- 2 weeks ago
John and Jed discuss the issue of blind trust in cult leaders, using the recent defense of Mike Bickle as a case study. They explore how trust in healthy relationships is earned through honesty and integrity, but in cult settings it is demanded and weaponized. Drawing parallels from their own experiences in Branhamism and the International House of Prayer, they reveal how the same manipulation tactics keep followers trapped in circular reasoning and misplaced loyalty.
The conversation also examines how defenders of Bickle dismiss victim testimonies, misuse scripture, and even deny the reality of grooming to protect leadership. John and Jed highlight how these patterns echo the broader history of abusive revivalist movements, and why recognizing the difference between genuine trust and coerced control is critical for healing and freedom.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Opening Thoughts on Trust
02:15 The Cult’s Demand for Blind Faith
05:00 Inside the Defenders’ Rhetoric
08:06 How Trust Flows Uphill
12:26 Manifested Sons of God and Authority
19:05 Unaddressed Accusations Against Bickle
23:41 Grooming Dismissed as “Temptation”
25:21 Cult Mindset and Mental Health
31:02 The Cost of Questioning Leaders
36:01 Speaking as “God’s Voice”
43:44 Manipulation of Scripture and History
50:03 Failures Framed as Proof of Calling
55:41 The Santa Claus Analogy
58:51 Continuing Efforts to Prop Up Bickle
59:58 Closing Remarks
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
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The conversation also examines how defenders of Bickle dismiss victim testimonies, misuse scripture, and even deny the reality of grooming to protect leadership. John and Jed highlight how these patterns echo the broader history of abusive revivalist movements, and why recognizing the difference between genuine trust and coerced control is critical for healing and freedom.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Opening Thoughts on Trust
02:15 The Cult’s Demand for Blind Faith
05:00 Inside the Defenders’ Rhetoric
08:06 How Trust Flows Uphill
12:26 Manifested Sons of God and Authority
19:05 Unaddressed Accusations Against Bickle
23:41 Grooming Dismissed as “Temptation”
25:21 Cult Mindset and Mental Health
31:02 The Cost of Questioning Leaders
36:01 Speaking as “God’s Voice”
43:44 Manipulation of Scripture and History
50:03 Failures Framed as Proof of Calling
55:41 The Santa Claus Analogy
58:51 Continuing Efforts to Prop Up Bickle
59:58 Closing Remarks
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
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LearningTranscript
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 co-host and friend, Jed Hartley, son of a false prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer.
00:00:51Jed, it's good to be back and talk about trust.
00:00:54This is something that, you know, whenever I was in the cult groups and I just blindly gave my trust to anybody who shared a pulpit, I learned that trust is something entirely different than what I grew up with and understood.
00:01:09And now it's something that I place a lot of value on whenever I meet new people.
00:01:16I'm the kind of personality that I trust you to begin with.
00:01:19That's just how my personality is.
00:01:21But then I've learned to combine that with you also must earn my trust versus when you're in the cult groups, you have automatic unwielded trust to anybody who's in the group just because you stand behind a pulpit.
00:01:37That I no longer live this way or think this way.
00:01:39I don't care if you're Billy Graham.
00:01:42I don't care if you're Joe Smith from Joe Smith's church out in the woods.
00:01:46I don't care who you are.
00:01:47To earn my trust, you have to go through a series of phases of earning that trust.
00:01:53And it's something that I value.
00:01:55I value a lot.
00:01:56And when you sent me this video, why I trust Mike Bickel, I thought back to my journey out of the cult and how much that meant to me, just learning what trust was.
00:02:10So today you want to talk about this.
00:02:12I'm all for it.
00:02:13Let's talk about trust.
00:02:15Yeah, I think that it's such a good word to hone in on because it really is the crux of a cult defense of a cult leader is this sort of blind trust and blind faith.
00:02:31Like I remember the story of, you know, the story of Thomas and doubting Thomas of Thomas says, I'm not going to believe it when he hears that Jesus has resurrected.
00:02:44He's like, until I see the wound in his side and the holes in his hand, I will not believe.
00:02:49And then Jesus appears to him, shows him these things.
00:02:54And what's the verse?
00:02:56Blessed are those who you have seen and you believe.
00:02:59Blessed are those who have not seen.
00:03:01And believe, I think is, I might be paraphrasing that wrong, but in the world that I grew up in and the world that you very much were in, there was this sort of expectation of trust that any sort of doubting, any rational, I mean, responses of being like, I don't know if this is true.
00:03:25I don't know.
00:03:25I don't know about this.
00:03:26I don't know.
00:03:27Questioning the behaviors or actions or the prophecies of the leadership was met with this ye of little faith.
00:03:36And it wasn't faith in God.
00:03:38It was faith within those who have taken on the mantle of God, like those within the community who have become God to the community.
