Bethel Shopping Network: The Marketing of Modern Revival

Name: Bethel Shopping Network: The Marketing of Modern Revival | Adam Short
Uploaded: 2025-10-10T09:14:39+00:00
Duration: 1 h 4 min 11 s
Channel: William Branham Historical Research

William Branham Historical Research

3 months ago

John and Adam dive deep into the growing commercialization of Bethel Church, exposing how its conferences, subscriptions, merchandise, and even a dating app reflect more of a shopping network than a house of worship. From inflated costs to questionable data practices, they highlight how spiritual life has been packaged and sold for profit. Drawing parallels to William Branham, Branhamism, and other cult dynamics, the discussion uncovers how monetization strategies blur the line between ministry and manipulation.

The conversation also unpacks troubling doctrinal trends, including Bethel’s use of new age terminology like “Christ consciousness” and how hierarchical leadership structures mirror Masonic and cult-like models. With personal insight into business operations, IT security, and church finance, John and Adam expose both the practical dangers of poor accountability and the theological dangers of a man-made religion that replaces the free gift of grace with hype and hierarchy.

00:00 Introduction
02:08 Apostles, and Scandals
04:04 Bethel’s Marketing Push
05:04 The “Bethel Shopping Network”
06:45 The Cost of Conferences and Subscriptions
09:04 The Bethel Dating App and Ad Revenue
12:00 John’s Business Perspective on Church as Enterprise
16:08 The Cult Economy vs. Honest Church Operations
20:44 Lack of Transparency in Bethel’s Finances
24:51 The Data Risks Behind the Dating App
27:01 Cult-Style Growth Through In-Group Marriages
28:18 Encryption Concerns and WordPress Vulnerabilities
32:22 Security Failures and Cult Tactics
36:52 New Age Concepts Entering Bethel Teaching
39:06 “Christ Consciousness” and Doctrinal Drift
43:04 New Age Terminology in the Church
49:05 Enlightenment vs. Biblical Awareness
55:05 The Core Gospel: Salvation by Grace Alone
58:03 Bethel’s Hierarchical Ranks and the Masonic Parallel
1:00:51 The Pyramid vs. the Simplicity of Jesus and the Gospel
1:02:18 Equal with Jesus? The Final Red Flag
1:02:42 Closing Reflections and Call to Discernment

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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.

00:00:44And with me, I have my co-host and friend, Adam Short, host of the Grit in the Wild podcast.

00:00:50Adam, you keep sending me the craziest things.

00:00:53I'm sitting here – so picture this.

00:00:55I am sitting here in an auditorium filled with people last night.

00:01:00I'm watching my son who's experiencing something that I've never really – I did – I was able to go to public high school, but not to the level and do the things that he's doing.

00:01:11But he went – he left the homeschool environment because he wanted to join the choir.

00:01:16He joined a public high school, which goes against all of the message community here in this area, which is kind of funny.

00:01:23Goes to it, and he's won all kinds of awards.

00:01:26And anyway, I'm at their fall festival gospel celebration concert, and I'm getting these texts from you, and I'm just – I'm fighting not to start laughing out loud.

00:01:37Oh, gosh. I apologize.

00:01:39Everybody look at me, and what is John laughing at over there?

00:01:42Doesn't he pay attention to his son?

00:01:45Anyway, that's going on, and I was really tossed between which do I find more entertaining, what you're sending me or what's on the – but don't tell my son I said this.

00:01:57Oh, yeah. I'm sorry to hear that I interrupted your entertainment over there.

00:02:02But, yeah, I guess I did send a lot of stuff over.

00:02:05It's some crazy stuff.

00:02:07You know, it's – I had the conversation with Laura Lynn the other day, and I made some statement, like, I can't believe two grown adults are having this conversation.

00:02:16And it's about religion.

00:02:18We're talking – you and I are talking about Bethel Church.

00:02:20She was talking about literally some guy, some apostle who's sending butt pictures or some weirdness.

00:02:26And, you know, the fact that we're talking about this, and this is – it's a church that we're talking about.

00:02:33No kidding.

00:02:33I would rather be in the son's school choir singing and not have to think about all of this ridiculousness.

00:02:41But the sad part is there are people who are caught up in it, and they see it as this movement by God.

00:02:47By golly, God, the apostle is sending butt pictures.

00:02:51Yeah.

00:02:52I saw a little blurb about that, but didn't care to go into any detail on the butt pictures.

00:02:59That's one I decided to skip.

00:03:02But –

00:03:02That is some research that I decided to avoid.

00:03:05Right.

00:03:05But, hey, next time I'm interrupting your son's production, you should just text me back and say, stop it, man.

00:03:14Quit.

00:03:16Quit sending me all this stuff.

00:03:17I just figured, well, if I could send it to anybody, it's John, right?

00:03:21Because John's going to understand, and he's going to have something to say about it.

00:03:24Yeah.

00:03:24Well, you'll notice my comments.

00:03:26I've kind of saved them for today because I was trying not to type like this.

00:03:30In fact, it was a little bit difficult because I was filming some of it.

00:03:34I wanted some video of my son singing.

00:03:37So I had a video camera up, and literally I'm filming, and I'm watching your text come in, and I'm like –

00:03:42Oh, my gosh.

00:03:43Everybody was like, who is this guy?

00:03:45He's so rude.

00:03:46As it's recording, I'm swiping down.

00:03:48Oh, that's interesting.

00:03:50Oh, I can't believe this.

00:03:52And I'm certain – my wife was next to me.

00:03:54I'm certain I could just feel her rolling her eyes in the back of my head.

00:03:58He's like, John, just quit.

00:04:00For five minutes.

00:04:01Can you just give it a break?

00:04:04I'm sure.

00:04:05But anyway, we're back to talking about Bethel again, and it's just crazy the things that are going on.

00:04:13Yeah, it's interesting because I don't know if this is just my experience anecdotally, or I'm curious if others have had this experience.

00:04:22But, you know, I get pretty much all of the marketing emails from Bethel.

00:04:27So whether it's Bethel Conferences, Bethel Store, which, you know, they've got a whole store of books and merch and all kind of stuff, down to necklaces and jewelry.

00:04:36Plus, the BSSM emails, which is Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

00:04:40And really everything in between, including the new dating app, which I plan to talk about today.

00:04:47There's a Bethel dating app that's now available.

00:04:50But, you know, it seems like the marketing push has really ramped up recently, and I don't think that's by accident.

00:05:01I don't think it's coincidental.

00:05:02I think that there are a lot of reasons for that that I hope that we can talk through today.

00:05:06But I've coined a new term, John, and I don't know if anybody else has used this term, but it's what I thought of last night when I was basically what I did is I said, OK, I'm going to look at all the emails I've gotten from Bethel in the past month or two.

00:05:21Right. And I'm going to click the links in the emails and I'm going to see how much money I have to spend to buy all their products and be, you know, upgrade my spiritual life.

00:05:31Right. That's what they call it in one of the marketing pitches.

