YWAM, Decentralization, and the Problem of Accountability

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-branham.org and with me I have my co-hosts, researchers and friends, Jenny McGrath and Shelby Hauffer, former members of Y-Wam.

Shelby, Jenny, it's good to be back and to talk about Y-Wam and we've been diving into the core values and how different they are from what people expect. I think that's really the key. For me I'm actually, I've got quite surprised in the last one that we recorded. I really didn't know that it had gone to the level that you both had described and so this morning I went back and listened to it again and I'm still in a state of shock after hearing some of those things and what I've come to learn is Y-Wam's, their problem is not

really the written values, the problem is the gap between what they say and what they teach and what they do apparently. From everything you've said and from what others have told me there seems to be this gap and in that gap lies the problem because how can you send children to something or youth, you know, teenagers and early 20s into something that you expect is furthering the gospel and affiliated with all of these different churches but once they get there they conform and they change away from their church values. Usually whenever I hear of these mission programs and I've actually, we almost sent our children

to one of them but usually their church independent. In other words a fewer say you're a Baptist and you go to this thing, your children could be Baptist, we're going to teach you how to get along with the Methodist or the Presbyterian, anybody who's joined in with their children, they don't try to indoctrinate, they try to help adjust and teach children that from a very early age and from the youth that even if you have differences at opinion you can both work together for good and you can further the gospel. That's usually the agenda but what I'm hearing

at least from the few podcasts that we've done so far, it sounds like the exact opposite. Yeah, even as we get started I was looking at the second value make God known and how YM is called to make God known throughout the world but I think even in what's written there's these little hints of where the dissonance is and I see that is in that it should result in transformation of societies, obeying Jesus' command and making disciples of all nations.

And that transforming society's peace, I think is so important. I think that's so much of the Seven Mountains mandate that was something that Lauren Cunningham said, God told him about and how he needed to change this society.

And so it's not about working with people and collaborating and co-creating a world together. It really is about dominionism and bringing this very specific view of who God is and how God is supposed to be known in the world that I think is really important to unpack.

Yeah, it's actually interesting when you go to their webpage of YMValues.com, I think, where they unpack the quote-unquote legacy words, their covenant words, and things like that. There really is that language of, what doesn't matter if we're talking about spheres or we're talking about mountains or whatever, like everybody, that's all cool, because you have heard the different language, right?

Little Ann, it's Walnut, Walnut, who, you know, turned it into the Seven Mountain mandates, the Bill Bright, Lauren Cunningham side, that was, okay, we're gonna call it the spheres. But the truth, the centralness of it remains, and you can see that really played out.

So it's really interesting when you begin to engage with thinking around this where, like you said, the distance of what the words are saying, but then how it actually gets lived out. And you'll certainly find a huge swath of people who are part of YMV who would have no idea what the Seven Mountain mandate is.

They would not have ever been explicitly told that language. They might not even be talking about the spheres, the quote, unquote, seven spheres of society, but it is still in that cake mix, you know, that is part of the DNA.

And if you, I suppose, remain in one place, you might not get that, but it is absolutely a very important piece of the foundation. What I find really interesting, and I'm looking this from a business perspective, as a person who has operated multiple teams, multiple projects, multiple customers.

Usually it works better if you give people the freedom to learn and grow themselves. That's a big part of growing business leaders. And that's something that I like to do. I like to take a team and give them the freedom to explore, learn, make mistakes, grow.

But there is a process of auditing where you go and check, make sure, are they building what we need? Are they performing up to standards? Eards are, is the customers, the clientele happy? There's that auditing process that usually ensures that there's quality production happening.

What I have heard is feedback, and this comes even directly from people who are even parts of youth with a mission. They'll say, you can't judge our base off of the other base. Every base is different.

They, yes, we have some problems. Yes, we know that there are some bases that are problematic, but our base is not. And that raises the question, are you really not? Because if there is no auditing process, how can you determine that this base will not end up like the other base?

I'm trying to picture a case where I would go into business with multiple clients, give each of the teams that I have the freedom to explore and build and grow, and never check to make sure that they're conforming to what I, I myself have as business standards, I would be a very poor leader.

And so now I, after reading all of that, reading the comments, hearing what you have told me, I actually questioned the leadership of Lauren Cunningham because of this. There was no, apparently, from what I can tell, there was really no auditing process.

As you were talking, John, I was thinking about how I live in a van, and so we've been traveling around to the country for a while now. And we used to have a planet fitness membership, and planet fitness is a franchise.

And so anyone can open a planet fitness, which means that some we would walk into, and they would be so nice, and some we would walk into, and they were not as great. And there was a huge discrepancy in it.

