From Toronto Blessing to NAR: The 1994 Revival That Changed Everything

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org, and with me, I have my co-host and friend, Pia Hugo, former member of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Pia, it's good to be back and to talk about revival. We've covered all of the different mechanics of this engine that we have been describing with New Apostolic Reformation. One of the key components or one of the key cogs is revival.

And I thought, whenever I was in this type of movement, I was in the revival movements, even though my version was older than yours. I thought when a revival happened, it was this big thing, God come down, He manifests itself to the crowd and the crowd received the blessing.

But the more that I started to learn about revival, it's quite different. It's very much orchestrated with a marketing engine, an advertising engine. When we talk about the machine, all these different cogs, well, many of those cogs are man-made.

And I began to formulate the hypothesis. It wasn't really at that point. It wasn't the fulfillment of my research. But I hypothesized, well, if man is bringing it on, is it really of God? That's really the question that I started to ask. And then I started digging into these revivals and, oh, my gosh, they were not at all what I expected.

And anyway, it's good to have you back and talk through some of these things. Hello, John. And hello, everyone else. It is always a pleasure to be here, especially because, as I said in the last podcast, I am here in the Philippines.

And I, you know, it's funny. I've been talking more in my native tongue. So it's almost an adjustment to me to start talking again in American English, as we like to say here. As opposed to the British English, which is totally different. But anyway, I am very, very happy to be here.

And yes, let's talk revival. I agree with you, John. And my first taste of revival, I'm going to put that in quotes, was in 1994. And that's really where I want to start our podcast today.

1994, there was this little thing called the Toronto Blessing and it started in Canada with John and Carol are not and somehow made its way to Southern California. And just like what you said, you know, I was in my 20s at this time. We had just moved, we as in my ex-husband now and myself and our kids who are very little at that time, we moved from Maryland to Southern California. And the year was 1991. At this point, Che on and Luangal were co-pasturing a tiny little church in Pasadena, California called Abundant Life Community Church. And they were part of a bigger entity called

PDI, people of Destiny International, led by Larry Tomzak and CJ Mahaney, who were best buds with Che on back in the day. So that was everything we talked about last time. So I just want to jump in for this podcast and move forward to 1994. So by this time, we had been doing 40-day fast, we had been doing 24-7 prayer and we were all contending for that big revival. So when it didn't come right away, because you know, when we received word from Che, you need to come here, it's imminent, you know. And so we packed up and moved in 1991. We arrived, God settled 1992,

went by 1993, went by. I'm not saying that we didn't see a move of God. I honestly personally felt I went through a mini revival for myself. Like I felt something had been ignited, you know, because I don't want to rehash what happened at PDI, but I was starting to get a little bit disillusioned with PDI. I had watched my co-worker that I named Sally in another podcast, just deteriorate in her mental health. And I just needed something different. And I found it, John. I found it when I went to Southern California and joined Che and Lou.

because this was the cutting edge. I thought Larry and CJ had found the cutting edge movement, but no, no, no, no, Jay and Lou had something different, had a different flavor. I don't know if it was the beach ministries, we just kind of fun, you know, if it was the fact that they wore more shorts and t-shirts, like it was a little more relaxed, you know, it had that hippie vibe of the 70s.

And I liked it, you know, as you can see, I am in the tropics right now, I love the beach. So this was a little bit more my cup of tea. And I think I might have mentioned when I was back at PDI in the 1980s, I noticed that a lot of my bosses,

pastors, you know, people I worked with, they were white, John, I have nothing against white people. I love all people of all color, but I kind of noticed that I was probably the only person of color in my office.

So when I, again, moved to Los Angeles, like, okay, now we're talking, now there's diversity, now there's, you know, I see a few more Filipinos at the church. So I honestly thought that this was a really good move for us, John, plus, you know, you got Luangal up there contending for revival and has his raspy voice and it's like revival, and there was just something almost hypnotic about the way he would repeat that word.