00:05:34And so it turns out that I have a list of six or seven products, services, subscriptions and events that are now available for the taking for the small, low price of several hundred dollars.

00:05:50And so, John, I think what we need to call this, I think, and I'm being snarky on purpose, but I think that I'm going to start calling this the Bethel Shopping Network.

00:05:59Yeah, that's messed up.

00:06:01Why?

00:06:04I'm sitting here in the back of my mind.

00:06:06I'm picturing those.

00:06:07We I spent a lot of large part of my life without a television.

00:06:12We did have it off and on.

00:06:13But I remember going to somebody's house during one of the periods we didn't have a television and they were watching QVC or some nonsense.

00:06:20And I'm watching these two people stand up and try to sell this thing.

00:06:24I can't remember what it was.

00:06:25I wish I could.

00:06:26But it was the most nonsensical thing that I've ever seen.

00:06:30And I was sitting there thinking, why is this television?

00:06:34This doesn't make any sense.

00:06:35And they were pretending like it was the greatest thing ever because that's what they have to do to sell it.

00:06:40Well, I'm picturing as as you're sending me all of this stuff.

00:06:43And I'm thinking about that in the back of my mind.

00:06:47Now I'm picturing Bethel selling all of this stuff that much of it they realize is just hocus pocus.

00:06:54They're like the people of QVC standing.

00:06:56Oh, this is the greatest thing ever.

00:06:58God has sent generals to us.

00:07:00And so all that's going on in the back of my mind as I'm watching my son who is singing on the choir.

00:07:08And again, I apologize.

00:07:10But yeah, so, you know, I made a list.

00:07:15So, you know, here.

00:07:17So here's the list.

00:07:18Here's the list in case you're interested.

00:07:19So the first thing that you can attend.

00:07:24Actually, there are a couple of things that are events that are conferences.

00:07:27They have a leaders advance conference, which they do that every year.

00:07:33It's 220, $220 in person or 149.99 in the online experience.

00:07:41They have the open heavens conference, which is also done every year in October, 149.99 for the online experience.

00:07:50And then if I want to go watch an old sermon or even a recent sermon in one of the church services,

00:07:57I need to sign up for a Bethel TV subscription, which is $9.99 a month.

00:08:01That's actually a pretty cheap subscription.

00:08:05But you can go get it for free on YouTube, but it will include ads.

00:08:10So they want you to go purchase it on their actual Bethel TV platform.

00:08:15The new thing that I had not been made aware of until yesterday was a new school that they've launched.

00:08:23It's a one-day school called the School of Encounters, and that's $65.

00:08:29The next sort of group you can be a part of is the Whole Man Project men's group, which is $200.

00:08:37And then BSSM is probably the biggest ticket item.

00:08:40I don't know what the tuition is now, Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

00:08:43Back when I went, it was like $3,500.

00:08:46I think it's probably closer to $5,000 now, maybe more.

00:08:49But they're offering a $200 discount if you sign up very soon.

00:08:55I think by the end of the month, the end of September.

00:08:58But last but not least, there is one thing that's free.

00:09:02And I mentioned this a minute ago.

00:09:03It is the Be Highlighted dating app.

00:09:06So there's now a Bethel-sponsored dating app.

00:09:09And I'm not against dating apps, right?

00:09:11Nothing against dating apps.

00:09:13But there are plenty of dating apps out there, and we don't need a dating app at a church.

00:09:20And so you can sign up.

00:09:22You can go create an account.

00:09:24You can register.

00:09:25But be sure to read the terms and conditions.

00:09:27I'm the guy that reads all that stuff.

00:09:30I'm going to count it.

00:09:31So I tend to be anal like that.

00:09:33And so if you look at the terms and conditions, you'll find that it's actually a free service, but they do allow advertising on the platform.

00:09:44And so my point is they're still creating revenue with the dating app, even though the users don't have to pay a fee.

00:09:52The advertisers pay a fee to the dating app.

00:09:56And it all goes to Bethel Church as far as I can tell.

00:09:59So I'm just like, you know, backing up a little bit, looking at all of the marketing, all of the sales, all of the, you know, just the flurry of activity around Bethel Church right now.

00:10:15And they've always sent emails out, but it's like lately they are really pushing people to buy their events, buy their products.

00:10:23And I've heard through the grapevine that their BSSM enrollment is very, very low this year compared to normal.

00:10:29I think they have, last I heard, about 300 people enrolled for the first year program.

00:10:36And here in recent years, it's been more along the lines of like 1,000 or 2,000.

00:10:40So I don't know if, you know, I don't know if the awareness is increasing that's kind of resulting in an impact to Bethel's attendance.

00:10:53I don't know.

00:10:54I'm just kind of theorizing.

00:10:56But my main point is Bethel is really not too distinguishable from a for-profit enterprise.

00:11:03Like, every path, it seems like, in the Bethel ecosystem leads to purchasing something from them and money to them.

00:11:13So the only thing that I've found, by and large, that's not monetized is actually going to a church service, walking in the door, and going to church.

00:11:22But I have a theory that in the not-too-distant future, particularly once they finish the new campus, I think they probably will start charging admission tickets to go to church.

00:11:35I don't know for sure.

00:11:36I just think, you know, all signs seem to point to monetizing everything they do at Bethel.

00:11:42So that's my Bethel Shopping Network pitch for the day, John.

00:11:46I have so much to say about this dating app, but I'm saving it for later.

00:11:53I don't want to hit the climax right in the first 10 minutes.

00:11:57But everything that I'm going to say, interestingly, is going to come from the perspective not as my researcher or my, you know, study of Bethel and the history behind it, but more from the standpoint of a businessman,

00:12:10which I think will be entertaining to you as a fellow businessman.

00:12:16And you'll understand what I'm saying.

00:12:17But before we get there, there's a lot of groundwork that people have to understand of business.

00:12:23This is something that really fascinates me.

00:12:27Having started my own business, I was, gosh, I want to say that I was like maybe in the year 1998 or something.

00:12:37I began my IT business, but I have been hiring myself out doing all kinds of things since I was a kid.

00:12:44But when I was 16, I started doing roofing.

00:12:46I've done plumbing.

00:12:47I've done literally everything from home maintenance and repair and building to auto mechanics to computers to VCR repair and more.

00:12:56I love it.

00:12:56I've trained myself.

00:12:57You're a serial entrepreneur is what it sounds like.

00:12:59I'm a serial entrepreneur.

00:13:00Well, if you do this, if you attempt to do business, you recognize business in other areas and you understand how things work.

00:13:09For me, it's like, oh, we talked television shows last time.

00:13:15I'm going to say Heroes was one of the shows we watched.

00:13:18There was a villain in Heroes.

00:13:19Heroes was the show about various superheroes that suddenly had superpowers.

00:13:25They didn't know why one of the villains, his superhero was he would take his finger and he would like get into their brain and figure out how their suit, their superpower worked and then consume it.

00:13:37He would he would like try to understand it, take it.

00:13:40And then he had the superpower.