And so I think that that's also part of the problem, is it sort of is a franchise. It's like you do a discipleship training school, and then you can go franchise and start your own base.

And there really is then no accountability to how each individual bases run. But it's also sort of funneled into like a pyramid scheme, basically, in that it just continues to funnel into the top where it benefits from students who are wanting to do these secondary schools, who are wanting to spend thousands of dollars and continue investing, but without the accountability and the protection to go with it.

Yeah, it functions on personality and relationship. And that's something that in terms of relationship, at least they're very proud of, you know, that we network, we it's about who you know. And while there is some certain pride around that, you know, like, okay, I know so and so, like, you know, if you got to be on stage with Lauren Cunningham, like you had arrived on some level.

And that, you know, there's microcosms of that around the world, you know, various regions. There's a popular people in. various regions that it could be like, oh my gosh, like so-and-so came to our base, like, oh my gosh, like I got to hang out with, you know, so-and-so. And that, I think, is part of the challenge because, you know, we talked about this in the last episode, the phrase of God doesn't call qualified. He qualifies the called. And that is sort of the mindset of, like, you leap first and you deal with the consequences later. The challenge is

so often the consequences are not being dealt with. Like, you said, John, in a business setting, there would be parameters and guardrails for, as you're trying to give someone the space to grow into their talents, right, to grow into whatever it is leading or, you know, running a project or whatever. But there have to be measurable outcomes that you can say, okay, you've done a good job, you've done a poor job. This is what we need to work on. This is what we need to do differently. And that does not exist by and large in the Y-Wam structure. And I think part

of that can very much be linked back to Lauren Cunningham himself, like you said, John, and his view of what missions was, what should be required. You know, he was very young when he saw this vision of the waves. And, you know, he was 25, I think, when that happened. And he had been part of the assemblies of God. Church, I think he was actually ordained at some point because he gave up his credentials at some point. But they wanted him, you know, to be a missionary. And now having, you know, worked with missionaries from the assemblies of God, they have a very rigid structure.

Like you have to hit like all of these certain marks to be considered a qualified missionary before you can actually go, you have to have all your money raised, all your money raised before you go. Y-Wam would never. You know, you have to have certain amount of time in seminary. You have to have certain experience and reference as in things like this. So I am not a huge fan of the way that the assemblies of God missions thing work. So please, you're not advocating for that. I just want to say that there are guardrails put in place, supposedly to try to help see people actually

qualify to go out and do those things. Now that was something that Lauren cutting him in the 60s. If you think about the social political situation in America at that time was very much a rebellion against that, you know, we don't have time, we don't have time to go to seminary, we don't have time to become educated, we just got to get out there, we got to get out there for God, bring back, you know, make Christ come again. And there's so much you see the evidence of that through his writings, through the evolution of the legacy words and the covenant words, the large worldwide gatherings

and things like that, that this was the waters they were swimming in. I keep hearing the word decentralized as it relates to Y-Wam and I want to talk through that a bit but first I want to touch something that you said about the 60s specifically with the Symbols of God. Just today, which you probably haven't seen it, I released a video on the rise of the Paramite sect and how that was the central core of what happened at Azusa Street. Even though it's been largely ignored, from Azusa Street they're publishing a newsletter and they say Charles Fox Param who has had an array of issues that I won't mention on

the podcast because it may it may trip some YouTube plagues. He had some issues with children specifically and he was he was kind of voted off the island after a while but during the Azusa Street revival they're publishing a newsletter saying that he is the father of the movement and it wasn't until years later they said well we can't really have a father who's doing this thing to children and I won't go into that thing. You can research it on on Wikipedia, etc. But the point I want to make is this there were leaders in the Paramite sect who

were clearly Paramite from their histories from Zion Illinois. They became Paramites. They became some of the early practices of the deliverance ministry. There were some deaths involved because they tried to deliver people too hard and then they became the core founding members of the Assemblies of God. Not many people know that history. It's sort of been erased. John G. Lake was one of these people. He was a Paramite. He became an Assemblies of God leader.