00:03:49and it's so interesting so basically what the video you referenced and why i sent it to you
00:03:56um it's a collection of different people uh the pastor who's kind of leading it is named
00:04:04uh james crawford um he hit the church he's part of is the father's heart world all of church i
00:04:13think in north carolina is not a big church he's from what i can like i have never heard of him
00:04:19before i don't imagine that he has like a very large following um these videos themselves have
00:04:26not been getting a whole lot of traction but they're live sort of zoom videos um where the
00:04:32defenders of mike bickle are coming together to talk about the injustice of how mike bickle has been
00:04:41persecuted and um it's really interesting and why i wanted to talk about it on uh this
00:04:48on our uh podcast here is because very rarely do you get a peek within the cult if you are not still
00:05:02within the cult um once you have spoken out once you've left the cult once you're on the outside
00:05:09you don't understand what the rhetoric is within that even what is being preached at the pulpit
00:05:15um is different than what is being said behind closed doors uh i've seen this sort of firsthand
00:05:22um even even with the way that there was like two different faces to the sort of beliefs of the
00:05:34international house of prayer there was what we talked about during the one thing conferences and
00:05:40there were sort of the the hidden prophecies that were bigger and more important that were talked
00:05:44about behind closed doors and you don't really get a glimpse of that and even for me it's at certain
00:05:51points i'm i'm talking a lot about this world that i grew up but it can feel pretty unfamiliar to me at
00:05:57times i don't know if you feel this too john where because we're not in it anymore it's hard to even
00:06:05remember what is being said or what was said and why certain things like a lot of times i think back
00:06:14and i'm like why did i even believe x y or c or what was my dad telling me when this happened um because
00:06:21like i don't even remember how they could have rationalized that and i think it's very illuminating
00:06:28to have these basically we get this behind the scenes meeting that is they're just posting
00:06:36online onto youtube and we get to see sort of the rhetoric that they are giving and we get to see
00:06:43why people who are still defending mike bickle are defending mike mike bickle and what tactics are they
00:06:49using and surprise surprise they're still using the same playbook everything that we have been talking
00:06:56about that you talk about um that is been diagnosed with branum and with the latter rain movement and
00:07:06just cults in general um it all is just so abundantly clear in it that i i almost like want to encourage
00:07:16people to watch some of these videos i don't know if that i don't really know if i want to be bringing
00:07:22more attention to it but i i think that because it's such a perfect example of um the the cult tactics
00:07:31um that people will employ to argue and to maintain trust i think a better word for it would be control
00:07:43right it's it's just trust and they're trying to make sure that mike bickle is still given belief
00:07:52and that mike bickle maintains this belief and the coercive um tactics that they're using is
00:07:59just so unbelievably obvious and uh right in your face it's it's crazy you know trust is something
00:08:08that goes uphill and when i'm saying uphill i'm not talking about just you know in the cults that you
00:08:13or i were in trust goes up to mike bickle in my case trust goes up to the pastor then to william
00:08:19branham i'm talking all the way up to jesus in an unhealthy unnatural way for human development
00:08:26let me explain it like this pretend you had never heard the name jesus christ never heard of
00:08:33christianity and you're growing up say you're i don't know 10 15 years old and somebody comes up to
00:08:39you off the street and says hey do you know jesus and you're like well who's jesus and he begins to
00:08:45tell you that he's the son of god all of these things well if you weren't raised like this your
00:08:50first question should be really why you should think through this process this is a normal human
00:08:58development process but because if you take mainstream christianity people who were raised
00:09:05with christian families christian homes they never really got to think through that question
00:09:10and so they blindly accept something that's less destructive than what we had we were told
00:09:17literally that you could not question you had to blindly trust and if you're in a mainstream church
00:09:24without this blind faith aspect this non-critical thinking aspect you go through this phase where you
00:09:31learn what is christianity you learn who is jesus and you learn basically god to earn your trust that's how it
00:09:40works people do not just forfeit their trust because they are told to do so so if you are a mainstream
00:09:45non-infected by a cult person there's there's this point in your life that most people go through where
00:09:52jesus is earning your trust and he's showing you who he is now we in the cults we were told that we
00:09:59were forcibly had to believe it no matter what we couldn't question it we couldn't go through normal
00:10:04human development so we never developed what everybody else takes for granted i guess is what i'm trying
00:10:10to say the reason i'm building up to this bob and i just had this conversation i don't know if it
00:10:15comes out before or after this one i get the question daily why do you not talk more about jesus in your
00:10:23podcasts and see i didn't grow up in that environment where i had this blind had this option to learn
00:10:32this trust this value and more to the point there are many people who are listening who have been
00:10:40taught a different jesus that also did not go through this so the name believe it or not the
00:10:46name becomes offensive to many of those people some of them stay remained in christianity but still
00:10:53christianity itself if you ask a person are you a christian well that means a wide variety of things
00:10:59to a wide variety of people i anymore i've come to the point when people ask me this question i just
00:11:06simply don't answer it if you've listened to my podcast you know that my family did go to church
00:11:12afterwards and whenever i'm not too triggered i do go but there's this element of trust that we never
00:11:19were allowed to build and what happens is when you're not allowed to build that trust and you're
00:11:25being told number one that if you question god this god of wrath will come down and you will burn in hell
00:11:34for eternity because you questioned god in normal christianity you must question god to build that
00:11:42trust it's part of the process you ask a question the question is fulfilled then you trust it we
00:11:48weren't allowed to do this but because here's where it applies to mike bickle because of this
