Leaving The Message: Amie's Story of Fear, Loss, and Freedom

Hello, welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org and with me I have my very special guest, Amy Brown-Cathy, former member of the message. Amy is good to have you aboard and to tell your story about being in the message. I was reading through your email that you sent me earlier today just to kind of get my feel and I remember the names that you're mentioning, Homer Brown and then I made the connection mentally. I'm multitasking so I'm doing all of this. I made the

connection. Oh my gosh, her middle name's Brown. She is the person. So there's so much to hear from you. I'm glad you came. Maybe if you could just take a moment and tell everybody a little bit about yourself. First off, thank you so much for having me. This is my first podcast and I'm excited and nervous to be here. I am a former member of the message. I was raised my entire life believing the message. I believed it a thousand percent. I never had a question in my mind about anything. Listen to the tapes growing up, everything. So to say I'm

a former message believer is very difficult but I am married. I live in North Carolina, three children and my husband has also left the message and my children of course with us and it's been a process but with the Lord's grace we're gonna get through it. It is a difficult process. I remember whenever I decided to make my exit, my world came to a screeching halt. I really didn't expect everything to play out like it did. I had a phone call with specific family members and I said I'm not leaving Jesus. I'm not leaving Christianity

but I'm no longer going to be part of this we call it the message. We are different ways we call it. I'm no no longer part of this particular bride of Christ. I think maybe is how I said it. Yes. But the shock that went through the system when I said this was unbelievable and as you probably have experience there's a lot of people who instantly look at you differently because you're no longer part of them. They don't look at you like you're part of the Christian body. They look at you like you're the elite part of the

Christian body. What was that like whenever that happened for you? It was shocking to be honest. It was difficult in the sense of I had thought of certain people and how they may or may not respond.

And for the most part, everyone kind of responded how I expected them to. But what's hard is the ones that were saying, oh, we love y'all. We love you. We're still going to be friends with you.

But then there's a wall there. You know, there's this invisible wall there now. And we haven't heard from anyone. We haven't. I came from a church of, I don't know, 250 people. And one person contacted me, two people contacted my husband.

So I almost feel like it was harder for the ones who kind of smiled. And we're like, oh, okay. Then the ones who were like, what are you talking about? Like we're upset, showed emotion.

Because I feel like those were genuine emotions, at least. Like we knew where they stood. And I was very surprised at the ones that were. Some surprised me in a sense of they were just like, yeah, we're done.

We're done. Don't, don't contact us again. And so it was a, every day was a different reaction from different people. A few people were like, well, we applied the token on you when you were a child.

So I was like, well, I guess I'm okay. I only got told twice I wasn't going to heaven. Someone did tell us that I would be a servant in heaven. So I was like, well, at least you got me there.

Like, was that person kicking me out? So I was like, a win is a win. It was just a lot of emotion. And I think it was difficult that people thought we came to this decision very easily.

Like, oh, you just wanted to go out in the world. And I'm like, if you knew the tears and heartbreak that actually went into it before we even told you is nothing further from the truth.

So it was a very wide reaction from a lot of different people. So trying to absorb all their emotions while also being heartbroken was hard. It is hard. I remember the hardest part and it took me a long time after leaving to understand this.

The hardest part about leaving really was that I knew how each person would respond. And in the back of my head, I was that anticipation of them responding. Their actual response was actually worse than whenever it happened.

And I'm laughing now. I can laugh, but kind of like you, I cried. I cried real tears whenever all of this happened. I had one aunt who was really strong in the church and I'm laughing about it now.

I was really, really sad whenever it happened. The only person who really said and I'm sorry you're gone was my aunt. And I got it in the form of a sympathy card that said, I'm sorry you're leaving, but you're wrong.

I'll never forget that. I got it and whenever when I got it I was just so heartbroken that she did that It was rude for one thing But now I look back at it and I'm it's like a bunch of grade school kids and you're not going to play ball with our court You're going to go to that other court so get out of here. That's that's kind of how it felt for me But I'm laughing now, but when you're in the moment it's really hard because the connection you have your entire world is built around these people and

Once that wall breaks down you realize that every relationship that I had was paper thin And every single thread that bound us together was bound up in this thing that I've now learned was false There's so much fiction wrapped into it and you you look at that string that bound everybody together and you wonder how it stood in the first place How did all of these people connect and why did nobody figure out that half the stuff the man said wasn't true exactly exactly I have I come from a very long line of ministers my grandfather started ministering back in the 60s came into the message

He was the assistant pastor for junior Jackson and he was an assistant pastor for Brother named I think his name was Bill Paderis in North Carolina and eventually when he left brother Jackson He went to St. Augustine and started to church there and that's where I was born and raised and For as a woman you are born in this You're raised in it your homeschooled you don't go away to school you marry into it You're every children you homeschooled them your entire world is just the message you every friend You have in the world is in the message and so walking away from the message quite literally meant walking away from

