How Religious Leaders Make Themselves Untouchable

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brenham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brenham Historical Research at William-Brenham.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher and friend, John McKinnon, author of Godhead in their own words, voices of oneness preachers of the in-time message.

John is good to be back and to talk about this subject that honestly is the theme that you can identify through almost every single person that I have on the podcast, whether it's a person who's co-hosting with me or a person who's sharing their story. And this is the theme, how a religious leader makes himself untouchable. You have found some evidence that I actually had not yet seen, which I'll let you introduce that and talk about that a bit. But the evidence really is just a case study of the broader issue that we have in all of these movements that have sprung up from the latter-rain post-war war to healing

revival. There is just simply no accountability in some of the religious groups. And what happens whenever you take out the guardrails of accountability, the religious leaders who are intent on creating a name for themselves will often make themselves untouchable, because they know inwardly they're not who they claim to be, but they can't let the people find that out. And that's really what we're dealing with here. William-Brenham was not who he claimed to be, and as we'll go through in the evidence that you have to share with the people, this is just an example of what is continuing to happen even still today. So even though this letter might not

seem relevant to the broader audience who's listening from the charismatic movement, Pentecostum movement, et cetera, you'll be able to identify exactly what I'm talking about whenever you hear what John McKinnon has to say. And anyway, I'll let you introduce it. Well, hello, John. It's great to be back here again with you today. And I just want to say that we've gone through quite a few episodes and had quite a journey here discussing how cults are born. And the podcast will educate and reform anyone who's interested in learning more of these background of the creation of cults and why people stay in them, and in particular,

showing how these elements that we've talked about are within this very cult that we came out of. But I wanted to get to one item of business, you know, out of the way first. My recent two books that I published, it was pointed out to me in my recent book, Godhead, in their own words that I'm a achingly said that Seth coffee was the son of Barry coffee. I want to openly apologize for that mistake is I do not know them personally, but I am very familiar with Bertha Barry coffee's church at Hickory Bible Tabernacle, but I do not know anything about how many

sons are in the ministry that he had, but with Seth having the same last name and living in the same area within 10 miles, say of where the church is, I assumed he was related.

And the same goes, we know what happens when we assume something. So once again, that's confirmed to be true. But the Seth records straight here, the family living in North Carolina are not related to Bertha Barry coffee, who I think is originally from Canada. They just happen to be in the message and share the same last name. It's a lot like my former pastor, brother Green. He was not related to Perry Green of Arizona, but a lot of times the overseas work that my pastor did was credited to Perry Green because they shared the same last name. And I'd like to say this, usually whenever a co-host or myself makes

a correction or offers an apology for something that is either mistated or just simply got wrong and either a publication or a podcast, usually I take that segment and I put it to the end because people listening to a podcast, they really want to get to the subject matter quickly so they can see what the podcast is about. And then they continue and then they may or may not make it all the way to that segment. That's usually how it works if you look at the analytics of how a podcast is presented to the people and the response to the

podcast. However, this is the subject matter. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Transparency. You do not want to make yourself something that you're not. We're all humans. We all make mistakes, but whenever you have leadership that are trying to cover up their mistakes, usually what they're doing is they're trying to make themselves untouchable in a way that people can't find out. And that's really the sad truth of what happened to both you and I and others who have left the message following William Brannum. We found out and when we found out, oh my gosh, why in the world did not only William Brannum, but so many other people

that followed him, why did they continue to cover this up for so many decades? So this is the subject matter that we're talking about. You know, this kind of thing happens more than we think. So I just made the correction and so I think no future books that are published or purchased, you know, will be correct. I actually think this information makes the argument even more powerful because it now shows it to unrelated message churches with unrelated relational relationships. Within 10 miles of each other, I really teaching things that are contrary to the message as far as our teaching of the Godhead's concern, because

I know William Brannum taught the Godhead strictly outside of the oneness or trinity. doctrinal interpretations of it, and these teach more of a oneness concept in those two churches. It seems like from the outside looking in, that's just my opinion, but I think that says a lot is what's happening within the message.

You know, they're not, for the most part, sticking with the true message doctrine and when they don't. Then what can you really call them? Are they really being true to the message? So to get back on our topic today, you know, we'll be putting the finishing touches on the discussions of how cult leaders get started and sway people.

So I have just one more letter from a minister who William Random Corresponded with and had meetings together with him in 1962 and even earlier in North Carolina. We've been talking about how cults form and the elements that go in this toxic recipe.

Like any recipe that's been handed down generation to generation, it can be replicated. Cult leaders adopt the same recipe and get mostly the same results, you know, one degree of another, but it's a tragedy for everyone and even becomes more tragic, you know, when people are harmed, you know, in the process.

