Golden Dawn Exposed: Inside the Branham-Inspired Cult in Tucson | John Calvo

Name: Golden Dawn Exposed: Inside the Branham-Inspired Cult in Tucson | John Calvo | Episode 434
Uploaded: 2025-10-01T09:13:09+00:00
Duration: 1 h 2 min 41 s
Channel: William Branham Historical Research

William Branham Historical Research

2 days ago

John invites John Calvo to share his story about growing up in Golden Dawn Tabernacle, a high-control group based in Tucson, Arizona that emerged from the teachings of William Branham. They explore how Golden Dawn evolved into an isolated and tightly controlled community, even within the broader Branham movement, and why its leadership—especially Pastor Isaac Noriega—was seen as authoritarian even by other Branham followers. John Calvo shares how the teachings grew more rigid over time, cutting off young people from education, sports, and outside relationships. He explains how the community was structured to make leaving extremely difficult, with consequences that included loss of employment, family connections, and deep psychological distress.

As the conversation continues, they explore the mechanisms of control such as financial pressure, threats of being spiritually cast out, and public shaming. John Calvo recounts how his blog, goldendawntabernacle.org, began as a small project to document these issues, but grew into a movement that caught national media attention. He describes how former members contributed testimonies, how the blog faced legal threats, and how a major investigation brought public scrutiny to the group. The discussion closes with reflections on the deeper theological differences between Branham-inspired groups and traditional Christianity, and how Calvo hopes that shining a light on abusive practices will help others find freedom.

Golden Dawn Tabernacle Research:
https://goldendawntabernacle.org/

Recent News:
https://tucson.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_733a4dd5-5a1c-4782-9506-c00804cb2820.html

Recent Victim's Story:
https://goldendawntabernacle.org/2025/09/23/another-golden-dawn-tabernacle-victim-comes-forward-sharing-marcellos-story/

00:00 Introduction
00:31 Guest Background: Growing Up in Golden Dawn
02:30 Why Golden Dawn Was Considered Extreme
04:21 Pastor’s Progressive Revelation and Control
06:36 Fear, Community, and Why Leaving Was Hard
08:20 Retaliation and Loss of Identity
09:55 Manifested Sons of God and Elijah Claims
13:03 Revering Pastor Isaac Noriega
14:54 Finances, Tithes, and Control
17:00 From Robin Hood to Wrecking Ball: Starting the Blog
21:46 Shocking Revelations and Abuse Investigations
23:09 Personal Stories of Leaving Branhamism
27:00 Excommunication and “Taken Out from Under the Blood”
32:26 A Tragic Story of Excommunication’s Consequences
34:32 Media Investigation and Twisted Faith Series
41:15 Legal Challenges and Attempts to Silence Research
44:30 Five-Fold Ministry or One-Fold Dictatorship
46:25 Public Response and Blog Impact
48:23 How Golden Dawn Differs from Christianity
52:04 Rules, Legalism, and Outward Appearance
56:05 Biblical Contradictions in Cult Rules
57:52 Christianity vs. Cult Indoctrination
59:04 Where to Find Resources and Support
1:00:25 Closing Thoughts: Shining Light in Dark Places
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00:00:00Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at william-branham.org.

00:00:43And with me, I have my very special guest, John Calvo, former member of Golden Dawn.

00:00:49John, I feel like I've known you for years.

00:00:51I guess I have known you for years, working on helping people escape Branhamism, and in your case, a splinter group of Branhamism called Golden Dawn.

00:01:02And so much has happened.

00:01:04We've tried to do this for a while and connect, but you've been so busy helping to bring the cult down that it really just took a while to get all of this going and connected.

00:01:14So, glad we finally did.

00:01:16Maybe if you could tell everybody a little bit about yourself and briefly describe what is Golden Dawn.

00:01:22Yeah, thanks, John.

00:01:23Really glad to be on your podcast.

00:01:26Like you said, it's long overdue.

00:01:29I'm glad we finally were able to make it happen.

00:01:33Background on me.

00:01:34For me, I grew up in Golden Dawn Tabernacle, also known as Tabernacle Emanuel.

00:01:40I was born in that message church in Tucson, Arizona, and grew up and was raised in it up until 2006 when my family left.

00:01:49So, I was there for 20 years.

00:01:51And it was a very destructive cult, from what I can tell.

00:01:54There are levels of destructiveness in the Branham religion.

00:02:00I don't know what you call it.

00:02:01Branham denomination.

00:02:02They're so offended at the word denomination, however they have created one.

00:02:07But there are levels of destructiveness.

00:02:09I have been to some that were so benign that if you were to just go to an average Pentecostal church and the minister would preach from the Bible and every once in a while mention Branham's name, that's how it would be.

00:02:22Then there are others that just completely rule your lives.

00:02:25And by rule, I mean completely destroy your lives.

00:02:29So, it's somewhere in between that range is what Branhamism is.

00:02:34Where would you place Golden Dawn in that scale?

00:02:36So, even within the own message denominations or sects, if you want to call them, they all consider Golden Dawn Tabernacle to be an extreme case.

00:02:50And I've heard them call Golden Dawn Tabernacle a cult itself, which is pretty ironic.

00:02:58But that's how extreme it is that people in the message call Golden Dawn Tabernacle a legalistic extremist controlling church with a fascist authoritarian pastor.

00:03:13Whenever I was small, I lived in Arizona, lived in Tucson for a while, actually two periods of my life.

00:03:20I've never been to that specific church, but I have been to some of the Spanish churches that existed way back then.

00:03:27And it was a little bit different.

00:03:29It wasn't the same as what we had.

00:03:31But I've never been to one that the message community branded a cult.

00:03:35So, it is interesting.

00:03:38And you're correct.

00:03:39I've actually had message cult pastors contact me after Golden Dawn went nuclear.

00:03:45And I guess trying to put a distance between them and Golden Dawn so that it was clear we are not them.

00:03:53Which, I'll give them that.

00:03:55You know, like I said, there are levels of destructiveness.

00:03:57The problem for me is if you understand the root core theology of Branhamism that enables this type of thing, it really becomes a – you can't even say that they're different.

00:04:12You can just say that some have not yet progressed to the level of destructiveness that Golden Dawn did, while others progress very quickly.

00:04:21And in your case, you've studied Golden Dawn to no end.

00:04:24And I'm curious, what are your thoughts on why it progressed to be that destructive that fast?

00:04:30Yeah, in researching the history of Golden Dawn Tabernacle, it was a church that started off very small, but did start to go rapidly in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

00:04:45And there's a couple of things that enabled it.