00:13:42Well, I like the show solely because of that villain, because that's how I operate.

00:13:47I want to know how things work.

00:13:48And as a businessman, you kind of want to know this whenever you suddenly turn on critical thinking and you're in church and I don't care which church it is.

00:14:00It could be Joe Smith's church in the hills with 10 people in it or Bethel with, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.

00:14:08You understand the business mechanics of that church.

00:14:11You have to because the church can't keep its lights on unless it runs itself as a business.

00:14:17However, Joe Smith's mom and pop, you know, ministerial association does not require the same level of business to run and keep the lights on, etc.

00:14:31All it requires, you know, he's got a small building.

00:14:34He's got a few lights that are on every Sunday, sometimes Wednesdays, and it's very inexpensive for him to run his church.

00:14:42So when he passes the tithe basket, usually a small portion goes to the church and he gets a little bit.

00:14:48And usually he's a farmer or something else.

00:14:50That's my experience with these guys.

00:14:53Now take that into the city.

00:14:55You've got more people coming.

00:14:57You've got greater expenses.

00:14:59And it requires those expenses.

00:15:01People don't think about this.

00:15:03The toilet paper you go through, there's a cost associated with that toilet paper.

00:15:07The, uh, not just the electricity, the heating and air, the repairs of the units, no matter how you operate your church, it has to operate as a business.

00:15:16And some of the churches are very forthright, very open about their expenses.

00:15:22I was in a church every month.

00:15:24I think they gave me a statement.

00:15:25It was about this thick and you'd open it up and you'd see exactly where all your money is going.

00:15:31And you would also see what was in excess and they would often talk about what we're doing with the excess.

00:15:38In some cases we're saving the excess because we're expecting next year we're probably going to have to have a new HVAC system.

00:15:45So we're creating a fund for this or we're sending missionaries or we're sponsoring.

00:15:49One church was sponsoring a child that was in a, um, child correctional facility.

00:15:55Great thing to do.

00:15:57And they, they mentioned we're building this fund to help this child.

00:16:00We want to support him and, and put him in college and give him a life that he would not otherwise have.

00:16:05All of this is good stuff.

00:16:08Now enter the realm of the cults where massive amounts of money are coming in far exceeding what it costs to keep the building open, to keep the toilet paper in the bathroom stalls.

00:16:20Massive amounts of money is coming in and there is an entire marketing engine that is going behind it.

00:16:27In fact, I have knowledge through some people that are in some such organizations.

00:16:33They even have people dedicated to taking the funds that people have donated, moving it into the stock market, growing it, taking the excess out of the stock market and putting that into other separate funds.

00:16:47Nobody is aware of all of this stuff going on behind the scenes.

00:16:50The Mormons do that at large to the $2 billion, by the way.

00:16:55Exactly.

00:16:56So when I see something like this and I'm seeing a, a QVC of sorts, this Bethel, whatever it is, and I'm watching, this is just one aspect of the many faceted money-making machine that is Bethel.

00:17:11And it's just one outlet from which they can get more revenue.

00:17:16They're selling things, obviously, at a much higher cost than the value of whatever it is that is being sold.

00:17:22So that money's coming in.

00:17:24Where is it all going?

00:17:25And I'm certain that there are people at Bethel that could give you some sort of a financial report.

00:17:30But I don't think, as we've examined in some of our prior episodes, I don't think people would really accept what is given to them if they knew the actual cost behind some of the things.

00:17:41Yeah, all that's great, you know, sort of backdrop and, you know, a comparison of churches being operated as a business.

00:17:51And is it bad that a church is operated as a business?

00:17:55Well, I think there's a degree or a spectrum there, right?

00:17:59Like, to your point, you're right.

00:18:01Like, even the smallest church that has 10 people, it's going to have expenses as well.

00:18:06But historically and traditionally, churches obtain their revenue through donations from the church members, right?

00:18:13Like, that's why you have an offering during a church service.

00:18:17And, you know, you pass the plate and you drop, you know, some money in the plate to help pay for that kind of stuff, the toilet tissue or the electric bill, the HVAC, et cetera.

00:18:27And by the way, by and large, at those little bitty churches you're talking about, like Podunk, wherever, the pastor oftentimes, you mentioned he's usually a farmer.

00:18:38That's absolutely the case.

00:18:39Like, he's not getting paid, he or she is not getting paid a salary from the church a lot of times.

00:18:45And that's what you call a bivocational pastor, meaning they are actually the pastor full-time at the church, but they also have a full-time job somewhere to support their family.

00:18:54And so, when you have a church like that, the expenses are going to be much less and much more reasonable and, I guess, doable, you know, than for a huge organization like Bethel, which, you know, back when I was there, I think they had 700 or 800 staff, I believe it was.

00:19:15So, I don't know how many they have now.

00:19:17And staff at Bethel means you're paid.

00:19:19Now, in some other organizations like IHOP, you could be staff and not be paid, but at Bethel, if you're staff, you're paid.

00:19:25You receive, you do receive a salary.

00:19:27And I will say, Bethel, in my experience, and I have had some visibility behind the scenes around, you know, salaries and stuff that they pay there, to their credit, they do pay better than some, right?

00:19:40Better than some organizations like IHOP, for example, would pay a piddly little $500 stipend if you're lucky if you're on staff at IHOP in Kansas City.

00:19:49Whereas, like, your pastors at Bethel are getting a more, not necessarily a huge salary, but they're at least getting a salary.

00:19:56But here's the thing, though, is when you scale that up, right, and you start talking about a staff of several hundred people or however many it is now, it could be a thousand, I'm not sure.

00:20:07It might be several hundred still.

00:20:10But let's take, you know, take $50,000 a year, for example.

00:20:14And if you've got 100 staff, that's going to be, what, $5 million a year just for paying your, you know, your mid-level staff or your low-level staff.

00:20:28So, I guess my point is when you scale it up that much to the size of Bethel, you've got an astronomically large operation, fiscally speaking.

00:20:41But here's the problem, and it's what you raised as well, is the area of financial transparency.

00:20:49Does Bethel produce a financial report at each year for its members?

00:20:56And to my knowledge, they don't.

00:20:57If they do, I would love to see it.

00:20:59As an accountant, I'd love to take a look at the income statement, the balance sheet, and the cash flow statement.

00:21:05I'd love to see the donor report.

00:21:07I don't think that stuff is public or even made available to members or board.

00:21:10It might be made available to board members, but I'm not sure.

00:21:13But normally, best practice is for a church or nonprofit organization, you do typically want to hire a third-party accounting firm to come in and do what's called an external audit and basically pass upon the financial statements of the organization and the church.

00:21:37And to my knowledge, Bethel does not do that.

00:21:39And so many churches don't do that, and nor are they necessarily required to because of the tax law, which does not require them to file a 990 as a church.

00:21:50So anyway, I kind of got in the weeds there on more of the accounting side, but it's absolutely true that the question is, where is the money going, right?

