Inside Gospel Assembly: Authoritarian Doctrine, Abuse, and Escape

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-Brandham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Kathleen Baker, form remember of gospel assembly. Kathleen, it's good to have you on and to talk about William Souders and gospel assembly. I have not talked to you about this before but I've wanted to have somebody on from gospel assembly for quite some time now. I was for multiple reasons which I'll get into later but the first reason the

biggest one I just happened to be in the drive-through and as I was pulling through with my family I've got my ball cap on and I was probably really dirty. I was working that day and lady came out and hand me food and suddenly she looked at me say you're John Collins and I said yeah I was a little bit shocked and she said you help me escape gospel assembly. I bet you do. I had to think back through all my podcasts. I don't know that I've mentioned it even in a podcast but it did have

some research about it and anyway long story short she she was very glad she had escaped and she I'm not going to mention too many details because I don't want to target her but she had escaped and her life was so far better after the escape and the other reason I've wanted to talk about it you don't know this either because we've not mentioned it but long back I did a podcast with a guy who we did it's a great podcast he had all the information on Brannum and all of the connections in spider web of different groups and

reasons why Brannum was kicked out of those groups which is crazy interesting and at the end of it I like I do most people I ask is it okay if I put this out if you're okay with that I showed him the podcast and he was a little bit unhappy at one of my other guests and told me that he he threatened legal action if I put it out so but in that podcast I'm safe to mention this because this is outside of the legal consequence but he had mentioned which I had also confirmed through other sources that William Brannum had a direct

connection to William Sauders and that one of the people that Brannum worked with early was taking him to some of the revivals held by Sauders now historically that would place it into the timeline where Brannum was a bishop in the Roy Davis Pentecostal sect called the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God and Davis was the head he was later the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan but he was very high up up. So at this point in time, they're building a Pentecost organization. They have outreach that's connected to William Souders. And there's so much more to the story because if you

know Souders doctrine and how it works, and understand what William Brannum introduced later as far as doctrinal standpoints, you can start to see some of that Souders influence into laterane and now New Apostolic Reformation, and beyond this to all of the things that you've researched, Christian nationalism, etc. So very excited to have you on. Maybe if you could start by just telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

My name is Kathleen Baker and I originally came to the, well it was Gospel Tabernacle at that time around 18, 17, 18 years old. I originally was a Lutheran and I had three brothers that died from Dutian Muscoordistrophy. By the time I was 14, but I had asked a lot of questions. I was reading my Bible. I started when I was 12, 13 years old. I was going to Catechism and they had your workbook and your textbook and I brought my Bible and because they were teaching and I said, wait a minute, this is what the Bible says. The pastor was

very upset at me and basically got on to me, made me cry, I ran home. He called my mother thinking that I was going to be in trouble and she said, what's wrong with you that you can't answer a 13-year-old question and she said, I never had to go back. So that started me wondering about the Bible, wondering about things. With my brothers, Diane, I wondered why God couldn't heal them and so I was looking for a church that was like an axe. So I was really primed to go into this kind of cult because they want younger people where they can

teach you a doctrine and they kind of love bomb you when you first come into it. But

there was things though. My Godmother was in that church besides it was my ex-husband

that got me going to it and she was very influential. They did help me straighten out my life. She encouraged me. So there was good people that went there. But as far as the doctrine,

there was a lot of abuses in that church. I can only imagine. And for people who are unfamiliar, who Williams-Southers is, why he matters. It probably would be good if we just take a moment and talk.

through that, because like I said, you're the first person who's really really gone deep with it. Maybe if you could talk a little bit about sauters. Well, Brother Sauters, what I was taught about, Brother Sauters, is that he originally was a police officer down in Kentucky, and he did a raid on illegal gambling.

And he found the chief of police and the mayor there, and it really made him distraught, so he won away from being a police officer. And then he became a fisherman, and he was a fisherman on the Ohio River.

During that time, he met, there was supposedly some kind of gospel boat that he met, and that's where he got the Holy Ghost. He continued being a fisherman, and he said, one day, he heard this voice that kept calling his name, and at first he ignored it, and then he said, what do you want, Lord?

And the Lord told him, I want you to preach my gospel. And so then I think he went to Olmsted in Illinois, then eventually he went down to Kentucky, and he formed the kingdom of the campground, which is still there in Shepherdsville Hill on top of the mountain.

