William Sowders
William Sowders was a Louisville-area Pentecostal minister, founder of the Gospel Assembly Church and School of the Prophets in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, and leader of a restorationist sect sometimes called "The Latter Rain" before the better-known postwar Latter Rain revival emerged; his influence is significant because William Branham encountered Sowders's School of the Prophets through John Ryan, absorbed or paralleled several restorationist themes, and later echoed similar claims about prophetic calling, Oneness theology, Ohio River supernatural signs, bridal preparation, special anointing, and end-time authority, making Sowders an important regional precursor to Branham's later Message and Latter Rain stage persona.
William Sowders (1879-1952) was a Pentecostal minister from Louisville, KY who founded the Gospel Assembly Church and School of the Prophets in Shepherdsville, KY, just south of William Branham's hometown of Jeffersonville, IN. Sowders pastored a small mission in Anna, IL around 1919, and a second church in Evansville, IN from 1921 to 1919. Around 1928, Sowders returned to Louisville and started holding meetings at an empty firehouse on 16th and Market. In 1935, Sowders bought 350 acres in Shepherdsville, where he would build his Gospel Assembly and commune.
There were many names used to describe the cult following that Sowders created, the most interesting of which was "The Latter Rain".[1] Long before William Branham lit the fuse creating the Latter Rain Revival movement and named his own sect "The Message" after "The Latter Rain Message", Branham went to Sowder's "School of the Prophets" with John Ryan. At first Branham thought that Sowders preached "strange doctrines", but Branham would continue evangelism tours with John Ryan well into the Latter Rain version of his stage persona[2] and strongly emphasize the "school of the prophets" from Samuel 19:18-24 many times.[3]
"Later from that, I met an old man that’s here in the church maybe now, or he was here over to the church, by the name of John Ryan. And I met him at a place…The old fellow with long beard and hair, and he may be here. I thought he was from Benton Harbor up here, at the House of David. And they had a place in Louisville. I was trying to find them people, and they called it the School of the Prophets. So I thought I’d go over and see what that was. Well, I didn’t see nobody rolling on the floor, but they had some strange doctrines. And there’s where I met this old man, he invited me to come up to his place."[4]
Some researchers have noticed the unusual similarities between versions of William Branham's stage persona and Sowder's.[5] Though according to the United States Census William Branham was raised in Indiana,[6] Branham claimed to have been raised in Kentucky. Sowders was born and raised in Kentucky. Both men claimed to have initially resisted the Pentecostal call and converted to Oneness. Both claimed that a voice thundered over the Ohio River announcing their spiritual significance, Both claimed to be preparing the "bride" (their sect) for the return of Jesus Christ, and were "specially-annointed".