Every friend I have and that sounds dramatic and if you are not raising an environment like this I don't know that you would probably believe it, but 100% of my friends are in the message and Now I'm like, I don't even know how to make things like I don't I don't know what to do in my life. I don't I have no one for three months. I didn't talk to anyone and I Randomly ended up at a lady's house from unequaintance and The next thing I knew four hours had passed and I told her my whole story and of course

She was so interested. It was like you need to tell this story and I was like I'm actually gonna be on a podcast next week But I didn't even realize how lonely I was just after months of not speaking to anyone I Saw a friend of ours in the store and they were perfectly polite How are you and shake God bless you have a nice day and went on about there and I'm like this is What I would consider one of our best friends like our closest circle of friends and it was perfectly polite but there's also a clear wall

there of this is this is us now you're here we are here and politeness is the only thing standing between us and it's just going to take time to accept that I guess what else can you do yeah I remember we went to one of the churches that had small group concept when we left the message and I was in that church and we were sitting around talking and everybody suddenly learned that John just lost everybody that he knows all of his friends all of his family have cut him off and they're asking me how you cope with it and funny enough I had the song which you may not

have even heard the song being in the message but I had the song I got friends and low places stuck in my head and I said I got friends and low places and you guys are in something to that effect that it you know whenever you have to replace every single person that you have ever known loved I had people that I had bonds with people that I thought just could not be broken and right down to flesh and blood you know blood relatives that I just knew that these people would no matter what happened if I if I were to go rob a bank and be put in jail they'd be right there at the prison

you know trying to talk me through it help me John but then I realized that no it's it's not like that they they put most of their faith and their trust into this dead guy who who again wasn't being truthful with them yeah and that's the only connection the only bond that they really made I I got to think about that after I left and it's really difficult to fathom that even within the family unit the parents make a bond more closely with a dead recording than they do their own children yes when that hit me it was overwhelming because I looked around I remember when it hit me

I was in the living room and my children were on the couch I looked over at them and I just started crying because there's no way you could ever make me be like that yeah I would be connected to my kids and I don't care what they did I don't even if you know even if they were to turn atheist I would go try to convert them back right I would be right there with them every step of the way and yet all you have to do is say I I don't believe that dead guy and they cut you off yeah

it's that simple it's very I thought I was unconditionally loved and it was very eye-opening to realize I was conditionally loved based on what they wanted me to do and then the second I said hey like that's not for me it was done and it was shocking like there are not adequate words to express what it feels like to have people that you've known your entire life dismiss you so just dismiss every word you have every you have. And I did have, um, we had a few people that I feel like I would say are, you know,

very genuine. They reached out with like, we love you, no matter what. We're here for you. You know, but when you don't go to church with those people anymore, it almost cuts off 100 percent of the time you see them, you know, it's very limited now. So a couple people I believe may stay in our life all the time. We'll tell, um, have reached out several times. Um, the husband has reached out to my husband several times. How are you doing? You okay? Like, and to me, that showed genuine Christian love. And that's less than, that's like 0.1

percent of the people in my life. And I know because of, I don't say this in any story, my name being a brown and just because my grandfather was in a message so long and he traveled and preached and my father traveled and preached. We traveled all over the United States.

I went with them to Canada, South Africa, like we traveled a lot. We were homeschooled, so that's what became just traveled and did that. I know a lot of people everywhere. And I don't know if you would ask me at the beginning of the year, I would say, oh, there's never a time in my life that I won't just have a plethora of friends and family and, you know, and now I'm like, I feel like I could fit my friends in this library. My family in this library, you know, I don't even, it's crazy. I hope I never look at my children that way. So let's talk about your name just a

little bit. So for people who weren't in randomism, you had specific names of people who were close to the prophet, the quote unquote prophet. And those were the special people and you always wanted to hear them. My grandfather was one of the names. Your grandfather was one of the names.

And yet at the same time, we were in this Doomsday mindset. Doomsday called the world is about to end on any given Sunday. If you don't get right with God this Sunday, that's it. By Monday, you're going to hell with the rest of the world. And I grew up in that mindset and it was catastrophic what it did to my mental health. I'm curious to know from your side, having been in the same positions, me, the grand, grandchild of somebody who's in that mindset, what was it like being under the Doomsday doctrines? It was terrifying. It was, I don't, I didn't realize as until I was

an adult that it was actually traumatizing. My grandfather, I've had to try to figure out a way to talk about my grandfather in a way that is respectful, but truthful. I'm sure you struggled with this because at the end of the day, that was my Dan Dan. And he was such a good man. And he died about seven years, eight years ago.

And that man believed in God and he was a Christian and he was a World War II that and him and my grandmother got married after the war and lived their entire life serving the Lord.

The best that they knew how was that in a doomsday cult? Yes. But he was so loving and kind. It was kind of hard when you're a child to experience your grandfather that way.