Param did a FF Bosworth who mentored Brannum in the Revival fast forward to the 60s. Like you said the Assemblies of God kind of had that same theme. We're going to be decentralized. Each church has the power to grow, etc. But it didn't grow in a healthy way in this one aspect. The core of Assemblies of God rejected the latter-rained doctrine and eventually sanctioned Brannum. They said this is heresy. We can't do this. It's actually dangerous what you guys are doing. I'm paraphrasing greatly. But what happened is because of that decentralized nature and because there were no checks and balances to make sure

that they're being properly audited, there was a large number of churches who still participated. And I still today come in contact with ministry to say I grew up in Assemblies of God. We never rejected this. I know that the rest of them did, but we never did. And their churches, some of them, went off into destructive cults that were very dangerous. So the point I'm trying to drive at is this whenever you throw this decentralized word into the mix, what it is really telling me when I hear it is that we bear the brunt of responsibility for

what each of these groups has and I can't assume all of that responsibility. So I'm going to decentralize and say that if this group grows rogue, it's their fault. It's not our fault. But yet, I'm going to dictate to them the doctrines that they must have, the way that they must teach, specifically this agenda of the Seven Mountains mandate. We have this mandate, this mission that we're going to conquer the world for God in this religious way. I'm talking about a spiritual conquering. But yet, we're going to decentralize. So if somebody gets too destructive in their DTS, we're going to just, we're going to say

that our hands are clean of this. That's their fault. I say, no, that's not right. Yeah, I have definitely seen this from a micro scale within maybe one location, one base, and then a regional leadership has to get involved to regions having problems and challenges and trying to figure out what's the next level of leadership that can maybe get involved.

And to sort of the global scale, we're finally, someone from the Founder's Circle or the global leadership team. It's changed names over the years. Maybe has to write a letter or has to somehow step in and be like, hey, other regional leaders, you need to do something about this. So, again, I know we've said this in the past, but it's often only once the mess spills over into the local community that that level of leadership is kicked into gear. So the decentralization is absolutely used in a plausible deniability so that we don't need to take responsibility.

Maybe that's not the intent, but that is the consequence that decentralization leads to a plausible deniability that says, well, it's not my job to deal with this, to fix this, to try to get in there. And that does a lot of harm.

I'm just thinking about the discrepancy true between none of the accountability but all of the benefit because these bases are so intertwined. And you can pretty much go to any base and it has a hospitality room. And if you are in Y-WAM, you can stay there for free or for very little money, for pretty much as long as you want to. And there is so much benefit that comes from being under this giant umbrella of Y-WAM. And so it's only decentralized, I think, in terms of accountability, but in terms of mobility and where missionaries are going and how they're referring

people to different bases and working with each other, that is very, very, very connected and intertwined with bases. And you just will continue to see the same teachers coming from one base to another to teach in a school and maybe they have a different rotation that they do.

And so I don't want to promote the idea that they all are these like radical fre- agents, because they kind of are, but they also are very, very entangled with one another. Well, let's talk about that. I'm also wondering how can you have radical free agents, whenever there's this idea that we hear God's voice, and that that authority of God's voice, if you've ever been under it, which I know there are listeners who have not, you really can't challenge it. Because if somebody comes to you and says, God told me that you need to go do this

thing, how are you going to question that? God told them, oh my gosh, I must do it because that's God who spoke to them. And that's the language that is used. It flows through the movement.

And hearing that Cunningham, all of this idea kind of emerged in the 60s, when this was really at its worst, and not only the assemblies, but in the broader post-World War II healing revival, it was growing, at least from the research I have done, it was growing spiritually corrupt. I think that's the best way I'll say it. They were mixing in political themes, they were mixing in heresy, everything from some of, we've even talked about some of the occult that was making in into the movement, to just purely men who wanted to control their people and giving them

platforms to control them. If that's the version of the doctrine that Cunningham picked up, which I don't know that it was or was not, but if it was, he would have heard this hearing God's voice, because it was flowing through the movement. You had the word of faith movement, which was in its early development before it even became word of faith. Before that, it was the spoken word, I think, Kenneth Hagen called it the Rema. There were different versions of this, but essentially, it was the idea that God is speaking a new thing, and you too can speak it. That was really how

the doctrine was spreading. So you had people in the congregations who said, oh my gosh, I can speak God's voice too, and I can be an authority over somebody else. Well, those people eventually became leaders of movements, and with that mindset, they started leading the movement, claiming that what they said was divinely inspired. The problem, for me, is some of it, we've been able to determine definitely was not divinely inspired. Looking at the legacy words, as you're talking about this hearing the voice of God and giving a new thing, I just want to read a little

bit directly from the website about the legacy word of the waves. So God had spoken to Lauren through this vision of the waves. This remarkable initiative by God to share his dream with Lauren would lead to a launch of youth with a mission four years later, with a generation within a generation, millions of young people would have their lives touched by God because of this vision of the waves that God gave Lauren Cunningham. We are some of those young people, our lives have been changed now because of how God met Lauren that day in the Bahamas. As we reflect back on that

event, we realized that that moment had significant parallels to other moments throughout history, moments when God stepped in to share his heart and his purposes for the world. Indeed, we have come to realize that this vision, this unexpected encounter, was a God-initiated, destiny-defining foundational covenant that God gave Lauren in order to birth a new mission's movement. So it goes on talking about youth. It calls us to lead out apostolically to birth fresh entrepreneurial initiatives in this spirit in order to accomplish great commission goals. It calls us to a lifestyle of viral pioneering, co-creating with God,

doing and encouraging others to do new things in new ways. That's very much this grandiosity. I think we've talked about in the past episode. We're going to change the world like God wanted Lauren cutting him to birth a new mission's movement. Why? There were so many already out in the world.