You know, we got a contend. So I did a 40 day fast with him twice. Now I'm not talking just water, okay? I am not that, yeah, I think he did water to people at my church, I think actually did 40 day water fast, only water.

I cheated a little bit, I did a Daniel fast, you know, which allows you food, but anyway, my point is I just bought everything, I bought into the whole thing. Now by 1994, we were a little discouraged.

It's like, where is it? Where is this mighty revival? Where's all the people? Because again, we were a small church.

I'm not very good with numbers. I'm just going to say anywhere from 50 to 11. hundred. Okay, that was the size of a bonnet-like community church and we pretty much knew everyone. You know, that's an advantage of a small church.

I could still, you know, like I told you before, knock on chaehan's office door and say, hey, you got a minute to talk, you know, like we were, we were, I guess, like a regular small church culture, but that rapidly changed.

And at that time, I honestly thought it was a good thing, John. We grew in two years from 1994 to 1996 to hundreds, maybe even a thousand. I don't know, maybe that's a little too much, but we definitely grew.

And in my mind, John, I thought, this is revival. And I'm going to talk about what made the change from the time I landed in California from 1991 to 1994 to all of us that in in two years, witnesses, rapid church growth.

So let's lay some background to all of this. And as I mentioned, I was studying the revival. So I wanted to know was God in the revival or was this more man-made than God made? And one of the ones that I began to study because it was so connected to what we came out of was the assemblies of God.

And you can find that research on the website. I've got a couple of podcasts about it. But basically, if you hear the stories today, the stories tell you that there was this great revival that broke out and they formed the assemblies and God was there and God blessed them.

But if you study the history, it's a little bit different than that. Maybe that's the case. I'm not going to say God wasn't there. But it started out as a church of God in Christ meeting.

And there were several ministers who decided we do not want black ministers. You mentioned people of color. We do not want black ministers to be in leadership positions in this. So let's separate the races.

That's that that was part of it. I'm not going to say it's all of it, but that was a huge part of it. And whenever you put all those pieces together, all of those moving parts, what you end up with is this was a man-made thing, a very man-made thing. A movement likely would have come out of it anyway, whether God was there or not, because all of these moving parts are human made.

But in the historical accounts, it's much bigger than it was. I'll say it like that and I can say that with confidence. Historically, you remember it from the legend that was created. Well, picture all of the different legends that had been created, leading to your 1994. You had the Laterane movement, the post-World War II healing revival.

This was restoring the apostles and prophets. Many of the key components for what would develop in 1994. had died and with his death we had people who were trying to figure out how do we move forward when our foremost leader has died the man who many claimed was God in the flesh and so movements like the shepherding movement and restorationism they came out of this and they were promoting things like covenant relationships and spiritual authority, spiritual coverings, submission, this kind of thing. And then off to the side you had more in your neck of the woods, you had the

vineyard, the third wave of all of the normalization of the signs, wonders and healing prophetic attributes, none of which was really original or new. Most of those were recreations of what came in the healing revival with a much more musical twist, I say like that. And then the Kansas City prophets had injected the in-time prophecy narratives that mostly came from Brandon but some of them were their own had injected that into the vineyard and Wagner's church growth was starting to catch on, people were seeing these, wow we can have a big mega church and all these people in the city will come.

So you had all of these different streams of mechanic, we're talking cogs on the wheel of spinning, all of these cogs are spinning to develop into the background for what you had in 1994.

Yeah now that's very helpful John, you know as a history teacher I have really come to realize that history really does repeat itself and when you do not know your history you think that what you're going through is unique, you think this has never happened before. So again in my 20s what did I know? All I knew was that they were describing revival as this, you know this is a goal, this is like we need to die for the revival, you know revival at all costs. And one of the things that I actually want to arrive at in this podcast is is it really worth it John? Is it worth all the

sacrifices, all the time, effort and let's not forget the money, lots and lots of money that gets injected into the revival movement and does it really do what it's supposed to do which is to save souls and not just save them right, disciple them, raise them up into Christian maturity as would Paul often told us, you know that you can't just remain babies, you got to grow up in the faith and that for me was what I started scratching my head and wondering like is this really what God wants, just like what you kind of went through.

you know, is this what revival supposed to look like? But anyway, I'm jumping ahead of myself. Let's go back to 1994. So what I remember about 1994 was there was an earthquake.