I was listening to a sermon by John McArthur recently on false prophets, which he delivered about two years after the tragedy of a Jonestown. He preached in the verses of Matthew 7, verses 15-20, which say, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, inwardly they are ravening wolves.

You shall know them by their fruits, to men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Even so, every tree brings a fourth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings a fourth bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hoondown, cast into the fire. He said, wherefore by their fruits, you shall know them, Jesus speaking.

So he begins exploring some of the people's lives, he became part of the church of the Jonestown church. And you know, these people were not destitute people. They were very smart, intelligent, professional in a lot of cases and strong church scores before they met up with Jim Jones.

And that's what's so ironic about this. And McArthur goes on and says, you know, these people were raised in Christian environments and yet the subtlety of the man deceived even these people that were Christians.

And he says, such as the seafoldness of false prophets and such is the reason why our Lord says, beware, they're not something superficially discovered. It's very hard to detect who the false prophets are in some cases because of this subtlety.

That's how those of us who came out of the message could stay in it for 20, 30 or 40 years before realizing really anything was wrong about it. McArthur goes on and laughs. operates further, he said, he, which is Jones, used the language in the forms of faith to gain his power.

He used fundamentalist Pentecostal trappings and always spoke in a biblical language. He had his people sing and give testimonies as to how he had miraculously healed them. He created a warm, loving pseudo-Christian community without Christ.

He demanded absolute and total loyalty. He replaced Jesus as the authority figure and went so far as to say that he was Jesus. He used the Bible, quoting it very often, but perverting it to his own ends.

He gave away anointed gifts, miracle blessings, prayer cloths, and always demanded money in return. You know, as we know, Jones did work with Brother Brannum for three to four years together, so I'm sure Jones became well-versed in these techniques that he was using that MacArthur is elaborating on, and which made him a successful cult leader.

You know, we're not going to focus on Jim Jones today, but on a letter that I do have from William Brannum to a man named C. Parker Thomas, and then C. Parker Thomas' reflection on the Ministry of William Brannum years later.

So it just goes to show that all these techniques that I just read about here that Jones was using, we see those very same techniques in the Ministry of William Brannum. And I want to pause and talk about something that you said with regards to the music.

Music fascinates me as you know I'm a musician, and this type of thing I've studied quite a bit. There is an interesting aspect. Whenever you ask any follower of William Brannum, do they worship William Brannum?

Most will say no. Even though some, like my grandfather would say, he was God, Tabernacle, and inhuman flesh. So clearly they're worshiping him, but they don't really realize it. And it goes so far as to people will introduce songs into the music lineup in some of the churches where they're singing about the central figure of the cult, in our case, William Brannum.

I grew up hearing songs about William Brannum, and it's like the traveling minstrels who are telling a tale. They're creating a mythology, and that mythology is part of the worship service in the church.

So when you're singing about your central figure in a church, you are worshiping that central figure. We did that. And yet at the same time, while I'm singing about our precious brother Brannum, that's how we would say it, we never really stopped and thought about the fact that we're actually worshiping him and creating a mythology.

More to the point, it goes back to the accountability of the leaders and them trying to become untouchable. Once they've entered into a mythological state, they're truly untouchable. What person in the right mind, what minister in the right mind would allow a congregation and a member to write a song and sing songs in the church about themselves?

There's just not a person to do it. If I was a minister and somebody did this... I would call them outside and say, don't ever do that again. This is not the way that we worship Jesus Christ.

You don't sing songs about me, your pastor. William Bratam allowed this. There were songs about him while he was still alive and he'd never put a stop to it. This is just something, in my opinion, it's just so wrong and people don't realize, but it all comes down to this.

They're worshiping a false god and that false god is the central figure that they're venerating through all of these songs and undue reverence. What I want to get into is that C. Parker Thomas, here was a minister, he was in Southern Pines, North Carolina, and he actually hosted William Bratam a couple of times in the late 50s, around 1958 and the early 60s, around 1962.

But C. Parker Thomas' church was where the famous 1962 shadow of death picture was taken. But William Bratam was a little deceiving when he actually spoke of this picture that was taken later. He claimed it was during a service when he was discerning the lady who had the cancer and a voice told the woman to snap the picture at that instance.

But I think he said later on that a second picture was taken, which showed the hood of death gone, but I've never seen that one produced. But this picture doesn't look as though it was taken during a service at all because you could think about during a service, people would be attuned to the minister and quiet and reverent.

But you see a flood light shining on the audience and the people looking toward the flood light as if they knew a picture was going to be snapped. Back in those days, when you took home movies or photographs, you actually have to shine a light to lighten the subjects that you were taking.

Because the lighting was poor in those days and the camera lens was not like we have today where they can be a lot sharper even in low light settings. So you see a flood light on the audience is shining down.