But I mean, this whole hearing the voice of God thing on the Holly Pivic podcast she breaks down really well this narthiology of hearing the voice of God. But if I want to link that back to the value number two that we were talking about, the foundational value of make God note, you know, no God in the make him know. That's the second one. Throughout all of the books that you read, all of the Y-Man books, that theme comes time and again. It's the word of the Lord, you know, God told us all of this sort of stuff. And as I was reading through a bit in preparation

for episode today of making Jesus Lord the dynamic power flying down your rights written by Lauren cutting him in 1988. He was talking about God speaking to him at some point, talking about all of the ways that like Y-Wamers, Y-Wamers specifically had been protected on these crazy trips and all this stuff. But then in 1976 the Lord spoke to me. He told me he had been extending unusual protection during the foundational years of our mission. But now we would begin to see a number of deaths. And he goes on to talk about the young people started dying and all of this stuff that's

happening. Just in this term of like, well, God spoke to me and told me he wasn't going to protect us anymore. And then three pages later, he tells a story about them being a group of people being attacked. Their van was being shot at. Everybody was unharmed. When I heard all of this, it was like God telling me, you see Lauren, Y-Wamers are still under my protection. And there's a real sort of focus and insistence on Y-Wamers.

you know, Y-Win being protected. These people as part of a mission's organization because God told him. And that's that has crazy consequences. I know we've talked about this before, but I just recently reread the book Cell 58, which is written by Dan Bauman, who is part of Y-Win lore. He was imprisoned in Iran in 1997 for them thinking he was a spy, which Iran had good reason to believe that white American would be a spy. But he also had Swiss citizenship because of his dad.

And the Swiss embassy was working with the Iranian government to get him taken out of prison. He was given a lot of like pretty like he was beat. Yes. And he was also given some really decent treatment. Honestly, more better treatment than most inmates in the United States would get, especially in black or brown bodies. And so he keeps using this idea of don't listen to fear.

God is bigger than fear without looking at the nationalistic and racial privileges that enabled him to have his embassy get him out. And he talks about meeting a black man from Louisiana who had been imprisoned for like 15 months and had no idea why he was there, how much longer he was going to be there. And so it's this discrepancy of Y-Win is protected, quote unquote. I think because a lot of the early and the most powerful people in Y-Win are also white people who have a lot of nationalistic privilege. And that's taken for granted in how Y-Win is able to move even illegally, proselytizing in Muslim countries.

And all of the ways in which it is making God known throughout the world. Again, explicitly, he talks about, there's many stories in this book again referencing making Jesus Lord where he's talking about these horrific things happening. You know, these people go into the Amazonian jungle when women get malaria. It's like weeks until the next boat comes. You know, what are they going to do? God tells them like, don't worry about it. I'll take care of her. You know, they sort of, then the boat comes and she lived. And this was just one adventure. And they talk about this like, oh, fun. And then he says, I believe there are hundreds

of thousands of young people who are just waiting for a really challenging, dangerous job that requires them to give up everything. You may be one, the reward being a part of the climaxing event of all history, taking the gospel to every person on earth. Like, so there's this, there's this

idealization as well of being put in prison. I mean, that's throughout this book. He glamorizes Martha Dunn. multiple times in this book. But it's the stories that feed us. We've talked about the finances, how, you know, Grandma Jane gives you the money for your DTS and you're like, oh, it's the Lord, you know, sort of thing. He tells a story in here of how someone found money on a bush one time and that was the Lord's, you know, provision. And it's, it's a very interesting way. And you see this psychologically, right, where stories draw people in. And it connects the truth. You begin

to think, oh, this is, this is truth, you know, this happened, sort of like Jesus was telling parables. And that begins to be your motivation for, well, of course, I want to make God known throughout the world. And sure, I want to have fun and, you know, have adventures and, you know, do all of this stuff for Christ. And it's just like John said, like if someone is out there saying, like, God told me to tell you, I heard the voice of God for you. And if the leader of an organization is telling that they're in saying, wow, I heard all of these things. Where was that confirmed?

Who else had that vision? Like, where else do this come from? And when we talk about the whole like issues in why way I'm oftentimes people get very itchy, you know, they get very, maybe defensive even. And that's why we get back to the decentralization. We don't have a central figure.