But then what it was told to me is that he prayed, and the Lord started revealing what this gospel was. Now you're taught when you go into this cult that they have the truth, and no one else does, and they are the only body, and everyone else is of Babylon.

So that's how he originally started out, and then he started having a school of prophets down in campground of the kingdom, which is in Shepherdsville Hill in Kentucky. It's such a fascinating history, and whenever I began to understand the similarities between what William Souters was saying and what William Brannum was saying, I mean, right down to the Ohio River, Brannum claims that he was standing right on the Ohio River whenever the God spoke from the heavens and said, here, I can't remember the exact phrase, but basically hear my prophet, which very similar to what Souters was teaching.

Brannum obviously made this claim long after William Souters ever was connected to him. But the gambling thing, that's really what fascinated me, because Brannum kept telling these stories about how his father was making whiskey for, and he never really went into details, but he said for Mr. Wathen, and nobody knows who Mr. Wathen is in the cult, right?

And so I started digging into the newspapers, and found where yes, Brannum's tell- the truth. He is working with his father and his father is producing whiskey. What he doesn't say is that whiskey is going directly to the Cincinnati and Chicago mob and that it's I mean it's directly connected to Al Capone. It's it's some crazy history. And I found history where Al Capone is actually coming to this area so that he can organize his business deals and whiskey transactions etc. What Brandon never said was that his dad was not just a simple whiskey maker. He was a

driver for Lawton. So there was this there was this organized crime syndicate in this area where it got interesting with sauters. I read through sauters claims and yes it's correct he did overthrow some whiskey rings and you can in fact if you go to my website and you type in William sauters you can find it. I think it was Indianapolis where that happened but there got to be this real gray area because I was also able to find a William sauters who was arrested for being part of a whiskey ring. And so I could not I could not fully prove that it was the same William

sauters but the information's out there you can read through it and you can decide for yourself where all of that gets interesting is if you look at the dates and time timelines put it all together this and consider Illinois to Louisville Kentucky you've got that whiskey ring that's going well it either puts sauters on one of two sides either he is in the fight against the Brannems or he's secretly working with the Brannems and under the cover of the law which was not that unusual during those times. So all of that was fascinating to me and then to find that

Brannem was replicating not just some of the weird supernatural nonsense but also some of the doctrines were carried forward so we'll get into that more but it is fascinating history. But yes I know you you really opened my eyes to it there there's much I didn't know all the connections now in the group they always did believe though and they always did talk that the original doctrines came from them and then it spread out to the rest of the Pentecost on evangelical world. Sometimes they believe it was perverted other times they you know preach the same thing. Absolutely that's the way it works we are the original nobody else has

the truth and if they do have the truth it's a deluded truth that's usually that's right that's right. In fact in our conversation before I hit recording you mentioned the phrase touch not God's anointed you would be shocked how many different groups came from this platform and still exist today that they say you can't question authority and yes the Bible says to test the prophets so which are we to believe those who are telling us don't test the prophets or the Bible which has to test them. Right right and you know they you know they believe in the five

fold ministry and you know the pastors do not have any kind of teaching they believe everything came from the Holy Ghost everything from God or they set under another pastor and they taught and they learned things, but a lot of things they don't have acreage, just like they preached that the King James Bible was the first English Bible, you know, and so there's lots of things that are wrong, but you also have this big authority, you know what I'm saying, you cannot question the pastor, no matter if he's doing wrong, because God will take care of him, you know, I mean they've even

typified Moses and Mary and going against him and she ended up being sick, and so they really believe that, and they also believe that I've heard many times when I was in there, which was kind of alarming to me, there was a minute night, a couple that came to the church, and they only stayed for a little bit, they disagreed, you know, they tried to do their point of view, that was shut down, well when they left and she got sick and died, they preached, it was because they left that church and went against that church, so, you know, there is a very strong authoritarian, you know,

abuse that goes on there. While you can't say that he was the original, if you study some of the other histories of Pentecostals, there are many others that are doing the same thing, but he was one of the, one of the several people who were doing the Holy Ghost baptism theology, speaking in tongues, divine healing, but combining all of that with the end times urgency, and I think that's the key, you could, you can look at many different Pentecostal histories and you can find certain elements of this, but when you combine it with that end times urgency, it's not just that Jesus is coming,

it's urgent, we must get in now, that's usually the ones that turn destructive and go into an authoritarian stance. Yeah, they, they believed a lot in the end times, of course, you know, at the beginning they thought it was going to come soon, they believed now that it's going to come soon, and, you know, but they, they do believe that, you know, there is nobody over the past or but God. And so, you know, if you go against him and maybe in who I am, asking questions, and I'm a woman, you know, that gets you in trouble, we get you in trouble. Oh, yeah. The other thing that,

you know, there's so many different doctrines that lead towards destructive natures, but the other thing that usually comes into play is they'll teach the notion that the church as a whole has become apostate, we're the true church, everybody else has grown apostate, and God is restoring the church through art a little tiny group.