00:22:01I mean, we know that a lot of the money is going to pay staff, but where's the rest of it?

00:22:06Because the most recent figures point to a plus or minus $80 million collective aggregate income, and that figure is about two years old, two or three years old.

00:22:17So it could be pushing $100 million at this point in the Bethel ecosystem.

00:22:21So where is the excess going?

00:22:25Are they investing it?

00:22:26Are they lining their pockets?

00:22:29Are they doing both?

00:22:30Are they doing something else?

00:22:31I don't know, but I do know that Bill and Chris drive some pretty dang slick sports cars around Redding, and they've got some nice houses.

00:22:42Hey, I don't have a problem with the pastor having a nice house, but I do have a problem with pastors getting rich off of people who are not rich.

00:22:54You know, you look at the people that donate to these name it, claim it churches, and I don't think Bethel is your conventional name it, claim it church, although they have some characteristics of that.

00:23:08But, like, you have a lot of people who donate money or pay money, right, in some of these products that I went through, whether it be, you know, BSSM or some of the conferences or the books or the merch, people are paying for this stuff who are largely insolvent.

00:23:27They don't have the money.

00:23:29They're putting it on credit cards, and they're making these guys rich.

00:23:33And so this is nothing new.

00:23:35I mean, I've talked about this before, but so that's just the monetary side, John.

00:23:41I mean, now let's talk about the data, like this dating app.

00:23:44I don't know if you planned on talking about the data point of that, but, like, think about the data points around the dating app specifically.

00:23:53I'm just curious what they're doing with this, but if you go into the terms and conditions, there's actually an Australian company that is behind this dating app.

00:24:04It's called behighlighted.com, in case you're wondering.

00:24:08And then the company listed that owns and operates this website is an Australian company called The Marketing Coach.

00:24:18Now, I don't know what the affiliation is between The Marketing Coach and Bethel, but I would venture to say that whoever owns this marketing coach is probably a Bethel BSSM alumni.

00:24:29It's probably their business.

00:24:31But what's happening to the data?

00:24:34When you put your information in this app as a dating app, what are they doing with it?

00:24:38Are they, you know, are they data mining this?

00:24:41Are they using it to monetize?

00:24:42Are they selling your data to other companies?

00:24:44What are they actually doing with it?

00:24:45So, these are just all the questions, like, that are kind of going around my head.

00:24:49Have 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?

00:25:03You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

00:25:10On 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.

00:25:24You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

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00:25:48So I have so much to say about this dang dating app.

00:25:54I'm sure you do.

00:25:55And I'm probably, I don't know that a podcast could actually contain all the things that I have to say about this.

00:26:00So I'll start with the easy stuff.

00:26:02This is Cult 101.

00:26:04In fact, this is Branhamism.

00:26:05This is a play right out of the Branhamism playbook.

00:26:08Because what Branhamism did, whenever everybody started rising up and understanding that there are some very critical things that you can say about this ministry,

00:26:18it's very highly unlikely that the marketing is going to be effective outside of the core group of the cult.

00:26:26So all of their marketing strategies suddenly take a massive hit.

00:26:30Well, how do you grow the organization?

00:26:32You do by repopulization of, you know, literally you're asking people to breed other people who will become cult converts.

00:26:41So the fact that Bethel has a dating app for itself, it just, it's like it's straight out of the playbook.

00:26:49And if you add it to the timeline that's happening where Bethel is getting some very nasty scars in the public eye of opinion,

00:26:56I just, I see this whole thing as it's not even a, it's not even an attempt to make money through the ad revenue like you're saying.

00:27:04This is literally a way to grow more Bethel converts simply by having people marry each other.

00:27:10And it's a weird, weird mess.

00:27:12And like you said, there are other dating apps out there.

00:27:15There are even other Christian dating apps out there, probably far better.

00:27:19So that's the easy stuff.

00:27:21I'll let that, I'll let that go and let that simmer for a bit.

00:27:25I am an IT guy.

00:27:27I have been an IT guy for years and years.

00:27:30I have been an IT architect for probably 30, 30 years, 20 or 30 years.

00:27:37One of the companies that I was architecting, I had to develop an encryption and security algorithm and methodology for a company that did high level distribution.

00:27:50And some of the clients, I can't give the names, obviously, but some of the clients, you'll have things in your, you probably have things in your office right now that came from this place.

00:28:01It's, that's how large this organization was.

00:28:04I have designed the security encryption routines.

00:28:08I know how they work.

00:28:09That's what I'm saying.

00:28:10There is yet to be developed an encryption routine that cannot be unencrypted.

00:28:18And it has to be this way because think of, think simply like a password.

00:28:22You type in a password.

00:28:23Well, on the other end, somebody has to validate that password and there needs to be a way for them to unencrypt what is stored in the database compared to what you typed.

00:28:32Do the two match.

00:28:34Yes, you can get in.

00:28:35No, you can't.

00:28:35You don't know the password.

00:28:37At its simplest form, that's how encryption works.

00:28:40So people who are not IT people, think Excel spreadsheets.

00:28:44If you're looking at an Excel spreadsheet of users, you've got first name, last name, email, password.

00:28:50And the password might be unreadable in the Excel sheet, but you've got this list.

00:28:57And in Bethel, somebody has this list.

00:29:00There is a, there are IT people within this organization, whoever's running this thing, that knows every single person that's dating every other single person.

00:29:10Among a ministry that claims to have the prophetic, who can give people spiritual insight, who can give people all kinds –

00:29:18There it is.

00:29:19There it is.

00:29:20There are so many ways to use this.

00:29:22Wow.

00:29:22So, think data.

00:29:24Like I said, I'm going to talk your ear off.

00:29:26You'll have to stop me because I have so much to say.

00:29:29When Pentecostalism was first being developed, the most powerful thing that happened, William Joseph Seymour took a list of addresses and names because that is where the money is, the addresses and names.

00:29:43Interestingly, somebody stole the addresses and names, and he lost this.

00:29:47Branimism.

00:29:48You had the Voice of Healing magazine.

00:29:52They even had a section where not only are you giving them your address and name, and they're asking you to send your testimony of what's wrong with you,

00:30:00to these men who are claiming, I can guess what's wrong with you on the platform.

00:30:05They are also asking you, somewhere I've got it.

00:30:08I'll try to find it for the video if I can find it in time.

00:30:10They had this pullout section that you could mail to a friend, or not to a friend, but you could mail them a friend's name, address, and what they're praying about.

00:30:22So, the person who is fully unsuspecting that you're going into the area where this revival is happening goes up the stage, and lo and behold, they know everything about me.

00:30:32How did they know?

00:30:34Well, picture it as an Excel sheet.

00:30:36Here's the data.

00:30:37Here's the name, the address, and here's what's wrong with them in this big, massive list that these people have.

00:30:43Back then, there was no Excel.

00:30:45It was all, you know, hand, paper, etc.

00:30:47Well, in today's world, technology makes it a little bit more sinister.

00:30:52Again, you've got names, people they're connecting with.