00:04:52First off, the teachings of William Branham really enable churches, as sovereign churches, to have full control over how they run things.

00:05:01And what we observed over time was the pastor, as he got older and older, he became more rigid, more rigid, and implemented stricter and stricter rules.

00:05:14And he did this under the guise of progressive revelation, saying, well, just because my kids went to college, well, we know better now, so your kids can't play sports, because we know that that's the spirit, and that's of the world, and we don't do worldly things.

00:05:38So over time, progressively, the church became stricter and stricter, and as new children, the new generations are born into the church, they don't know any better.

00:05:47And the older generation are governed by so much fear of the pastor that they don't dare question him publicly, because it will get them ostracized, and they will get publicly humiliated.

00:06:03So, yeah, there's a culture of fear of not questioning the higher authorities in the church, which is the pastor and his ministry leadership team.

00:06:16And just, you know, if you start making the rules stricter over time, slowly, it makes it gradual enough that the people get used to it, and, you know, don't have time to speak up about it and challenge it.

00:06:31Absolutely. I've had people ask me, why don't people just leave?

00:06:35If you're in something that is that awful, that terrible to be under and submit yourself to that level of authority, when you decide that you don't want to submit to that level of authority, why don't you just leave?

00:06:48And it's not really as simple as leaving, because once you're indoctrinated with that fear, when you leave the group, you fear instant and final death.

00:06:58It's a spiritual death, so it's worse to a Christian than an actual death.

00:07:03You're done forever, basically.

00:07:06And that fear is instilled inside of you, so it's really hard to leave.

00:07:09But more than that, the way that the groups create these strange communities,

00:07:15it's difficult for me to put this into words, because the Branham Tabernacle for its existence has not had a community that was destructive as what you describe.

00:07:26However, within the people themselves, they create an internal community where if you need plumbing done, you go to this guy.

00:07:35If you need heating and air, you go to it.

00:07:36And so there's this weird community where even though they don't have walls around them,

00:07:42the people are so tightly coupled and tightly integrated that it becomes like a city within a city.

00:07:47And then when you leave this, you're leaving everything.

00:07:52You're leaving your friends, your family, all of the people who have helped you with whatever it is in life.

00:07:59You're leaving everything.

00:08:01And then to think about the levels of destructiveness that some of the Branhamites have,

00:08:06it goes beyond this to they will actually make it difficult for your family if you were to question or leave.

00:08:13And so then it becomes almost like the mafia.

00:08:16If you leave, if you do this thing, we will retaliate against not just you, but everyone who you knew and loved.

00:08:25They're going to suffer as well.

00:08:26Would you say that's the case with Golden Dawn?

00:08:29Absolutely.

00:08:29It is a very retaliatory and punitive environment.

00:08:34A lot of the folks that are in the church today have grown up in the church and don't know anything outside of the church.

00:08:41They are employed by church members who run their own businesses.

00:08:47They were educated in the church school.

00:08:51They don't really know anyone outside of the church.

00:08:54And so their entire family is in the church.

00:08:58And so for them to leave the church means they leave all their friends, all of their family,

00:09:04as well as losing their livelihood because they will most definitely get fired if they leave the church.

00:09:09So it is taking your entire identity, your entire well-being, your livelihood and completely walking away from it.

00:09:19And for someone to be able to do that, it takes a lot of guts, a lot of courage.

00:09:24And a lot of folks that are still in the church would love to do that, but they cannot afford to leave their families.

00:09:34Some of them are married into it, and to leave would destroy their families, would destroy their partners.

00:09:42It would destroy everything.

00:09:43So a lot of folks just suck it up, and they're silently dealing with it and living in misery, which is really, really sad.

00:09:52One of the things that William Branham taught was this manifested sons of God theology,

00:09:55which has become very important to the movements that have splintered off of him

00:10:01and formed what we call the New Apostolic Reformation today,

00:10:05all of these weird churches that are mixed with religion and politics.

00:10:08And there's this idea embedded in that doctrine that the Elijah of Malachi 4 was going to return.

00:10:17It actually takes a step back older than William Branham.

00:10:22You can date this back to British Israelism, and then through Christian identity, this doctrine was still popular.

00:10:27But it was the idea that Malachi 4, when it's talking about Elijah, it wasn't talking about John the Baptist, as you find from the book of Luke.

00:10:37Instead, Elijah's coming in the last days.

00:10:40In Branhamism, everybody believed that William Branham was this Elijah.

00:10:45And in the broader movement that was emerging, the Elijah was to be manifested among the leaders of the movement and the fivefold ministry.

00:10:52And there's different variations of how this plays out, but it's almost every time had led to a destructive cult of some kind.

00:11:01In many cases, it's actually led to deaths.

00:11:04So this is a very destructive doctrine.

00:11:06But what's really weird about it, in Branhamism, when it splinters off of core Branhamism,

00:11:12there's this idea that Branham was still the Elijah that was sent, but I'm the new guy.

00:11:17Basically, they'll say something like, I'm the Elisha to Branham's Elijah.

00:11:21Was that the case with the movement you were in?

00:11:24The Golden Dawn Tabernacle Church doesn't explicitly state that Pastor Isaac Narega is the Elisha to Elijah, which would be William Branham.

00:11:36But they certainly hold him to that status.

00:11:40The church, you know, they call their group the called out of the called out,

00:11:44because they are the elite bride-elect, and they are on a higher plane than everyone else.

00:11:52And Pastor Isaac Narega is likened to biblical figures, both in the Two Pioneers book that the church published,

00:12:03which is a biography of Pastor Isaac Narega and his wife Lucy.

00:12:06They revere him as a founding pioneer, comparing him to Abraham.

00:12:12So they compare him and his wife to Abraham and Sarah,

00:12:15and claim that Isaac represents God to the people,

00:12:19and that he was supernaturally called to lead the congregation.

00:12:23And that when he was dedicated, he was dedicated as a child as Elisha by the pastor.

00:12:31So, you know, he certainly has, alludes to that level of stature.

00:12:38And also, he also claimed to have multiple correspondences with William Branham,

00:12:45and had a special connection with him, and claims special insights that he received from Branham,

00:12:50that he uses those in his teachings and the rules that he implements in the church.

00:12:55Although, he's conveniently lost all traces of those letters.

00:12:58So, you know, who knows if he was telling the truth or not.

00:13:02One other interesting thing about Isaac Narega is,

00:13:06he would occasionally wear a gifted suit coat that was gifted to him that used to belong to William Branham.

00:13:16He would occasionally wear that when he preached church service at Golden Dawn Tabernacle.

00:13:22So, lots of types, lots of types.