But then on Sundays and Wednesdays, it's doomsday and the world is ending and the government is going to get us. My grandfather in the 90s very much was a part of that. The world is ending and I think they thought the world would end in like 2000 because I believe I was turned in 13 in February of 2000 and I was I had a lot of depression my whole life because I would never be a teenager.

I believed that as much as I believe the skies blue I believed I wouldn't be a teenager. So when I turned 13 I imagine my shock and I'm like oh my gosh I made it. I'll never drive but I'm a teenager. My grandfather was very much trying to warn everyone the world was ending we had to watch. Anytime the government did something we watched the documentary on it. I remember sitting in church on Wednesday night watching the Waco Texas documentary and I don't know 96, 95 whenever that happened I'm born in 87 so I was pretty young and hiding under the church pews we would sit

under the pews at church all the lights would be off there'd be a projector of the government rating buildings and it was this is what's going to happen. Russia's coming they're taking us to Alaska helicopters are coming if a helicopter flew over my head that was the government and it sounds silly and funny and ha ha but it was we believed it a hundred percent we believed it and it's just I would say later in his life all that went away I don't really remember him preaching anything like that as kind of an older teenager and into my adulthood but I don't know if at some

point he realized maybe that wasn't the way to preach he got much more into grace and mercy and love you know so it wasn't like that forever but I'm the first like 10 to 14 years of my life it was the government's gonna get us and that bred fear into doctor you didn't talk to the doctor you didn't go to the doctor you didn't trust anyone you know and I believe that eventually ended up costing my mother her life and that sounds very traumatic but um it's just the truth because you don't you don't trust the government and the doctors are the government and you know everyone

is the government if you're not in the message so it was it was a lot it was hard and as Jeff Foxworthy would say if your church is playing videotapes to let you know that there's a government conspiracy, you might be a cult. I remember, I remember those sermons. We had not just in one church, so we lived in Kansas during the years you're talking about, and I would travel myself to different churches. I'd drive to them. Someone in the Ozark, some in some places now that I'm actually connecting the dots to some history that's a little sketchy, but anyway, needless to say, they preached on the same kind of things.

And there's a period of time that they did, even in my grandfather's church here in Jeffersonville, then there's a period of time when they all didn't. And I am convinced, in fact, I've walked through this with other people who are doing the podcast with me. We believe that there is a time whenever many ministers in the movement realized this guy wasn't being truthful. Some of this stuff is faults. We have to weigh in the balance. What did he say that was true? What did he pull straight out of his butt? And they're trying to do this, but they're not telling anybody who's in it that

they're doing this. I'm convinced of this. In fact, I remember, I have vague memories of seeing some documentation my grandfather had that included a book that was trying to stop. I can't remember I can't remember the exact scenario, but basically I was trying to stop these particular set of people from spreading the message because they were spreading it in a way that was undermining the core belief set. And that was about the same time there's a guy in Arizona that started publishing a book that he realized William Brannum wasn't there for the famous cloud photo

that every Brannumite has in their church or in their homes, most of them in the churches. So you had information with spreading. You had dissent among the leadership. You had copyright issues. You had this onslaught of problems that existed and usually from a mind control standpoint whenever you're shaken that much. So many things are happening. You start to critically think even if you're under the mind control. So I believe my grandfather was critically thanking.

I know in the podcast Charles has mentioned he thought that Raymond Jackson was critically thanking. I'm hearing from you the same. I'll bet it was widespread. I bet many people knew. I think so too because my sister has no memories of this. She is three and a half years younger than me. So at the time she was born in 90. So you know she's four or five years old. She's probably able to escape to the nursery with my mom. That's what works out in church. But she would just be like, oh, wait, I kind of remember they would turn off the lights and I play a video. And I mean,

I have the Waco Texas video ingrained into my brain to this day because we just set there and watched it. And my grandfather now he wasn't on the pool. When you say like Doomsday, he wasn't screaming at us or saying he was just like, guys, this is what's going to happen.

You know, like, this is what I believe is going to happen. And we would just be like, okay, you know, just be ready. Just be ready. And I would listen, I think that is what helped me see discrepancies is because we read the books.

I've read the generation books. I wanted to be a good Christian. I wanted to be a good daughter. I wanted to be a good granddaughter. So I've read all the generation books. Anytime we got a new edition, I read it.

I listened to the tapes. I would go to sleep, listen to the tapes. So when I went to Easter for Jeffers and Bill, you know, we did, we did the tours in Jeffers and Bill.

We, I've pictures of me as a 10, 11 years old, sitting at the piano and brought them to have a knuckle. You know, it was what we did. It was our whole life. So as an adult, once I started seeing things, I'd be like, oh, wait, that's not how it was.

Someone would say something. I'd be like, oh, that's not what happened. And I was like, oh, no, it isn't, I'm like, no, it's not. And then I would be like, wow, that is not how I remember it.