00:30:56Now enter into all of their private conversations that happens within this app.

00:31:00We're talking about romantic relationships here.

00:31:03People are going to become very, very intimate in this app, and it's all going into a database.

00:31:08When you open up the app and you scroll through the chat history to read everything that this person has sent you romantically,

00:31:16you're reading something that is stored in a place where somebody has access to look, and maybe multiple people have access to look.

00:31:23And again, it's in a ministry that claims that they're going to know the very secrets of your heart.

00:31:29We're going to know it all.

00:31:30Well, the problem with this is the big names who are in the dating apps have massive teams of people to fight off the hacks,

00:31:40the security attacks, to keep up with the security.

00:31:43When the algorithms change on security, when Russia starts to introduce these bots that attack security,

00:31:50they have teams of people who are dedicated to fighting the encryption battle that is happening.

00:31:57Bethel does not have a team that is fighting this.

00:32:00So as people are signing up and they become very intimate with other people,

00:32:05now you have everything that you have said is now at risk of being fully exposed.

00:32:12And I'm trying to picture a world where this is a good thing to do.

00:32:15There is no world in which this makes any sense whatsoever.

00:32:21The people are at risk, and it appears to be all for the sole purpose of people who are converts to Bethel

00:32:28breeding with other people who are converts to Bethel.

00:32:32Because if you breed with another Christian who is not a Bethel convert,

00:32:36you might be breeding with somebody who will finally say one day,

00:32:40you have to take your children out of this cult.

00:32:42It's kind of like the inbred model, right?

00:32:46Like we all need to stay inbred and inculted.

00:32:50And, you know, there's a lot of stuff to talk through about this.

00:32:53Like I didn't think about the whole, you know, misuse of people's personal data

00:32:59and like who has that information, who's using that information,

00:33:05and will it be used for prophetic purposes like we've seen with some of the data mining profits

00:33:11and things like that.

00:33:13It's very, very, very interesting and important to consider.

00:33:20And, I mean, let's be honest.

00:33:23I think we all have kind of concluded that when it comes to the Internet,

00:33:27there's nothing that's private anyway.

00:33:29So even if Bethel did have a big security team that was making sure they were on the cutting edge of security

00:33:37and keeping all the bad people out, it's like we all know that it's all there, right?

00:33:45Like it's all on the Internet anyway.

00:33:47And if somebody really wanted to get your data, they're going to get it.

00:33:51Like at the end of the day, nothing is private that's on the Internet or on the computer.

00:33:56It's all there, and somebody can dig it up and de-encrypt it, you know, if they really wanted to.

00:34:02And so I'm just looking at the terms and conditions, though.

00:34:06Like it's really interesting what you're agreeing to.

00:34:09At least they give some very detailed information of what you're agreeing to by signing up with this dating app.

00:34:18But whoever this marketing coach is, that's who owns your data.

00:34:22So I don't know who marketing coach is, but it's a – it's – they're somehow affiliated with Bethel

00:34:28because, you know, Bethel's linking to them.

00:34:32But, like, you're consenting to a credit report.

00:34:37You're consenting to a background check.

00:34:40You're consenting to lots of different things here.

00:34:44Sure. So I think – and I think we routinely, you know, consent to stuff like this all the time on apps,

00:34:52and we don't even read it.

00:34:53But, like, it's probably good that we read this if you're going to sign up for this app

00:34:57because at least with a company like Google or Apple or Microsoft or one of the other, you know, big tech companies,

00:35:06you know, at least those kinds of companies have – I don't know if I would say a reputable track record

00:35:15as much as it was maybe public accountability and visibility.

00:35:20But when it comes to a little bitty thing like Bethel, I mean, largely, if you're not in the charismatic circles,

00:35:25you probably haven't heard of Bethel.

00:35:27So I guess my point is, like, what accountability is there to make sure that, you know, that your data is somehow respected?

00:35:36But even still, like, it's still there for the taking if somebody really wanted to hack their way into it.

00:35:42From a technology standpoint, I would say very, very little is there in place.

00:35:46I mean, I'm looking through just through the technology side of what this is running on.

00:35:51It's running on a WordPress site.

00:35:53And if you're an IT guy –

00:35:55Well, I know enough to know that that's bad.

00:35:58Well, if you're an IT guy and you heard what I just said, you suddenly start laughing

00:36:03because WordPress is the most hacked site out there.

00:36:07If you're running on a WordPress site, you are at risk.

00:36:11Whenever I began all of my stuff with brandimism, I tried to use all of the main CMS platforms that existed out there.

00:36:19And what happened was the cults were so familiar with how to attack and invade those,

00:36:24they were getting in my database.

00:36:26I had – this is embarrassing to say, but I'll say it.

00:36:30I began with the naive notion that they would just be maybe against what I had to say,

00:36:36but maybe they would learn something, too.

00:36:38And I created this forum where people could read through and talk to each other and learn and grow.

00:36:44And I welcomed anybody who was in the cult to come into this thing.

00:36:48You know, you can express your opinion.

00:36:50Well, what happened was suddenly people started sending me emails about things that I said that were just slightly off.

00:36:57And I'm like scratching my head saying, I would never say something like that.

00:37:01Some of them were like I was claiming that Branham had said something that he clearly didn't say.

00:37:06I go look it up, and sure enough, if you read my message, it was me saying something.

00:37:12Here's a quote from William Branham.

00:37:14And embedded in that was one sentence that was fully invented.

00:37:18It was not what he had said.

00:37:20And I go back and look through the logs, and somebody had actually got into the logs,

00:37:26had got into what I had typed, and started adding things.

00:37:30Not taking things away, not hiding things, but adding things to make me look like I was trying to be abusive and incorrect.

00:37:38So I learned right then, real quick, and this was within like the first few months,

00:37:42I can't use any of the major CMS platforms, forum platforms, et cetera.

00:37:46I've got to create something that is more technologically advanced than what they can attack.

00:37:52And it, you know, through the course of several months, it cost several thousands of dollars to build this out.

00:37:58It wasn't on a WordPress site.

00:37:59I can tell you that.

00:38:01And there's no way.

00:38:03If I were, like, I'm not in the dating scene.

00:38:05I've been married, happily married for decades now.

00:38:08If I were to be in the dating scene, and I were to go to one of these sites,

00:38:12the very first thing I'm going to do is look and see, what are they hosting this on?

00:38:15Is my data safe?

00:38:17WordPress is not it.

00:38:19Yeah, and I'm not an IT person, and I knew that.

00:38:23Just because my line of work is accounting, and we deal a lot with e-commerce businesses,

00:38:29and, you know, we deal with WordPress.

00:38:31We know, you know, some of the issues that come up with WordPress.

00:38:35There's, like, plug-ins out the ears, and the plug-ins don't get updated,

00:38:39and they become vulnerable, and then you know how the story goes.

00:38:43The funnier part is, I'm not a grammar coach either, but you said it incorrectly,

00:38:50and what they have typed is even funnier.