00:11:55manifested sons of god doctrine the leadership is at the same level as the god that we can't question
00:12:02and he is emdued with all of the power the same elements of god that most christians would apply
00:12:09to the holy spirit they apply it to mike bickle to william branham even some of the sub leaders in this
00:12:16type of environment and they haven't yet earned your trust you're just having to forfeit that trust
00:12:23so when i see things like this you know why we trust mike bickle it actually makes me really angry
00:12:28because he never earned their trust and more to the point the video itself is intended to make people
00:12:36forcibly trust in mike bickle without him having earned that trust with them i think that so many
00:12:43things i was writing down so many things that you were saying um not that you're not just spouting
00:12:49wisdom all the time but this is i i was really latching on to several things like first of all
00:12:57the the trust flows uphill i think is such a great visualization of it's not both ways like it only
00:13:08goes up and this is this is demonstrated in this video that they do this trusting mike bickle
00:13:16it's there's this sort of undeserved unwarranted trust that mike bickle demands um and the people
00:13:24around him sort of who are protecting and preserving his image demand but the trust does not go down
00:13:34where deborah was a member of the community for literally almost her entire life my mom was a member
00:13:43of the community for literally her almost her entire life um tammy woods wasn't a member of the
00:13:50community but was like a well-respected sort of fringe member of the community um alan hood julie myers
00:13:58all of these people that are being attacked in this video were devout members of the sort of
00:14:08international house of prayer community since before the international house of prayer really
00:14:13even began without these this group of people there would be no international house of prayer they were
00:14:19just as formational to it and foundational to that community as as mike bickle himself was
00:14:25and yet they are given no trust no their testimonies are completely disregarded um so lisa stribling
00:14:37i don't know if i mentioned this earlier but mike's younger sister is in this video um a part of the
00:14:43sort of defenders of mike bickle um she is one of the the main people who is speaking out and um we've
00:14:51talked about this on a previous episode but she has spoken from the public uh pulpit that she hasn't even
00:14:57listened to the accusations that were brought against mike she hasn't even considered them and again
00:15:03these are people that she knows this is not i it would it would still be even if it wasn't people that she knew
00:15:10it would still be important to listen to them you listen to victims regardless of whether you know them or not
00:15:14but like these are respected members of her community who have spoken out in conjunction with each other
00:15:23multiple voices and she is not even giving them the time of day to listen to them before she goes
00:15:30on to another video and um lambast them for being betrayers and accusers and calling them all sorts of
00:15:39names it's clearly a situation where trust like you said flows uphill where it's all sort of demanded
00:15:47upwards and not expected downwards and um i think that irony of the i mean the the passage that i
00:15:57brought up to you about the situation with thomas um part of the irony of the the first people who
00:16:04were bringing the testimony of jesus's resurrection were women in the community they weren't like the
00:16:10well-respected leaders not that they weren't well-respected within the community but they were
00:16:16not the you know it wasn't peter and um wasn't the disciples who had first uh reported that jesus uh
00:16:24had resurrected it was first the women and and there was a this sort of trust and belief was not this
00:16:31sort of hierarchical situation as it is in these cult communities where we must believe the person who is
00:16:39more important than us and if if i have a dream and i'm within the community and it
00:16:46reaffirms mike bickle's identity then great then it's condoned and it's from god if i have a dream
00:16:53that is prophetic that questions mike bickle well then i'm not hearing from god and and i'm discounted
00:17:00and it all sort of funnels and into back the the deification of the leaders within the community
00:17:09and this all leads me to sort of my second point and i think that you were getting to
00:17:15this too of there's this tautological or they they treat it like it's tautological like it is just
00:17:25given um there is no sort of evidence for why we should worship mike bickle um like you were saying
00:17:35it's totally undeserved and within this even this video there's this cyclical nature in which they
00:17:42sort of are like well mike bickle is a good guy and i know he's a good guy because the lord has spoken
00:17:49to him so many different times and gave him these prophetic words and if you ask the question well
00:17:55why do we know how do we know that god was speaking to him well it's because mike is a good
00:18:02guy and he's been doing all of these good things and god would only use and speak to someone who
00:18:08is like clearly a good person and it's just this sort of like cyclical nature of there isn't any actual
00:18:17evaluation of hey did mike bickle do this behavior throughout all of those videos that very briefly do
00:18:27they even discuss the accusations that were brought against mike they just call them false
00:18:32accusations and they call them betrayal but they don't actually talk about the substance of what
00:18:38mike bickle is being accused of um in our previous episode that we recorded about lisa stribbling
00:18:44i i was hammering the point and i have hammered the point so many times on this um platform and on
00:18:54like my twitter and i i can't hammer enough the fact that like mike bickle prophesied the death of his own
00:19:05wife as a grooming uh technique to give teenagers um multiple teenagers he used this at multiple different
00:19:17instances for young women to tell them i mean children i shouldn't even say well young women i mean
00:19:25tammy was 14 when this first started happening he used it to tell children that one day they would be
00:19:33together that would all open up because his wife was going to die in an earthquake in st louis this is
00:19:40something that three different women all confirmed independently of themselves my mother being one of
00:19:46them and i also know this to be true because my dad told me it uh one of the biggest mike bickle
00:19:53defenders i heard the story from him before i heard it from anybody else and it's just this
00:19:58it is insane to me that you can have this entire conversation about who mike bickle is why he's being used
00:20:08by god how we should trust him and not a single person even mentions the actual accusation that