After leaving, I look back at it because we believe the same thing, it made God so powerless because rather than being able to restore the church as a whole, God could only restore this little tiny church that existed as our cult.

Was that the same in Souther's group? What they taught is that the church went into the wilderness when Constantine got the original church mixed into Rome and then it's been slowly coming out of the wilderness.

So first she had some truth with Martin Luther and then he had some with Wesley and Calvin and then he had pitocostalism and they believed that Brother Souther was almost like an angel that opened a new seal and then sat in and brought in this more righteous and closer to God's real teaching.

And so that's what we were always taught, and they still, there's some still that they're very cut off from the rest of the churches and they want to keep it that way. But there's some that has, you know, even believes some of this gnar and evangelical stuff too, but I can go into, you know, what all the doctrines were.

Yeah, I'd like that. Before we do, there's one last question. It's just burning in my mind. Okay. When I first began this journey back in 2012 and I discovered Souther, probably mid 2012, maybe 2013.

I published this, it was like a flow chart, I wish it still existed, but it had side by side. Here's what Souther's claimed. Here's what Brandon claim and it just went right down, row by row.

It was so eerily similar. When I put that out there, somebody contacted me who apparently had some sort of a rank in the gospel assembly and mentioned the school of the prophets, which I had heard Brandon mention, but I never connected it to Souther's.

And recently there are other people who are contacting me because now they have heard of the school of the prophets and where did this idea come from. The person who contacted me, I wanted to get them on record, but they were like so many people, they were scared for their lives if they came out on record against it.

But they told me that Brandon was not only in attendance, but they had seen some attendance books of the school of the prophets and Brandon was there, which I don't expect that you would have any of that information.

But do you have any information on the school of the prophets itself, what it was and how it worked? Yes. Yes. So like I said, Brother Souther started the campground of the kingdom in Shippardville, Kentucky, and that's where the school of the prophet was.

And basically, Brother Souther's ran it, but this is one thing that he had. He had a thing called a threshing floor. And so he wouldn't let... at different pastors come in, or the pastors that were under him in that group, and they would debate different doctrines and feel like that, you know, they would eventually come to what the truth was. But he taught, you know, the five-fold ministry. He said that was, you know, what was it Elijah that said he's seen the cloud like a five, you know, like a hand, I think is what he said. And so they preached that. They also believed very much

that you have to get the Holy Ghost, you know, you cannot be saved without getting the Holy Ghost. They believe very much into holiness, you know, they believe that the women cannot, the women have to wear skirts, you cannot wear makeup, you have to have long hair, and all that has to do with overcoming. You cannot, you know, they don't want you to wear jewelry. And so, now what the, the way that they made the group, they made it where there was days where the pastors got up and taught, and you had to honor them, you know, because they were of the five-fold ministry,

and they have the authority, and you cannot, you know, touch the anointing. And so there was time, there was days where they would preach, but there was other times where people could get up and basically talk and testify. Now, they believed in two in the Godhead. That's what was preached.

There was two in the Godhead. There was not one. There was not three. They, like I said, they believed that they were my love, my dove, you know, my only one that used that scripture in song assaultments. And so he preached, like I said, the five-fold ministry. They preached two in the Godhead.

They also preached holiness. They preached the Holy Ghost that you had to have the Holy Ghost. They believed that the Catholic Church was the beast, like the original, you know, prophets did.

They believed that this was the latter reign, and they were bringing in the latter reign movement. So they also believed, though, he did preach chapter 13 of Corinthians when it came to charity. And he did preach eventually that charity would be the most important thing.