And I believe it was January 1994. There was this huge Northridge earthquake. We were not that far from it. I mean, the whole earth, you know, it felt was shaking. And of course, you know, these profits, they like to use these things.

Like, this is it. I mean, people were still trying to like get new refrigerators and fix their broken glass because of the earthquake. I mean, it was a massive earthquake. And meanwhile, from the pulpit, what we're hearing is, that's a sign.

Our prayers are being heard. God is shaking the earth, you know. And this year, we are going to see, you know, God moving away. He has never moved before. And so I'm like, all right, bring it on.

So more, more 40-day fast, more 24-7 prayer. And then, and then it happened, John. Lou Angle and Che on heard about this thing happening in Toronto called the Toronto blessing. And they started going there.

They started, I don't know how many times they went. But they were gone from the pulpit for a while. And all of a sudden, they came back. And they said, we're all going to line up.

We're all going to lay hands on you. And, you know, this is it. And when you, when you hype people, you know, join almost fever pitch, right? Like, all right, we're ready. You speak about this in some of your podcasts, John.

There is something biological that happens, you know, that anticipation. You know, it's like going to a party who like, oh, I can't wait for the party. And then you go to the party and everybody's dancing.

And you're like, okay, I'm just going to jump in there at party party. And, you know, and you think like, yeah, this is it. This is the best thing, you know. Well, no, you just, they just put music on.

And you have a bunch of people dancing, you know, jumping up and down. And so your body will just gravitate to doing what you see everyone else doing. So, because of the Toronto blessing.

brought in to our church, Abundant Life Community Church. We were still part of PDI at that time.

There was a split that happened. Cause half of us got it and half of us didn't. And when I say got it, okay, I'm gonna name some of the physical manifestations that came out besides the usual falling and crying.

There was a lot of uncontrollable laughter. The laughing revival, it was called. Definitely a lot of shaken going on, okay? We used to call it shaken and bacon. Fresh shot of the oven.

Animal noises. We were known for animal noises. The barking dogs, the roaring lions. And as far as the preaching from the pulpit, now we're not hearing so much about Jesus who died on the cross, his sacrificial death for our sins and the resurrection.

Now we're hearing all about the father's heart of love, the father. Now the emphasis now was on the father. It almost as if, okay, Jesus, then Holy Spirit came during Pentecost. And then, but where was the father?

Like, father was missing for all these thousands of years. And then all of a sudden in 1994, father woke up and said, oh, I gotta care for my kids. I mean, I'm being facetious, of course, but it almost felt that way.

That, and I myself, I was born Catholic. I knew my rosary, you know, we had worship of the saints in Mary and, you know, lots of teachings on Jesus, not so much in Holy Spirit, but I had not heard of the father and the heart of love of daddy.

Now people were calling him daddy, which in the very beginning, I was like, is that okay? Is that okay too? I had such a reverence, you know, for the spiritual things. So it was kind of weird for me to hear these Californians, you know, these hippies call the father daddy.

Oh yeah, daddy got, you know, daddy this. And I was like, this is a different culture for sure. But, you know what? I'm in my 20s. This is a new thing. So I just, dove into the pool. I dove into the deep end of the pool. I started shaking. I started falling. I mean, I don't know about the, I don't think I ever barked like a dog, but but some sounds were coming out of my mouth and I thought, okay, you know, this is kind of exciting kind of like that party where you know, you're in with the in crowd now and

remember, I am still the sister-in-law of Cheon. So I'm being invited to even some of those inner circle meetings where even wilder things are happening. We had John and Carol are not come to to California to spread to even spread further, right? Because I guess the hands of Cheon and Luangal were not enough. So we had more people come. We started having Jim Goll come. We started having Mike Bickel, you know, like all these people in the in the Yeah, mid 90 started coming. So from 1994 to 1996 our little church and by now remember there was a split and