00:20:18has been brought against them that totally doesn't even mention it the one time um that i heard there
00:20:25was probably a lot other there's four episodes and i didn't listen to all of them because you know my
00:20:31my soul can only take two so much of that before i have to like take a break and take a walk but
00:20:36um but here's here's a direct quote that i i had to write it down because i didn't want to paraphrase
00:20:44but this is james crawford and the only instance that i could kind of see them talking about tammy
00:20:50woods they talk about deborah a lot and really um discredit her and attack her character and try to
00:20:59frame her as this betrayer and this accuser who's bringing up things from decades ago um but in the
00:21:08one instance that they actually refer to the accusations brought by tammy who again tammy was
00:21:15the babysitter of mike bickle was children um she was 14 when mike was in his i think he was late 20s
00:21:25and uh when mike began a grooming relationship with her um and and groomed her for for several decades
00:21:33um so he references grooming as james crawford does and he says there was no grooming grooming is a
00:21:45derogatory term that satan likes to put on people to make them look that much worse that that's literally
00:21:54his his quote he says if anything happened in regards to tammy tammy it was a temptation
00:22:02that's it and that's it that's that's the whole that's the whole quote that's everything that he
00:22:10sort of references with tammy he says it wasn't grooming not because the situation didn't warrant
00:22:17grooming but because according to crawford grooming doesn't exist there is no such thing as grooming
00:22:25grooming is a fictional thing made up by the liberals he didn't say that but i'm popping that
00:22:31in there um made up by you know the woke or the cancel culture uh and it is a derogatory term
00:22:38that satan so made up by satan i guess likes to put on people to make them look that much worse
00:22:44which no this is where i'm baffled because someone has to stop him at that point and be like just to
00:22:53clarify so did like abstain not groom women does grooming never exist or does it only not exist
00:23:01within the context of mike bickle in this situation like is it is your genuine belief that there is no
00:23:08such thing as grooming if someone takes a 14 year old and uh isolates them from their family and
00:23:18develops a romantic sexual relationship with them as like a grown adult is that like is that fine is
00:23:26that just a temptation what what are we even talking about anymore are you defending are you granting that
00:23:32that behavior happens and saying it just doesn't matter but of course the conversation just breezes
00:23:41through and no one says anything about it and it's one of these really discouraging um and bleak
00:23:48representations of of the illogical moral depravity of cold communities where someone could say something
00:23:59as heinous as heinous as that and then just keep going and think that they are in the right you
00:24:06know how do you listen to that and you not look around and say are we are we the bad guys here is
00:24:13this uh maybe maybe this isn't maybe this isn't the side that i want to be on and i i have grace for people
00:24:21seeing that after the fact because i i do think that there will be people who are defending mike
00:24:28pickle who later i i don't i think i i have more grace for young people because you know you haven't
00:24:36had enough lived experiences and i've been there where you're defending like i defended my father and
00:24:41a lot of times where i shouldn't um and people can change and and see the sort of error of their ways
00:24:47my mom herself like was really defending a lot of this cult community um until she got older and
00:24:56and realized suddenly it sort of broke so i i understand that people can have the veil over
00:25:02over their eyes where they just don't see the depravity that's right in front of them but um i mean
00:25:09that's just a level of corruption and manipulation and moral bankruptcy um that is quite terrifying
00:25:20you know what you're describing a lot of people who are on the outside looking in would say well
00:25:25this is circular reasoning they trust mike because they trust mike and but it goes far beyond that
00:25:31some countries are moving towards the direction of saying that the cult mindset can also be treated
00:25:39as a mental health disorder a psychological disorder and truly i believe that it should because
00:25:47it goes so far beyond this mentality that one of the definitions of insanity the joke is that if you
00:25:56try the same thing and expect a different result and keep trying the same thing you're right you must be
00:26:00insane well here's a person who i mean look how many examples we have all of these victims coming
00:26:06forward and they're asking to trust that he's not going to do it again that's really if you understand
00:26:13the reasoning behind this trust mike bickle video it's really saying and this part angers me so much
00:26:20it is literally saying trust your daughters they're going to be okay if we bring him back
00:26:25trust that your daughters are going to be safe with mike bickle trust that your daughters are going to
00:26:31put their full trust and confidence in him and he's going to by the grace of god never do this thing
00:26:37again that's really what this comes down to but in the cult mindset the trust as i said it's never
00:26:45earned and it goes so i was talking about the example of christianity before i'm going to do that
00:26:52again because people who are in the cults even many who escape the cults they don't understand this
00:26:57difference it takes them years to develop it yeah but that same type of mentality i was in a group that
00:27:06was very controlling very manipulative very much like what you came out of because you literally
00:27:12came out of randomism 2.0 i heard often these sermons that we trust the bible because we trust the bible
00:27:19and that doesn't work man if you are developing human being that's not why you trust the bible
00:27:26trust is something that you have to eventually learn and develop i left this and i go to churches that
00:27:33are so far beyond this this mentality that you trust for the sake of trusting they're talking
00:27:41about all of the history behind it why the statements are trusted the development of the church outside of
00:27:48you know a lot of this is catholic church history believe it or not in the cults and sadly this has
00:27:56went far beyond the cults into some in some extent in the mainstream they totally discredit any catholic
00:28:02church history not realizing that all churches came from this development of the catholic church
00:28:08but i have gone to really solid christian churches that are teaching church history as the reason why
00:28:15we trust the bible and they walk you through that process and they're very open about things like
00:28:21we we come to this passage don't understand it i can't verify it by history and they separate that