But, you know, the The main thing though that that he preached was, you know, the five-fold ministry and that you are going to be taught by them. Another thing they had, they believed in orchestra music, they do not believe in regular band. So they had an orchestra and they made their own music even saying that it was God's music, basically the way that you, you know, have a transpose instrument and you transpose the music in front of you, they made the instrument where it was transposed fingering and they believed that was more of God. And so I got in trouble because I got up one day

because I have a degree in music, yet in a degree in nursing. And so I got up and I said, you know, the people out there don't know any difference, you know, they just know if the sound, the song feels, you know, sounds good and you and you get blessed, you know, they don't care if it's this or it's that, you know. And so that wasn't very well taken, you know, because I'm a woman

out there, I question. And I'll let you in on a little secret. I play stringed instruments as you can see. That's my, that's my favorite. I do have a piano because when I make music you really need one and it is stringed except for mine. But I only learn how to play it in one key. So I use the transpose key and I'm evil by the cult standard, apparently. I know it, I know it. And so, you know, there's different things that came from it, but oh, and another important thing that they believed is that, you know, the main sin that happened in the garden was sex and that eventually

you would have to overcome that. And, you know, along with overcoming everything that was, you know, of the flesh, they believed the flesh and the carnal mind was actually the devil. They did not preach that there was a literal devil. They preached that it was us and we needed to overcome our carnal mind. And they believed that a pastor edifying you was getting on to you over the pulpit. You know, they would not take you aside. They would humiliate you, you know, in front of the whole congregation. And, but later on, though, see what's happening is so after William

Sodders and he passed away, then there was a brother Jolly that took over in St. Louis. And brother Jolly was best busted for being a pedophile. Wow. Yeah, yeah, he was. He was bested for being a pedophile. There was a lot of abuse in that church and he even escalated the five-fold minutes.

or even more, in his big church in St. Louis, Missouri, he has these ramps where the pastors would come down in front of the congregation. You basically had to worship them. They taught that you couldn't have a house or you had to ask them before you bought it or that you moved, you know what I'm saying?

You should ask the pastor if you're going to change your job. There was a very, and in the church of St. Louis, they actually had women that would get on to other women too.

So there was a lot of psychological abuse that they did to people, but so after Tom Jolley took over in St. Louis, then there was a great sism in that church. Then there was a division, and it just happened to be that the church I went to was gospel tabernacle.

They didn't want the name of gospel assembly anymore because they were ashamed of what happened. Now another thing that they did in that organization, the church cult, is they always had a house for the widows and for women, and that actually in some ways that was good, but in some ways they were taken advantage of too.

So I came out of the gospel assembly, I mean the gospel tabernacle, and they had split up the gospel assembly and the gospel tabernacle, and then they were fighting amongst one and another, that they were the real church and the other ones weren't.

But the gospel tabernacle then went back and renewed the campground of the kingdom. I'm in fact, I was there and I hoped them. It was, yeah, we went in there and cleaned up, and on that campground, a kingdom, another thing they have is a bunch of little cabinets.

So they have a huge tabernacle, they have a lunch stand, and then a whole bunch of different cabins where people would come there and stay, and that was very well controlled too. In fact, the pastor I was under actually was the head of that.

He was the head of the campground of the kingdom. 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?

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It's interesting to hear you talk because I grew up moving a lot and I went to many different organizations, different churches within the brand of organization. And bits and pieces of what you're talking about and describing, I can identify with different groups that I was in, not all encompassing, which is interesting, because I might go to one church and then I have part of what you said.

And they would say, no, it's not like, it's not anything like this, but the combination of the whole actually fits. It's very similar to what you're describing. Right down to the two in the Godhead, I have been to brand of my churches that would say, it's one like your finger and I've been to others that honestly, they were teaching a form of trinitarianism and just didn't realize it.

But if you go all the way back to what Brandham taught with the manifested sons of God doctrine, which I'm gonna ask you about in a minute, Brandham taught that Jesus was not divine, that he was just simply a prophet and that God came down and anointed him as the manifested son of God.

So if you take Jesus out of the Godhead like he did and say that Jesus was manifested, that leaves you with two. So essentially, it's not the same way Sanders taught obviously, but by logical definition, that would be two in the Godhead, not three, which is interesting.

But the way that he would twist it is, he would say, Jesus, basically he was in dude with the power and then he was the manifested son of God and Brandham would elude to the fact that he would insinuate, I guess, as a better way to say it, insinuate that he himself was the future manifested son of God.

So I'm curious how far our sauters went with that, if that was... Well, and what they taught is that Jesus was the first of the overcomers and in the Bible it talks about, you will be my friends and they believe that when we overcome, then we could eventually be like Jesus.

