- 7/7/2025
John and Jed discuss the convergence of various troubling trends they’ve been researching. They explore how New Apostolic Reformation figures, such as Lance Wallnau, use fabricated credentials and cut corners to achieve influence in spheres of power, rather than through genuine education or merit. They examine how dominionist theology supports this behavior by framing believers as already chosen and anointed to rule, which discourages self-examination or moral accountability. The conversation highlights how violent rhetoric in these circles spills into real-world consequences, including political violence, while leaders deflect responsibility by cloaking such rhetoric as spiritual metaphor.
The discussion further analyzes how leaders validate each other in a web of mutual reinforcement, making it difficult for followers to question or leave these movements without dismantling their entire belief framework. They reflect on the emotional, relational, and moral challenges of walking away from such tightly controlled systems. John and Jed emphasize that without genuine moral character and accountability, these movements serve as financial and political power structures rather than communities of faith. They conclude by hoping their dialogue helps others find the courage to leave unhealthy systems.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 John and Jed explore the overlapping mess of dominionism, politics, and fabricated authority
02:00 The Primis University diploma mill and self-created accreditation in the NAR
06:00 The seven mountain mandate and the shortcut to influence
10:00 The link between violent rhetoric, dominionism, and political violence
17:00 The saturation of warfare language in NAR prophecies and its dangers
25:00 Misuse of biblical figures to justify leaders’ moral failings
32:00 The failure to build moral character and its effects on former members
37:00 The selective morality of radicalized political Christianity
45:00 The mutual validation networks protecting abusive leaders
50:00 The collapse of movements when their fraudulent foundations are exposed
55:00 Final thoughts on the difficulty of leaving and the hope for freedom
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
The discussion further analyzes how leaders validate each other in a web of mutual reinforcement, making it difficult for followers to question or leave these movements without dismantling their entire belief framework. They reflect on the emotional, relational, and moral challenges of walking away from such tightly controlled systems. John and Jed emphasize that without genuine moral character and accountability, these movements serve as financial and political power structures rather than communities of faith. They conclude by hoping their dialogue helps others find the courage to leave unhealthy systems.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 John and Jed explore the overlapping mess of dominionism, politics, and fabricated authority
02:00 The Primis University diploma mill and self-created accreditation in the NAR
06:00 The seven mountain mandate and the shortcut to influence
10:00 The link between violent rhetoric, dominionism, and political violence
17:00 The saturation of warfare language in NAR prophecies and its dangers
25:00 Misuse of biblical figures to justify leaders’ moral failings
32:00 The failure to build moral character and its effects on former members
37:00 The selective morality of radicalized political Christianity
45:00 The mutual validation networks protecting abusive leaders
50:00 The collapse of movements when their fraudulent foundations are exposed
55:00 Final thoughts on the difficulty of leaving and the hope for freedom
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Jed Hartley, son of
00:47a prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer.
00:50Jed, it's good to be back and to talk about this big mess that we have today in the world.
00:56There are so many threads of mess.
00:59You and I were discussing before we started this, what do we even talk about?
01:03We've gone so many different trails, and they all seem to be oddly converging, because we're
01:08talking about this problem exists, and here's the reason why it was created, whether it's
01:14Branhamism, whether it's Bickle, all of these different messes.
01:17And then they start to show up in the news, and so we kind of decided that, yeah, let's
01:24just talk about maybe a summary of where we are and why we're in the mess, and maybe it
01:29would help our heads not to spin so much.
01:32Yeah.
01:33Well, it was funny, because a few weeks ago, or depending on, we record them different
01:41than it's always released, so I don't know if it was just a couple weeks ago, but we've
01:48been definitely talking about this sort of intersection between the New Apostolic Reformation, the International
01:58House of Prayer, Lance Wallnau, these figures who have been behind Christian dominionism, and
02:06especially the Seven Mountains mandate.
02:09So, I think it was several episodes ago, we talked about Lance Wallnau, and we talked about
02:21how he had his doctorate from a university, and I had done a little bit of a deep dive into
02:29his doctorate to realize that it was phony.