And then you see people's heads turned in this picture toward each other and even a woman laughing. So during a prayer service, that wouldn't really be going on even in such a service like this when he was discerning the sick and the afflicted.

You even see an usher taking a person to a seat in this picture and putting his head down to talk to a person seated at the edge of the aisle. So this could not be the picture that William Brannum was describing here.

It's just another example of how he took things and just embellish them and how he took pictures and made them something that they were not. But the same thing really happened years later, not many years later, with pictures taken in his ministry, a few years before he passed off the scene, pictures were taken in the Arizona desert with a defective camera.

And his deity followers were trying to prove that this orangey looking thing blob in the photograph was actually the pillar of fire that was appearing in the photos taken in the desert when they saw the orange.

other light on the film. But given Perry Green's credit to his credit, he exposed this as a hoax as a defective camera letting the light into and exposing the film along with the picture.

So I have to give him credit for being honest about this and not trying to embellish the picture as others were doing and not trying to carry on the legend because he actually had a camera.

He said, I can show you exactly how this is done and he took several photos and he even testified to this and was showing the brothers that were trying to make brother Brannemey God that, hey, this is just a defective camera.

Don't take it as something supernatural. So we see that happen a lot through the ministry there. We'll get him back to the second letter that we have that William Brannem sent to C. Parker Thomas in June of 1958.

It was probably after he toured in the area where his church was. He went back in 62 in North Carolina to solidify this following that he had gathered after this letter and had a chance to take the effect that he wanted it to have with C. Parker Thomas.

But incidentally, it was in 1962, William Brannem preached in an area in Western North Carolina as he was touring where the church I attended, called my home church for many years had begun and that was in Spendale, North Carolina.

So the church in Western North Carolina became a prominent church in the message for many years and it was and is well known throughout many foreign lands in the work that has been done since the 1960s and continues today.

But C. Parker Thomas admits later on in the ministry, this is probably through the 70s and 80s, that he respected William Brannem as a minister. And as a brother, as almost everyone did. But however, Parker Thomas was quite smart to examine what was going on in the ministry.

And it was years later that he came out and said, William Brannem's message was just a cult. You know, when ironic thing that happens happened to me when I was first writing, you know, other ministers in the message to try to find out some recommended ministries close to me that I could attend to.

And this was around 1986. I was heavily discouraged from seeking out C. Parker Thomas's church. I didn't know the history. I didn't know what C. Parker Thomas had said about the ministry of William Brannem.

But these ministers were telling me that C. Parker Thomas got off the word and was going into worshiping of angels. And I laugh at that today because I was so naive at the time, you know, 30 something years ago.

And I trusted people, you know, too much to really tell me the truth because I was trying to absorb everything I could and try to examine it the best I could with the information I had.

But so here was one minister saying this and at the same time, you know, telling me C. Parker Thomas was deceived. But then he was deceived also by being in the message. You know, I can't blame anyone for all these mistakes that happened back then, but I can only...

blame myself because I chose the path that I went on for that time and maybe it was for this very reason that I'm doing what I'm doing today because maybe my experience can help someone find their way.

Now I believe this letter that was sent is just as important as the letter William Brown sent to leave ill and represents two examples that we have on record of William Brown and planting ideas into other ministers' minds about himself and his ministry.

So in other words William Brown was telling people what to say in their own newsletters and about his ministry and what people ought to be believing about him being the Elijah of today. And that's really the hard part about it for me.

See I was born and raised in this and I did not know anything different. When people ask me how could you believe that this person claimed to be Elijah and had the authority of Elijah the prophet and why did you even give Elijah that much authority?

He did not really have that much authority in the Bible. I didn't really have a response because I was born and raised to believe this. It wasn't until long after I left I started re-evaluating all of this and understanding that that was just absurd.

Why did we do that? And I started thinking about my family who was not born and raised in it. How did they come into that mindset? And what I've learned is this, these leaders manufacture divine authority.

They don't simply come out and say I'm the guy. They don't simply say I have the best interpretation of the Bible you must come hear me because nobody would listen. Instead they establish a supernatural biography.

God shows me. I have a prophetic history. God vindicated me. He sent an angel. This prophecy points towards me. Can't you see it? Miracles. Miracles for me. And the letter that you found is really valuable because it shows that he was actively trying to manufacture this divine authority.

And as we've looked and examined the leave, leave a letter, etc. It's just one of many hundreds probably of instances where William Brannum was trying to manufacture something that did not exist. The sad truth is nobody really had critical thinking to turn it off and stop him and say, no, man, you can't do this to me.

You're not going to make me submit and bow down to you and worship you, but that's exactly what happened. There were people that over time they began to bow down and sing songs to him in the church.

And it's just so wrong when you think about it. It is not a Christian church once you start worshipping the minister who is on the platform. I want to take a minute now to just analyze the letter that was written to C. Parker Thomas.