Larry and CJ they were not happy. They're they're not they're not into this falling down and weird carous mania stuff, right? And and like we already discussed, I mean CJ himself was really moving more towards Calvinism. So he was very upset and as close as they were that friendship got strained and and Che and Lu sadly had to walk away from that friendship. Che and Lu for a very short while followed John Wimber and the and the vineyard because you know John John is like you said into the supernatural into healing evangelism and you know, we we all read his books, you know, power power evangelism. It was called power healing. So now we were like now we've got the power, right?

We feel it in our bones, you know, this must be of God. There's power running through our veins and

guess what John Wimber said, oh, that's too much. Even John Wimber said no, no, no, no, no, you cannot be part of the vineyard if you go down this route. I mean John and Carol had to also leave. They were a vineyard and they're like, no, no, no, no, that that's a different brand of the charismatic world and you're too out there now.

So, what did Jay and Lou do? They started their own church, Harvest Rock Church. And it started in 1994, officially, and when they opened their doors, I am telling you, there were lines around the block.

And we were quickly, remember, we were the ones contending for revival. So now we were promoted, John, I was promoted. I was now a prophetic intercessor, prayer leader.

We were placed in front of the stages. Remember, because Jay and Lou only have two hands each. They can't lay hands on everyone. And if this, if the power is transferred through the laying on of hands, then you gotta touch them, right?

You gotta make sure every single person who visits and we're talking hundreds of people. And we start having protracted meanings every night. That's a lot of people, John. So guess what? I was there almost every night laying hands on people.

And guess what? We were seeing them fall. Like, whoa, that was kind of a headache experience for me as a 20-year-old. Like, whoa, what do I have in my hands? People are falling down, you know?

I'm not pushing them, okay? There is something going on. And so what I find interesting now, as I look back,

because they needed more hands and because they needed more mouths to prophesy, because now we were known as a prophesying church. This was when they were now partnering with C. Peter Ragnar, and remember, he is all about raising up of the last day saints,

the prophets and the apostles. I don't know why they always call, they always just call out the apostle and prophet. Like, whatever happened to the teachers and the evangelists and the pastors, but I guess they're not as important in this last day's movement.

So all of a sudden, we were like little, little prophets, John. We all had, we were lined up in the front of the stage. You know, we're facing the audience. They're all forming lines in front of us.

The first time this happened to me, John, my heart was beating so hard. Like, what am I gonna say to these people? Like, it was just insane now that I look back. And I think, I think I did my best to encourage everyone.

I just said, God bless you, sister. Like, oh, my back. Like, okay, let me pray for your back. I don't know if they got healed, you know. We just, we didn't really get that much training.

I'm gonna say, and am I gonna say it was all a circus act.

I don't think I can say that, John. I think God did show up because He does love us. He is our father. He is our father. He does love us, but it very, very quickly went to the extreme.

To all the craziness, to all the insanity. And so, yeah, so I think that was really when Che and Luke cut the apron strings and were no longer a part of PDI, and then they were with Wimbur and then that got cut off.

Now remember, both of these movements, the PDI movement and the vineyard movement, those were not, those were not cut off because Che and Luke wanted it cut off. They were the ones removed. And I think, you know, I don't know, I would like to hear your opinion, John.

I think there was hurt probably in some rejection that both Che and Luma have felt because these were their friends. And maybe they had something to prove. Maybe they wanted just to say to these guys who mentored them and kind of fathered them in the faith.

Like, we'll show you. Like, you're telling us that we're weird and, you know, we're, we have barking dogs and we've got like people who are laughing hysterically. Like, you know what? This is of God and we're gonna show you and, you know, just watch.

And honestly, 1994 to 2026, that's like 30 years of NAR because that's really was the beginning of NAR. When they, when they, this is how I put it. I feel like the NAR movement that started in Southern California.