00:38:52It's terms and condition.

00:38:55Right.

00:38:55I saw that, too.

00:38:57Well, so, and maybe in Australia, they only say condition.

00:39:01I don't know.

00:39:02Well, so, John, we talked about the dating app.

00:39:05How about I highlight something else that I came across, Bethel-wise,

00:39:10and it's not, this isn't really about the Bethel Shopping Network as much as it is a clip

00:39:16that actually we came across recently from one of the pastors there named Richard Gordon,

00:39:24and I'm going to quote him.

00:39:25There's actually a Facebook link, a Facebook video excerpt.

00:39:30I think this might have been from a sermon he gave, or I don't know if he was just speaking

00:39:36briefly or what, but I want y'all to listen to this quote from him.

00:39:41If the Lord really sowed you into your mother's womb with a message,

00:39:45you're carrying something that needs to be shouted for human consciousness to come up to Christ consciousness.

00:39:51So, anytime I hear the word consciousness, my flags, my bells, everything's going off.

00:39:57It's like, wait a minute, are you a Hindu?

00:40:00Are you a Buddhist?

00:40:03What are you exactly?

00:40:05And so, I'm just like totally like turned off by that.

00:40:11I don't think that's Christianity.

00:40:14I don't think that's mainstream biblical Christianity to talk about human consciousness coming up to Christ consciousness.

00:40:21Like, what in the new age is that?

00:40:23Yeah.

00:40:25Well, and so, there's so much wrong with this, but a funny side story.

00:40:31So, you understand what a prophet is.

00:40:33A prophet is a human that does nothing, but God uses the mouth of this human to speak to other humans

00:40:42so that the other humans can understand what God wants to say in human language.

00:40:47That is a prophet.

00:40:48It's not somebody who summons a prophecy or goes to a school of the prophets and becomes a prophet.

00:40:53It is literally a person who God uses for only reasons that God understands to speak to a human.

00:41:01Well, in Branhamism, Lateran, etc., there's this idea that a prophet is born a prophet

00:41:07and that Branham claimed he came into the world speaking prophecies and having visions of age,

00:41:18I want to say it was like 15 months or something ridiculous.

00:41:21So, picture God who suddenly decides, okay, I'm going to take this little toddler

00:41:26who nobody's going to believe, nobody's going to understand.

00:41:30Everybody's going to think, why are you speaking words?

00:41:32And I'm going to speak to the world so that the church may be better informed

00:41:36because of this toddler who spoke.

00:41:39Obviously, this didn't happen.

00:41:41Well, now combine, Steve Montgomery and I have talked about this quite a bit on our converging apostasy.

00:41:48Now combine the ideas that are coming into the church through New Age ideologies,

00:41:55which includes these things that we're talking about.

00:41:59It includes the summoning themes that they have, the consciousness themes that they have,

00:42:04all of these things, the enlightenment, the divine wisdom, all of these things, the mysteries,

00:42:09all of these that we're talking about that aren't quite Christian.

00:42:13People are like, what is this?

00:42:15But if you say those things and use the word Jesus with it,

00:42:19there's a large number of people who are so unsuspecting and so naive

00:42:23and quite frankly so unfamiliar with their Bibles that they'll hear the New Age thing

00:42:30with the word Jesus and go, oh, that's Christianity.

00:42:33It must be because they use the word Jesus with it.

00:42:36But that's not how this works.

00:42:38That's not how Christianity works.

00:42:40In fact, if you read through the Apostle Paul's letters,

00:42:44he's writing to communities that believe these kind of things.

00:42:47And he ran into a lot of issues in the church because many of those ideologies

00:42:53that were of the pagan world were entering into the church.

00:42:56And he's like, no, no, no, no.

00:42:57That's not how Christianity works.

00:43:00And clearing up the messes by sending the letters.

00:43:03We need an Apostle Paul today to send all these letters to Bethel and say,

00:43:07no, man, you don't summon people.

00:43:09You don't channel spirits through grave soaking.

00:43:12You don't do all of these things.

00:43:13I condemned temples that are doing this kind of thing back in my day.

00:43:18And here in this world, 2025,

00:43:22I can't believe that you're still doing this after I wrote those letters 2,000 years ago.

00:43:27Absolutely.

00:43:27Yeah, we do need a letter or two or ten to Bethel and lots of other places.

00:43:33We probably all need a letter from Paul, truthfully, to get us back on track.

00:43:37But, yeah, it's like there's New Age and then there's New Age.

00:43:41And this was like New Age on steroids.

00:43:44Like I was listening to what he said and I'm like, I don't even know what you said right now.

00:43:47Like this is gobbledygook.

00:43:50And so much of the stuff is gobbledygook.

00:43:53I think that sometimes the people speaking don't even understand what they're talking about.

00:43:57It's so esoteric and mysterious and mystical.

00:44:03And I think, you know, it might make you feel good and sound good and all that.

00:44:11But, like, how do you come up from human consciousness up to Christ consciousness?

00:44:18That's so weird.

00:44:19That is very weird.

00:44:20Very weird and dangerous.

00:44:23And I hope that he got a talking to.

00:44:26I don't think he did.

00:44:27But I'm hoping that somebody pulled him aside and said, hey, man, you might not want to use that word next time.

00:44:34I remember when I was first doing the thing that I'm doing, I was talking about the different feelings that I had as I was coming out of the cult and I was starting to understand Christianity.

00:44:50And unlike many people who are my age, I like to read and I like words that are in books and I like English and I like the power of the words in the books.

00:45:01And I was using some word, some term, and I said I had become enlightened to, which is a normal thing to say in every circle of, you know, of the world.

00:45:12If you understand what the word means, enlightened is the best way to explain this whole sum of feelings that I had.

00:45:20But because enlightenment is used in the pagan way, people, oh, John's got this new age thing that's going on.

00:45:28And even though I'm not in a new age concept or, you know, anything even close to it, the irony of this is come full circle.

00:45:38I'm starting to find all of the new age influences by the people that were sending me the hate mail, which is really ironic.

00:45:46If you think about it, people just they're afraid of the terms because they associate the terms that they hear with the bad guys, but don't understand the meanings behind those terms.

00:45:56So as I was using it in the true form, the good way, they're actually using enlightenment in these other ways that are actually the pagan form.

00:46:04But because the ministers are using the name Jesus with it, it suddenly becomes a Christian enlightenment, my brother.

00:46:13Yeah, that makes sense.

00:46:14And it also reminds me, too, of another Bethel teaching, which is, and I think I've talked about this before, but it's this concept of every time there's, I don't know how to say this.

00:46:26Let me see if I can reframe that.

00:46:29For example, you have a spiritual concept that might be found in the Bible, and Bethel's kind of take on the dark side is, well, the only reason there, the only way that you can, not the only way, but one of the ways you can confirm that the genuine exists is if there's a counterfeit.

00:46:52So what they say is they'll say, well, the dark side hijacked prophecy, or the dark side hijacked consciousness, or the dark side hijacked astral projection, or whatever it is.