This at a tone is very similar to that which was sent to leave Vail. And this letter was sent on June 30th, 1958, and anyone can get this off the internet. But the letter starts off very polite and pastoral and relational on the surface.

But as soon as that is over, it quickly transitions into a self-authorizing autobiographical manifesto that William Brannum was relating to Parker Thomas. Now the letter from William Brannum to see Parker Thomas is more formal and concise than the letter to leave Vail because leave Vail was an audio letter and Parker Thomas was written.

But it's framed as a thank you note for hospitality during his convention. You know, in 1958, an expressing regret for his fatigue and his optimism about future collaboration. But it quickly shifts into a detailed autobiographical account of William Brannum's life.

His ministry is divine calling, which he explicitly asked to be published in Thomas' paper because Thomas' published a paper in time or a midnight call messenger or something like that and he wanted that to be published in Thomas' paper because that had a distribution of who knows how many thousands of people.

So William Brannum was trying to insert himself into Thomas' ministry and present himself as the head Elijah of the day so that people would start following William Brannum is all about self-promotion. He said this in the letter, said, if you do not mind, it would go so even as far as to publish this letter.

So he was even wanting Parker Thomas to publish the letter in his publications. And that's why he was so careful to be very particular about it. So this makes it feel like a promotional testimonial or a manifesto.

It blends gratitude and theology and personal testimony. His tone is always polite, humble in spots because he admits his weakness and credits God with things that are done in his ministry. But he's also confident and authoritative.

He positions himself as a predestined prophet with the biblical parallels all throughout. He uses scriptural references bringing that in from Jeremiah, Ephesians, and John to validate his experiences that he had. And the narrative emphasizes the supernatural events as evidence of authenticating his ministry.

William Brannum emphasizes in this letter to Parker Thomas that he has a divine election which is unique. He had supernatural vindication from birth. He had commissions through angels. He had exclusive revelatory authority and his eschatological or intimes is very significant to his ministry.

It's also centered on his ministry. So it's not just correspondence to see Parker Thomas. This letter functions to credential William Brannum's ministry. But I'll say that as it wasn't leave ill and that audio transcript, it's also evident here.

There's very narcissistic traits evident in this letter. First of all, there's grandiosity. But that's also framed as God had to do this to get the people's attention. He repeatedly insists that he did not choose the role he's in, but he was actually born into it, called into it from birth.

He also has a origin, self-origin narrative, which is very mythic. He talks about the light over the cradle that came in through the window. He talks about visions he received as an infant, which always came to pass.

He talks about a childhood voice that spoke to him, and also his moral separation from the ungodliness of the world, such as smoking and drinking very early on that God was preserving the vessel for some work in the future.

But that functions, all that background functions to place his authority beyond ordinary testing. It makes him the prophet from birth even prior to his conversion. And what this does, John, it gives him immunity to correction.

He's laying the background for, I cannot be corrected for my doctrine because I have all these things that vindicate who I am. The claims are structured so that disbelief is implicitly spiritual blindness to the other person.

The reader is instructed to just accept it and not evaluate it. His weakness in ministry is reframed as proof of the authenticity, but not as something that was a human weakness that he had, such as the times that when he went off the field, having never sprained down and so forth.

So in this letter, he seems to try to remain in humility by saying that the letter is with your humble servant, you know, in the Lord. But the content of the letter just contradicts that totally.

The evidence of pride in the letter is that he positions himself as uniquely the same as other biblical prophets. Now, I'm talking about major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, and no one can get greater than Elijah.

He draws direct typological parallels between himself and Christ's messianic signs, even saying that he's done more signs and wonders in his ministry than Christ did in his and that his sign that he's showing in the services are the same as Jesus showed in his ministry.

So he presents his ministry as marking the clothes of the Gentile age. And so there's an important distinction here about the pride factor. It's not emotional pride. It's not his boasting, his arrogance within himself because he's very humble.

But the pride goes much deeper than that. It's actually claiming a role in salvation, history. And that scripture reserves for only Christ and the apostles' witness. It doesn't place it on any other person in history.

history. The William Brannum is taking all of salvation history and saying it's culminating into his ministry. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned 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. What happened in Brannumism set the standards for many, many movements that spun off of the latter reign post-World War II healing revival. As I said, they're manufacturing divine authority and they're using all kinds of supernatural signs and wonders to do this.

But then what they do is they take it a step further by making that authority self-sealing. In other words, every single outcome, right or wrong, good or bad, vindicates the self-promoting leader. And so what happens when you do this, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, a prophecy can fail, it doesn't matter. You try to show the human side. If a prophecy fails, they say, well, he was just a human. He makes mistakes. If something happened and they guessed it right, well, that was a prophecy. That was divinely inspired by God.