00:13:26They're, you know, the church is very much in the third pool of ministries.

00:13:29So, they have, you know, if you read the book, they talk about the first church and then the second church.

00:13:33Now, they've built the third church.

00:13:35So, the third church types, the third pool.

00:13:37So, they're in the final, you know, final stages before the rapture comes.

00:13:41And Isaac is revered so much by the church that to question him is blasphemy.

00:13:49If you question him, you are, you have a, it's, that's a, it's a demon.

00:13:55It's an evil spirit in you.

00:13:56You can't be questioning him and the anointing that he has.

00:14:00Granted, his anointing at this point in time is essentially just reading William Branham quotes and Bible verses nonstop.

00:14:07He doesn't really preach anymore.

00:14:09He just reads quotes nonstop in the church.

00:14:12So, I don't know how much anointing you can really get from that.

00:14:15But that's the, how, how highly the church reveres and fears him.

00:14:22The other interesting part about this doctrine, you can go all the way back through history and you can find people that have used this Elijah claim.

00:14:29And almost all of them seem to be doing it for money, if you look at their entire history and their ministry.

00:14:36John Alexander Dowie was definitely the biggest one.

00:14:39I think he made, I think it was $10 million in 10 years, which is like half a million dollars in today's money he made.

00:14:47Several others, they claim to be Elijah.

00:14:49People just give them willingly their money.

00:14:52Did you notice anything odd with the finances?

00:14:54It definitely was a lack of transparency in their finances.

00:15:01The church held the finances very, very close to their chest.

00:15:09The church treasurer and the pastor and maybe the trustees had access to the finances.

00:15:16But the pastor essentially micromanaged who was paying tithes or not.

00:15:24And by the way, for those that don't know, 10% tithing is required on your income.

00:15:30And they encourage it to be pre-tax income, not post-tax.

00:15:35And in some cases, they also require the businesses to tithe on their revenue as well.

00:15:42So they get double tithing from some of their church members.

00:15:47And they certainly make a lot of money from those tithes.

00:15:54And it's enforced to the point that Isaac will call people out if they're not paying their tithes.

00:16:02And in one instance that I know of, a young man was not paying his tithes.

00:16:07And Isaac called his employer, who was also a church member, and asked him why he wasn't paying his tithes or told him he wasn't paying his tithes.

00:16:19So then that church member went and fired that employee because he wasn't paying his tithes, because Isaac told him he wasn't paying them.

00:16:26So that's the level of control the church has over finances.

00:16:33They really want their 10% cut, man, or else you're going to get fired from your job.

00:16:39And as much as Isaac claims he doesn't care about the money, he absolutely cares about the money based on how much he micromanages it and calls people out for not paying tithes.

00:16:50So we actually have recordings of Isaac calling other people out because they didn't pay their tithes.

00:16:56For many years, you were like a Robin Hood in the midst of this, helping the people under the oppression of the evil Prince John, which was the minister.

00:17:08And then suddenly, after doing all of your research, you became more like a wrecking ball than Robin Hood.

00:17:14Tell us a little bit about how all of that came to be.

00:17:17What made you decide that you were going to dig up all of this research, create the website, blog, and bring the whole thing down?

00:17:23Yeah, so for your listeners that haven't heard of this, we started a research blog back in November of 2022.

00:17:33I started the blog, and I'm the lead researcher.

00:17:38It's called goldendauntabernacle.org.

00:17:41We call ourselves the GDT Research Team.

00:17:44And so leading up to that for years, you know, I had walked away from that church thanks to my family leaving.

00:17:54I was still in the message at that time for a few years after leaving.

00:17:58Eventually, you know, while I was going to college, my eyes were open.

00:18:03And I was like, the people in the college ministry campus teams are actually more Christian than the people I've known my entire life, you know, in the message.

00:18:17And that was a big eye-opening moment for me where I'm like, I don't need to be in the message to be a Christian, to be a good Christian.

00:18:24So that, you know, that was the years leading, or the years after leaving goldendauntabernacle.

00:18:32But, you know, since that time, I've always had a vested interest in the people in the church, the dealings and going-ons in the church.

00:18:40I'm always interested in how the church got stricter and strict over time and listening and hearing about the abuse, control, and manipulation that was taking place in the church.

00:18:49I always kept tabs on things, you know, looked at their public records, just, you know, I wanted to see what was going on.

00:18:57And in the, around the 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022, there was a large group of folks that left Golden Dawn Tabernacle.

00:19:10And some of those were former friends that I knew very well when I was growing up, that I grew up with, that were really good friends.

00:19:17Some of them were kids that I, you know, I, my, our parents and our families are friends.

00:19:22So, you know, I knew, I knew a lot of those folks and I reconnected with a lot of them and it was really good to reconnect.

00:19:29And in reconnecting, you know, they started giving me all this new information that I hadn't heard, right?

00:19:34Because it's coming straight from them.

00:19:36And some of them were, had been recording sermons and had all additional records and documents.

00:19:43And, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so much good information that the people outside of the church could really benefit from learning, learning about, especially the ex-members of the church.

00:19:53And so I'm like, we should start a blog on this.

00:19:56So I just started a blog and, and, you know, started putting some blog posts out there and sharing them with some of the former members.

00:20:04And then they started reading it and like, hey, you should write a topic, a story on this, a blog post on this, and here's some additional information.

00:20:12And it just basically over time turned into this giant grassroots crowdsourced movement where folks were coming to me asking to write blog posts.

00:20:25They would, or they wouldn't even ask.

00:20:26They would like, like, here's the blog post I wrote about my experience or this thing that happened.

00:20:31If you want to use it, that'd be great.

00:20:33So it started in November of 2022.

00:20:36You know, just, it, it was something very casual to, we would, I just wanted to start to just start documenting.

00:20:42And putting it out in the public, just so we had a place to look it up, the look of the history of the church, and just start investigating and documenting the hidden abuse, control, and manipulation that took place at that church, along with its, underneath its, the leadership of its pastor, Isaac Nariega.

00:21:00And so that was my, it was essentially a passion project of mine, but it was, you know, the intent was an independent journalistic research project, and not affiliated with the church, but just something to shine light on the alleged abuses.

00:21:16I can fully relate to a passion project.

00:21:20It is something, you cannot walk away from it.

00:21:23When it's deep inside of you, you have to get it out.

00:21:25And that's much like what you described.

00:21:28That's similar to, to the journey I had.

00:21:30And I was having people send me information.

00:21:33I still, some of it, I don't yet know what to do with it.

00:21:36I can't document everything.

00:21:37There are some shocking things.

00:21:39If you understand what is, what is behind this movement?