00:47:06And so because there's the hijacking version, the counterfeit version of this, there must be a real authentic version.

00:47:12And so it could be that Bethel actually believes now that there is a Christ consciousness.

00:47:18But I can tell you that that is a concept that came from metaphysical new age thought, new thought, full stop.

00:47:27My granddad was in it.

00:47:29I spent hours and hours and hours talking to him about this stuff.

00:47:33And this is not a biblical concept.

00:47:37I can't think of one place in the Bible that consciousness even appears, or even in the Greek, in the New Testament.

00:47:44I don't think there's an equivalent of that used in the New Testament that would encompass the meaning that I think they mean by that.

00:47:53So, you know, I don't have a really good definition for what New Agers mean by consciousness, but maybe you do, John.

00:48:01But it's almost this idea that your existence is beyond your spirit, soul, and body to where you take up space in ways that we can't quantify.

00:48:15And so there's also this concept of collective consciousness that I think is floated across new age, new thought.

00:48:22And it's almost like that kind of, I don't know, meaning that seems to be, that he seems to be referring to here.

00:48:34I don't want to put words in his mouth, but when you use the word consciousness, that's a pretty blatant new age to me.

00:48:40Like I said before, it goes back to the usage of the word.

00:48:43So, my example, enlightened.

00:48:46And I think if I remember correctly, the reason that I had used it, and this was years and years ago.

00:48:52The cult has actually attacked and brought down all those videos.

00:48:55So, I think if I remember correctly, the reason that I was using it is that a video prior, I was going through the book of Hebrews,

00:49:03and I was explaining how in the book of Hebrews, it clearly talks about how we have a new high priest.

00:49:09We don't need these high priests of the old temples, right?

00:49:12And I was trying to compare that to the modern world, where the apostles and prophets are the new high priests.

00:49:18And there's a phrase that's used, I think it's in Hebrews, it says something to the effect,

00:49:23those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift.

00:49:27If you understand the meaning of that word, it's literally saying people who became aware of.

00:49:33And it's more, it's not a consciousness like you're describing.

00:49:37It's literally people who came in contact with the truth.

00:49:40And that was the, if I remember correctly, and again, I don't have it to go back and look up,

00:49:46but if I remember correctly, and I know that I used it in that context, it was coming in contact with the truth.

00:49:52I became enlightened.

00:49:54Now, if you take the pagan or New Age version of enlightenment, it's something entirely different.

00:49:59It's something that's summoned.

00:50:00It's something that is this spiritual energy that flows through you, etc.

00:50:04It's this consciousness, consciousness itself.

00:50:08I don't think the word is in the Bible, but the phrase, like conscience is in the Bible.

00:50:15There are places where you talk about your conscience.

00:50:18Right.

00:50:18Yeah.

00:50:19There are places where it talks about your mind, your heart, your understanding, the knowledge.

00:50:25If you take the non-spiritual meaning behind that word, which doesn't match what you're saying that he said,

00:50:33the non-spiritual version of this word, like my use of enlightenment, is more to the effect of the consciousness.

00:50:42You become aware and you become, it becomes part of your belief system.

00:50:47It's like this thing, it's like a tangible idea that you become aware of.

00:50:53Similar to my enlightenment, this conscious forms, right?

00:50:57Yeah.

00:50:58If you use it in the term of a consciousness, you're literally back to the idea that things can be summoned, very much like the grave soaking.

00:51:08I can go to a grave, I can summon the spirit of William Branham by soaking his grave and feeling the power.

00:51:14However, that is a, it's an entirely pagan, actually not even pagan, it goes beyond to ancient cults of evil who are doing this kind of thing, right?

00:51:24Okay.

00:51:24It's a very demonic thing that they're doing.

00:51:27And if you apply the meaning behind what is saying, it is an anti-biblical meaning.

00:51:33The word itself I don't have a problem with, but it's how that word is used that turns to be problematic.

00:51:39That makes sense.

00:51:39That helped me kind of understand where you're coming from there.

00:51:41And I think too, like just in our modern vernacular, you know, even from a medical standpoint, right?

00:51:48If somebody blacks out, it's said that they lost consciousness, which, so that helps you understand like, okay, what do we mean by that?

00:51:56Just in regular language, regular English, like you lost your consciousness, meaning that like you, you'll wake up from that and you won't remember what happened when you blacked out.

00:52:06Like you were not aware to your point, like you were, your awareness was not there.

00:52:11And so you came back and you regained consciousness after you recovered from your blackout.

00:52:16So that makes sense to me what you're saying.

00:52:18Yeah.

00:52:19And I did look to see if consciousness is in the Bible.

00:52:22Of course, the Bible wasn't written in English.

00:52:23So no English words were actually in the Bible as it happens.

00:52:28News flash.

00:52:29None of our words were in the Bible, y'all.

00:52:31It was all in Hebrew and Greek, but what, you know, words that would, would have been used or English word consciousness that would translate consciousness, the actual underlying words in Greek and Hebrew did not appear in the Bible incidentally.

00:52:47So, so yeah, it's kind of weird and scary and eerie that, that there's a potential link there between the whole consciousness concept and like grave soaking.

00:52:59I didn't even think of that either.

00:53:01But like, you're talking about the summoning of these things, you know, and it's interesting because, you know, having been fully immersed in Bethel for many years, like I still can feel like when you say the word summon, John, you talk about trigger words and stuff.

00:53:22But when you say that, even though they don't use the word summon, they don't, Bethel doesn't say the word summon.

00:53:29They do stuff that feels like summoning, like we're, we're going to bring heaven to earth.

00:53:34We're going to, we're, we're basically, and this is the thing now is like, not to get off on a rabbit trail, but the fire on the altar, like keeping the altar, this whole thing that we're like supposed to be the sacrifice on the altar and all this crap.

00:53:49And, but, um, I think Jesus was actually the sacrifice that saved us.

00:53:56I don't think that we put ourselves on the altar to save ourselves.

00:54:00So there's this concept of like, almost a conjuring, a, um, a, a creating, a pulling.

00:54:08There's very, very much of an action involved in our part, according to Bethel that back to your point.

00:54:15Oh my gosh, it exhausts me to think about it.

00:54:17I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel right now.

00:54:19Um, it is, it is like, and you've said this before, these are your words, John.

00:54:27It's a man-made religion.

00:54:28It is.

00:54:29It really is a man-made religion.

00:54:31But what's really scary though, is if they're tapping into the dark stuff, right?

00:54:36Like, going back to like, you know, the pagan ties and like the evil cults and whatnot of antiquity, like that's the stuff that really freaks me out.

00:54:46And what are they tapping into here when they're, when they're, they're so, um, they're so intent on us producing this output of supernatural.

00:55:00So, oof, that was a mouthful.

00:55:05Yes, it was.

00:55:06For me, I can sum it up very simply, I think.

00:55:10I, this used to be the, um, what's it called?

00:55:13The, the line that goes under your signature, the, the slogan or motto or whatever.