And so when you try to criticize any of this, you are labeled and branded as somebody who just, as a critic who doesn't believe, you lack discernment. In other words, and that's really what's going on here. He's trying to set himself up as this mythological figure in the minds of the people. And think of the terms that are used just as subliminal messaging, spoken word publications, for example. That's the name of the entity that's distributing his message. What do you think when you think spoken word? You think word and you associate it with a Bible if you're in a Christian church? Well, this is the spoken

word. It's the spoken Bible. And there's many churches that ran with that. I said in services where they would hold up the spoken word publications printing of a transcript of Brannum sermons and say, this is the word for our day, meaning this is the Bible for our day. So it doesn't matter what happens once you have set yourself up to that standard that everything good or bad right or wrong points to the authority of the central figure.

That has become worship of the central figure in so much. that they become a deity to the people. All outcomes validate him. Every story resolves itself with his legitimacy reinforced. So nothing that happens, it all funnels into him and to him and his ministry being reinforced before the people.

So that's how we got duped into this is because over and over again, we heard things that were said to be vindications of his ministry. And when you bring in the fact that he distorted the stories and brought it all back to himself, saying he did some great thing, then that may just get duped even more.

But once we learn the truth of this matter, it knocks it all down and we can get back to where we should be and being critical thinkers like we should be. And also questioning men like this and finding out if what they're really saying, you know, is really true.

And we find that most of the time it's not. So even when he claims reluctance, you know, the result is still exaltation of himself. In one case in this letter said, I didn't want this, the God forced it on me.

So even when he tries to say, I backed away from this, he's still in the result, you know, God is pushing this so strongly, he can't, he can't get away from it. So that's what's called classic self elevating deflection.

And there's a term, that's the term for it. He deflects away from himself, but in the end, he says, it was evident that I had to do this. And you know, so that's how he gets away with this is that he fangs humility, but in the end, this is all about promoting himself.

Early in the podcast, you mentioned the Bible passage talking about, you'll know the tree by its fruits. Well, look at the fruits of the message today. People like my grandfather who was a key figure in the movement is saying things like, will you brand him as God tabernacle in human flesh?

I've mentioned this also before in the podcast. What he's saying is, we see the deity right there bottled up in this human vessel. And what happens whenever a leader is promoting himself to that level, it's far beyond even some of the levels of the other destructive groups that we examine on this podcast, the movement becomes more concerned with the messenger than it does even the message that the messenger has brought.

The messenger becomes everything to them. That is the mythology, the messenger. It's all wrapped up into the messenger. For us, William Brannum was our everything. And that's really where this letter becomes useful because you can see this didn't happen just by happenstance.

William Brannum had a strategy of promoting himself and he was doing it actively with other people who had publications. When he found out C. Parker Thomas has this publication, hey, here's my story I would like for you to print it.

And he is bold enough to make these claims directly to C. Parker Thomas, thinking that, he's going to print it in this newsletter. Well, what it does once it's printed in the newsletter, many readers back in that era would read it and think it's fact.

I see it printed, therefore it must be true. The problem is it wasn't true. There was so much of it that was false as we've examined. And in the end, like I said, it is a mythology and like the mythologies of old, it's filled with elements of fiction.

And so the people literally become worshippers of fiction while taking the central figure and turning him into the deity. You've said it right on point there. And we want to get further into this.

And I want to talk about really in this letter that people can go read for themselves and maybe you can even take this and post it on your website if you don't have already.

But there's a serious issue here. And I would say it's the most serious issue of the letter. His claims to authority. And that's the central problem throughout because the letter asserts his predestined prophetic identity.

It asserts angelic commissioning with exclusive signs given to him as he was with the prophet Moses or some other major prophet. It signs to him the ability to read hearts universally as unique and any other person that would come and do the same would be called a Jans and Jabris or a carnal impersonator.

His ministry at the same time in history fulfills scripture. And that's another thing that points to claims to authority. He says equal fulfills Malachar four or five. He says he fulfills Luke 1730. Revelation 10 seven and you know many others.

These claims are really just self-authenticated. They really lack pure verification because they don't allow it. They bypass discernment or criticism. And that's why it's so dangerous. That's why it's a most serious issue. And they also exceed new testament boundaries for a post-apostolic ministry.

Even he claims to have more than the apostles had. He said their word will not work in this day. You know, the letter does not invite testing of the spirits as the as the scripture says we must do.

And you know, that brings the question. You should he be trusted at all. You know, the short answer is no. You know, not as a spiritual authority of any kind that he's claiming in this letter.

And it's a good thing C. Parker Thomas did not publish this letter and promote William Brown's ministry. It's a good thing he had a good head on his shoulders and thought through these things before he just went all in with it and became another brand of might.