But you just go, I was wrong. Like you just kind of accept it until you get to a point where you're like, I cannot be wrong about this much stuff. It can't have been that way.

And also, once you get more life experience, you start realizing because I don't know how much time or how much detail you want me to go into on here. But when I was 17, my mother died.

And she was eight and a half months pregnant with my twin brothers. And she had three previous children and had gotten a sickness called pre-plants at each time. And they told her if you do it again, it will take your life.

But they just didn't really trust doctors. They were just like, well, the Lord will give us as many children as we can have and he will take care and he will provide. And I do believe that.

But I also believe the Lord provides us doctors and his knowledge to tell us, hey, you shouldn't do this. And they didn't listen and she did. She got pregnant again with my brothers. And it took her life and it took their life.

And we went to church on a Sunday morning, came home and we found her in our kitchen floor. And to this day, it's been 21 years later, I can tell you exactly what happened that day.

I can tell you where I was, where my family was, where the ambulance was. I had to interview with police because they were treating it as a homicide, like pregnant woman found dead in her home.

Think about it from their point of view. I can tell you the detailed conversations I had with these investigators. So when I found out, Brother Brown, I've had multiple stories on how his dad died.

That was one of the first things that really got to me. Because you cannot change my mind on the day my mother died. I know what happened and I remember it. And it was, I know how old I was.

And I know the details 21 years later. And I went to my pastor at the time and I was like, you're really struggling with these different dates. And they're like, oh, well, when you're up there preaching.

and you're just talking quickly and you're telling the story, you just don't get dates, right? And I just couldn't accept that, because I can't imagine that I would say, oh, I was six years old when my mom died.

You know, I can't imagine that I would get it so wrong and I was like, oh, she died in a car accident. You know, like that the details would be so drastically different. So that was the first thing that made me kind of pause and go, something's not adding up here.

And when I talked to my pastor and he answered me once and he answered me twice. And I was like, well, you're a dead guy. Do you think you would ever like get the details wrong?

And that's when what surprised me the most happened is that he came back kind of annoyed, kind of a, I won't say anger, but kind of, do you know more than a prophet? Do you think you know in, always just like, oh, like no, absolutely not.

I'm so sorry and just like dropped it and never spoke about it again. But that's when the seed planted in my mind that something isn't right here. And it was all because of life experience.

And you realize there's just some things in my barring a medical issue, you would not get the details wrong on. That's actually one of the things that drove me down the path of investigating the mob connection to the Brennan family.

A lot of people were in the movement, that's why did you do that? What significance was that? If you're concerned about Christianity, this is irrelevant. And he even mentions on recording that his family's connected to it.

But my thinking was this, like you, there's no way that that person, William Brennan, did not know how old he was when his father died. He might have forgotten the age as a number, but you're not going to remember, you're not going to forget things like, I was six great education.

I did not finish the education because my father died early. You would remember whether or not you went to school because your father was alive. Or he preached his own father's funeral. You're not going to have a discrepancy where in one story, he preaches the funeral in another story.

He's not even old enough to preach. Those two things don't go inside. The only case that I can think of where anybody would do this is if they're trying to disconnect himself from family history for some unknown reason.

And I want to know why. Why is that, you know? And then whenever I get into the weeds of it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I think he was a little bit more into the mafia than he let on.

But there's no way to prove it because all of the history has been erased. Bottom line for me is, he wasn't truthful about himself. And if I can't trust what he says about himself, how can I trust the things that he says about God?

Yes, I agree, absolutely. For me, it was the family histories that he was dishonest about. It was the amount of times I remember. read in his life story and cry in my eyes out at the story of Little Sharon Rose Dian or Sister Hope Dian and the flood and tuberculosis and getting it in the field.

Hoss, all of these things I knew my whole life. And then when I started piecing together that it didn't happen this way or watching your podcast and seeing that these things were not true, how could I trust you about anything?

I know for some people as the opposite, they can sit. They can, I've had, personally, people say, oh, you mean this? And I was like, you know, and they're like, yeah, but that doesn't bother me.

And I'm just like, how could it not? Like, he wasn't honest about it. And it doesn't bother them, you know? And for my husband, he was more so like, I want to see discrepancies in the doctor.

And show me, he breathed seven sills was wrong. Show me where he wasn't there when the cloud happened. So that's really what helped me focus my research is him saying, like, these are the things I need to see errors in. And once I kind of had that, I was able to say, okay, here's the information on the cloud. Because we're so indoctrinated not to look you up, not like talking to you is not on my 2026 Bingo card. If you were to tell me that, I would have said, you are insane, go see a doctor.