00:21:43It's just a little shocking.

00:21:44What would you say of what people have told you?

00:21:47What was the most shocking thing about Golden Dawn?

00:21:50Well, I'm in a similar boat as you.

00:21:53There have been some shocking revelations and personal experiences and stories that former members have written to me that I can't publish.

00:22:04It is some dark stuff.

00:22:07You know, as part of this whole research effort, we've been very careful to document what is available publicly and then using, you know, testimonies, corroborated testimonies from multiple members and fact checking with multiple sources to ensure accuracy as we publish our blog posts.

00:22:30But there are some stuff that is just on another level that is serious enough that, you know, we haven't published it because it warrants a professional investigative team to look at.

00:22:42And that's actually, as we'll talk about a bit further in the podcast, that's where we partnered with the different media outlets out there like Arizona Daily Star.

00:22:52You know, they are professional investigative journalists, and that's where they took things to another level where they actually started investigating things like child sex abuse and sex crimes.

00:23:03Yeah, I didn't mean to push you too far.

00:23:04I know that there are some things that you obviously can't say, but whenever I left Branhamism, honestly, I didn't leave with the intentions of doing any of this.

00:23:14I left basically with the idea that something's not right.

00:23:18I can't put my finger on it.

00:23:19I called my family up, and I told my maternal grandfather, who just died two weeks ago, I told him that I was leaving this and that I was still going to remain a Christian.

00:23:33I wanted you to know that I'm leaving Branhamism, and I thought it would be like an open door to a conversation.

00:23:40My grandfather, my maternal grandfather, was in what I would say would be a very benign church, and he had a very good outlook.

00:23:48He was, he did not cut off people who weren't part of the group.

00:23:52He had, in fact, some of his best friends were Christians from other denominations.

00:23:58But the moment I said this back in 2000 and, I guess it's 2012, that was the last point at which we ever had a healthy conversation.

00:24:10Usually, he would just avoid the conversations entirely, but fully cut me off.

00:24:16And when it happened, I was just, I was shocked, because he was my favorite person in the world.

00:24:23He had always been my favorite person in the world.

00:24:25I had no idea he would cut me off.

00:24:27And it was shocking.

00:24:28It took a long time for me to understand that it wasn't really him that was doing that.

00:24:34It was the indoctrination in his head that was causing that.

00:24:38And so, I lost not just him, but I lost pretty well everyone I knew and loved overnight.

00:24:43I had no idea that I was going to do that, and so that told me something was bad wrong.

00:24:49What was it like for you?

00:24:50Were there people who left with you?

00:24:53Or when you left this, were you isolated and alone, and people cut you off?

00:24:58So, when my family left, we were fortunate enough to leave with a group of other families that left.

00:25:05So, we left together.

00:25:06So, I think it was four or five families, three or four or five families that left all at the same time.

00:25:14Just, we decided we had had enough of Isaac's authoritarianism.

00:25:19And all just, one Sunday didn't show up.

00:25:23And so, when you have, you know, three to five families not showing up to church and with empty pews where they normally sit, that's a big, big scandal.

00:25:32And so, I had several current members of the church that were calling me all that Sunday.

00:25:40Hey, why aren't you at church?

00:25:41Where are you?

00:25:42Where are you?

00:25:42What happened?

00:25:43And so, you know, when we told them, well, we're not going back.

00:25:46We're leaving.

00:25:46We're going to go to a different church.

00:25:50And they're like, well, can't believe you're doing that.

00:25:52You're such a cop-out.

00:25:54You know, you should have just stuck it out because, you know, the anointing is real here.

00:25:58And, you know, you really shouldn't have left.

00:26:00You should have stayed.

00:26:01Funny enough, some of those folks who told me that years later, like, you know, 15 years later, also left the church, which is funny.

00:26:10But, yeah, pretty much everyone who actually called that cared, they, after that call, they never called me again.

00:26:17Never talked to them again, unless, other than those folks that actually ended up leaving eventually.

00:26:22So, yeah, you get completely cut off.

00:26:24They won't even wave to you or acknowledge you when they see you driving by or, you know, walking down the aisle in the grocery store.

00:26:32Most of them won't even acknowledge you.

00:26:34You're completely cut off.

00:26:35And at that point, we hadn't even been excommunicated because we just told the pastor that we were going to go to another church.

00:26:45And so he struggled to find cause to excommunicate us.

00:26:49And so he didn't do it for several years.

00:26:52He eventually found cause to excommunicate us because it bothered him enough that we had left.

00:26:56That several years later, he excommunicated us and took us off of under the blood.

00:26:59And we can talk about that a little further out in the podcast.

00:27:02Excommunication is a really, really big deal and is a weaponized control tactic that the church uses to keep its current members in line.

00:27:12One other positive about leaving the church with a group of other families is we had each other as a support system.

00:27:20So we're all going through the same thing at the same time.

00:27:23So that was really helpful.

00:27:24So I will say our family was blessed in that we did not have a, you know, completely lose our community overnight.

00:27:32It was more gradual and we had time to rebuild it.

00:27:36So we were very fortunate in that that happened to us.

00:27:40I know for a lot of folks, it's very isolated.

00:27:44The vast majority of folks, it's isolated.

00:27:46You're on your own.

00:27:47You feel alone.

00:27:48It is terrifying.

00:27:49And I feel for those folks.

00:27:51And you said one phrase there that I want to highlight because people who aren't familiar with this movement or are never in it might miss it.

00:27:59But you said taken out from under the blood.

00:28:01So what this means, if you are a Christian, you believe that what Jesus did on the cross was sufficient for all.

00:28:09And he said, basically, it is finished.

00:28:11For God so loved the whole world that he sent his only begotten son.

00:28:15He died on the cross for our sins and through his blood, through his sacrifice, we're saved.

00:28:22If you're in one of these movements that is based off of Branhamism, there is the idea that the minister has the authority to remove that salvation from you.

00:28:34And what they call it is they take you out from under the blood covering of Jesus Christ.

00:28:38In other words, Jesus had the power to save your soul, but the minister or the evangelist or whoever is the elite in your group has the ability to undo what Christ did for you on the cross 2,000 years ago.

00:28:54That is an actual belief.

00:28:56I, too, in one of the more benign – I would say that Branham Tabernacle is a little bit more benign than – well, a lot more than what you had.

00:29:03And even in that church, even with my own grandfather, he took me out from under the blood.

00:29:09And what's interesting about this is I only had asked a question.

00:29:13I still, at the time that I had the question, I still believe that William Branham was a prophet.

00:29:19And I told him this.

00:29:20But because I questioned, he did this thing to me.