I mean, they believe that, and they believe for us to get back to the garden that we had to overcome. that they still believe that the bride is the 144,000 and that to overcome you have to be in that.

And then they believe some of us will make it on the New Earth. But they never really talked about the manifesting sense of God, not that term, but I guess in some ways they did believe that because you've got a five-foot ministry basically they have a platform and the men set up there are the people that are in the band and they are above. And I'm saying supposedly they have they're closer to God, they reveal the truth to you.

But you know, they do believe that Jesus was half God and half man, they do believe that.

But I guess you could be in an overcomer, I guess you could become a manifesting sense of God. Yeah, there's just so much. I feel like I'm doing this interview in reverse, usually I let the person talk, but I'm just so filled with questions because there's a historical background here that I don't think people don't realize how significant it is. In my research into Souters, I was able to find trace elements of the Latter-Rain doctrine. And so Souters, Brannamas, definitely in attendance. I've got multiple sources that confirm it. If they are correct, he's definitely in attendance. To a group that is teaching the basic core concepts of Latter-Rain,

and you just mentioned five-fold ministry, how far did they go with even that turn, Latter-Rain? Well, I think they went pretty far. I mean, they believe that the Latter-Rain is going to be greater and they were bringing in the Latter-Rain. And I don't know how William Brannon taught it.

I didn't even know about William Brannon until I started watching your show and your podcast, but the Latter-Rain, what they believed is that they had the truth. I don't know if this has anything to do with the Latter-Rain, but they believed it was their gospel that eventually the Jews would pick up and they would preach to the rest of the world. So I don't know if that has anything to do with the Latter-Rain, but they did. As far as their Latter-Rain, they felt like there was going to be a bigger anointing in God. The Holy Ghost would fall more. They really believed

that's what the Latter-Rain was about. A more appalling at the Holy Ghost, almost like in the chapter, Joel. Yeah, there's so many similarities. I mean, when you consider the bigger picture of all of the similarities.

and doctrine, right down to, you mentioned the serpent seed, which is core Christian identity doctrine. If they weren't directly related, they were all part of the same network of people teaching that same doctrine. You can't really say that Souters originated these doctrines. I can trace back, you know, long before Souters. These all pre-existed, but they combined them and formed this concoction of bad theology that seems to create and generate destructive cults. In fact, I won't give too much information because I don't want to out this person who contacted me from the Souters group, but they said, basically, they had identified several different groups that

had emerged that were either a direct result of Souters and his doctrine, or they were strongly influenced by. They just went right down the line and they mentioned William Branum, and I'm like, nah, there's no way. But the more I dug into it, the more I realized that there was at least an influence. Then, whenever I tied him to that school of the prophets, this influence became far greater. When that was going on with Jim Jones, my godmother told me that Jim Jones was connected to our group. So, when you said that Branum was connected to Jim Jones, then I realized,

oh yeah, and they said that he just went bad. Jim Jones just went bad. Yeah, and that would put the timeline. See, there was a point in time when Gordon Lindsay had got, I don't know, disenchanted with Branum, was trying to separate ties, which did not work.

But during that time, Jones seems to be rising up to become a leader. He's hosting Branum conventions in multiple states. And that's when you think Jim Jones, you're thinking of that timeline when he's in Pentecostalism, which would be the 1950s. And I had heard the other person say that. I just haven't been able to confirm it. But if you think it, think through it on that timeline, now you've got this assembly of people who are all part of the same network, teaching the same theology, same doctrines, cross-pollination ideas. And it's just, like I said, it's a concoction of bad theology. It is, it is, very much so. And I think, like I said,

me watching your podcast has opened my eyes to how everything has got so much false doctrine. And I think what bothers me about it. I don't want to point finger because I think that in any organization, there's good people that are trapped. But they use their authority to guilt people and make them afraid. You know, when these are good honest people with a good heart and a good soul that just want to do something toward God, and they think going against, you know, a pastor, the organization is going against God. And it's sad that people,

can't believe harmful things, you know, when all they want to do is, you know, serve God. Absolutely. There are good people in all of the groups that I've examined. The problem is some of the good people, in fact, I know some people in leadership that I would consider a good person, but because of the doctrine they're teaching, they can do harm to many, many people.

So good people can also do harm. And that's, it took me a while to understand that concept, because we were taught this black or white, good or evil, angels or demons. And life is just simply not like that. There's a lot of gray areas. So I've come to terms with the fact that there are good people who teach bad things and do very, very bad things destructively.