And even when we tried to talk to some of our family, they were like, don't even tell us anything that comes out of John Collins mouth. They were just like, well, it's like 90% of the information out there. Like, what can I say, then? But it was getting the courage to watch one of your girls podcast was because I was told to consider not to do it, to think about looking up something negative about our profit was akin to blaspheming the Holy Ghost. And you just say, I don't want to blaspheme the Holy Ghost. I'm like, I didn't live my whole life as a Christian of blaspheme the Holy

Ghost. And once I really started looking to, I didn't even think we were in a cult. I thought the ministers were misrepresenting Brother Brownham. I was like, they've just misrepresented him there. And so I started like looking into that. My mind was all over the place. It's very difficult to figure out which avenue of research to go down because we're not supposed to look anything up.

But then how do you find out the information? So I actually had watched a podcast of one of the Dugger girls because that was like the only thing we were kind of allowed to watch growing up was the Duggers. And when they were talking about what a cult is in the bite model and different things, I was just like, I mean, my brain was just misfired. I was like, I think we might be a cult, like a cult cult. And I didn't speak those words out loud for a long time. And Now to see that while we were actually in a cult cult, it was mind boggling.

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. You mentioned you're only allowed to watch a particular show. I remember there was a period of time when it was widespread throughout the movement. You're not allowed to watch television, but then there were these key people that did. They would limit the shows. They would only watch

specific shows. But it was odd to me because I had, so my mind was torn in half. I would go to my grandparents' house in Georgia and they would have a television and they're watching like Georgia public television, things that are really wholesome TV shows. Then I go to the other grandparents and they would just ridicule from my grandfather behind the pulpit, anybody who thought about having one of these hell boxes. Later, interestingly, he got a monitor that had several VHS tapes of all kinds of old shows, which is kind of funny. But I was in that mindset and I was sitting around

the television in Georgia with family who I didn't know that they had this mindset. But it's exactly like you said, everything that the prophet said, you must believe it or else you're doomed to hell.

That was the mindset. I did not have this for some reason. I didn't know I was supposed to. So we're sitting around in the din. We're watching television. I can't remember national geographic or something. And they're talking about space and they're talking about Mars and they're talking about a mission to go there. And one of the guys in the room says something the fact, well, they'll don't never get there. The prophet said it would take a million light years to get to Mars.

And I looked at him and I said, you know, they've already been, right?

And you could have, it was as though I smacked the people with a ball bat in the face. They looked at me like I had just committed the ultimate blast for me, get out of the house. And my grandfather did. But the other people in the room did. And I'll never forget that because I was like, How can you even say that whenever we have like photographs, you know, there are things that you should just simply know in your life and you don't know these things, but that was the mindset and the problem is people have chosen the man and what he said over even common sense.

It's not just whether it's God or whether it's Christianity, even right down to the basic fundamentals of common sense. They abandon it and it gets to be dangerous because if you if you're trying to go through life and you can't even think for yourself, you're going to end up in a very bad place.

And sadly, I have known people who actually ended up in very bad places because of this. They just I hate to say it. There's a lot of people in it that don't don't employ common sense. I'll say it like that. It's not that they're unintelligent. I know some doctors and lawyers that are in the movement highly trained people very skilled, very educated.

And yet they believe things that if the other doctors knew they'd be like, are you sure you should be working on that guy's heart. But that's the way we were. Exactly. We were raised that brother Brownham was infallible. The profits spoke it. I believe it. That settles it. That was our mantra.

And Billy by the Billy Paul, it come to our church and give us testimony. And that was what he remember him, you know, saying from the platform. And that was our life. And he said, in question what the profit said, my husband didn't come in to the message until he was older. And he had a whole life. He was 25 when him and his brother came into the message.

And he had an entire military career before he came into the message. And he's very educated. And sometimes I wonder, I'm like, how did you come into it? You know, I've always been in it. So I didn't have a choice. And I like to think I might be smart enough not to get caught up in it. But he had a whole life.

And I sometimes wonder like, how do people who are so educated get caught up in it? But my research into kind of like how a cult trap she ran has nothing to do with intelligence.

Some of the smartest people in the world have been in a cult. And it's really more so, I think, an emotional draw in that's how they, because that's what kept me until long was the emotion of it, the fear losing my family.

And I'm afraid you're going to go to hell. Like who wants to think about that being afraid that you cannot have a Christian walk with Christ without brother Brown. And for years, I've said, I don't understand why Christ blood isn't enough. And my husband and I have had this conversation round and round.

And it would just boggle my mind that I couldn't have a connection with Christ without the message. And I feel like if you asked any message believer. you have a relationship with Jesus Christ aside of Brother Brown, and they'd probably say, oh, of course, you don't have to, but you do.

Really, to be a true message believer, to be the elite bride of Jesus Christ, you 100% have to be a message believer in William Brown. We, I'm learning now all the different sex of the message when Charles talks about things.

I, I thought we would like the main sect, I guess. My grandfather, he didn't speak much on junior Jackson. I asked him several times, oh, why did Julia brother junior Jackson? I'm kind of a history buff myself.

I love the history of things. And he would always just be like, oh, we had a different opinion. Like, that was it. He never once said a negative word about anything. And he was just like, oh, we just had some different ideas about things in the Lord.

