establish the church, we need that same hierarchy where there is a central figure at the top.

And he's actually declaring right here, he is the central figure. And he says we have priesthood under this. And he is declaring that his assistant pastors are the people under his authority. And this governance model that is established like the Old Testament, which again completely defies the way that Jesus said the church should be established.

He said that there you do not follow the pattern of the Gentiles, where the Gentiles had rulers that lured over them. But yet, as the charismatic movement is being established, it is the Moses model that's being established.

So whether you have an Elijah model and a Moses model, whatever is the Old Testament governor that is to be established as a hierarchical leader over your people, you're still following the ancient pattern that Jesus is condemning.

Yet people who examine these movements and these leaders from the outside looking in, they all want to focus on the sexual issues because it's more reportable and it's entertaining to readers. But what they fail to mention is that if you look at the sexual misconduct that is happening, it is not the root cause.

It is just a direct result of empowering leadership without giving them proper boundaries. And it all comes back to the Chuck Smith Moses model that he described. During the interview, when Chuck Smith is talking about the church model that he's establishing and he's going back to the Moses model, what he's saying in very explicit words is that the leaders who are, in this case, there were predators.

The leaders who are predators are not subject to the accountability of the people surrounding them. They're only subject to the accountability of God. So if they do something wrong against the people, it doesn't matter as long as God keeps them in that position.

But if you really follow that to its logical conclusion, Chuck Smith is the God who is keeping them in that position. He's the Moses figure, he is the mediator between God and man. And again, that defies the Jesus model where the Gentiles are the ones who are exercising this type of authority, not the Christians.

So the Moses model that Chuck Smith carried forward is the root cause that we're seeing today all of these leadership who Mike Pickle, for example, who is very much exposed as having done really horrific things against the people of his group.

But the people who remain in the cult will still give him the same undue authority and governance and undue respect that no person should have. It defies the Jesus model, but it does match the Chuck Smith model.

In Chuck Smith model, there is no human that can question the authority. This is carried forward through John Wembre who worked with Chuck Smith. As far as I know, John Wembre did not have any of the sexual misconduct issues or the financial issues scandal set.

A person who's critically exiled Damning the NAR today in its history would flag as problematic. But what he did have was he promoted this idea that Chuck Smith had established of this church leadership model which resembled the Moses model.

Though many of the supporters of John Wember today would reject the notion, John Wember promoted the Moses model that Chuck Smith was pushing as his theological doctrine and he's working with the shepherding movement which the shepherding movement was a established as an authoritarian governance body that again is a direct defiance of what Jesus declared as the church structure wherein the shepherds, there were five of them.

They had leaders of the movement who were submitting all of their authority to the shepherds and then below them were shepherds, shepherding other shepherds all the way down to the rank and fall member.

John Wember, as he's working with these guys and promoting the Moses model leadership, he is declaring, in fact, in his own words, he says that the problems that were starting to be reported within the movement, which involve sexual misconduct, authoritarianism, many other things, he said that the problem is that they had, quote, become out of joint with the body of Christ.

They weren't under authority. They weren't in a positive way with a community of elders. What he's describing here, and if you understand the context of this history, the shepherding movement is being called out for a variety of issues, some of which is sexual misconduct, but mostly authoritarianism.

And John Wember is working to establish unity among the broader charismatic movement with the shepherding movement who is being called out for their authoritarian control. And he's doing this by saying they need to submit to authority.

So he's saying that the answer to this is the Chuck Smith model. They need to submit to that authority and that hierarchy, which is exactly the one that is being under the microscope for all of the issues that involve a submission to authority under the Chuck Smith type model, the John Alexander Dowie model, the Frank Sanford model.

The defenders of John Wember will often refute the notion that Wember was responsible for helping to establish the New Apostolic Reformation. And they often go back, there's a point in time in which John Wember is helping to push and promote the Kansas City Fellowship, which includes men who had various issues, some of which were sexual misconduct.

such as Mike Bickel, Paul Cain, who struggled with homosexuality and other things. John Wember is the one who's pushing them, especially in the UK. And they'll refute this, and I'll say that this was a one-time event, and he regretted all of it.

But the part that is often overlooked is the idea that in Wember's worldview, which was developed from the worldview that Chuck Smith was pushing, this Moses model worldview, the leadership who is in this type of role is untouchable.

And even if they fall to horrendous sins, such as the leaders that Wember himself helped to promote, it doesn't matter because they're helping to further establish the kingdom. And it all comes back to John Wember's view of the kingdom theology, which traces, if you trace it all the way back to the views of the kingdom theology of Dauy and of Frank Sanford, you'll see it's much the same.

It all revolves around the leadership. This is evident in an interview he describes this by saying that the people just need to understand how kingdom power is released. He said some are not very moral, very stable, or very sound people.

Yet they are able to operate in kingdom power. My perception is that they are operating in legitimate power, although they themselves made an illegitimate entry into that power. And what this does as it relates to holiness, is it gives the idea that even if the scoundrel is a predator, and even if they are in many cases not truthful about their ministries, because they are performing these miracles, they have tapped into the kingdom.

They're helping further establish the kingdom. And that's really the difference if you understand John Wember's kingdom theology and understand what the Bible says as the establishment of the kingdom. They're two separate things. Jesus said that many false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so to lead a stray if possible, even the elect.