00:28:28into a different category than the trust this is a category of the unknown we we don't know we don't
00:28:34understand it we might believe it because of the other things we trust but we're not forced to trust it
00:28:41that's what i'm saying in the cults you're taught every verse every line every single bit we trust it in
00:28:48the same way because it says so it's always because it said so well again in manifested sons of god
00:28:56the prophet the apostle whoever is the manifested son of god leader that same aspect is applied to
00:29:03them we trust it because he said so he says i'm not going to do this again to another girl
00:29:09we trust it because he said so why would we not brothers and sisters he said so so it must be true
00:29:15well that that reasoning it goes beyond circular reasoning it goes it actually actually edges in
00:29:21towards insanity and yeah that's why a lot of the like i said a lot of the countries are now starting
00:29:26to say that the cult mindset is a form of mental health disorder yeah and i think i think it certainly
00:29:33it exploits that sort of um need that people have for the repetition of of just i have this particular
00:29:44belief someone's going to repeat that belief to me despite the evidence of it clearly being not true
00:29:51so i want to believe in mike pickle i have formed my life around believing that he is a good guy i've
00:29:59seen people do this with my dad too of because my dad prophesied to all these different individuals
00:30:05and they form their life around like it becomes a cornerstone thing for them where i moved to
00:30:12indianapolis because bob hartley gave me a dream about this and it was really hard for my family
00:30:18and my children suffer because we had to take them out of school and whatnot but it was good because god
00:30:25had ordained it and then oh no bob hartley's son is suddenly speaking out and telling me that he did all
00:30:32of these things that were abusive manipulative and that a lot of these prophecies weren't genuine and
00:30:40they were fabricated if not all of the prophecies were fabricated and i do think that this is sort
00:30:47of a mental health thing at times um and i i more on like a spectrum of mental health because there's
00:30:54two different things there's a fracturing of your psyche that can go on there where you say
00:30:59i made this huge decision based off of what is now being told to me was was direct deception
00:31:07it wasn't actually the voice of god you can rationalize it and you can take it you can sort
00:31:14of be like okay well i can remove myself from this say god's still doing good things with me
00:31:21and my family even though this was correct like you can come to terms with it in whatever way that
00:31:26you can want to come to terms with it or you can blame the messenger you can say jed is inspired by
00:31:34and uh that bob hartley was telling the truth and if there's leaders in your community who are
00:31:45reaffirming that and saying that you can get this you can avoid mental fracturing you can avoid that
00:31:52discomfort of being like oh i was deceived or oh i believe something wrong or oh i have to adjust
00:31:58this cornerstone belief that i have built all of these other beliefs on instead of having to do
00:32:04any of that i can just listen to these leaders tell me that this is not true despite all of this
00:32:14contrary evidence and like i'm not even going to listen to jed or any of this because um i just want
00:32:22to believe that god is who i thought god was and that bob hartley is who i thought bob hartley was and
00:32:30mike bickle is who i thought mike bickle was and if i have to question any of that i have to question
00:32:36who i am so therefore i don't question any of it and i stay locked in to the world that i've sort of
00:32:45collectively built with some of these cult leaders um and which is why like i think that it's an
00:32:51incredible amount of bravery for people like deborah and tammy and my mom and even alan and um
00:33:00michael sullivan and all some of these people who really were their careers more than just their
00:33:06you know personal beliefs their careers were built into this sort of cult world and they had to look at
00:33:15it and say okay we've reached the breaking point we have to say no this isn't that what happened to
00:33:22me was wrong or what happened to these women in my community was wrong and i i think that it takes a
00:33:28lot of courage there there's a lot of questions of like oh maybe you should have realized that sooner
00:33:33but you know hindsight is 20 20 and and when it breaks breaks um and so i think that that's
00:33:39you know very commendable of the individuals who have the sort of courage to do it have you ever
00:33:47wondered how the pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern pentecostalism
00:33:52transitioned through the latter reign charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic
00:33:58reformation you can learn this and more on william branham historical research's website
00:34:04william-branham.org on the books page of the website you can find the compiled research of
00:34:11john collins charles paisley stephen montgomery john mckinnon and others with links to the paper
00:34:17audio and digital versions of each book you can also find resources and documentation on various
00:34:24people and topics related to those movements if you want to contribute to the cause you can support
00:34:30the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top and as always be sure to like and subscribe
00:34:36to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching on behalf of william branham historical
00:34:42research we want to thank you for your support it's so heartbreaking to see that people can have
00:34:51a whole church service built around tearing down deborah and tammy and my mom and julie myers and
00:35:02alan hood and other individuals who have sort of spoken out against mike like that's it's just so
00:35:08irreverent that was that was the word that i was looking for where you use the sort of
00:35:13church platform and you use the voice of god to do heinous things it's the same as like
00:35:21using the voice of god or the using prophecy to sexually exploit um vulnerable individuals there's
00:35:29a certain um not just abuse but irreverence with it because you are so disrespecting that which ought
00:35:37to be holy and i think it's very similar to when you use your platform and you get together in a group
00:35:44of people in this sort of church way to from the pulpit or from your platform as small as it may be
00:35:52um to speak against victims of abuse who have like spoken up um there is there's a huge irreverence
00:36:03towards that and frankly zero fear of god and in genuine you know like in in actuality because
00:36:11you know you can't reality exists independent of whatever you say your beliefs are like whatever
00:36:20you believe about mike bickle it is the case what was happening and you're not going to be able to go