We don't worship a central figure, you know, sort of thing. And I beg to differ. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven 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. In the podcast that I'm doing with Bob Scott, we explored one day all of the different themes that were non-religious that helped enable this thing to happen with laterane voice of healing, the post-war war to healing revival,

everything from vaudeville to... You had these traveling lectures that people would go to, and back in the day, that was your entertainment. Back before radio was widespread, you had the traveling speaker who would come speak, and everybody, whether you agreed with them or not, you'd go to the town hall and you'd listen to them. And then that branched off into the tents, the tent revivals, etc. And what gave the people was an idea that we are here to hear a story. And that kind of made its way, it crept into the post-war war to healing revivals. If you were going to be a true revivalist, you had to have a

backstory. And the backstory had to be appealing to the itching ears, whether it was true or not. And so what you find, if you go to the voice of healing magazines and just read through any of them, every single person has either seen an angel, they've been spoken to by God, all of these different things. And you have to wonder, why did God have to speak to these individuals directly to give them these massive ministries and public fame? Why didn't he speak to the hearts of the people, like the Bible says they will do? Well, the difference is the people, large majority of them,

wasn't even reading the Bible. They did not know that God came to do this, that God said he would send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide them. So they thought mistakenly that these public figures who were traveling speakers, they were the ones sent to lead and guide them. And that morphed into all of the people who were doing it began to also think that because sad truth is some of those did not also did not read the Bible or even understand theology. So that that type of movement was the background to what developed into what you're describing in the 60s. If a person was

going to be anything in that type of movement, you had to have a backstory. God had to have spoken to you. The problem is, as I said, God did not always speak to these individuals. You have to take them at the word, but it really matters because in the broader scope of things, I'm going to go back again to that word, I think you use the word franchise, Jenny. It's really what it is. There is no decentralization per se. What there is is a group of individual distinct units who are using many of the same coded language. So from the outside, if you don't understand the coded language,

you think, okay, they're independent, they're not doing it, but you hear these things like the covering or the anointing or even the God spoke to me language to some extent, depending on the words used when God spoke, that becomes coded language. And it is broadcast among all of the different units. So each unit is, in fact, connected back to headquarters, like it or not. And whenever Cunningham was alive, it would have had a central figure. He was the central figure. After his death, now, sadly, it's much like the message after Brannum died, the code words themselves become the

governing body. And when it gets At that point, it's really odd. I came from that environment and I had people, well, even the church that my grandfather ran, they would say that people are going in here and it's like a bunch of wax figures in here.

They don't know what they're doing. They're just wax figures in a church pretending to be a part of a church body. It's because, after the death, the loaded language become the governing committee of all of the different units.

Or Lauren passed as he was ill. There was a lot of scrambling happening internationally of what are we going to do? We need to prepare for Lauren to pass. It's this sort of loving paradox of, no, we don't have a central figure.

He's so humble, he doesn't want recognition or anything like that. Then this, oh no, we need to prepare for when Lauren passes. What is this going to look like? Who are we going to be listening to?

What is the thing? I always find it really interesting, John, when you talk about how in your church growing up, you guys would listen to the recordings of William Ranham and I'm like, this is what this is.

All of the covenant words that Lauren Cunningham received, all of the legacy words that Lauren Cunningham received, all of the books that Lauren Cunningham wrote. Personally, when we talk about the Y-Wam lore, Lauren Cunningham, when they came to Switzerland, I think in the 70s, so Y-Wam began in the 60s, in the 70s, I think it was that they came to Lozan, Switzerland, got this building, and then God told Lauren Cunningham that he was going to give him a farm.

And the farm that my husband manages today is that farm that, quote, unquote, God gave to Y-Wam. So there's a whole history and a whole story behind that, my in-laws had stewarded the farm for approximately 40 years, like as soon as the tenants who were currently in the farm, when Y-Wam received the orphanage that is here in our village with the farm attached to it here in Switzerland, they had tenant farmers, and eventually when that contract was up, they left, and then they needed a Y-Wammer to come and take care of the farm, and they asked my in-laws, and eventually they agreed, and they were actually employed

by Y-Wam. So they were Y-Wam staff, but they were paid a salary for all of this time. Anyways, there's a lot of this lore that's attached to this farm, so now we've taken over the farm.

My father-in-law's retired, he still lives in the village and works on the farm with us, but my husband now runs this farm, and we rents our house and the outbuildings and land from Y-Wam.