00:55:18Tagline.

00:55:19Tagline.

00:55:19And I used to have this tagline in every email that went out, even in my, uh, when I was in IT world, I even had it in my IT emails.

00:55:27It, it was Ephesians 2, 8 through 9.

00:55:30For grace you're saved through faith, not of yourselves.

00:55:34It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

00:55:39The problem with all of this movement, and I'm talking about not just the New Apostolic Reformation.

00:55:46If you trace it through its lineage all the way back, trace it past Branhamism, trace it into the revival culture, trace it into all of these things.

00:55:54Think about the version of the gospel that they're preaching.

00:55:58It's not a gospel that the salvation is given as a gift.

00:56:03It's usually something that you have to do to earn it, and you, it's this hype you have to bring yourself in to achieve it.

00:56:09And it's not a gift of God, and think of the way that it's presented.

00:56:17It's presented in such a platform that allows, and not just allows, but it causes men and women to boast.

00:56:26They become greater than other human beings.

00:56:29It is a framework to allow boasting.

00:56:32I mean, literally it is, right?

00:56:34Yes, it is.

00:56:34100%.

00:56:34But if you understand the very first part of that, it's by grace you're saved through faith.

00:56:40It means simply that if you have faith in Jesus Christ, there's nothing you can do to get rid of it.

00:56:46There's nothing you can do to achieve it.

00:56:48This is a gift that is freely given to you.

00:56:50And I look back at the days in the cult when I used this tagline, and I'm embarrassed because I had this set of rules that was given to me that said, literally, quite literally, if you don't follow these rules, I'm going to take this gift away from you.

00:57:07You don't get it.

00:57:09And it says it's not of yourselves.

00:57:11There's nothing you can do.

00:57:12Yes.

00:57:13There's nothing you can summon.

00:57:14There's nothing you can—all of the things that they're doing in this New Age-type religion that they're calling Christianity, this one passage of these two single verses undermines the entire movement in its whole entirety, just these two passages.

00:57:30And so good.

00:57:32That is the essence of the gospel.

00:57:33It is a gift that we could not actually save ourselves.

00:57:37And I love that verse.

00:57:39I remember studying that verse in college.

00:57:42And so, yeah, it's good.

00:57:44It's good to distill this down and call it what it is, which is, it is a New Age religion.

00:57:48It is.

00:57:49And, you know, to your point, like the whole, you know, we boast or they boast.

00:57:56I'm not going to include we in that because I'm not a part of that movement anymore.

00:57:59But it's interesting because before we started recording, I was looking at a recent sermon on Bethel TV.

00:58:10And, you know, they started out with the online pastors come on the live feed and they do like an introduction.

00:58:19And he had, the main guy had, I forgot his name, had another pastor on there with him.

00:58:26And he said, oh, yeah, you're the leader of the young adults tribe, such and such.

00:58:33And he said, you and I rose the ranks together.

00:58:36We rose up in the ranks together to where we are today.

00:58:39And that might not seem like a big deal to some people, but if you stop and think about that for a minute, this gives you insight into what these organizations are.

00:58:48They are hierarchical organizations.

00:58:50They are pyramidical, pyramidal, pyramidal, I don't know.

00:58:54They have a pyramid and everybody knows, whether they admit it or not, that you are in a certain position and rung and totem pole position on that ladder.

00:59:05And these guys said the quiet part out loud.

00:59:07They're like, hey, we rose in the ranks together.

00:59:09Now we're the Bethel online, you know, whoop-dee-doo, millions of people see us on the YouTube feed every week.

00:59:16And to them, like, they've arrived.

00:59:19They've reached the pinnacle of Christianity because they are famous, they are known, and they do the stuff, and they're supernaturally natural.

00:59:28They're naturally supernatural, one or the other or both, I'm not sure.

00:59:32But, like, if that is the salvation you're looking for, congratulations, you earned it.

00:59:38You earned it yourself because of what you did.

00:59:41And you jumped through the hoops of the Man Ray religion, and you got up to middle management of Bethel Church.

00:59:49Congratulations.

00:59:50That is your salvation.

00:59:51And interestingly, there is a Masonic picture.

00:59:55I don't know if you've seen this, but it talks about the nature of a Masonic man rising through these to achieve the 33 or whatever it is.

01:00:04William Branham was spreading the stature of a perfect man in his revivalists, which eerily matched the Masonic pyramid.

01:00:12It was a pyramid, and I think Chris Reed, I think, had this on, if I remember correctly.

01:00:16He had it on the projector in one of his sermons.

01:00:20Oh, I seem to remember that, yeah.

01:00:22Yeah, it's what it is.

01:00:23It is literally a way to achieve a hierarchy like you're describing.

01:00:27And Christianity, true Christianity, there was Jesus, and then there was everyone else.

01:00:33There wasn't, yes, Ephesians does talk about apostles, prophets, all of these things, but where people in this movement have gotten it wrong, it's not a five-fold ministry he's talking about.

01:00:43There are people who are designed and better suited to do different works, but there's Jesus, and there's everybody else.

01:00:49And honestly, if I'm going to end this in a certain way, I'll end it on that note.

01:00:54If you're in a religion where there isn't that hierarchy, you might not be in Christianity.

01:00:59Yeah, that's a big power pause right there, just to think about whether it's called Christianity or something else or whatever.

01:01:07Yeah, like look at the essence of what it is, Jesus and everybody else.

01:01:10And interestingly and ironically, I'll point this out, despite the fact that Bethel and others are very hierarchical and pyramidal, pyramidical, I don't know whether it's pyramidal or pyramidical.

01:01:24Somebody can tell me.

01:01:25But even though, let me see if I can get this thought out.

01:01:30Even though the organization is structured like that, the ironic thing is, John, check this out.

01:01:36I just thought of this as you were saying that about Jesus and everybody else.

01:01:40But actually, what they teach is Jesus is equal to everybody else.

01:01:48Not only can you do everything Jesus did, but you are essentially, you have his DNA like we talked about last time.

01:01:56So isn't that so ironic?

01:01:57I've not thought about that before.

01:02:00You got the pyramid, right?

01:02:02And so everybody has their place and you got the guy at the top and a few people at the top.

01:02:06But then you also have this line where we are put at almost equal as Jesus, if not equal to him.

01:02:13So, yeah, so I will add to your end point, John.

01:02:17If you're in an organization or a religion or church or whatever, and you're being told that you were equal with Jesus, you're probably not in Christianity either.

01:02:27Absolutely.

01:02:28Absolutely.

01:02:29Well, there's so much more I could say about all of this, especially, I'm still like, I'm limiting myself.

01:02:36I'm not going to talk anymore about this dating app.

01:02:38But there's so many more things wrong with this, people.

01:02:41There's just so many things.

01:02:42But thank you so much for doing this.

01:02:44Absolutely.

01:02:44Always a pleasure.

01:02:45Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

01:02:49You can find us at william-branum.org and the Grit in the Wild podcast.

01:02:54For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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