Life Story Exposed by Voice of Healing
In October 1950, Roy E. Davis, William Branham's mentor and former second-in-command of the 1915 Ku Klux Klan,[1] exposed William Branham's stage persona as a fraud by publishing the correct history of his ministerial career. It was sent by letter to Gordon Lindsay and published in The Voice of Healing under the heading, "Wm. Branham's First Pastor."[2]
In October 1950, Roy E. Davis, William Branham's mentor and former second-in-command of the 1915 Ku Klux Klan,[1] exposed William Branham's stage persona as a fraud by publishing the correct history of his ministerial career. It was sent by letter to Gordon Lindsay and published in The Voice of Healing under the heading, "Wm. Branham's First Pastor."[2]
After Branham renamed his church from "Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle"[3] to "Branham Tabernacle" in 1945,[4] he began the process of also re-inventing his stage persona. In his 1945 tract, I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision, Branham described Roy Davis as a Baptist minister[5] — which was only partially correct. Though he was a Baptist decades prior, Roy Davis was Pentecostal long before working with William Branham. In fact, Davis was the general overseer of his own Pentecostal sect, the "Pentecostal Baptist Church of God."[6]
By 1950, Branham had changed the "Life Story" for his stage persona even further, replacing the "heavenly vision" with an "angelic visitation." Part of that story included Davis as a "doubter" of the angel story. Instead of a Pentecostal, Branham claimed that the denomination was "Missionary Baptist." In the Life Story accounts after 1947, Branham claimed to have wanted to join Pentecostalism while married to his first wife, Hope Branham (who was also very active in Davis' Pentecostal church).[7] He blamed his reluctance on her mother[8] and claimed that he had "never seen" Pentecostals prior to a trip to a Mishawaka, Indiana Pentecostal assembly.[9] By his death in 1965, Branham's Baptist backstory became the accepted version of history, and closely linked to the death of his wife and daughter in the 1937 flood.
Now, in going forth, it was very hard when I first made the announcement about the Angel of the Lord. Many people, even my bishop, pastor, when I went to him and told him, he's the head of the church in that section of the Missionary Baptist. I said, 'Dr. Davis, the Angel of the Lord...' and then told him about it. He said, 'Billy, what did you eat for supper last night? You had a nightmare.'[10]
- William Branham
Davis, however, set the record straight. He said, "I am the minister who received Brother Branham into the first Pentecostal assembly he ever frequented. I baptized him, and was his pastor for some two years. I also preached his ordination sermon, and signed his ordination certificate, and heard him preach his first sermon."[11]