We're talking about investing, and we need to invest, and Y-Wam is currently refusing to back an investment, to guarantee our investment, to say, you know, we'll allow this to, you guys to invest, and if we don't renew your contract in five years, then we will give you depreciated, you know, value of the investment that you make. And the reason for that is they haven't heard from God. They don't have peace from God about doing that yet, and they need two more years in order to catch a vision, their words, and to let it sink down into their hearts for them to think about what they want for the farm because they

have to think about the quote-unquote promises of the past that Lauren Cunningham received from God about this farm. Now, what's even more interesting is I have a very good friend whose parents are like, oh gee, Y-Wam leadership. And they were in the room with Lauren Cunningham back in the day when they were talking about these things. And they said, actually, that Lauren Cunningham wanted a farm because he was very much in that mindset of sort of like the world is going to end like really soon. God is going to come back really soon. And so we need to somehow like be self-sustaining. We need to have a farm so that we can make

our own food. Now, this was when there was like no Y-Wam bases. Like Switzerland was like one of the first Y-Wam bases in Lisbon. So there was this sort of like doomsday mentality. And I've actually heard someone recently referred to the assemblies of God as a doomsday church because it is this like, you know, end is going to come, fire in Brumstone, you know, this sort of thing. So we're sitting here sort of very baffled that Y-Wam would put in jeopardy our livelihood, like our whole life, the lives of our children, our family, our support system, our livelihood because of this Y-Wam lore. And whatever Lauren Cunningham

heard from God back in the 70s about this farm. So it's just, it's an interesting highlight that, you know, I know from when I speak like this is happening in our lives right now, the influence of Lauren Cunningham and the words that he quote unquote received from the Lord are deeply impacting our lives today. And it's, it's wild to see and flabbergasting.

Really? You beat me to the question. So in the 60s, think of what was happening. You had the cold war, you had Russia rising, you had JFK who's building all of the defense system, you had all of these weird UFO sightings, all of these things were happening and making the people really, really afraid. And you had this community within this evangelical sect. This, I don't even know what you call it because the healing revival had basically died out, but the aftermath of this, they were capitalizing on that fear because it was the only way to maintain the crowds that

they had before. So world is ending, be afraid, come to our mission because we're the one, we're the only one that's going to be saved. Your church down the street, they're not because they don't have what have my brother. That was the mentality of the 60s. I was actually going to ask you, did they have a Doomsday theme and that answers the question. So it shows which side of the assemblies of God split they were on. The main sect of the assemblies, I'm not going to say they did not have a Doomsday theme, but they weren't as focused as the revivalists sects were. You had a wide swath of the assemblies

who just simply went row. We're not going to denounce this thing that makes everybody excited to come to our church. We're watching the tide increase exponentially. Why would I not want this? Sadly, that's what they chose. The money over the gospel and in many cases, the money came with this gospel of fear, which was a totally different gospel. So for me, when I hear the gospel of fear used with the same type of mentality and then still the same verbage, you said exactly the phrase catch the vision. That is the phrase that we use in Brannemism for the same exact purpose.

So it stems from the same thing. In fact, there is a, I think it's a publication that's printed by the sect that's called catch the vision because it's such a widespread code word within our religion and that came from that mentality. We're going to catch the vision and if we catch it, we're going to be the ones who escape the wrath that is about to come. I know I already talked about this, but I just, I can't get out of my head how much it is a pyramid scheme and I'm thinking about like AMway or

Mary K or Tupperware or all of these things that sell a promise and the promise is if you just keep investing, if you just keep doing this, like it's going to pay off and you see the people that are on the top of the pyramid and it's working for them. They're having favor, they're getting land and so I think it's just the sense of well, why isn't it working for me and the dozens of thousands of other YWM missionaries that don't have those success stories and but still keep investing and giving their lives to it, thinking that there's a promise. And I remember

you know, again holding nuance and people will probably likely be in the comments, being like you only talk about the bad things. Like one of my actually kind of catalysts for leaving YWM was one of my YWM leaders in South Africa. I was essentially like excitedly telling him how I expected I was going to be martyred in Uganda in the next few years and I was like I'm going to go back, probably going to get captured by Joseph Coney and he's going to kill me and I like had no remorse about that. I had nothing but excitement and then I was like and then my friends and family

are going to see how dedicated I was to God and become Christians and he goes you know how messed up that is, right? And I was like no, what are you talking about? And it was this moment, you know?

And of course not everybody in I am ascribes to all of the things that we're talking about. I think there are beautiful good people who have solid hearts trying to do good. And as a reminder, what we're talking about is the system and how it gets infused and how it affects lives.

Like you're talking about Shelby, it's affecting your life because of the way that the system is operating, regardless of people's hearts or intentions or experiences within the system. And I just want to highlight, it's a great point, Jenny.