So it's not a spiritual authority of the kind that he's claiming here and why is that? It's because his authority is only flowing from his personal revelation alone. The scripture is selectively used to validate his personal experience.

And Christ is really overshadowed by his role as the messenger of the... power. And accountability structures are absent. He's the prophet, and he says, I, prophets cannot be judged. And disagreement is implicitly rebellion against God's plan, because as he says, I'm God's man of the hour, and to go against that is to go against God. So the letter actually presents William Brannum, or he's presenting himself as a salvation historical figure in church history. And so that's a dangerous escalation pattern. You know, Jim Jones took it to the extreme very quickly and made himself a salvation figure, which

it led to people's deaths. But in William Brannum's case, it's led to a movement that is continued to this day. So the greatest concern is not his tone or his sincerity in the letter, because he makes sure that comes across. But the greatest danger here in the concern that I have, and that we've all had, is that a ministry that cannot be questioned is not safe. It cannot be safe for the people. It's not safe. And here's where it gets really scary. Whenever people are in this type of movement, they have a central figure.

Everybody who's not in the group, who's not in the indoctrinated mindset, can easily see they're giving this person so much more authority than they should for a church leader. And they're probably going to end up in error. But then the prophet or the leader dies. What happens? Most people who are on the outside will think, OK, this guy died. Therefore, everybody is going to realize this person is not who they claim to be. But just the opposite happens because the way in which the historical version of this movement has patterned itself time after time after time through history, think passing of the mantle. Whenever a prophet dies,

you have to think, OK, who's going to inherit his authority? Because that's really what is happening here. Brandem is not the first person to do this. Brandem copied so many elements of Taoism. And Taoism was not the first person to do this. John Alexander Taoi. Thomas predicted in this letter the next stage. After Brandem died, there will be people who brushed the coattails of the prophet. I think is how he put it. You can see the succession happening not just in the years leading up to Brandemism or even shortly after. You can see it happening

now. People who were connected to Brandem, they felt like they had some sort of a spiritual revelation or authority. And they spun off a new group. Well, after this, they died or they fell to some unknown sin. And then suddenly another group spins off and another and another. And this is, like you said in the very beginning, this is a tree that's creating branches, but it's branches on top of branches on top of branches. And every single one of them is bearing bad fruit. So take Jesus's, you know, the statement he made about the tree bearing

the fruit, take that and amplify it by a hundredfold. And you still can't touch the way this movement has grown over time in error. And no But he really goes to examine the tree itself.

And that's really the historical value of looking at these ministries, seeing what they did, how they operated, how they presented themselves, how they promoted themselves, how the leader claimed authority in ways that he should have never done, and how the people allowed it in ways that they should have never done.

It all comes back to this. If people were to enter the church using critical authority, I don't care who the minister is, let's question and see, is what he says actually biblical? Or is he trying to lead me to believe that I should submit myself to him?

If you start with that mindset, you can prevent a lot of this. And like you just gave the examples of John's town, it can lead to death. So this is very, very scary stuff.

You know, I'm in full agreement with that John, and those are very excellent points, and they go further with his thought. Now, I believe we can be affirmative. You know, when we say that a ministry, that cannot be questioned, cannot be safe.

So what we want to talk about here is accountability. Accountability is your biblical safeguard. You know, to make something safe, you have to have the Bible standing behind it every step of the way.

Scripture consistently affirms that you test the spirits. You examine it, and you examine what is true and what is not incorrect. Leaders and teachings in the process. Unquestionable authority concentrates power. And that's dangerous too.

And when leaders are beyond scrutiny, abuse becomes harder to detect and even stop. And truth by itself, if this message were truth, it would withstand examination and welcome it in the process. If a ministry's claims are true, questioning only strengthens the credibility of the ministry rather than undermining it like we've seen.

Another point, spiritual harm often precedes moral or financial harm. You know, the doctrinal control typically appears before overt misconduct. So in the early days of the ministry, you had William Brennan presenting his doctrine, his gift and claims of all this vindication.

And it got people one over, but later on, you see the abuse, the misconduct, the financial harm that is occurring. So the spiritual harm precedes the moral, collapse, the financial harm that it does to people.

You know, healthy ministries also invite correction. You know, any healthy ministry would welcome, you come and show me where I'm wrong and we'll correct and move on. So openness to questions is a marker of spiritual maturity.

It's not rebellion. You know, because we had questions of the message, it wasn't that we were rebelling against the message. We're just trying to get to the truth of the matter. Let's look at it.

We're not trying to poke holes or anything, But if the message is full of holes, so be it. We need the truth. Another thing is there's biblical evidence that the passages do contradict the idea that spiritual leaders or ministries should be immune from questioning.

And there's many. These are just a few. Acts 17-11, the Bereans were praised for examining Paul's teaching daily. Justice Alonians 5-21 tells you to test all things and hold fast to what is good.