I'm sure there's, there are Genesis stories in NAR everywhere else that, that the spirit supposedly sparked. But I'm talking about what I experienced in Southern California. So this is what I was told that we were the ones who started it and it was three people in particular.

It was C. Peter Wagner, who came from Fuller. And he was like the intellectual, he provided the intellectual, actual theological framework of the movement. Then you've got Che. And Che is a master network builder.

That is his gift. And the fact that he was able to not just grow Harvest Rock Church from just a little group to hundreds of people. But no, his claim to fame is H.I.M.

Harvest International Ministry, which, if you look in their website, I think they said 25,000 churches worldwide. I think it's grown. And the website says 62 nations, I think. But now it's 70 nations.

Like, I don't know, but it keeps changing. But I'm going to give him that. Che on, manage to grow this movement into this global phenomenon. Whether you want to call it a man-made one, I'm sure you would.

I tend to say, no, let's give him a little bit of God in there. I think, at least in the very, very beginning, but I don't think it is now, for sure. It definitely turned cultic very, very quickly.

In the third one, of course, Luangal. And I call him, I don't know, the gatherer, the stadium revival gatherer, who's able to create these rallies, create this atmosphere of anticipation. That is his gift.

You put him up on stage. People just start falling. He goes up there and really of the three of them, he's the one, I think, that maybe is the most respected, most beloved, I told you it took me a while.

It took me a while to really be able to see him with clear eyes. 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.

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You mentioned that history repeats itself and that's something that I've really thought through many times in many ways because no matter how far you go back in history and you're talking about New Apostolic Reformation or Laterane, any of these movements, you're going to go back and you're going to find something similar.

And people have asked me, do you think God was in it? And my answer is a little bit different than people expect. My answer isn't a yes or no. It's more like this. The movement thinks that God is in it because of the movement, because of what they're doing.

And I say God was there in spite of what they were doing. It's more like that because truly, if you go back and so you mentioned the earthquake, go back to 1906, the Azusa Street Revival.

I've got a couple of podcasts on this if you want to watch it. The earthquake hit an all revival brook loose. And I use the revival instead of that other word that I should have used.

The earthquake came all revival brook loose. And here's where it gets interesting. The Bible does talk about laying on of hands. And it does talk about it in an apostolic way. So I think that's why they have to have these apostles.

You ask why are they choosing apostles and prophets and leaving the others out. Well, if you think about how the movement spread and if you understand those passages about laying on of hands and the culture, the culture was different than ours.

Back then, there are examples of this. I think even in the Old Testament, when Joshua was commissioned, laying on of hands was a significant act of commissioning for service. So when the apostles laid hands on you, they were commissioning you to go spread the gospel.

It wasn't that the power came because of the laying on of hands. And I can't say in spite of because that's not right, but it's about the same thing. It wasn't linked together in the way that they're linking it.

It happened because it happened, not because they laid on hands. But there's a problem that exists all throughout history, starting back with Adam and Eve and coming forward, where people can't describe God or heavenly things without describing it in a human way.

For us to be able to understand it, we need to humanize it. And I hate to say it like this, but this is actually the actual truth. The only human thing that people can think about in the same way of spreading like this, in a way that is not the Holy Spirit and control of spreading it is the laying on of hands.

They think it is the physical act of laying on hands because if you're sick, if you have a virus and you come in contact with somebody, you can spread the virus. So it's a very human thing, right? They can't allow the thought that there's a being so powerful and using the Holy Spirit can fill the hearts without their actions. So they have to put a human-associated act to it. And it's really wrong when you think about it. Fast forward, you've got the same kind of thing happened at the lateral rain revival when it broke out. They brought back the laying on of hands, they tried to spread

it in a human way. And what happened in both cases is that when you do this, you have humans involved, humans have egos involved. And one apostle says, well, I laid my hands on and I have this doctrine and he doesn't have this doctrine. And so you create a division.