02:33It was just, it was an organization that he had, to quickly sum up what we had been talking
02:42about, there was an organization that situates itself, it's called Primus University, it situates
02:50itself as a real university, it has a website, it looks like it's a real university, it has
02:55pictures of a university complex on its front page, but then you kind of dive into it, and
03:04really, it's just a diploma mill, where people pay this organization money to validate their life
03:12experiences, and the whole premise behind Primus, and like, people can go to the website and see,
03:18this is not a fabrication of, or I'm not portraying this in a negative light, well, I am portraying
03:26it in a negative light, because it is kind of, you know, shady, but they explicitly kind
03:33of stated on their website that life experience and books that you've read for a book club and
03:41Bible study, those can all count towards credit for a degree, like they're, it's very, very loose,
03:48there, it doesn't seem to be any semblance of actual curriculum there, it's just sort of a bunch of
03:54people, specifically within the New Apostolic Reformation community, have kind of gotten together and
04:00figured out a way to give each other doctorate degrees, and then those who graduate from this
04:07university are then the professors, where if you read any of their books, that can count to degrees.
04:15So, you know, like, if I went there and said, Oh, I've read this Lance Wallnau book. And I've read
04:21this, I can't remember some of the other individuals who are on there. But if I've read these three books
04:28by them, this is the sort of things that I've written about on that topic, they confirm me a degree,
04:34well, then, John, if you wanted to then come get a degree, you could be like, well, I've read Jed Hartley's
04:39books, and it just becomes the sort of multi-level marketing scheme where, you know, people bring
04:47others in, and then they became a part of the staff, and then so on, so forth. And what was really shady
04:56about it, I mean, there was a lot of shady things about it. But what was really shady is that it claimed to be an
05:01accredited university. And the accrediting body was this organization that Lance Wallnau, and I believe
05:13her name is Karen Drake, who's like the president of the school. So president of the school, Karen Drake,
05:21president of Primus University, and Lance Wallnau, who is a alumni of the school, creates this
05:31independent organization to accredit the very university that they are both either employed at
05:39and have gotten their degrees from. And they're the founders of this accreditation body. And there's
05:45nobody else in, you know, it's not, it's not pulling on any other, like, they're not bringing
05:51any other people to them. It's just them creating an organization to accredit the university that they
05:58attend or that they are, they created. So anyway, all of this to sort of sum up, I'm not doing a good
06:04job of quickly summing up. But it's just talking about it just reminds me how wild some of this
06:12thing is, is that you have this, and Lance Wallnau isn't the only individual who is sort of doing
06:18this, where they're creating and fabricating credentials. And it's part of this idea, the
06:26seven mountain mandate, it's this idea of being the pinnacle, right? The idea, the metaphor of the
06:34mountain is not, you know, accidental, the idea is, let's get Christians, specifically our type of
06:43Christians, our sort of dominionist, new apostolic reformation Christians, let's get all of them at
06:50the tops of all of these different mountains. And instead of doing it by like, okay, we are going to
06:58invest in the arts, we're going to invest in education, we're going to like send our children
07:04to the best schools and the best, you know, instead of trying to influence those spheres of society,
07:12by truly developing the best and the brightest to to then go into those mountains, which is,
07:21that's how I always grew up thinking about it. That's how it was always sort of told to me is that
07:26you are going to be our bright, best and brightest. And you are going to go and you're going to go into
07:32these mountains, and we're going to invest in education, the Lord is going to bless you. And it
07:37was, it was less insidious, I guess, because it was the sort of like, a goal to flourish, a goal to
07:46just be the best and whatnot. But in reality, it's a lot about cutting corners. It's a lot about doing
07:53instead of Lance Wallnau, going to a university doing the hard work, trying to become the preeminent
08:02scholar of whatever, you know, domain he wants to talk about, doing the hard work to to, I mean,
08:09university, like getting a PhD is hard work, you got to write a dissertation, you got to defend your
08:15dissertation. And it's not, it's not easy. And instead of doing that hard work, it's let's cut these
08:22corners to just insert ourselves. And it's this idea that God already has blessed us, we are God's
08:28chosen people. Sometimes even in the like, Christian identity movement way of like, quite literally,
08:36like the Aryan race has been chosen by God, but maybe metaphorically, spiritually, like we are the
08:44chosen group, we are like with IHOP, we are the forerunners, we are the church that God is raising up
08:50for the end times. It's this idea that like, we don't have to work for it, because we already have
08:56it. And this is the same, we have some of this mentality coming out of Bethel. It's this sort of
09:02like, we've been blessed with the goodness of God. And the gold is manifesting at our fingertips,
09:11and people are coming with like, diamonds in their teeth. And these miracles are happening to show
09:17that God has really blessed. It's similar in some senses, I think, to sort of prosperity gospel
09:25ideas, but it's this sort of like spiritual prosperity, and political and really all domain
09:33prosperity is that like, or maybe manifest destiny is a good, like, this is the world that the Lord has
09:40given us and that we have been anointed to take over all of these areas of society. So anyway, so we've
09:48been talking about this, we talked about the cutting corners. And we're really starting to see in the
09:58political sphere, specifically, we're starting to see the culmination of a lot of this coming to head, we're
10:05seeing how much the Trump organization was really fueled and has leaned on the sort of new apostolic
10:14reformation movement. And we're also then, you know, kind of skipping a few steps with seeing what is
10:22happening with Vance Bolter, where there is now a radical individual who parroted some new apostolic
10:33reformation rhetoric, clearly has deep ties to the new apostolic reformation movement, goes and
10:42attempts to assassinate and is successful in one instance of assassinating a government official and
10:49their spouse and enacts violence, political violence. Again, we're still, you know, I don't want to speak,
10:59I don't know the personal psychology of Vance Bolter, but I know that someone, like just a few weeks ago,
11:06we were talking about the dangers of this rhetoric and the new apostolic reformation rhetoric and how
11:14this sort of dominionism is spilling over into violence. And then not a week later, we see a
11:23manifestation of that violence happen in probably one of the most clear and explicit literal ways.
