Gordon Lindsay

James Gordon Lindsay was William Branham's campaign manager from 1947 until the mid-1950s.  Branham and Lindsay published The Voice of Healing magazine and Lindsay was a key figure in the Voice of Healing Revival that merged with the Latter Rain movement.  In 1953, Lindsay issued an ultimatum for Branham over doctrinal positions in white supremacy, which led to a heated battle between Joseph Mattsson-Boze's Herald of Faith and Voice of Healing.[1]

Lindsay was born in cult leader John Alexander Dowie's Zion City, and Lindsay's parents were members of Dowie's cult of personality.[2]  When Zion City suffered severe financial losses after Dowie's failed attempt to convert citizens of New York City, Lindsay's parents migrated to Portland.  During high school, Lindsay was converted to the Parhamite sect during a revival held by Pentecostal founder Charles Fox Parham, and later connected with Parhamite John G. Lake.  Lindsay joined the Lake revivals throughout California and the southern states.[3]  By 1932, Linday had become an "evangelist at large" for the Assemblies of God.[4]

In the late 1930s, Lindsay joined Aimee Semple McPherson's cult of personality to become a minister and evangelist for the Foursquare church.[5]  Freda Lindsay, Gordon's wife, was a student of McPherson's bible school.[6]  Together, Gordon and Freda formed a husband-and-wife evangelistic team.  After a series of revivals in Tacoma, Gordon and Freda became co-pastors of the Tacoma Foursquare church.[7]  They held that position until February 1939, when Gordon Lindsay was appointed to the position of "field extension work" for the McPherson's Four Square organization.[8]  Interestingly, Lindsay's transition came shortly after McPherson appointed Gerald B. Winrod as her temporary replacement in November 1938.[9] Lindsay's district was adjacent to Saskatchewan,[10] where Foursquare planted the Sharon Orphanage.

Like Winrod, Lindsay was a strong supporter of British Israelism.  When Winrod was named a nazi conspirator by the Seventy-Sixth Session of Congress in January of 1940,[11] Gordon Lindsay began touring through the United States and Canada for the "Anglo-Saxon Christian Association"[12]  Lindsay also began hosting "America in Prophecy" presentations with End-of-Days scenarios that he claimed to be the result of Biblical Prophecy and numerology.[13]  Though Lindsay was not named in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 along with Winrod, it was very apparent that Lindsay supported Winrod's position.  

In 1940, Lindsay was the opening speaker for the Anglo-Saxon Christian Movement Convention and held daily meetings to answer questions about the British Israel doctrine.[14]  Clem Davies, also a member of the Anglo-Saxon movement[15] and a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, joined Lindsay in the conferences.[16]

Lindsay was aware that William Branham changed his commission story from the vision described in I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision to an alleged angelic visitation when Branham's stage persona changed to the post-1947 versions. When interviewed by Canadian newspapers in November 1947, Lindsay referenced the 1945 publication when explaining how and when Branham's alleged "gift of healing" came.

Mr. Lindsay outlined the "healer's" brief career in this field. "His special ministry came to him in a vision two years ago," Lindsay said. "He prays for the esick, calmly, unless it is a virulent disease, and then Mr. Branham must resort to a more authoritative tone to drive out the evil." Mr. Lindsay pointed to no specific miracles or cures his charge has performed, only to say, "I have seen hundreds of them." When asked specifically to name some, Mr. Lindsay ignored the question.[17]
- Vancouver Sun.

Lindsay wrote several articles and books[18] about UFOs, and those doctrines strongly influenced Willliam Branham, Jim Jones,[19] and others.  Branham claimed humans were made of "cosmic light" which would transition to another dimension, and that dispensational 'ages' were led by a prophet of 'light.'

After you go out of this body, out of cosmic light and petroleums, and what you're made up of, and you go into the fourth dimension; out of that, into the fifth dimension, then the sixth dimension. Then, God is in the seventh. You're right under His altar.[20]
- William Branham