00:36:26to god and be like oh well mike is a good guy like that all of these tactics only work in cult
00:36:33communities that are not going to work if um if you have to actually deal with with reality um
00:36:42but one thing this is sort of disconnected but one thing that i was thinking about while you were
00:36:49talking um that was kind of germane to some of the things that you're saying is
00:36:55we're taught to not question god right that's the you don't ever question god you don't question the
00:37:04bible you trust the bible you trust god but the problem that we clearly have is that the portrayal
00:37:13and picture of god that is being represented to us by our leaders is not the same as god and in this
00:37:20manifest son of god sort of uh offshoot communities and the latter rain or new apostolic reformation
00:37:30where there there's sort of a oneness between the holy spirit and the prophets where they are speaking
00:37:38from the mouth of god um this this distinction becomes dissolved where i'm not questioning god i'm
00:37:48questioning you i'm questioning this person who says i heard from god x y and z and it's like well
00:37:54i don't think that that's true oh you're questioning god no i'm questioning you i'm questioning whether
00:38:01or not you were telling the truth whether you were inspired by god whether you are just using god
00:38:07to anoint your lips and anoint like you're using the seal of a deity to um anoint your message that
00:38:17is clearly fabricated and false and i think that the problem that we have one of the i think very
00:38:24huge problems that we have in western christianity and why we can have massive cults like the latter
00:38:32ray movement where it's not just sort of small insulated things but why cults so thrive in this
00:38:40pentecostal community is because unlike other religious communities that i have personally
00:38:49witnessed the pentecostal community has this already gray line between the voice of god and the voice of
00:39:00men and that is dissolving ever dissolving um and you see it all the time so if you're listening to
00:39:07um james crawford he does this all the time where he says um he one of the things that he was doing
00:39:14he called out julie myers who is really a great person i like it's hard because like i also know
00:39:20these people um and i grew up with these people the ones who are speaking out against mike and while
00:39:29they all have their flaws and issues um they're also just people that i know and care about and have
00:39:35seen um like i know julie myers son and i play chess with him almost every week you know and
00:39:42he this man who i've never heard of before james crawford is absolutely um ripping into julie myers
00:39:51and calling her a hypocrite and a betrayer um because she she was one of the ones who spoke up against
00:39:57mike and he defends himself you can see him even register that he's going really hot with it that
00:40:05he's being very like verbally abusive towards this woman and he's like now you might be thinking that
00:40:13i'm i'm being too intense and these words are too intense and he says i'm not saying this god is
00:40:20god spoke to me and told me that julie myers was a hypocrite and a betrayer uh he legitimately says
00:40:29this is not my words this is god's words and you see that sort of complete elimination of the separation
00:40:36between the person and the deity where he just becomes god in that moment and it's totally accepted
00:40:44on this video chat that someone is just being like oh this isn't my words is this is the lord
00:40:50speaking to you like how irreverent is that um talk about taking the name the uh the name of the lord
00:41:00in vain it's it's like you're actually using it for your own vanity and for your own vain purposes of
00:41:09this is i'm just saying god told me this instead of saying um this is my opinion or my belief this is
00:41:19this is the word of the lord and in these extreme instances we can kind of see it and we can be
00:41:27like oh man something's off but i do think that this is symptomatic of the world that i grew up in
00:41:32in general where people just would say this all the time i even myself i got into this this pattern of
00:41:39every time i felt like i would read my bible and i'd feel inspired instead of being saying it just like
00:41:47that like i read this passage and i felt inspired about this i'd be like oh god spoke to me yesterday
00:41:52god spoke to i i opened up my bible and i read in this passage and god spoke to me and it becomes
00:41:57very like casual and in some respects it isn't dangerous when isn't as dangerous when people like
00:42:06me say that because i'm not important like i'm not a i'm not a leader and figure so it's not a thus
00:42:13sayeth the lord i don't have a whole lot of like social control that overlaps with this but when
00:42:20someone who does have social control and nefarious purposes uses that sort of technique it becomes one
00:42:29of the most horrific things that i have ever seen in my life where it suddenly becomes the
00:42:34sexual the abusive the manipulative tactics and desires of the leader become deified through this
00:42:46process of eliminating the sort of veil between heaven and earth and it has become so normalized
00:42:55in even the greater pentecostal community that in these cult communities you can have someone
00:43:02say something like this and everyone just goes past it no one raises their hand and say hey i agree
00:43:09with you but maybe let's not say that god said that maybe this is our opinion no one no one's sort of
00:43:14even qualifying it because it is so everyone's jumped the shark it's so past the point of being able to
00:43:24criticize it and and if someone did speak up well now you're speaking up against god and now it's
00:43:30this now it's this you become the the eye of the sort of uh attack comes back over on you and no one
00:43:40wants that so this is a conversation much bigger than this podcast but it reminds me of um when i
00:43:48first came out of the cult and i had started a little blog or something some guy contacted me on the
00:43:54blog and sent me he wanted to send me his book and he wanted me to read in fact i think i've got it back
00:43:58there but he was set hard set on making the argument that this book of the bible was written by so and
00:44:05so and i'm like well what good does that do me i the the bible is you know the books say who they're
00:44:13written by don't they and i came to realize as i entered into the phase of studying christian
00:44:20apologetics and christian authorship and bible canonization the question is much more gray
00:44:27than we were taught in the cults um the example of this the easiest example the judaism and we in the
00:44:37cults believe that the entire old testament was written or the pentateuch was written by moses
00:44:43well if this is true then moses wrote about his own death how does that work right right that doesn't