00:29:24What's really interesting is my wife and children had never even spoken to him.

00:29:29He didn't know if they believed or they didn't believe.

00:29:31They were also taken out from under the blood.

00:29:33So, I'm going to come down against you.

00:29:35I'm going to come down against your family.

00:29:37It literally is the mob, but in religion.

00:29:40It really is.

00:29:42And taking someone out from under the blood at Golden Dawn Tabernacle is both deeply, deeply punitive to the member that's being taken out from under the blood and to the family of that member.

00:29:57Remember, once you're taken out from under the blood, your family in the church is no longer allowed to talk to you, that you are cut off.

00:30:07They cast you over to Satan.

00:30:09That's literally what they say when they take you out from under the blood.

00:30:12They cast you over to Satan in the hopes that you will come crawling back.

00:30:18That's the goal.

00:30:19And so, they cut you off from everything that they can cut you off from.

00:30:22And if you, as a current member of the church, are caught talking to someone that's taken out from under the blood, you can get punished with additional punitive punishments like not allowing you to take communion, publicly humiliating you, taking away any privileges you may have within the church.

00:30:44It is a big deal.

00:30:45People are terrified of talking to someone that's been taken out from under the blood.

00:30:51And the words that my grandfather used were taken out from under the blood for the destruction of your flesh.

00:30:57Yes.

00:30:58So, what it is, essentially, if you understand the pagan religions or some of the voodoo religions, it is literally, I'm going to put a curse on your head, and you're going to go suffer and die because I have done this thing.

00:31:12I've taken you out from under the blood of Jesus.

00:31:14Now, Satan can come and attack you, and you will die.

00:31:17That's literally what's being said.

00:31:20And to the adults, they're kind of like, I remember when you said it to me, I was like, eh, it doesn't really do that much.

00:31:27I don't think he can undo what Jesus did on the cross.

00:31:30But to the children, that's where really the psychological damage comes to the children because they hear this kind of thing, and they're like, oh, my gosh, this guy can kill me.

00:31:41He can kill me with his words.

00:31:43He's like the evil sorcerers, you know.

00:31:47And that's essentially what it is.

00:31:49It is a type of sorcery.

00:31:50They're placing a curse or a hex on you.

00:31:53So, when I left and I had the hex, I, you know, I looked at my wife, and I could tell she was upset.

00:31:59And I said, you know, it's no different than if he were to stand outside of our house and spray our house with a water hose.

00:32:06Yes, I don't want him to do it, but it doesn't really hurt us.

00:32:09We're protected by the house.

00:32:11And at that time, I, you know, a lot of thoughts are going through my head.

00:32:15But the thing that I kept going back to is no minister, no human can undo what Jesus did.

00:32:21And if they say that they can, I have a really strong question, were they even Christian to begin with?

00:32:27Right, right.

00:32:27I'll give you a story, a very tragic story of how hardcore and how seriously they take excommunication.

00:32:38There was a young boy in the church, either a teenager or early 20s, I forget.

00:32:44But, you know, he was already an adult, but he had left the church, was excommunicated, and he got into drugs and got into with some really bad company.

00:32:58And he ended up overdosing on drugs and ended up passing away.

00:33:05He had run-ins with the law.

00:33:06It basically was the classic, this is what happens if you are taken out from another blood.

00:33:12That's what they want.

00:33:13They usually tell everybody that you're going to go out, become a drug addict, and then overdose and die.

00:33:18And this is why, you know, you need to stay in the church.

00:33:20You know, he actually did all that, and he is self-fulfilling prophecy there, sadly.

00:33:25But even after his death, his parents in the church refused to go pick up the body and bury it.

00:33:35That is how just tragic that they take.

00:33:43It's so tragic.

00:33:44I have no words for it.

00:33:45It's so sad.

00:33:46They wouldn't even pick up the body of their own son to bury him.

00:33:51It took some other friends of that young boy who passed away, other friends that were also former members of the church.

00:33:58They had to go pick up the body.

00:33:59They had to go identify it.

00:34:00And they had to do the burial.

00:34:05Your own flesh and blood.

00:34:08You know, they won't even come pay their last respects.

00:34:12It's just tragic.

00:34:13And they do that because the pastor told them not to.

00:34:17So that is the grip of control that that church has.

00:34:23It's just, they cause so many heartbreaking moments.

00:34:27And it's like, I don't know how those parents can live with themselves to turn away from their own flesh and blood, even when they're dead.

00:34:34Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

00:34:47You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

00:34:55On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

00:35:09You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

00:35:16If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.

00:35:23And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

00:35:29On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

00:35:34So recently, there was a flurry of news, and the investigative reporters, I guess they worked for over a year, trying to figure out what is this mess.

00:35:44And I spoke to them personally.

00:35:47There was a point at which they began their journey, and they were trying to understand the cult,

00:35:51and suddenly came in contact with all of the research about William Branham and realized that, no, this is not a two-week or three-week or even two-month or three-month investigation.

00:36:03This is a big mess.

00:36:05And it seems, you know, according to their investigation, they were finding a lot of trails and paths of Branhamism's connection to destructive cults.

00:36:14And then the climax of this, obviously, was the bringing down of the pastor who apparently, allegedly, I think currently is the status, allegedly was enabling the predators.

00:36:29And the trial, the jury will figure out whether that's alleged or not.

00:36:33But going through that process, there was a lot of information coming out, building up to where we are now.

00:36:40Can you talk about any of that, the investigation, your part in it?

00:36:45Yeah, absolutely.

00:36:46So as the blog started taking off and as we started to publish more blog articles, which, by the way, in November of 2023, we published a blog post every single week, like one a week, nonstop.

00:37:02So as we would publish them, I would send them to like a list of 20 reporters that I had, local reporters here in Tucson, Arizona.

00:37:12I would send them the blog articles, say, hey, if you're interested, reach out and, you know, we can give you more information.

00:37:19And so after sending a few of those for a few weeks, no one would respond except for Tim Steller from the Arizona Daily Star.

00:37:27He finally responded.

00:37:27He's like, I'm really interested in this.

00:37:30Let's meet up.

00:37:30So that was in early 2023.

00:37:33A few of us met up with him and gave him pretty much the lowdown of Golden Dawn Tabernacle, everything that we had experienced there.

00:37:42And we connected it to William Branham and the overall message movement.

00:37:47And he's like, whoa.

00:37:47He's like, I've heard of the message.

00:37:49I've heard of William Branham.

00:37:51I want to look into that further.

00:37:53And so he started to dig into it.

00:37:55And, you know, he had to get his editor on board and, you know, get the newspaper on board with doing an investigative series on this.