So they split. And the group split, they grow, they split, they grow. And that is an organic human growth. That's how, that's how, you know, even from the viruses that will grow and split into morph into different viruses, right? The virus itself changes. They have to look at it in a human way. To the extent, I was looking at the history comparisons between, you mentioned the Toronto blessing, the pigs and all of this. In one of the podcasts I did, I went through some of that history, but there is documented history of people doing the same

thing, same type of thing in the Azusa street revival. And worse, there were women who were leaving their husbands because this was it. This was the end. We're in the end times revival. My husband's not coming. So he's going to hell. Let's go out on the street and grab another husband and bring him in. And they were doing that. They were bringing new husbands in. It was so weird what they were doing. But again, if you were there, you saw the weirdness in today's world.

We don't hear the weirdness. All we hear is the legend. And the legend grows and continues to grow. Fast forward to New Apostolic Reformation. Same exact thing. I hear all of this stuff about how the Toronto blessing was so great and God was there because these men did these things.

And I'm still the same opinion. God was there in spite of the men doing those things. Yeah, no, that's a great way of putting it. I tend to feel that way too, John, because again, as much as I have to admit, I was duped. I was definitely deceived into believing a lot of these doctrinal practices and theological teachings. I cannot discount certain things that happened to me personally. Little miracles that I saw for myself. And I'm just going to say, God is a mysterious God. And we can't scientifically analyze what exactly was of God and what wasn't.

I am going to agree with you, John. I'm gonna say like this much was God. And that may be the, I mean, sorry. This was just, was man and this much was God, you know?

The percentage maybe, you know, I can agree with you. But the exact numbers, you know, percentage wise, who knows? Who knows? It's a sprinkling. Um, I'm gonna say this. I sometimes get people on my social media who tell me,

what are you doing, Pia? Even these are some of my friends from back in the day. Why are you exposing our beloved pastor, Cheon?

You know, why do you have to be an accuser of the brethren? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they like to say, can't you just take the chicken, take the drumstick, the chicken and spit out the bones?

I hear, you know, versions of that all the time, you know, just throw out the bones. And this is my comeback now, because I heard it from, you know, someone and I've adopted it.

It's not really like that. It's like, um, like that cool aid I always talk about. Maybe that cool aid at one point was just sugar, sugar water, that's all that cool aid is. But, you know, and that's, that's really not the best for your health, but whatever, you're not gonna die.

But then somebody puts a little poison on it, even just a one drop of something very toxic. And now the entire cool aid picture is poisonous. And even just a little gulp of that could kill you, you know?

And so that's how I see it. It's like, how are you going to distinguish what is good sugar water and what is poison? So anyway, and that's why I do what I do. That's just a little side note.

I wanted to get into this. You were talking about how things really got spread, right? Laying on of hands. People talking, people just like, oh my God, you gotta go down that, you know, did you see the lines, you know, going on the blocks?

Something's happening in that church over there. You know, that's how things get spread. But something happened, John, in the 1990s that has never happened. This one is true. This has never happened before. It's the advent of the internet.

It, shh. Why? Oh, this revival thing was exploding from Toronto, from Brownsville, from California. You've got this real technological explosion happening. All of a sudden, everybody has an email. I remember the very first emails I was getting was about the revival, you know.

And at first, it was all the positive stuff. Later on, I started becoming part of an email group where we talked about the negative stuff, you know. But yeah, people who stopped drinking the cool aid.

And I think that was the start for me, you know, of my deconstruction, my healing was, oh, I'm not the only one who thought that it was all crazy. But anyway, in the very, very beginning, the ideas about seven mountain mandates, which had not yet been fully developed, right?

Back in the 90s, but it was starting to, you know. And as you said, as you, as you're, as you very well lay out through your podcast series, none of these ideas were unique to Wagner or Jay or Lou or Jim Gaul or Mike Pickle or, you know, like you said, it came from other movements, but none of us knew that.

We didn't know that William Branham was the original, you know, kind of crazy, narcissistic leader. We didn't know that what was being, when they were laying hands. We didn't know what was being spread.

It wasn't just like good things, you know. There was a lot of very not, not good things at all that were being passed on. So back to the mid 90s, you know, the email system started becoming more popular, you know, AOL.