11:31So I don't know about you, John, but it's the last few months have just felt like it really is
11:37a culmination of a lot of the things that we've been talking about.
11:41It definitely is. And interestingly, if you do this long enough, it'll go in cycles. So the last few
11:48months have been like this. And then there was this dry spell. Well, I can't remember what year,
11:52a couple of years back. It was like this again. It goes in these cycles and it's exactly, I was
11:59telling, telling a person that's just on the phone right before I called you. It's weird because what
12:04happens is these people have created this fantasy world and they can really do with it whatever they
12:11want. It's like whenever you, you were a kid, I'm assuming that you were like me and you had all
12:16the little figures and toys and you could reenact your own battle scenes. For me, when I was a kid,
12:22G.I. Joe was the big thing. So I had all these G.I. Joe's, but on this side, I might have them
12:26fighting Lego figures or something. I could do with them whatever I wanted because they're my toys.
12:32They're, you know, it's my fantasy world I'm creating. Well, what these people have done,
12:37and it is ingenious because whenever you want to target a political opponent and you have a ministry,
12:49you can't just outright say, we need to bring down this political opponent. There are laws against
12:55this and they border, they edge towards sedition. You can't really overthrow people in the government.
13:01That's not how it works. But what you can do is you can have your little battle scenes with your Legos
13:08and your G.I. Joe's, but in a spiritual sense, what these people do is they'll start to associate
13:13political figures with enemies in stories of the Bible. And once they have made that association
13:21in people's minds, they will preach that story to the ground, man, over and over. Well, every time
13:28that the people in the seats hear that story, they know that they're talking about political figures,
13:32right? And then take it a step further. So you have people who are indoctrinated with,
13:38this is loaded language. You're loading the language of these names with the political figures.
13:43Well, when they hear the loaded language, they immediately think of the name. Well, some of these
13:48scenes in the Bible are very violent. There are very violent scenes, especially in the Old Testament.
13:53There are bad things that happened, right? Well, whenever they see this and somebody's just
13:58slightly mentally unstable, well, then they start to reenact it. And what they've done is they've
14:04started to enter into the fantasy world that was created spiritually, but they're doing it physically
14:11at that point. Now, I can't say that Bolter was of that mindset, but what I can say is,
14:16even just the few clips that you gave me of the rhetoric that he's preaching in the sermons,
14:21I was able to hear it just like that. Go listen to the rest of the sermon, and it's like,
14:26oh my gosh, man, this guy has been programmed. Now, I can't say that he was programmed to do what
14:32he did. That would be a mistake. But if you understand how the indoctrination works,
14:37what you have is radicalization. So then you're left with the question, was radicalization the
14:43reason why Bolter did this, or was he doing it out of some other reason? We don't know,
14:48but we can clearly see he is radicalized. And that's just Bolter. That's just the scenario
14:55we're talking about now. But now spread that across several months. You have all kinds of
15:00things that are happening with weird things in Christianity and politics mixed together,
15:05and we're seeing it over and over and over again. Each time that you see it, you are finding a person
15:11who is radicalized, but has not yet had a climactic event. Some of them may never have
15:17it, but they're radicalized. And that's really a huge problem.
15:22I can't remember if it was in response. It might have been a comment on one of our YouTube
15:27videos, or it might have been a comment on one of my Twitter threads that I've had. But
15:32I remember someone a while back, it was either a thread that I had posted about violent language.