00:38:05So I kept sending him stuff over time.

00:38:09I'm like, here's more info.

00:38:10I'm just going to continue to provide you information on Golden Dawn.

00:38:13My goal was expose Golden Dawn.

00:38:16If, you know, if you want to, you know, uncover more stuff, I gave him your information.

00:38:21Here's John Collins.

00:38:22Here's plenty of other folks you can go talk to.

00:38:25It's summer of 2023.

00:38:27Around August, we met up again.

00:38:29I got to meet with Tim and the Daily Star editor, David McCumber.

00:38:35And they decided to put together a team to, in partnership with their parent company, Lee Enterprises, to pursue a formal investigative series on the message and on Golden Dawn Tabernacle.

00:38:50So in October 2023, that's when I actually got to meet the team.

00:38:53The primary reporters on this were Tim Steller and Emily Hamer, and that's when they kicked off the investigation.

00:39:00And, yeah, they spent over a year investigating Golden Dawn Tabernacle and then, you know, on a grander scale, the overall message movement.

00:39:10And that all culminated in November of 2024 when they published their week-long series called Twisted Faith, where they covered multiple stories.

00:39:26Oh, they had over 50 interviews that they did with former Golden Dawn Tabernacle members, former message members, and current message members, believers, and pastors.

00:39:37And so it was, that was crazy.

00:39:43Like, that was, that was, I had never in my wildest dreams had, was I expecting that.

00:39:49I just wanted some simple local coverage of Golden Dawn Tabernacle to, you know, put some publicity out there about them just to get it out into the public.

00:39:59And it went nationwide, which was amazing and is, just goes to show if you have some persistence and you're willing to put some time and effort into, you know, doing a blog and partnering with, you know, talking to media, to the media, you can actually make a difference.

00:40:20And that's what I think we're doing is the, getting this out there, getting the word out there was, it was amazing how many more people decided to come forward because of that.

00:40:33It basically started our, you know, small Me Too movement of folks that are like, oh, I was abused too, or this happened to me.

00:40:42I want to come forward and share my story.

00:40:44And it just started, it just built up momentum.

00:40:48And I think having all of those victims that were silenced for years, the abuse they endured, having them come forward, is finally starting to shed some light and accountability on some of those authority figures within these high control churches that have done so much damage to so many families.

00:41:10Well, like I said, you started out like a Robin Hood and came in like a wrecking ball.

00:41:14So it's, it's quite a, quite a story when you think through it.

00:41:18What, what were the obstacles you faced?

00:41:20Did you face any legal challenges during all of this?

00:41:24Yeah.

00:41:24So I'm glad you mentioned that because yeah, as, as we kicked off the blog and as it started to pick up momentum and it started to pretty much go viral in early 2023.

00:41:37In May of 2023, we, we had, in May of 2023, we actually had a, a takedown attempt of our website that was done by Golden Dawn Tabernacle's leadership team.

00:41:50They actually filed a, a trademark complaint with the, with WordPress saying that we infringed on their trademark and they requested that this website be taken down.

00:42:04And they actually hired a lawyer to do it too, which is, which just goes to show how upset they were by the website.

00:42:12I think they were also upset that we took the domain name, goldendauntabernacle.org because goldendauntabernacle is the name of the church, but Hey, the domain was available.

00:42:22It's free.

00:42:24They actually don't have a trademarked.

00:42:26They have a DBA affidavit doing business as goldendauntabernacle filing they have with the County.

00:42:33And in researching that, we actually discovered that they filed it as a pastor Isaac Noriega as the sole proprietary proprietor of the church, which was pretty ironic because it's supposed to be a church that is run by it's duly elected trustees.

00:42:50It really is not.

00:42:51It's run by one man.

00:42:53Um, uh, but, uh, basically the, uh, WordPress, uh, denied their request and said, no, you, you have no validity in your claim.

00:43:02We're not taking down the site.

00:43:03There's, there's no trademark infringement at all, which there wasn't.

00:43:06We're a public, public research, uh, blog that is just documenting the truth.

00:43:11And, uh, there's, there's no trademark infringement at all about what we're doing.

00:43:15What we're doing is practicing our first amendment rights and, uh, practicing free speech, free speech.

00:43:20And we're very careful to, uh, ensure that, you know, we're, we're writing what is true.

00:43:25Um, if you write, what's true, you can't be, uh, accused of, or you can't be sued for defamation or libel, uh, because it's true.

00:43:33And so that's what we do on our site.

00:43:36And it definitely affected the church leadership.

00:43:39They were very upset with it and, um, would lambast it from the pulpit multiple times.

00:43:44Uh, but the irony of that is that it actually caused us to get more traffic because the church members themselves started looking at the website too.

00:43:55Um, so, you know, it's funny when you start talking about something, you say, oh, don't look at that website.

00:43:59What are people going to do?

00:44:00They're going to go look at that website.

00:44:01And so that's what happened.

00:44:02So, uh, the, the current, uh, uh, approach the church uses is now they don't even bring it up.

00:44:08They don't talk about it.

00:44:09They don't mention it.

00:44:09Um, because it, it actually backfired them massively.

00:44:13I remember watching all of that unfold.

00:44:15I had, I had several friends across the nation who started helping whenever I began what I did and the community started growing.

00:44:22And originally I had it on a different website, different YouTube channel, all of this.

00:44:27Like you, the cult attacked it legally.

00:44:29They, they actually brought down my YouTube channel and I've had to rebuild all of that in the last, I guess it's been two years.

00:44:36I've been rebuilding, but they will attack you to try to silence you.

00:44:40They, rather than, rather than try to do the right thing, they just want to shut off the voices that question the problems.

00:44:47And that's a big deal for me.

00:44:49And anytime somebody wants to silence me, I want to figure out why are they silencing me?

00:44:54And everybody in the congregation has the same mindset.

00:44:56So whenever the ministers would mention my side or my videos, I would watch, somebody would send me a clip of a sermon where a minister does this.

00:45:07I would watch the analytics on the podcast, the traffic, all of this, just shoot through the roof because everybody's curious.

00:45:13What is, what is John going to say next?

00:45:15And people were starting to escape because of this.

00:45:19They had no idea what it was they were in.

00:45:22And thing, concepts like, I don't know if, if Noriega really went deep with this, but I know Branham did the five-fold ministry doctrine.

00:45:30Big on the five-fold ministry doctrine.

00:45:33Yet not a single church in the entire organization or any of the splinter groups that built on top of it have a five-fold ministry.

00:45:42It's a one-fold ministry where you've got a kingpin who's acting like a mob boss to his entire congregation.