And then pretty soon, you've got modern Christian TV. It's like almost every mega church now had their own television production company. And then you've got my space before there was Facebook, there was my space.

And then Facebook and then Twitter and I honestly feel that this advent of new ways to disseminate information rapidly and widely really helped this movement. You know, call it coincidence, call it, I'm sure they're going to say it's God.

God helped us, but it worked, right? It worked because now you've got people flying, you know, like back in the day, people. old road horses to go to the to to watch Charles Finney.

Like, oh, Charles Finney's in the next town and they rode their horses to go watch him, you know? And maybe William Brandham's time, you know, people would drive for hours. Well, now you're you're you have people flying.

Myself included I told you I used to fly from California to North Carolina just to be part of Morningstar ministry. Those conferences with Rick joiner. So we were all drinking the Kool-Aid. We were all just like, you know, like I said, going back to that party analogy.

We were all like jumping in the pool. Isn't this great? This is no one has ever experienced this thrill that we are now experiencing. And yeah, sure, some of us are burning like dogs.

But don't be no attention to those people. You know, we, you know, we are more we're more normal. So just just check us out, you know, try it out. And more and more and more people just started coming.

Now, this I'm going to say I do believe God saved me from a lot of that because in 1996, I got kicked out. I got kicked out not because I wanted to leave, but I was basically told by Jay.

You went through a divorce. Can't have a year anymore. And you know what, it broke my heart, John. It broke my heart. I mean, not because, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be part of the party anymore.

Like I was past that, I was past that. But they were my friends. They're still my friends. And yeah, and like I said, I went to a more word-based church. A lot more subdued, I'm going to say.

Like all of a sudden, you go from this hyper like, you know, it's a thrill every night. There's always something going on. Someone's getting healed. You know, someone's going to start rolling down the aisle.

Like he was a very entertaining circus. And now I go to an ordinary church where people just sat still and listen to the pastor. And he's preaching straight from the Bible. I was an adjustment.

I have to admit, it was an adjustment. But it was a very good adjustment for me. Because I, and I think that that was of God. That was God's grace that I got spared.

having to be a part of, you know, continued craziness. So I wanna go back to that question as we're wrapping up, you know, was it all worth it? There was an interview, not too long ago, Bill Johnson was being asked, you know, given all the scandal happening at Bethel, with Shawn Balls, like, do you think it was worth it?

And in a nutshell, I'm paraphrasing, but Bill Johnson said, yeah, you know, there's been some, you know, we're very sorry for all the victims that got hurt. But at the end, yeah, it was worth it, you know, hundreds of people got saved, you know, lives were transformed, blah, blah, blah, the gospel was preached.

And I wanted us to explore that a little bit before we close, you know, was it worth it? What do you, I wanna hear from you, John, was it worth it? I don't know if you remember this, but in the 1980s, there was a show called McGyver.

This is my favorite show of all time. There was this guy who could do anything with anything. He was a mechanic, he knew new Maddox, hydraulics, all of these different things. And he could walk into a situation that was just so insanely bad.

And he'd have a smile on his face because he knew he could get out of it. He knew he could fix it. And I look at this movement much like this. Was it good, was it bad?

There are so many problems with it. There are so many things that make it look disastrous. You've got, Stephen Montgomery calls it the converging apostasy. You've got the occult that came into this movement.

You've got nosticism, came into the movement. You've got all of these different streams of, sometimes purely evil, some things that are just simply anti-Christ coming into this movement that developed the bedrock from which all of it would grow.

And then what grew was truly horrific. It was taking lives. There were people who were cutting off their families. If you weren't in one particular sect, you cut your family off who wasn't in that sect.

And that's still happening today, even some of the more, quote unquote, respectable churches in Nahr, their families are just broken because of this. And look at all of the harm that it has caused.

This is a situation if my guy ever came into this, he'd be like, I don't know if I can keep the smile on my face. You know what I mean? But it was bad.