I'd already felt like the Lord was drawing me to Florida. So when I got to the point where we are, we're talking about him and Charles was like, and then Holer Brown was the news editor of the challenger or whatever it was.

My heart dropped. I'm in the picture he uses. I'm cropped out, but I was like, those are family photos in the church for they're serving me at the anniversary. It was so funny. I screamed and I was so scared.

I was like, they're about to drop some knowledge about my grandfather that I don't know and I was sweating. But it was kind of, I can see now that my grandfather I think just didn't want to say anything negative.

And that's who he was as a person. I never heard him talk bad about anyone. But I got more information about my family history through your podcast and I ever did through my family.

They just didn't really talk about their time in Indiana. They were called into Florida and that's where we lived. And I wish they had a more of a connection so I could have maybe met Brother Junior Jackson but they never had, I don't think they really ever had any more connection after he left Indiana.

You know, I visited several different. I'm guessing they were sects of the message. Some of them were the main sect and we believed in the tent revival. The coming tent revival where he would be resurrected and go out in the tents, all this weird stuff.

But then we had other groups that were different branches of the movement. And part of me, when I was going through the history, part of me wanted to know why all of that is.

And I started looking at the different branches especially as I was talking through it with Charles. And then the other part of me wanted to know, okay, we had this mindset of what branemism was and we didn't call it branemism, we called it the message.

And it really only consisted of what happened from about 1964 until current. And even that had many different iterations and many different splinter groups. But if you went before, 1964, there was a different version of Branemism and they had their splinter groups and they went off into all kinds of weird things.

Go back to about, it was about right about the time he met Jean Jones whenever that phase of his ministry or stage persona changed. Go back before this and you had a different set of Pentecostal groups, different set of Branemites that had different splinter groups.

Each iteration had groups that went destructive and so it's like this tree when you look at it. All of these branches come back to the one root and that one root wasn't really just Branemism, it was a combination of Branem and who he worked with.

So in the days of Gordon Lindsay, it's Branemism and Gordon Lindsay's version of Christian identity, all of his revival themes, that's deeply rooted into what Branem taught. And those had different tree trunks, so I'm going back through all of these things and I'm learning, well which message do I believe?

This was the message from 1947 to 1953, well then they had a different message and a different commission, different stage persona, different everything. Well do I believe that message? Do I believe the next message? And at the time I was coming up with all of this.

I was writing that book preacher behind the white hoods from Christian identity and I was trying to determine what is the message. I wanted to actually create a section or a chapter that just kind of described it and I realized it can't really be described because the message is what the audience wants to hear.

If I'm preaching this stage persona, it's because I'm in front of an audience that wants to hear that persona and then when it's no longer appealing to the crowd, I'm going to change it, reinvent myself and it's a new one.

And they're not consistent, there are too many internal conflicts and contradictions, so I could not even, part of me want to do just like a bullet list. Here's what you believe when you're in the message, what I was like, well this group didn't believe that, they're in a different message, different randomism.

And in the end I came to realize that God is not the author of confusion, but this was the biggest confusing mess that I have encountered in Christian history. And I've studied all kinds of different Christian history, themes and ideas and scenarios and histories. Whenever I go through this, yes there are some messes, yes there are some problems, but I don't find anything as confusing.

And this confusion is literally what developed into the weirdness we see today where there are politicians mixing with religious leaders, trying to employ dominion over different sex of people. So it's so weird when you think about it. And I just kept going back to that thought, God is not the author of confusion.

That has been something I've had to lean on because the mental gymnastics that you have to go through. to believe the message is quite staggering. When you're raised in it, you just do it.

A second nature. You just believe all these different things and we were not return ministry. So that's another reason I was like, well, I think we were the main sect, but we didn't believe return ministry.

We were not take church when Joseph did the Here I Stand. Oh, that was a big. We were message believers, but we were also with the ministers. We were on the minister side of it.

It was just a constant ever evolving mess that as a child or even a teenager, you're trying to keep up with everything. But then this man believes this, but here's a church down the road we don't associate with because they have a slightly different opinion and then you may go to this church for 10 years and all of a sudden you just don't one day, oh, we don't go there anymore.

No one talks about why, but maybe you found out for some reason that minister shouldn't have been preaching or he allowed someone to preach this shouldn't have been, it's just they can't agree with each other.

They can't, two ministers can't agree on the same thing. And I asked my dad, I was like, I don't understand. Why is there so much confusion? Why is there so many different opinions on things?

And he would always, he told me he's like, well, people have a way of finding loopholes in the message. So if they really want to search for something, they will find a quote to agree with what they want.

And I was just like, oh, you know what? You're right, you know, they're in their heart, they're looking for a way out. And now I'm like, they find the quotes because he said it.

If he didn't say it 10 different ways, there wouldn't be 10 different quotes saying this, you know? And ministers are the biggest, one of the biggest issues in my opinion to the message. A lot of people, I think probably wouldn't even look at them leaving the message of the ministers weren't so weird about it.