00:45:49There are no other four.

00:45:51It's usually one guy and he's going to be your dictator.

00:45:54So whenever all of this started to hit and the information was spreading, you're right.

00:46:00The people wanted to know more.

00:46:02They wanted to be more informed of what it was they were in.

00:46:05And they started to think about what it was that they were in.

00:46:08And sadly, some people stayed, but a lot of people, one person said, we're seeing the videos at the church.

00:46:15And there's like a 40% drop at this church just because they came in contact with the critical information.

00:46:21So I'm assuming the same thing happened to you.

00:46:24Did you get a lot of positive feedback when they were started to watch all of this?

00:46:28Yeah, so we've had over 1,400 comments on our site from our readers.

00:46:36A lot of them are former members.

00:46:38You know, there's some comments in there that are, you know, they're pro-golden dawn.

00:46:43But the vast majority of them, I would say 99% of them are former members that are like just sharing their stories that are really happy.

00:46:49We're doing the site.

00:46:50We're doing the blog posts and just sharing their experience.

00:46:54So over 1,400 comments like that, that is a lot of engagement with folks that actually care enough to comment and share their story, share their perspective.

00:47:04You know, we're no, our site's nothing crazy.

00:47:06Like I'm sure you probably have millions, but we have several hundred thousand page views and over 54,000 unique visitors to the blog site,

00:47:14which for us is pretty crazy because we're just talking about a local church in Tucson, Arizona that has roughly a, you know, membership population of about 500 to 600 people.

00:47:25And you have that many people, 54,000 unique visitors that are interested enough in this church to visit our site from all over the world, I might add.

00:47:35And I know a lot of them are folks in the message because a lot of the message people are very familiar with Golden Dawn Tabernacle and it's extremism.

00:47:44And so there's a lot of vested interest within the message community on the goings-ons of that church.

00:47:50And I think part of it is they're wanting to understand how bad it is it's gotten because a lot of them used to fellowship with the church and they don't anymore because they got cut off or they had disagreements with the pastor.

00:48:02Sure. So it's definitely been really fascinating to see the level of engagement we've seen in site traffic, given that we're just talking about a very, you know, an isolated, well, isolated in the sense that it's one, that's all we're focusing on on the blog is there's one church here in Tucson, Arizona.

00:48:21It's incredible. The amount of people who have been contacting me and discussing it is just, it's unbelievable.

00:48:27You're right. It is one small church, but it is a movement within a larger movement.

00:48:32Yeah. Let's talk about that a bit. What would you say after you've now left and you've been able to start deprogramming and you're on your journey away from this, what would you say would be the key differences between what this movement had and what Christianity is?

00:48:48So within, at least I go to the non-tabernacle, even once you were baptized in the church and you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior,

00:49:02your salvation was never fully guaranteed. Your self-worth was questioned relentlessly and it was, since it's such a legalistic church, it's a very, very pharisaical.

00:49:20So there, it's basically a bunch of Pharisees. And so your salvation would be questioned every week.

00:49:25Oh, you, you, you didn't get here early enough this week to pray. I don't see you praying at, you know, and fasting anymore.

00:49:32So, you know, are you, are you, you're not really getting deep with the word anymore. So, you know, challenging how close you were to the word.

00:49:39Um, and by being in the word, it's, you know, having these piety, these acts of piety where you look like you're super into, into, into studying the Bible and praying and fasting a lot of public acts.

00:49:53And, um, any, any time you would question anything, um, that the church did or ask any questions or think for yourself, um, or do anything where you broke a rule.

00:50:07Um, your salvation was questioned. Uh, it, it, it, it was a constant challenge, uh, of your self-worth.

00:50:15And the reality is in that church, you had no self-worth if you were not fully immersed and aligned with what the pastor was preaching.

00:50:24And if you didn't have those public acts of piety, um, showing you were holier than everyone else.

00:50:31And it, it, it, it essentially is a competition between church members to see who can act the holiest and most pious and, uh, you know, look like you are really into the word because that's how you're going to get saved.

00:50:46And that's how you're going to go on the rapture.

00:50:47And, uh, the, the pastor teaches that the bride elect is, is very small and most message churches don't have it because they're all too busy having, uh, summer camps and youth camps for their kids and have playing sports and all these worldly things.

00:51:02And, uh, they're not deep into the word enough.

00:51:05So they, they're not getting the revelation and they're not going to go on the rapture.

00:51:08So that's kind of how the church, uh, thinks and acts is they, they, they look down on the vast majority of other message churches as, oh, they're just, they're just, uh, trying to please the flesh.

00:51:20That's another big, uh, uh, phrase they use.

00:51:23Oh, they're, they're pleasing the flesh by having their youth play basketball after church.

00:51:27Can you believe the audacity of playing basketball after church and the church parking lot?

00:51:32Oh my goodness.

00:51:33You know, they're definitely not in the word.

00:51:34Because if you were in the word, you would go home after church and pray and read some more messages.

00:51:39I'm laughing because I'm thinking through all of the crazy rules.

00:51:42And for me, my family, we migrated a lot.

00:51:46So I went from churches from Arizona to South Carolina, everywhere in between and keeping up with the rules, man, it was so difficult because you can go to one church and they don't let you play basketball.

00:51:56You go to another church, boys and girls can't ride together in the same car.

00:52:00I mean, there's, there was just some weird, weird things.

00:52:03Some of them I've got a compiled on my list.

00:52:06You can type in rules on the website and you can see some of the weird things that Branham spat out as far as what he thought was evil.

00:52:14And it's everything from wearing suede shoes to dishwashers.

00:52:19I don't know what all it is.

00:52:20It's, it's crazy.

00:52:21And yet at the same time, not every church is the same.

00:52:26And some of them proceed, proceed into more destructive legalism than others, but yet all of them have the same foundation.

00:52:34Branham is their foundation.

00:52:35They just have different varying levels of extremism.

00:52:38You've talked to many people who were in the core of Branhamism at this point.

00:52:44What would you say would be similarities between Golden Dawn, the destructive, very destructive cult, and what is considered main core Branhamism?

00:52:55Anything that was a rule by William Branham, the church will follow it, but then they take it to the next level.

00:53:02And a simple, like a simple, there's a simple rule the church has, which does not allow open-toed shoes and sandals for women because they, women should not be showing their toes.

00:53:12Men must shave.

00:53:16This is a, we think this is an apostolic teaching that Isaac Noriega brought with him because he came from the apostolic movement.

00:53:24And so you have to be clean shaven every Sunday.

00:53:28You cannot have a beard or a mustache.