It was truly, truly bad. And can any good come from it? I have to think picture God who's in control of all things, looking down at this thing that is just so bad that humans have made this big mess.

And hopefully God who's in control of everything can say, okay, sometime in the future, we have the... documented now. People like you and I are making a clear record of everything that has happened.

Somebody in the future can look back and say, I don't want to do that ever again. This was bad. Let's don't do this. I don't look at it like something that can be something that can be turned into the legends that the lateral rain movement, Pentecostalism, all of these things have turned into a God's General's type of story.

It's more of a fairy tale type of story of something that's horrific. New apostolic reformation is different because it is so devastating and has caused so much problem. I don't know that future generations can look back on this and say, that's a good legend.

Let's keep this story. I think it's gotten to the level that it's so bad that people just walk away and forget it. At least I hope that's what happened because this is truly bad.

I 100% agree. As a historian, one of the things that we like to do and as a history teacher, we've taught this. Always look at the cause and effect. We've talked a lot about the cause.

Why did NAR even come into place in the first place? I want to talk about the effects. So while I'm going to concede there were some positive effects for the most part, I think there were far more negative. I'm just going to read my little list, not comprehensive, but I wrote all of these down for future reference. If people in the future watch this podcast, they're going to say, well, I wish somebody would just give me a list of what were some of the negative effects. Well, here's a small list. Almost no financial integrity. Not enough accountability for

the leaders. Too much concentrated authority in a singular figure. And of course, never question the leaders because that would be rebellious. Networks that relied more on personal relationships and nepotism than formal governance. And we didn't really get into this much. I would like to have a podcast at some point talking about the governance. How exactly do leaders get picked within NAR?

That is a podcast in itself. Celebrity culture, ministry branding. So again, talking about the advent of modern, modern means of communication and nowadays, of course, it's all social media. You got to have a branding. Loyalty and protection of the personalities and institutions rather than the victims.

Large Conferences, stadium revivals, rallies, replacing simple one-on-one discipleship. Chasing of the next move of God instead of just the pure word of God. And here's the last one which for me, I feel very sad for these young people who really chase these kinds of revival events and at the end they realize nothing has really changed in my life. I gave my entire allowance for the whole month because the preacher said that I would get a hundredfold reward and I am even more broke now and I quit my job at Trader Joe's to be an usher and now I don't have a job, you know, like actually my life is worse.

So big disappointments whenever the extraordinary experiences promised to them were not fulfilled. So yep, to the point of Bill Johnson saying, well, you know, at the end it's all worth it. I'm going to have to say a big fat note of that one because, you know, I think you're saying, well, someday they're going to know that this was not of God. I hope that someday is now.

I would rather it be sooner than later that people just wake up to the reality that, you know, God doesn't build circus acts, you know, he doesn't need that. He doesn't need our extra help to entertain people, you know, because he's God and he's powerful and we really don't need to help him become more powerful. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the number of lives that have been ruined because of this, it really makes it hard for me to believe that God supports it. I'll put it like that.

There are many ways to look at it. You can say God was there in the movement. You can say people were there and where two or three are gathered in my name, God will be in the midst, but that is the same case if you were to accidentally drive your family into the middle of a satanic ritual. Yes, God is there with you, but do you really want to be in that ritual? I mean, I hate to hate to be blunt like this because when you look at the occult, you look at all these other different things that are

mixed in with this movement, it's not that far different. And yet at the same time, empowering people and putting them in positions of authority over other humans that they should never have had in the first place. So I'm glad you're exposing it. I'm sorry that your life has taken the twists and turns that it has. Mine too, there are many different life decisions I would never have made had not I been in this had I not been in this movement. And yes, it does ruin lives. Sometimes I get angry about it. I could be a bitter person for all of the things that have been

taken away from me. But I choose to smile and I choose to laugh. And that's why I make all the jokes I do in the podcast because you could be down about it or you could just move on. And I've chosen to move on. I hope everybody else who is in this movement can one day say I too am going to move on. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, John.

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-Brandom.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.