Right, right. There is. And you know, this is the one thing I think one of the worst things is probably against women because, you know, they preached, you have to stay with the man, no matter if he's a little bit abusive. And you still, and if you will be him and you get closer to God that you will save him. And I had that, you know, and he was very narcissistic.

And then when I got away from him and I studied, you know, about narcissism and psychopathy, I realized that, you know, it's really is a narcissistic system when you have a cold like that.

You know, that you cannot question and they can beat you down in front of everyone else and humiliate you like that. And they think they have the right to do that under God. And that's the worst thing. That's the worst thing. You've mentioned the women a few times and that's a widespread problem, not just with even the cults that we're talking about. But I'm curious towards the, I guess it was the 1960s. Branum started going into weird directions with his theology. And he started making statements that led people to believe polygamy was okay. He, in fact, he started

saying the Bible talked about a covenant of polygamy, which is nonsense if you think about it. Was that kind of thing going on in gospel assembly churches that you're aware of? No, no, I don't know anything like that that they did. But, you know, if a man had committed adultery, it was more easily forgiven than if a woman would do that, you know what I'm saying.

And of course, you know, just like with Tom Jolley. So, you know, I got in trouble because I originally started at the gospel tabernacle. And because of being humiliated over the platform,

I, this happened in the middle of service. I had actually brought a boy that was my neighbor that I was introducing to the Lord. First time he had been there. I didn't go to church, I couldn't go to church that much because my husband would only let me go on certain times.

And so here I was breaking things against that. I have a son and a stepson. We all played in the band. We played trumpet trios, actually we did. And anyway, so the pastor, I'm telling him, hey, you know, this young boy is here with me.

And he said, oh yeah, I know him. I've seen him before. He comes as often as you do. And people started laughing, you know. And I was very upset. I started crying. I went to the bathroom, slammed the door.

Where everybody could hear me. And then I had all of my kids gather all of their instruments and we got up and left in the middle of that service. And oh man, that's still talked about, you know, that I was really wrong for doing that.

When I got to my car that day, a sister ran out and said, Kathy, Kathy, come back in. We all want to pray for you. And I said, they need to pray for him, you know.

And so I left. Well, so I thought I could go, no, excuse me, I thought I could go to a different church. Well, they will blacklist you. They will make sure that that is spread, you know, all over.

And so, you know, even, you know, different churches believe different things. But anyway, so I went to the church in St. Louis that originally was within the gospel assembly. Now, I didn't know all this.

See, because my pastor was trying to get all the churches to come back together, we visit. I mean, there are churches all over the nation. There's even churches in Haiti. We have an orphanage there or they had an orphanage there.

Churches in Europe and Africa. I mean, they have churches all over and they're still preaching this. But anyway, so I found out they actually have Tom Joley's silverware under glass that people can come and see.

They have all these pictures about him and brothers' soldiers and then they have his silverware under glass. And this is the guy that was St. Louis, you know, actually went to court against him and many people came to him about his pedophilia, you know.

Now, because he was old when he finally got persecuted, he was just under house arrest, but he was humiliated. And I didn't even know that, you know what I'm saying? I'm going to this church and I didn't even know that.

So then I learned, then I started learning. And so I left that church and tried to go to another body church and, you know, they make sure that everything, you know, they might think that they're in holiness, but they will gossip and they will back by it and they will run.

you down. And I think they're probably waiting for something bad to happen to me, because I want against them, because I eventually moved from that area and now I live in Virginia. And they're for a while they would even stalk me on Facebook. They wouldn't say anything but, you know, I knew they were, they were, you know, looking at me on there and also linked in. Yeah, even that doctrine is very similar. Whenever things went really, really walkie with Brandham's doctrine, he would say things like, with regards to polygamy, he can, but she can't, meaning that he can have multiple wives, she can't. And so it's

just, yeah, the whole thing is just so absurd when you think about it. No, no, they, they never did that. And, and, you know, like I said, that body was split up and there was some people that were very upset, but both are jolly dead and they went off and started their own. But, and what they wanted to do was to go back to what originally what William Satters had taught. They felt like Tom jolly had got away from it. So there was a lot of people that were upset, but then there's still some that believed that he never did

anything. So let's talk a bit about the ex-members community, because like I said, I ran into somebody just happenstance and I've had people contact me. Are there former member groups that you're aware of where people are escaping and helping one another? No, I really, I know that there is a website that's recovering from, you know, are recovering from gospel assembly.