00:53:32Isaac Noriega claimed that William Branham wrote him several letters during their correspondence period before William Branham died.

00:53:41And he told him that mustaches are for suspicious men and men shouldn't be wearing wedding rings.

00:53:49Wedding rings are for women only, not for men.

00:53:51So silly things like that, that he pushed onto the congregation.

00:53:57So what do a lot of the ex-members do once they leave the church is they grow a beard because they never were able to have one their entire lives growing up.

00:54:07It's silly, you know, harmless things like that.

00:54:11It's like, what's wrong with growing a beard?

00:54:13Like that's, there's nothing, I mean, biblically, there's even nothing wrong with it.

00:54:16But just, you know, silly, legalistic rules like that, that the church brings with them.

00:54:27Everything is all about outward appearance and appearing holy.

00:54:31So, you know, the men come with their best suits and ties every single service.

00:54:39You're not, you probably won't be led into the church if you wear jeans or a short sleeve shirt.

00:54:44Women try to appear as pious as possible with very, very long skirts down to the floor, wearing flats and loose fitting clothes so that, you know, they don't, they're not showing any part of their body.

00:55:03So it's pretty, I would say the similarities are probably closer to other religions out there that, you know, like in Islam where they make you cover your face and your hair.

00:55:18However, it's pretty close to that extreme, given the, how strict they are.

00:55:26I'll never forget my surprise when I saw a photograph of William Branham, one with a beard and one with a mustache.

00:55:33And the mustache wasn't just any mustache.

00:55:36He looked like a, you know, two-bit swindler.

00:55:38It was that kind of mustache.

00:55:39It was just shocking to me because that was, that was one that was different between the different churches.

00:55:46There were people at Branham Tabernacle who had beards, but there were other churches that we attended you could not because it was one of his rants.

00:55:54He would rant about the beards and you're right.

00:55:57It isn't in the Bible.

00:55:58How, how can they even push that as an agenda?

00:56:01But then I started going through that list of rules.

00:56:04Well, almost all of them aren't in the Bible.

00:56:06The earrings, for example, women are not allowed to wear earrings in the movement.

00:56:10And yet in Ezekiel, I think it's 16, God adorns his bride with earring and a nose ring.

00:56:17And I was thinking at the time I saw that, what would happen if a woman were to walk into church with a nose ring?

00:56:23They'd probably rip it out of her nose.

00:56:25That's how these people are.

00:56:27Yeah.

00:56:28One other dissimilarity between Golden Dawn Tabernacle and most message churches is women are not allowed to wear jewelry.

00:56:36So, you know, most message churches, you'll see folks, you'll see women wearing a necklace, you know, that was permitted for her to wear by her husband or, you know, by her father.

00:56:48That's completely forbidden at Golden Dawn Tabernacle.

00:56:51Yeah.

00:56:52There's just so much wrong with it.

00:56:53It basically becomes a religion.

00:56:55As we said earlier, it's a religion that diminishes the work that Jesus did on the cross.

00:57:01The minister has more powerful than Jesus' blood.

00:57:04He can pull it off of you.

00:57:05The people have more power than Jesus' blood.

00:57:07If they wear the right clothes, do the right things.

00:57:10There's one even weird doctrine where you can say the right thing, and you can earn your salvation by just being in a family.

00:57:19My family was given the blessing by William Branham.

00:57:23He told my grandfather, all your children and your grandchildren will be saved.

00:57:26Well, what does this do to a person, man?

00:57:29Because now you've got, it's like the get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly.

00:57:32You've got a free pass to heaven.

00:57:34And it's just so opposite from Christianity.

00:57:37I think people who are on the outside looking in have no idea what this is.

00:57:41They see people who are living very, what they consider to be holy lifestyles and have no idea the indoctrination that is so far anti-Christian in their heads.

00:57:52Yeah, it's definitely tragic.

00:57:54And unfortunately, a lot of these folks are just, like you said, are brainwashed and don't know any better.

00:58:01And they sincerely believe what they believe.

00:58:03And there are some really good people that I know that are strapped in it.

00:58:08And they're trapped in it by choice because they don't realize that they're being controlled and are brainwashed.

00:58:15But there is, you know, I feel for them because, you know, it's one thing if you're an adult and you've been in it for decades and that's all you know you want to say in it.

00:58:28But the children, the kids, the youth have, they have no way to decide for themselves.

00:58:35They are, it's being pushed on them.

00:58:37And that's all they know.

00:58:38And it's intentional by the church ministry because they don't want the youth questioning and asking questions and thinking for themselves.

00:58:46They want them to just swallow the word that the pastor preaches because it's anointed.

00:58:53And that's all they need to know.

00:58:56Absolutely.

00:58:57Well, tell us where we can find you on the internet, on the web.

00:59:01Do you have videos?

00:59:02People who are listening, I'm sure they're going to be curious.

00:59:04Yeah, you can find us at GoldenDawnTabernacle.org.

00:59:09And within that site, we have a whole bunch of resources.

00:59:14We even published some of the church literature as well.

00:59:19There's an interesting book that was released in 2023 by the church.

00:59:25It's a biography of Pastor Isaac Noriega and his wife, Lucy.

00:59:29It's a very interesting book in that it gives you the story of, the life story of Isaac and how he came to be a pastor and the history of the church from his perspective.

00:59:43And there's a lot of really interesting tidbits in that book.

00:59:47So I highly recommend folks go check it out on the website if they want to read it.

00:59:51It's on one of the links on the site.

00:59:53We also have a section in there for how to escape GoldenDawnTabernacle, and that could really apply to any high control cult group.

01:00:04And our goal with the site is to not only inform folks, but also do what we can to help folks escape if they decide to leave these types of environments.

01:00:14Well, it's very good and very good work that you're doing.

01:00:16Thank you so much for sharing your story.

01:00:18Yeah, thank you so much for having me on, John.

01:00:20It's been a pleasure to share our journey.

01:00:24And, you know, in closing, if I want folks to come away with anything, it's that, you know, shining a light in dark places can make a positive impact.

01:00:37And for the folks on the other side, if they really have nothing to hide, then they shouldn't need to fight it, right?

01:00:46There's no reason to push back on it.

01:00:49So I'm really honored to be on your podcast today, John.

01:00:54And I want to thank all of the viewers and readers that have followed the blog site, the blog post team who's helped write so many of the blog articles and the overall community that's just been really supportive in helping us document all of our findings.

01:01:15Well, thank you so much.

01:01:16If you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web.

01:01:20You can find us at william-brannum.org.

01:01:23For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

01:01:30Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

01:01:33And we'll see you next time.