And it's not just mine and Jenny's or John's or the others who have come on to share their stories, opinions or experiences, those matter. And that has power as well. But this is in Lauren Cunningham's own words.

And that I think is what is really important to pay attention to as well. We're not inferring these things, these things are written. He writes here, I have heard it said, Christianity that costs nothing is worth nothing.

And Jenny, you're talking about sort of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And he says, you know, conversely, Jesus promised that anyone who obeyed his commands would be loved by the Father and would see great miracles in his life along with persecutions and hardships, of course, you know.

And then he has in here a thing from Keith Green saying, if you stay in America, you had better be able to say to God, you called me to stay home. If you don't have a definite call to stay here, you're God.

It's not God's fault that the world isn't being one, it's ours. So you begin to see this glorification of martyrdom like you were saying, you know, he says the gospel must be preached in every nation and then the end will come.

But we will see more martyrs and more danger as we evangelize in politically hostile lands and countries torn by war and disease and Muslim nations and others currently opposed to Jesus Christ. And then he says, if God asks us to give our lives to spread his word, we will see the tremendous blessings he has reserved for those who give up the greatest gift of all and he's talking about giving up your life, like your actual dying and that's the thing.

So it's like John was saying, you know, this use of fear to keep people engaged and then it's that carrot in the stick, right? Like there's the carrot that's the glory and acceptance and belonging and for a lot of people freedom to do what you need to do.

And then there's the stick of, well, if you don't, this is gonna be your fault. It's your fault that the world's not getting saved. And there's so many implications. There's so many detrimental implications to that sort of theological understanding of who God is.

But it's, again, it's not. just us pulling this out of our air. It's, this is the waters they're swimming in. I mentioned this before on another podcast and it's, I don't know how relevant it is to the crowd, but I used to watch the Beverly Hillbillies at my grandmother's house.

And there was this recurring theme because of the age in which it was presented to the public. There was this theme where there would be these civil war guys who did not know the civil war had ended.

And Granny would come out and shoot them in the rear end with a buckshot, which was, in her case, beads of dough. I think it was, and they would jump and yelp. But the theme applies to what we're talking about here and it applied to that other podcast.

There are people that are just trapped in limbo. You had this destructive, into the world is coming, all the communist fears, you had the government who are literally, people like Nixon were literally working with the full gospel businessmen to tell them we need to capture the minds of the people in your churches because this is a battle of the minds that we're fighting.

That's directly from Nixon's speech. That's the type of mentality that they had. Well, they fought that battle, but nobody told them that the battle has ended. They just continue in limbo. They try to continue fighting it.

The battle is in the minds. The problem is, I mentioned at the very beginning of this, I have, I explored sending my children on some of these youth retreats. In fact, I was thinking after I said that we actually did send them to one camp.

There was not ever a situation where the camp director came up to me and said, now, I know that you're sending your children to be part of our camp, but I just want you to know that there's a chance they might be martyred.

I have never had them say this to me. And I'm trying to picture a case where anybody who is recruiting for youth with a mission would ever tell a parent this. But if that is the language that's happening inside of it, this for me, out of everything that you've said in every podcast you've done, that is probably the most problematic statement that I've heard so far.

I think the closest thing to that was, I joined, I signed up for my DTS when I was not 18 yet. And so not everyone has to do this, but because I was not 18, my parents had to sign a form that said, if I died overseas, they would be responsible for getting my body back to America and Y-Wam was not going to cover the costs to get me back.

And of course, it was like, oh, that's just, that's not gonna happen. It's just in there. But the reality is that people have died on their discipleship training schools. They're like five month entry schools as 17, 18, 19 early 20 year olds, because they're being put in positions that are very dangerous.

I was my discipleship training school. A month of it was working in the red light district in Thailand and trying to build relationships with women that were being... affect and bring them out. And arguably doing way more harm than good, not only for ourselves, but for the women because we would put them in danger. And some of them would have negative consequences because these hapless Americans were like, just come with us and come do jewelry and get out of here. And you know, it's just not only put our lives in danger, but it puts so many

of the lives of those we're going to save in danger. And similar to what you said, Shelby, if like God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the call. I think another phrase is just kind of the ends justify the means. And if the end is saving souls for all of eternity, then it doesn't matter what your body or the bodies of those that you're going to minister to happens because you're not looking at that. You're looking to their salvation. It's 100%. And everybody has to sign that release form when you're going on your DTS. You're going on an outreach to say,

if you die, why won't that be responsible for bringing back your body? That will be up to your loved ones if they want you to deal with that. So that's certainly that when you do a Nico, I'd love to hear the Nico people come out. Like if you have a Nico story, please contact us. But yeah, these waivers, you know, waiving the liability and things like that for your potential death.

