Paulaseer Lawrie
R. Paulaseer Lawrie Muthu Krishna was an Indian minister and evangelist who helped establish William Branham's Message movement in India before developing his own Branham-derived sect centered on claims of divine manifestation. After participating in Branham's 1954 healing revivals and later struggling for recognition among Pentecostal leaders, Lawrie used Branham's failed tent, moon, and India prophecies as theological openings to reinterpret Branham's message around himself, suggesting that Branham's unfinished predictions were fulfilled through Lawrie's own ministry. Following the 1969 moon landing, Lawrie increasingly framed his Chicago meetings as a divine visitation and allowed followers to identify him as "God coming down," the "Son of Man," and the new name of God, while abandoning practices such as communion, baptism, and faith healing as obsolete. By blending Branhamite doctrine with Hindu and Muslim concepts such as the Supreme Sacrifice, Lawrie created a distinct Indian Message sub-sect that treated him as the fulfillment of Branham's failed India prophecy and an extension of Branham's deification theology.
R. Paulaseer Lawrie Muthu Krishna was a minister and evangelist largely responsible for the spreading of William Branham's "Message" cult throughout India. In 1954, Lawrie participated in Branham's healing revivals. After several years of evangelistic work and failed attempts to receive the backing of Pentecostal leaders,[1] Lawrie began working to establish Branham's cult following in India.[2]
In a sermon preached in Life Tabernacle on July 18, 1969, Lawrie strategically used William Branham's failed "tent prophecy" as an example of how the cult had fallen into disarray. Since Branham was no longer living, and could not be physically speaking inside a tent while giving his cult members their "new, heavenly bodies", Lawrie explained that both those who still believed Branham's prophecy and those who did not could be unified,[3] and that Branham only "saw" the "tent" -- which could mean that he was looking down from heaven witnessing it.[4] During the meeting, Lawrie began claiming that God spoke to him, saying that He "must come down before man reaches the moon".[5] This was an extension of Branham's doctrine comparing the race to the moon to the Biblical Tower of Babel;[6] Branham taught that mankind would never reach the moon.[7]
After the moon landing, Lawrie began claiming that his sermons in Life Tabernacle in Chicago were "three memorable days of God's visitation in the city of Chicago on the three great moon landing days",[8] suggesting that he, himself, was the return of Jesus Christ that he (and Branham) had announced. By that time, he had established a number of converts who recognized the subtle hints he had planted towards his deification claims, which were combined with Branham's own claims to be "not a man but God", "God in the flesh". Since Branham was dead, and could not be this "god" in flesh, then by default the deification must fall to Lawrie. Followers of Lawrie began publishing tracts with what they believed to be confirmations that Lawrie was "God coming down" as the "son of man".[9] As a result, many of the New Testament traditions no longer applied; "true" Christians (believers in Lawrie) recognized that God had taken a "new name" (Paulaseer Lawrie), and were not to participate in communion or baptism. They also explained the lack of successful "faith healing" among Braham's followers; healing was no longer necessary since God had now returned to earth.[10]
In the 1980s, Paulaseer began promoting his doctrine of the "Supreme Sacrifice", an practice from Purusasukta, to further appeal to natives of India. By mixing Hindu and Muslim practices into his new religion, he attracted more converts from India.[11]
Lawrie's sub-sect views Paulaseer Lawrie as an answer to Branham's failed India Prophecy. Though Branham later admitted the prophecy to have failed,[12] Branham claimed as "Thus Saith The Lord" that tens of thousands times thousands would be saved. Lawrie's sub-sect claims that this alleged salvation happened through Lawrie, and that Branham was only prophesying the Lawrie to come.
Mark my word; write it in the pages of your Bible, for it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, "Remember, when we land in India, you're going to hear of tens of thousands times thousands being saved." The Holy Spirit has said it; I've wrote it here in my Bible; it's wrote in tens of thousands of Bibles right here, like the resurrection of the little boy. By a vision that He said, "There's three hundred thousand of them in there." And you see if that isn't right. There's how the Gospel's going to be preached just overnight. She'll just sweep like that from place to place.
Branham, William. 1954, May 15. (54-0515). Questions and Answers