00:44:49work right right but where it hit me the most was in the manifested sons of god framework that branham
00:44:56laid which was combined also with um dispensationalism he would say things he wanted to be the ultimate
00:45:04prophet so he would say things like god only sent one prophet for an age one single prophet and when i
00:45:11discovered i was reading the bible over and over i've mentioned this a few times well i started taking
00:45:17notes of different things and one of the things was i wanted to line it up with culture and history
00:45:22and i'm taking note of whenever the prophet is speaking about a specific king or kingdom or
00:45:28civilization i wanted to know what it is i'm taking notes and lo and behold as i'm reading through the
00:45:34prophets and they're saying in the days of king darius and then another prophet says in the days of
00:45:40king darius well i'm like well wait a minute those have to be in the same age because they're talking
00:45:45about the same king this guy lying to me but then you get to the book of isaiah and it's a little bit
00:45:51problematic because there are actually three different lifespans in the book of isaiah so modern
00:45:59scholars some of them not all some of them believe it was written in three different periods by three
00:46:04different people but it was called the book of isaiah fast forward to the years after christianity
00:46:11there were several numerous books that started to be claimed as bible canon or claimed by apostles etc
00:46:20and they there had to be this process to weed them out through what is called bible canonization
00:46:27if you're familiar with this history but what was happening is people wanted the readers to believe
00:46:35the authority of their words and so they would attribute it to an apostle that wasn't the writer
00:46:41and they'd say this is this is the book of peter this is the gospel of peter well peter didn't write
00:46:46the gospel of peter and you can find articles and this is a fascinating study i actually recommend
00:46:52people go down that path where i'm headed with this is is this the movement has taught people
00:46:59whenever you have an argument rather than be being prepared to defend your argument you throw it
00:47:06into the spiritual realm and you say god told me and pretty much if i have somebody who is making
00:47:12trying to make an argument to me and they say the lord spoke to me and said that's the point at which
00:47:18i ignore what they say after that because it is never ever true that it's just never true
00:47:24but people use that argument the other thing that they do which i noticed this in the um you know
00:47:31in the video you shared there they try to take whoever they're defending and they try to take
00:47:38specific bible verses and ignore a vast majority of the bible verses and usually they try to compare
00:47:46the figure being defended to a biblical figure in this case there was a statement he's kind of like
00:47:53king david and it's like king david and saul they're going through this argument trying to say that
00:47:59this predator is like king david and that doesn't work man king david was not a predator that is not
00:48:06how this works but what they try to do is they try to throw it into the comparison between the
00:48:14biblical figure because it throws the whole argument into the spiritual realm oh my gosh he's another
00:48:19king david i can't argue with king david yeah that's what they try to do right so you can't go down
00:48:25that pathway they whether they whether they want you to or not it just it doesn't work but what it
00:48:32does and it is effective this is the reason why they do it if you can make that argument it demonizes
00:48:40instantly every single critic yeah so every critic becomes a devil who's fighting against a battle
00:48:46against god and you know they'll use prophecy or these dreams claims as unquestionable proof
00:48:53anybody who does question that they're questioning god because that prophecy that vision this voice
00:48:59that i heard they're speaking against that voice not me i'm just the person who's relaying god's voice
00:49:04to you in doing so they're trying to say that they're a prophet and i cry foul this this isn't the case
00:49:11yeah and it becomes it becomes this really corrupt way in which even in defending these accusations
00:49:22they become more holy um this is this is um one of the i can't remember who it was but someone
00:49:30came into one of the videos and she was like i've been thinking about how this just more proves that
00:49:39mike bickle is being used by god because what prophet of god wasn't attacked in the bible and it's this
00:49:48idea that even their failures or not even failures is the wrong word even their um abusive behaviors are
00:49:59more testament of their um deity because uh because of course well like these attacks that are being
00:50:09brought against them become it all just reaffirms their belief i remember talking with someone very early
00:50:17on this where we kind of it was very early where um some a lot of the the false prophecies of mike
00:50:28bickle and my dad and and other kansas city prophets were being sort of publicly for the first time
00:50:35dismantled um because there really wasn't a space to do that um until after um the sort of fall of mike
00:50:42bickle where it was like okay let's look at all of these other clearly false prophecies that probably
00:50:48should have been addressed way long ago but now there's finally a way to do that um and there's
00:50:53space for that and i remember someone being like granting this is a mike bickle defender they were like
00:51:00granting the fact that one of the prophecies that we were talking about i i think it was the prophecy
00:51:04about um pat bickle mike bickle's brother who who um was supposed to walk again uh he was paraplegic he
00:51:13was going to walk again and revival was going to come to kansas city and it never happened and that
00:51:19was supposed to be in conjunction with the chiefs winning the super bowl and all that sort of stuff
00:51:23we've i've talked about this several times on previous episodes but when we were sort of going
00:51:28through and being like hey this is what they said here's this you don't have to take my word for it
00:51:32here's literally audio of them saying it here old transcripts this is this is what the prophecy was
00:51:39it clearly is not that anymore um this is the sort of manipulation that has happened during this time
00:51:46to go from a to b i remember someone being like well isn't the fact that they got one wrong
00:51:52more indication that god was actually using them and to use them when they got got it right and it was
00:52:02this really weird conversation because i was like what the hell are you talking about um and it made so
00:52:10much i could tell it made so much sense the person i was talking to um but i was like i don't even even
00:52:17in me representing it back i'm trying to do them justice and not be um disingenuous about how
00:52:24i represent you know i represent it back but it was like the fact that they failed