I believe is what the name of it is. But, you know, this is the thing, you know, they, they go so much in, you know, you, you are so ostracized from the rest of the world. You know what I'm saying? I, I felt like, you know, that I got further away from my family and that became my community, that I think there's a lot of people that have left and knew that there are things wrong, but they're too afraid, you know, to form a group that would be against it. Because, you know, when you're, when you're taught that you're going to be something's going to happen to you,

you guys are going to have lightning strike you or, you know, you're going against, you know, the truth of the gospel, that, you know, they laid out and you're going against them in of God. Then there's a lot of people that just leave and, you know, some, just, you know, leave God all together, some go into other groups. But there's a lot of people that do not get healed from it. Yeah, sadly, it's that case with many different groups. I tell people, fear of struggling and you can't move past it, it might be good to get a therapist and

have them help you work your way through it. So if you could, tell us a little bit about how you were able to finally break free from this. Like I said, I had an abusive ex-husband and I got away from him, which working in the nursing field actually helped me that.

And then once I got away from him, I knew there were things that were wrong. I knew there were things I questioned a lot of the doctrine, you know, in my mind even when I was there about how they treated people and what their doctrine was.

But then when I left my ex and I seen how narcissists work, you know what I'm saying, then I then I started realizing that they were very narcissistic and abusive too. You know, there's a lot of times you don't realize how much you're being abused until you get away from it.

So you know, so that's when I seen it. And you know, even though there was people that were following me on Facebook, what I ended up doing was past and videos about spiritual abuse because that's really what it is.

And so I did, you know, I did, there's a lot of us nurses that took care of COVID patients and we ended up with, you know, post-traumatic stress and I did talk to a counselor then and we did talk over, you know, a lot of those things.

I still probably am working through some things and, you know, you're right, there needs to be a group started, you know, to get away from them. But you know, another thing too, they marry in between, you know, they marry together.

You know, that's one thing and the campground is for too. All the churches from all over the United States still come to that campground and then they meet, you know, whoever they're going to marry because they want to, if you marry outside of the body, a pastor will not marry you.

You have to marry inside the body and they have to have the Holy Ghost. So, you know, so there's many people that are still stuck in that community or around it because their family's there.

Yeah. And like I said, doctrine for doctrine, you're going right down the list of things that I believe we couldn't marry outside of the mass, massage. When I was attending certain churches, there were other churches, it was no problem and we called it the massage, that's the cult following of William Brannum.

The doctrines are so similar and you can tell that there's definitely a cross-pollination of ideas and hate, you know, this concoction of bad theology has produced a lot of... That's the sad part and you can't you can't really narrow down to say Souther's was the origin because I can find many of these doctrines before him But these groups group of men whoever's in this circle and you've mentioned Jones, Souther's, Brannum There are other ones that I have identified This cross-pollination of these ideas just seemed to be so very destructive What advice would you have for somebody who's in the group who's?

Finds this podcast and they're thinking about coming out, but are scared to take that first step. What advice would you give them? Well, you know one thing that I learned you know because I tried to associate with it some you know, I'm saying I would visit or I Think the best thing to do is just totally get away from it and really start reading the Bible and You know read more about what the Jesus what Jesus said and you know And and I think what you need to do what I started doing was Not looking toward the pastor or the or the five-fold ministry, but looking to Jesus and God himself, you know

To guide you and to help you But really go into the Bible on other thing would be good as to watch your podcast Because you know it It it shows you that what they're teaching It is like you said it's it's a pollination. It's it's been it's a lot of other teachings. I love the place It's not that they are this special group You know because Because they're not you know they But but it takes something and it takes something in and I think You got to get away from the fear, you know that Guys not going to strike you with lightning for for doubting and questioning this

You know even if you do know that there's good people there You you for your own sake for your own mental health It's best to get out of it if you could go back and give yourself some encouragement when you're going through those hard times that made you leave What advice would you give yourself?

Don't be afraid don't be afraid and You know listen to your heart and and

Read your Bible you know this isn't right. Yeah, they you know this isn't right the way they treat you Well, it's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this. It's a pleasure John It's a pleasure. I've enjoyed your podcast very much Well, if you've enjoyed our show and want more information or to share your story You can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org From 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