What Jesus is saying is don't look at the signs and miracles because this is a good way to trick you, and there are many who will do this. John Wember is saying, well, they're tapping into the real thing, so therefore it must be real, and the kingdom is further being established.

Also, as it relates to holiness, what Wember is establishing is the idea, which is coming from a long line of history behind this idea, all the way back to, as we mentioned, Dauy Sanford.

The idea that the establishment of the kingdom can be defined by the miracles. In Wembers theology, it's the kingdom power. If you display the kingdom power, you are displaying the real thing. And so people who can get into and tap into this power, they're tapping into the real thing. Yet in 2 Thessalonians, for example, the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception.

There is no person who can look at the history that Wembers in his intersection with the Kansas City Fellowship. There's no person that can look at this and not see that it was not wicked. You had Mike Bickel, who was apparently allegedly grooming several women. You had Bob Jones, who was later exposed for having sexual misconduct. You had Paul Cain also exposed for homosexuality, sexual misconduct. So you had these predators, but according to Wembers theology, which follows this Moses pattern, they are a Moses figure. They're a figure who's helping further the kingdom because they can display a miracle, they can display a sign or wonder.

Therefore, they're tapping into the real thing. And what it does is it separates to the people the idea that if a movement is by God, it will purify the movement itself. There is a cleansing that comes from within, according to the Bible scriptures of what is holiness. It totally removes this element because instead of looking at what it means to be a Christian, you are instead looking at what it means to perform a miracle. And people, they shift their focus to I too want to have a miracle.

I want to have a testimony of a miracle. I want to perform a miracle. The miracle is helping to establish the kingdom, not the way that Jesus said to establish the kingdom. And again, it defies all of the passages that say that an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign or a miracle. What is being established is a kingdom where the Christian, what it means to be a Christian and what it means to display Christian holiness. None of that matters. We are now establishing the kingdom. We're past. We've moved past the point at which we're to be helpful, loving,

caring, displaying all the signs of the spirit. The real problem is that what Wimbra was pushing as kingdom now or kingdom theology, his version of kingdom theology, if you understand the difference between Wimbra's kingdom theology and the Christian kingdom theology. He opened the door for what is called apostol.

look authority. And what this means essentially is that you have the body of people who are the rank and file members, and those people cannot judge the apostles. The apostles are not accountable to the people. They are accountable to apostolic authority. In other words, an apostle is subject to another apostle. They're not accountable to the people, which again is in defiance of Matthew 20 where Jesus said, the rulers of the Gentiles, Lord over them, and they exercise great authority. Wimber is helping to further the Moses model that was established by long before Chuck Smith, but was promoted by Chuck Smith. And he is helping

to establish the apostolic authority. Defenders of John Wimber will actually say this is a good thing. They will say that for a period of time Wimber suspected and found out that there were huge problems within the Kansas City Fellowship. And Mike Bickel, for a period of time, submitted to the authority of John Wimber for correction. And then Wimber gave up on them, and then they went off into their own destruction. But the reverse of this is John Wimber was helping to promote an authoritarian model wherein the apostle was accountable only to the apostle. And the church body, the ones that the church body, the ones who are at

risk of being prey to the predator, the church body does not have any way to judge the apostle. So Mike Bickel, I think it's 1989, he goes to Wimber's church, and he is admitting in the church that he's under the apostolic authority given to Wimber and the leadership of the vineyard churches. He is essentially describing this pattern where an apostle is subject only to another apostle, and they're not to be judged by the church body. In other words, we reject the teaching of Jesus that Christianity is not supposed to be like the Gentiles and have

this type of authority model. They fully reject this and they say they are apostles, they're above reproach by the people. So if you follow this pattern, and again, I've only taken a snapshot in history from Frank Sanford and John Dowie all the way up to the birth of the Kansas City Fellowship.

We could go into the future, we could go far into the past. If you understand the model that is being established for what is considered holiness, we've established the pattern that you must have an apostle. He must be a Moses figure, you must submit yourself to the Moses figure, and by submitting yourself to that authority, you're tapping into the kingdom. And if you tap into the kingdom and there's any sort of miracle sign, wonder that follows your group, because you can sense and detect this miracle.

you are part of the body and as part of the body, you have holiness. That is in a nutshell, what was being constructed throughout this section of time that I have gone through. And what it establishes is the idea that your holiness is becoming part of a group.

Whenever I was in branimism, our holiness was tied to whether or not we were part of the bride, which we called, each other in this movement, we were part of this movement. If you were outside of this, you were outside of holiness, you were unholy, you were unclean.

In fact, we had other words that were far more destructive, we would call people outside of our group, cannon fodder. In other words, during the battle, you are the expendable people that will die from a cannonball, and we don't care, because we're moving, we're advancing the army forward.

In many ways, that describes the version of what they call holiness in these movements. It doesn't matter if you're a Christian, it doesn't matter if you follow Christ. It doesn't matter if you adhere to all of the things that Christ said a Christian should do to become more holy.

If you're not part of the group, if you don't have your Moses figure, then you are essentially not holy. Again, it's just a small snapshot in history, but hopefully it can, for the people who are on the outside looking in, trying to understand and make sense of all of this, hopefully it can paint a picture of why that Christians, who are part of these movements, behave the way that they do, and why the real fruits of the Spirit, the peace, the joy, the love, that should be displayed to those outside of the group, why it is not displayed, that all hopefully should become more apparent by this little snapshot in history that I have done.

So 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, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.