First John 4-1 says, don't believe every spirit but test the spirits. Galatians 2-11-14 says Paul publicly corrected Peter. He was stood into the face because Peter was wrong. So even Peter, you know, the great apostle, the one that declared that Jesus was to Christ and the Father had revealed that to him.

He still had to withstand correction from the apostle Paul because he was in the wrong. So we can never be to the point that we're not willing to be corrected. Proverbs 27 verse 5-6 said, open rebuke is better than hidden love.

So I think John within the message is a lot of hidden love and a lot of cover-up going on whereas they need open rebuke and that will be more healthy to them in the long run.

So there's dangers here to individuals and communities and we've gone through this over and over. There's spiritual abuse, control over people's consciences, you know, when they feel guilty about doing something that's just a man-made rule.

They have control over their personal decisions in their lives, family relationships. Then the psychological harm that comes with that, there's guilt, there's fear. They live in fear, dependency on the group and then they lose all their critical thinking.

Then there's moral cover-ups, whether it be sexual, financial, emotional abuse, concealed. Just for the sake of keeping the ministry intact, that's those hidden things that need to come to light. There's also financial exploitation, you know, this unchecked authority gives men power to do things with money that they wouldn't otherwise have to do.

They can misuse funds. Even in the end, the most damaging to the people is their loss of faith. When they realize the ministry has duped them, they often reject Christianity altogether, entirely after they know they've been betrayed and thank goodness that most people are not doing that because that's also dangerous to do.

But we need to realize that, you know, mistakes happen, we make mistakes and we just go on and correct it and we may have to go through a grieving process and so forth, but we don't want to lose our faith.

We got to hold on to our faith in the end. That would be the most devastating to any person. That's a concept that people who are in the movement really can't grasp. I remember whenever I first began to publish some of the things that I had found, not nearly to the level that it exists today.

People were saying, yes, but John, what if you're wrong? What does it hurt you to believe this anyway? And they would say things like, we're preaching Jesus. What does it harm you to believe this?

Well, the real harm is this, and I have seen it time and time again with people in these support groups. When you're being taught a version of Jesus that is bonded with another human being and that human being is found to be gravely an error, huge problems with the supernatural claims, many things just simply were not true that he said.

When that bond is created in your mind, now when you find the fiction, you start to associate the fiction with Christianity because you have been taught that both are one and the same. For that reason, many people who are in this group can't go to another church because they don't even see it as a Christian church. To be Christian in their minds, you have to be Christian and Brannemism. There's no way that you can separate the two in the minds.

And like I said, it is worship of a false God. You have created a new God anytime that you take Jesus and you mix it with somebody else. There is no other way to explain it. You are worshiping a God that does not exist in the Bible.

You know, even 10 years, you know, after way of Brannem had died, so I'm going to move forward into something later that C. Parker Thomas did. The movement was gaining ground in the message and some people were contacted.

C. Parker Thomas was contacted by some people that were others that were followers of William Brannem that were trying to convert them to the message. And it happened in South Dakota and the people who wrote the letter to Parker Thomas, you know, had some dear friends and they had become followers of the message. And Parker Thomas had actually preached in their home.

You know, at one time, as the letter says, and they trusted Parker Thomas to tell them what to do since he had meetings with William Brannem and they said they were completely worn down from all these people trying to get them to convert to the message. And they didn't want to reject things that might have had some truth to them. So Parker Thomas responded by producing another letter and saying that an idolatrous spirit had taken hold on the movement years before William Brannem had even died. And the contents of the letter, you know, these seemed to belong to the deity crowd,

best I could tell. And Parker Thomas said that his followers believed only that William Brannem had the word and could interpret the Bible correctly. And this sounds familiar to us. Parker Thomas had knelted on the head back then. You know, once people became convinced, he said it causes them to despise and discount every other church ministry that doesn't follow what they believe. And so, again, Parker Thomas really knew what he was talking about there.

John, I could interject here that that's just another piece of rotten fruit in the message. You know, William Brannum was spewing hatred of organizations, which believers just soaked this up in the tapes and it makes them take on the same spirit.

They start condemning women. We saw that the two preachers in London that were out there just condemning women left and right because they've soaked up the message in that hatred that boils out in them and just spews over.

And we saw them. They also have hatred of denominations and people who claim they claim are nominal believers. In fact, every Christian that does not follow, the message of William Brannum is considered nominal in their eyes and walking in just a partial truth or a light of another day or a glare of another day as it said.

So what part of Thomas says next in this letter? You know, it also hits the nail on the head for me. But he says this. He says followers are more interested in convincing you that William Brannum was God's prophet, major prophet than they are that Jesus is the Christ.