00:52:28was more testimony that they were right in other instances and i was like
00:52:35no no that's not how that works that's not no no failure is indication of failure that's that's
00:52:45what that is about and and manipulation and the fact that i mean it would be one thing if they had
00:52:51gotten it wrong and then made a big deal of it themselves and we're like oh this is the one i mean
00:52:56maybe then you could say hey okay this is the one where we got it wrong and this is why we got it
00:53:03wrong and this is why we're going to um change our process so that we don't get in the wrong in the
00:53:12future i i understand how that could be this sort of like ownership process in which you could have
00:53:19more trust because it's like oh they got it wrong but then there's this system around to make sure that
00:53:26when they get it wrong that it's filtered out and people take accountability for it and all these
00:53:33different things but there was no accountability there was none of that process so they got it
00:53:39wrong and then they hit it and now it's coming to light and it's only coming to light because people
00:53:44are criticizing them and mike bickle is not saying that he got any of this wrong mike bickle is not being
00:53:52like oh i this is a good point mike bickle is still digging in his heels and saying there are demonic
00:53:59attacks against me and against the prophetic movement and against the the end times prayer movement
00:54:05so talking with that person i was just like i can kind of see how you twist your logic to be like
00:54:13oh this is actually a good thing but it is it was one of those extreme instances where i'm like
00:54:20i don't know what to do at this point like this is just slapping you in the face with the truth here
00:54:27and you're going ah yes so therefore he is a good guy i remember i remember when i was uh i was probably
00:54:35like six or seven years old and i had been um told all my life at six or seven like most kids or a lot
00:54:47of kids that santa claus was real and i loved santa claus like i loved the lore of santa claus
00:54:54i remember my parents sat me down when i was probably like seven um and they had a book for me
00:55:01where it talks about saint nicholas and it and it basically the whole book is about the myth of santa
00:55:09claus and how it was created and why it was created and everything and i'm sitting there and i'm listening
00:55:14to it and i don't remember like tuning out i remember like listening to it this is one of
00:55:19my earlier very salient memories but i remember just listening to the whole book and and having fun
00:55:30thinking that this was just a good christmas you know story and at the very end i remember
00:55:35my older sister was like so santa claus is not real and i remember no that i remember saying no this
00:55:43book proofs that he is real this this whole book that was given to me to literally tell me santa
00:55:49claus is not real it's all fiction i like read through the entire thing and at the end of it i
00:55:54like believed in santa claus more than when we began the book and i remember that moment of just being
00:56:01like genuinely confused i remember seeing both my sister and my mom my sister who's just like a year
00:56:07and a half older than me but was smarter than me and and always enjoyed being smarter than me uh and
00:56:13her just being like fed up with my uh dumbness in that and my mom being like genuinely concerned of
00:56:21like we just led you through why this is not the case and so i had to reread the book and then i was
00:56:26like oh and it took me a little while but i remember that being this sort of experience of
00:56:32being like you are telling me everything logically to restructuring and tell me that this belief that
00:56:41i have is not true and just the conversation around it somehow becomes in my own head more
00:56:51reaffirming of the actual belief and i think that we've been seeing some of those experiences
00:56:58except i was a six-year-old these are grown-ass people who are being confronted with very intense
00:57:05moral truths that's not just like fun santa claus stuff this is you know consequential stuff that
00:57:12deals with um people's abuse and it's just nothing you can say to certain individuals will convince
00:57:23them otherwise um and it's both i both have sympathy for the people who are being taken for a ride and
00:57:32have maybe some mental health or or find this sense of mental stability in believing things that are
00:57:41clearly not true to sort of reaffirm their position um so i do i do as always have like empathy and
00:57:49sympathy for the people who are being deceived in this community um at the same time the corruption of
00:57:56those who are speaking out to reaffirm these and trying to deceive people is just it's just genuinely like
00:58:05horrific and um i i wish that there was more accountability for these sort of defenders of mike
00:58:15bickle um i mean fortunately they're i don't think that they're going to have very big platforms i
00:58:22don't think their platform is going to get any bigger i think that they're just kind of screaming
00:58:26into the void um here and fortunately i think that some of these cults are communities are being
00:58:34dismantled because um at this point the lie is just too big and it can't you can't prop it up
00:58:41unless you're within a very small isolated community you just can't prop this up anymore
00:58:46um but it is it is just definitely like discouraging and bleak that there are still
00:58:53expressed efforts to prop up the trust of mike bickle there's a statement made which is it's
00:59:02weird reading through this it's just like the sermons that i grew up with where they're defending
00:59:07some guy that's indefensible right they're making some statement to the effect that this is like
00:59:12the compared to noah's ark yeah and anybody who's criticizing they're outside the ark my brothers and
00:59:18sisters we're in the ark and in a weird twisted disgusting sort of way your example of santa claus
00:59:25it would be like if santa claus is jeff jeffrey epstein right arc is the epstein island that's
00:59:31really what this is yeah but when you're in that cult mindset you can't see it like that
00:59:36you're truly seeing this is noah's ark and everybody who's outside of the cult they're
00:59:40either with us or against us i don't care if this is jeffrey epstein that i'm going to you know yeah
00:59:46but anyway i could go on a rant for that and i will save that one for maybe i'm with you maybe i
00:59:53won't go there yeah but anyway thanks for doing this my pleasure well if you've enjoyed our show and
00:59:59you want more information you can check us out on the web you can find us at william-branham.org
01:00:04for more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation you can read weaponized religion
01:00:08from christian identity to the nar available on amazon kindle and audible
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