15:43Oh, you know what it was? It was when I was talking specifically about the International House
15:51of Prayers history in Uganda, and how there was a movement, a political movement in Uganda that was
15:59looking to criminalize and punish homosexuality. And that there was going to be this sort of like
16:06enforcement of this religious belief in violent ways where people, if they were found to be
16:14homosexual, you know, they would be thrown in prison or worse. And there was a documentary that
16:23came out that was tying a lot of that movement to sort of missions movements that specifically the
16:32International House of Prayer had done. And what I was saying, and I said similar, we talked about this
16:37on one of the episodes we talked about, or one of the episodes that we had, we talked about this
16:43topic. I've also posted about this and written about it. But there's this sort of, there was this
16:51sort of like, defense that I remember people in the International House of Prayer had where they were
16:58like, we don't condone any political violence that is done like this, this, this persecution of, of people
17:06who are homosexuality, like we're speaking against it, we don't, we think it's immoral, we think it's sinful,
17:11but like, we don't condone the state sort of backing of, of moral norms in, in this sense. And they were
17:24like, we kind of wash our hands of it, we have nothing to do with this. And what I was saying, and what I
17:31still say is that when you use violent rhetoric all the time, don't be surprised when people take it
17:39literally, like the, all of these metaphors of violent rhetoric of, of warfare is so, so prevalent
17:51in the new apostolic reformation, like to an extent that you don't even realize it. I know that most of
17:57our audience probably has been in this world a little bit and probably doesn't even realize how much
18:04language, um, the spiritual, uh, or spiritual warfare has become like the predominant language
18:13and rhetoric of this movement. Um, so much so, um, do you know what the Elijah list is, John?
18:21Yes.
18:22So for our audience who doesn't know, there's like a, um, this is, it was tied with Bob Jones originally,
18:29but the Elijah list is very like tied to the center of the new apostolic reformation movement.
18:35And it's all about kind of raising up voices of prophets and basically prophets or self-appointed
18:41prophets will get prophetic words and then they will pay to have their prophecies released to this
18:47like network through email. And, and, um, but they're posted online and they're posted in like
18:54the Elijah list, new list letters. And this is, I, you know, I hope I'm not tipping my cap because a
19:01lot of people are like, Oh, how do you know what's going on in the new apostolic reformation? So much
19:05well, I read the Elijah list. Like I keep up with a lot of what's being said there. And that gives me
19:11a sort of like, Oh, I know what people are saying and I know what's going on. So, um, it's not,
19:18you know, for, despite not being involved in the world and being a part of that community,
19:23I am able to keep tabs on the community very well by just reading the Elijah list. Um, and if people
19:31wanted to do it, like go to the Elijah list, go to the website, Google it, go to the Elijah list.
19:37And they have their archives just search through search through the word invasion, search through
19:44the word warfare, uh, do violence. I mean, whatever word that you want to think of that is,
19:51that is violent sort of warfare rhetoric, bloodshed blood, even all of these different
19:58things. And you will see all of this language. You'll see literally hundreds of prophetic words
20:04that are being released, um, by individuals who are talking about the spiritual warfare that's going
20:12on in the United States and in other countries. And obviously, um, in Israel and everything like
20:19that, and it will be explicitly violent language. Now it's done. I think that whenever we talk about
20:29it, even we, even when we talked about it and when I had posts about it, I remember people
20:34kind of defending it and being like, well, you know, what also has violent language is the old
20:41Testament and the new Testament. And this gets to what you were just saying, John, which is people
20:47will open up the Bible and read about political things that were happening and not understand
20:54the separation between sort of the United States and the, our current sort of political world. Like
21:03we're, it is democracy now, like the United States is a democracy. We are not a theocratic,
21:08you know, we are not the ancient, um, nation of Israel. That's like fighting against other like, um,
21:17kingdoms and monarchies and, and, um, not fighting against the Philistines, but there's this sort of like
21:26reading of that language. I, and I think that a particular thing that, that influences this a lot
21:33is the, um, how much of the Bible is written in, um, not first person, but second person perspective.