He says the main thrust of teaching something other than Christ and him crucified, which is the gospel. Parker Thomas goes on to say that after William Brannum's death, the would-be leaders would rise up even if they only brushed the coat tails of William Brannum at some point during his ministry.

And they would claim special importance of that because they got to touch the prophets close while he was alive. They could make something on themselves just in their close proximity to William Brannum. So he mentions this letter in fighting among believers and mentioned that in Columbia, South Carolina alone, which I'm very close to, there were three different groups of the message.

And I believe we could count even more of them today. I know of these three in existence right now in Columbia, but Parker Thomas says cults are born. And that's why his whole letter is about how cults are born, you know, when men come to believe in a man or a manifestation more than they do God.

Even after Parker Thomas says this, he says believers. He says he believes that William Brannum really had a gift of discernment as a seer. But even with a gift, it was never intended to supersede the wisdom of the overall church.

World who were walking in truth, you know, one group is not an island to himself. So I can say even with this letter that Parker Thomas wrote, he still believe William Brannum had a gift, but then he places it in the right place.

That is not to supersede the truth of the overall church. So I thought this was significant because it shows that Parker Thomas was on the side of William Brannum. That he loved him and acknowledged him.

He never gave him the spotlight or platform that William Brannum craved, however, by promoting his ministry as the ultimate authority. So that's really what I think the re- is why my first pastor really cautioned me, never to visit the church of Seaparker Thomas, even though it was only an hour from my hometown, you know, at the time I was living there.

You know, I even took back in those days I drove by the church and see where it was, but because I had put my trust in man rather than God, I never went to visit that church in Southern Pines. And had I done that, my life may have went a different way. But Seaparker Thomas provides a great argument for calling out for discernment of ministries, comparing their teaching with scripture, holding them accountable, avoiding placing anyone on an infallible platform.

You know, these are all good things. And finally, he closes out this letter to those people up in South Dakota, explaining that William Brandham's teaching was vague and contradictory. He said, many people with a high regard for William Brandham had the same reaction, and even a friend of Thomas has told him, he said, someone admitted to him one day, saying sometimes it's hard to understand what Bill Brandham believes.

So I guess that pretty much sums up the matter. You know, when you follow the message, you never really figure out, you know, what William Brandham believes sometimes. And how can you have faith enough for the rapture when you don't even know where you stand?

And that was one of my reasons John for publishing those books on the Godhead, because I wanted whatever what ever stand you take in the end, I wanted to be sure message people know what William Brandham taught and what they should be standing upon, even when their churches are hiding the truth and hiding those things that he taught, because those things need to be exposed, because how else, as they might say, am I going to make the rapture, except I know the revelation. And even in the latest booklet I published, which I'm not going to put out on Amazon or Kindle, the minister has said that the key to the rapture

was in the Godhead. So there's another confirmation and that just happened back in June of this year in 2026. So John, I think it's just all kind of coming together to a point here. And it's been a great ride talking about these things because all these things have kind of come together at the right time. You know, for me, it's this simple. We have not only Brandhamism, but all of these different groups that we're examining. We have men and women who really want you to sing songs about them, publish books about their miraculous histories, their abnormal histories,

as they call it. Brandham would say, I have this unusual history and he would talk through it. And he wanted people to know that history. Why did he not put the same emphasis on the Bible?

And why would he do that in the first place? What minister would say, I want you to know more about me? Let's go to church and let's talk about me. You just don't do this in a Christian church.

You do this in a church who's dedicated to worship of the minister. And it's really that simple. minister truly is a Christian minister, they will point to the Christian Bible. They would say, I want you to know nothing about me.

I'm just here to point you to this Bible. And the simple truth is this. He wasn't pointing people to the Bible. You know, to summarize what we've been talking about here, you know, any ministry that forbids questioning, they removed the very mechanisms that God designed in His Word to protect His people from false doctrine.

You know, scripture, everywhere you look invites examination. History, you know, warns us against unchecked authority. We see that in dictators and we see it in religious dictators. And experience confirms that the damage will be done if we don't take our own discernment and use it, you know, wisely.

You know, safety in anything requires transparency. Truth does not fear scrutiny by any means. So John, these last several episodes we've done, they reveal why people need to be vigilant and discerning and use their own critical thinking when it comes to groups like these.

So if you want to follow sound doctrine, you know, it will not be found in the high control religious groups. I would recommend finding a good Bible believing church who preaches from the Bible avoids these cultist techniques that we've been discussing, seek out good Christian fellowship with people, but always examine everything by scripture, put your trust in God alone and not man.

You know, then you can be sure you're on solid ground. So until next time until we have some other topic to discuss, John, I just always appreciate the platform that you provided here and appreciate the work that you're doing and continue to do.

Well, 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 information about the message teaching of the Godhead, you can read Godhead in their own words, voices of oneness preachers of the entire message, and 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. Thanks for watching.