They get angry and defensive. And if the ministers I talk to, now some did, some have shown a lot of love. And but in my 20s, we went to a church for 12 years and it wasn't my family's church.

And I don't know about every question of message if it wasn't for this certain minister. And the way he would approach things and looking back now, I realized message churches are little cults and a bigger cult.

And they have their way of doing things. Why are so many message ministers so narcissistic prone? I'm not gonna say they're narcissists, but they do have quality traits that could be contributed to narcissism.

And when everything happened with your grandfather and he resigned and all the deacons that was on anything happened, we were in a house and we were all just, it came up so casually. And I remember I was like, what is Jeffersonville got?

What's Brown Cabernacle gonna do now? You know, like, they lost everybody. They're gonna have to rehire everyone. And my pastor was sitting across from me. He stood up, slapped his hands on the table, leaned over, and he goes, we don't question Jeffers and Bill, no matter what.

And I was just like, okay, we don't question Jeffers and Bill. And honestly, that made me question Jeffers and Bill. If he would have just not done that, I would have been like, ask my question, wait and got me some sweet tea and cake and went on about my life.

But because of his reaction, I was just like, wait, why don't we question Jeffers and Bill? What's Jeffers and Bill doing? That needs to be questioned, you know? It's just like sparks things and people that, at least for me, that was my personal experience, that every time I ministered at that way, I would just be like, why are we not doing that?

No, I want to know. And that's just, I mean, okay, and that was 10 years ago. So it took me a long time to get here, but it's just like slow, slowly information over a spread of time.

And my, I wish it had happened faster. I wish my kids would have been younger, but it is what it is. And sadly, here in Jeffers and Bill, they also don't question Jeffers and Bill.

Some of the things going on, they, you can look at the history of why they resigned and you're like scratching your head. A church really did this. They split a church in half by ownership of property.

It's none of it makes any sense, but I've come to realize that if you study this movement all from its inception to now, it has milestones of not making sense, but people just turn their blind eye to it.

Yeah. So, so you've gone through a very difficult journey and I'm, I'm putting myself back in your shoes a bit. I'm so far distant from it. The emotions that I had, I remember crying constantly, I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.

This was, this was the most difficult time that I can remember ever having in my entire life. Probably the most difficult time I will ever have. And I wish, whenever I was going through it, I wish I had people who could give me advice.

And I'd like to know what you would give as advice to people who are freshly out of the Branham movement, specifically because I do get contacted from people who are Branhamites and it's sad to say of all of the different groups that contact me now asking for help.

The Branhamites are the ones who are the most destructive in their churches. And the families are hardest towards the people. The people suffer, it is purely, purely evil. What advice would you give to somebody who has just come out and they're like you?

What do I do? We're all my friends, I have all my family cut me off. What do I do? What advice would you give them? My first bit of advice is to realize that fear is the last tactic they will use against you.

They will talk to you, they will love you, they will, when you're asking your questions in the beginning, they will be your friend, your family. But when they start using their language starts turning.

fear driven? What's happening to your children? What's going to do that? You're so close. On the other side of that fear is truth. And you have to step through it. You have to be okay with losing those friends, losing that family. And you have to cling to God. In a way that honestly, you have never had to do before because William Brownham has been in that spot.

Brother Brownham was our absolute. She was the person. Now we didn't pray to him. We didn't do anything like that. But you have to be okay. You have to pray. This is how I prayed. I was like, Lord, you have to show me the truth or you have to take me out of it. I can't do this anymore. I can't question. I can't go back and forth, being at the altar crying, being told I just don't have the revelation, being told if I really wanted it, I would get it. I don't really have the Holy Ghost.

When you find freedom out of the message, as scary as it is right now, there is a freedom that comes in your mind. And this is not freedom up. I can cut my hair, I can wear pants, I can wear that's all you have to decide for yourself what you believe on those things. I'm talking about the freedom in your mind. When you finally accept, I'm an occult William Brown deceived us. The message ministers know it. And they've hidden it from us. Your brain, it's tearing itself apart inside right now, trying to come to those conclusions. If you're just about to come to them,

you're struggling with them, maybe your past that point. When you can finally accept those things and say them to yourself, say them out loud, it is a weight that's going to lift off your shoulders. There's still a long road. That's the beginning of the road, in my opinion, just discovering that you're an occult is like door one. You've walked through that door. You have to take a break from it. For us, we had to our whole life was church, church, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, church meetings, church adventure. I had to say, I don't have anything else to give,

anyone right now. I can't go back into another church. From my research, I have learned that when you're an occult, there's so much loneliness. When you've left it, the loneliness you fell from your friends and family, that gap that's there now, you want to fill it. You want to run to another church, find another church, be part of another church, and you're very prone to joining another cult. Surprisingly, people who have come out of cults are very prone to join other cults. That's why, in my opinion, a lot of message minister, a lot of message believers that I know are ex-amish

and ex-menonite. They got freedom out of all that and they left their cult, but they kind of watched. writing to another one. And that terrifies me to think I'm just going to now put something else in place of where Jesus Christ should be. I've been focusing on getting into the word and the simplicity of it will throw you. You will go, it can't be that simple. By grace, are we saved? But not by works, not by my long hair, not by my skirts, not by my lack of makeup.