And I, in my own personal story, I was in Wyoming for 18 years, obviously, even though I'm out of Wyoming, I'm still deeply attached to Wyoming because of our situation. And my whole story is going to come out on the bodies behind the bus podcast in a couple of weeks. So all the juicy details will be there. But I almost died multiple times. Like, and I was just left there like, okay, you know, sort of thing. And I'm just one person, you know, even of the three of us here, the two of us that have been in Wyoming have experienced, you know, these extreme, dangerous situations. But as

we see, that's, that's the draw. That's often trying to be the draw. You want danger, you want adventure, you want fun, come to us, we'll do it all for Christ, we'll do it all for his kingdom.

And this is, I think, why it's challenging because you can talk about the structural challenges of Wyoming that a lot of people might agree with, like, oh, that's not healthy. That's not good. And then when you begin to actually sometimes touch on the theological pieces of it that lead to dangerous and harmful outcomes, there are people who do believe that that is the way that we should believe as Christ followers. And so that is where you get a lot of pushback of people being like, well, I thought it was great. Well, if that's the cake that you're eating and it doesn't

make you sick, then of course, or so you would, you know, be fine with that. But that's sad. My heart breaks, I think, to see so many young people sucked in, give years and years and years of their lives to this organization.

They say they're not an organization. They call themselves a movement. We're not an organization. We're a movement. And people give their lives. They don't have education. They don't have professional experience. They can't afford to leave Y-Win because Y-Win provides them in expense of housing or they have maybe government assistance because they're under the poverty line, like, and if finance is a thing that we can totally talk about at some point as well, but it really breaks my heart and my hope is that we can shine a light.

I get parents who are concerned for their children write me in confidence, asking for some kind of assurance that their child is okay. I really want to address that publicly. What advice would you give to parents whose children are in youth with a mission and a DTS, especially one that is abroad where there's limited contact?

What advice would you give them? I think the hard thing is that there isn't assurance that they're okay based on my experience and the experience of many people I know in Y-Win there's a lot of harm and threats that can happen.

And I don't say that to scare people. I say that to raise awareness and I would liken it a bit to someone you love that maybe struggles with addiction and they're not gonna be ready to quit until they're ready to quit and that's a really, really hard thing if you see someone that you love that's going down a path that you're concerned about and that doesn't mean you can't say things, that doesn't mean that you can't ask questions, that doesn't mean that you can't show that you will be there for them, no matter what.

But I do think that they are on their own path of agency and sovereignty, even if it isn't what you maybe would want or would choose for them. According to cult experts that I've been researching for years because Y-Win is decentralized, it is challenging to completely quantify it as a cults.

However, there are a lot of cult experts that will qualify as a dangerous authoritarian group because of the thought control, the emotion control, behavior control, these sorts of things. A lot of people will identify as like a high control religious group.

There is a high level of control of your life, whether it is explicit, sometimes it is explicit, and a lot of times it is just very implicit. in the air, it's in the water, it's in just the culture of the place that if you ask questions, if you dare to leave, if you ask for outside help, these are all things that will have dire consequences for you socially, relationally, spiritually. So yeah, anybody who's thinking about sending their young person in to YWAM, I would just say don't, it's a short answer, right? Just don't, it like Jenny said though, when you're in it, there's almost nothing I feel like that you could say

or do to get someone out of it. They have to almost arrive to that level of cognitive dissonance

themselves, and I think that's the heartbreaking piece because for many people who come out of YWAM traumatized, they are traumatized, and it is, it is years of therapy, it is, it is lifelong change, there's a profound change in your personality in who you are, the way that you can trust yourself, the way that you can trust others, and that that will take years and years to heal, and so that's I think what's heartbreaking for me is it's not a, oh god, that was crazy, like not doing that again, I guess I'll stay away from that, you know, there's profound harm that happens often,

I know there's people that would say I was not harmed at all, and I'm really happy that that's how those people feel, but there are too many people who are harmed, so I think like any high control religious group that you, that someone that you love as part of being there for them, when they crash is unfortunately, I think sometimes all that we can do, showing up with curiosity, I know Steve Hassan talks about this a lot, like in his combating cult mind control, you know stuff, I know you've mentioned him a lot John as well, just showing

up with curiosity for those people and trying to love them through it. Well this is all very concerning and sadly I think the further we go the more concerning it gets, so I wanted to end it on a happy note and instead I'll end it with let's dig a little bit deeper and let's see what is at the bottom of this river, so if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web, you can find us at William-Brandom.org, for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian

Identity to the NAR, available in Amazon, Kindle and Audible.