21:45It's a lot of like letters or prophecies that is like unto Israel, um, or unto a church in
21:54Galatians or Ephesians or something like that. And so the word you will be used all the time in the
22:02Bible. And it's like, you know, I, I think I've talked about this before on this, but like for
22:06when I grew up, arise, Isaiah 60, arise and shine for your light is common. The glory of the Lord
22:12has risen upon you. And I'm reading all of these use, and I'm just thinking as it's like God talking
22:18directly to me and I'm not separating and recognizing. I am reading a text that was written
22:26to a specific either church or about the church of Israel, specific ancient Israel. Like I'm not
22:34separating myself from it. And I'm taking these things and I'm thinking about me. So like
22:40Kings will be brought to the brightness of your dawn. That wasn't about Jed Hartley. That prophecy
22:47wasn't about Jed Hartley. Now I can get that people can like be inspired by it and whatnot, but like
22:53that wasn't about me and inserting myself into the center of it. I adopt a lot of like really dangerous
23:01mentality and language. And this is, this is also a huge thing when, um, Mike Bickle was being
23:11criticized. So Mike Bickle is criticized for sexual violence that he's perpetuated, um, that he's been,
23:18you know, grooming women for decades. I mean, we've talked about this extensively, but
23:23Mike Bickle kind of gets exposed for being an absolute charlatan and predator. And, you know,
23:33in the early stages, the defense of Mike Bickle was like, well, King David, think about what King David
23:42did to Bathsheba and Uriah. And it's like, even though King David's sin, God still used him. And I
23:53remember getting so angry and being like, Mike Bickle isn't King David. Mike Bickle doesn't like,
24:00who is Mike Bickle to insert himself in this like grand biblical narrative and be like, God will still
24:08use me. You are not one of God's chosen. Like we are not going to have, um, a lineage where,
24:17you know, tracing the, the lineage of Israel to Mike Bickle. Like, it's just so, it's so
24:26egotistical that to even compare Mike Bickle with a King of ancient Israel is just so absurd. Also,
24:37it was also a terrible metaphor because like King David repented. And when he, and in sackcloth and
24:45ashes, you know, he repented for everything that he did and literally there was punishment. God
24:50killed his firstborn, uh, you know, depending on how you interpret that. I don't know if there's
24:57multiple interpretations of that passage, but that's always how I understood it is that because of
25:02David's sins, God, the, the death of, of David's firstborn, um, was like indirect, um, punishment for
25:11his sins. And so not only were they like inserting themselves in and, and bringing parallels that were
25:19absolutely ridiculous, but they weren't actually even doing the full parallels because they were
25:23like, Oh, forget about the like repentance and punishment aspect of it. Just like we want, uh,
25:30to still laud and respect this, uh, and worship this man. Um, and we don't really want to deal
25:38with the sins. So it was just an excuse, but anyway, all of that to say exactly what
25:43to reiterate kind of what you were saying and, and is that when you use this sort of biblical language
25:51language and you use this specifically when you pull out the militaristic, um, language of the Bible
25:58and you use it to talk about spiritual warfare and talk about, you know, even quasi political warfare.
26:08Um, and then violence is perpetuated on behalf of like people then take and actually fulfill that,
26:14that violence. And then you throw up your hands and you're like, Oh, this didn't have anything to do
26:19with us. I just think that it's ridiculous. Like, I think it's, this is clearly the fruit of the tree
26:25that we're dealing with, with, um, Vance Bolter and, um, just sort of this violence that's rising up
26:32in general. Like I, I so wish we talked about this a couple episodes ago, but like, what, is it crazy
26:41for me to think that Bill Johnson should like use his platform and be like, we are, when we talk about
26:48spiritual warfare, we are not talking about real warfare. Please do not ever enact violence in the
26:55name of Jesus to per like the talk of invasion. Like, should he be explicit of like, we are peaceful.
27:04We believe in democracy. We believe that America shouldn't just be an ethno state or, uh, uh, a theocratic
27:12state that only Christians are allowed to be here and live here and practice their religion. Like,
27:20would it be crazy for, um, us to expect that some of these leaders reaffirmed that like the United
27:29States is, is for all people and not just for white Christian national lists. Um, and that the
27:36persecution of other individuals, um, is never, never ought to be the agenda of, of the movement.
27:45Um, cause like they, they will act like that's given. Like if you, I don't know about like Lance
27:52Wall now, but Bill Johnson will be like, of course, like, you know, of course this is the thing. Like
27:57whenever they're criticized, it's like, Oh no, no, I never would do any of this. But yet do they,
28:05do you ever see them speaking up against sort of the violence that their own community is
28:11perpetuating? Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression
28:16of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe
28:22movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham
28:28Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the
28:35compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others with
28:42links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and
28:49documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the
28:55cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.