That's nothing. Finding out that all these things you have prioritized your whole life, it's good. I believe in honesty. Yes, these things, there is a place, but that your salvation is in Christ and the blood of Christ, not so you can boast about anyone else. There's almost so much simplicity in that that you'll miss it. You'll think it can't be that simple.

And I have my husband and I, we've been watching some of Charles's videos where he just takes a scripture verse and kind of breaks it down. And it's just 15 or 20 minutes. This simplicity of it, you just, after being in the message, you're so used to, this verse has to line up with this verse and this message has to come in and then you bring in the cloud and then there's a weird, like brother, brother says things, what is a prophet? So that's not in the Bible, but you still have to accept it because the prophets work.

All of that just goes away. And it's just you and your Bible and Christ. And it's hard. It's really difficult because you just think what the prophet say. It took months for me not to think what the prophet say. Let me look up this quote, because the Bible says this, but what did he say? Why is he not just automatically saying what's in the Bible? It's so interesting and it's so scary. But on the other side of that fear that you're feeling on the other side of that loneliness

is truth and it's freedom and you have to step through it no matter how scared you are if you're in it. I have been documented my journey on my TikTok and I don't put anything on Facebook or my Instagram because that's where all of my church friends and family are. They haven't blocked or deleted me yet. But my TikTok was kind of a place I didn't let any of my friends have been going to follow me because it was just a place I wanted to be more open with my thoughts. I did this like a year ago and I think that's when I really started trying to process things and

every single day I get messages for message believers every day. I've been to people I know, people I know, sitting in a church right now, going, we're gone, we just don't know how to leave.

What do I do? Keep posting your videos. This is helping so much. And I can't believe how many, I mean, I've probably got 200 messages if people just go and, oh, we left. We left. We left here.

We went to this church. We went big name churches. We went to this church. We left. And I'm like, are the ministers lying to us about how many people are leaving? Because they make it seem like no one is leaving. And if you do, Oh, it's just one maybe little person over here.

I think there's a mass exodus from the message and it's being hidden. That's my conspiracy theory on it, is that the message ministers know how many people and that is why they are more angry, more hardcore on fear driven than ever because they're the ones who see, you know, we don't see it, but I'm just like, I don't know, we have to do something to help these people.

So one lady was like, I've been out 15 years and she said, I'm still depressed. I still don't have friends. I still don't have family. And that's, it anger's me. It anger's me and I don't know what to do about it other than to just talk to people and they write me and try to write back to them.

But again, my entire family is in the message. I come from, I can probably count five to 10 message ministers right now, you would know the names of that I'm related to. From the tip of Florida, to Arizona, to Indiana,

and walking away is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Telling them, dealing with the backlash of that, but the freedom I have felt mentally, I have been able to get off every anxiety medication I've ever had to take.

I haven't been on it in three months because my mind isn't tearing itself apart, trying to not live two lives, knowing the truth somewhere in the back of my mind and then going to church and being at the altar on Lord, please help me.

And he's like, I am trying to help you. I'm trying to show you the truth and you won't listen. There's just a freedom in it now that I'm like, man, I wish I had a left years ago.

I wish that I had been brave enough to leave when I first started questioning, but maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle it then. May God knows, this timing is perfect. And I just pray that through this, my family has like six decades of reaching the message.

I was like, maybe I can give a few decades to help in those who need to get out of it. Well, I'm glad you're doing it. Their version of truth for me, it's like a doctrinal jigsaw puzzle that's missing all the most important pieces.

And you just don't want to play with that puzzle. I'll be honest. So very glad that you did this. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me on.

I am so thankful to be a very small piece of a much larger puzzle that you are doing with so many different people. And if there's anything I can ever do, please let me know.

I would love to be a help. I don't know if you had spoken with Charles about the book that we sent him. He had all of the, all the acts of a profit book.

And we'd want to. a podcast about there was like a first manuscript that he didn't have. I was like, oh, I can't believe there's a book Charles doesn't have. And I remember a box of books my grandfather had given me and we had it. We had the first type that manuscript of acts of a prophet and we sent it to Charles and I was like, use this in some way. We were looking through it and there were things that were different. There were things that weren't in the other ones. And I was just like, thank you Lord, maybe that's a little piece of a puzzle that can

help someone one day see that the discrepancies need to be talked about. And if they can be explained, then please let a message minister do it. I would love to help to do that too. But thank you so much for having me on. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much for doing this. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.