The Pentecostal Puzzle: Race, Doctrine, and Revivalism | Our Stories | Episode 476 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John and Caleb explore the complex story of Pentecostalism—its roots, its divisions, and its evolution from the Azusa Street revival to today’s movements. Caleb shares his experiences growing up in the United Pentecostal Church and contrasts moderate and extremist versions of holiness culture. John connects the dots between early Branhamism, Roy Davis, and Pentecostal sect formation, while exposing historical cover-ups like the Prescott tragedy. Together, they discuss race in early Pentecostalism, the Assemblies of God’s segregation, the impact of figures like Jim Jones and Gordon Lindsay, and how prophetic showmanship corrupted genuine faith. They also debate whether true healings occurred in Branham’s campaigns and how faith, culture, and control have shaped modern Pentecostal identity.        00:00 Introduction 02:05 Caleb’s Background and UPCI Upbringing 07:51 Holiness Culture Differences Across Regions 10:04 Early Pentecostal History and Branham’s Origins 17:28 The Prescott, Arizona Abuse Community 24:00 Race, Segregation, and Early Pentecostal Splits 31:40 Jim Jones, Indianapolis, and Branham Connections 38:58 Latter Rain, Voice of Healing, and Movement Fragmentation 43:16 Modern NAR, Prophetic Culture, and UPCI Contrasts 46:49 Shifts in Caleb’s Beliefs (Torah, Messianic, Liturgy) 55:10 Discernment, Journey, and Spiritual Maturity 59:08 Were Miracles Real? Healing, Suggestion, and Deception 1:04:00 Prophecies of Branham’s Death and Historical Conflicts 1:11:32 Closing ______________________ 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

Transcript

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

00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Caleb Sopdelene.

00:00:47Caleb, it's good to have you on, and I am a little bit excited for this because I'm one

00:00:52of the few people left in the world who enjoys conversations where people can have differences

00:00:58of opinion and still come together to agreement, and I don't even know, you know, how many

00:01:03we have in difference, but you are a person who is going to explain something that I've

00:01:08tried to convey, so in this we're probably in alignment.

00:01:13My family grew up traveling and moving from coast to coast, and I went to this wide array

00:01:20of different churches that was within the Branham religion, obviously, but each church

00:01:25was somewhat different, and you would find some that actually, looking back, I don't

00:01:30have many bad things to say about the churches, and then you go to other ones, and they were

00:01:35so far into heresy that you look back and you think, what was that?

00:01:39That wasn't even Christianity.

00:01:41And I had some conversations with you in email and some before this podcast, but I'm interested

00:01:47to hear your take on the Pentecostal faith, and you as a person who's interested in history

00:01:55and me as a person who's interested in history, hopefully we can have some conversation that

00:01:59I think people might enjoy.

00:02:01Sounds good to me.

00:02:02So maybe you could start by just telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

00:02:06I was a history major in college.

00:02:08I have a bachelor's degree in history, and along with that, I developed a love for church

00:02:15history, and I was raised in the United Pentecostal Church in rural eastern Ohio, about 60 miles

00:02:22west of Pittsburgh, and I found some of the earlier discussions you've had on various podcasts

00:02:30about the UPCI kind of interesting, and so that's why I reached out to you because my experience

00:02:38is apparently a little bit different than Andy De La Rosa's, but to each his own.

00:02:44We each have our own experiences, right?

00:02:48You know, I told you I was raised in the UPC church, and I would say when I was a child,

00:02:55let's say 10 and under, I would consider it fairly conservative in regard to some of the

00:03:02holiness standards that Mr. De La Rosa talked about, but when I was a teenager, I would say

00:03:07it moderated somewhat, and I don't really know the reasons for that, but I want to make

00:03:14a confession here that my freshman year of college, I went to the University of Nevada,

00:03:19Reno, and I heard that call that said, go west, young man, and I went out there, and I attended

00:03:27a UPC church in Sparks, Nevada, and like I said, to each his own, but I suffered from culture shock

00:03:35because, in hindsight, I was going from a moderate UPC church to what I would consider

00:03:42ultra-conservative or far-right, similar to the categorizations you could have for their

00:03:48modern-day Republican Party, and they believed in things that I had never even heard of before.

00:03:53That's why I suffered from culture shock. Now, I said, to each his own. I mean, you can have your

00:03:58own belief on some of these holiness standards and such, but I'll give you some examples, John.

00:04:05They didn't believe in Christmas trees. They believed if you went on a date, you had to have

00:04:10a chaperone. They believed that if you were a man, you couldn't wear short-sleeved shirts in public.

00:04:16Um, that's, of course, they didn't believe in TVs either, but, um, I don't ever remember any,

00:04:26uh, UPC church I've ever attended, and I've lived in 13 different states in my life, and I've traveled

00:04:33and visited 44 states. Um, I don't remember any UPC church ever preaching that you're going to hell

00:04:42because you have a TV. Now, as I explained to you before, in my understanding, these holiness

00:04:47standards are meant to separate you from the world or separate you from being close to the proverbial

00:04:53fence so that you don't fall on the other side of the fence and sin as, as it were. Um, but yeah,

00:05:00I suffer from culture shock, and, uh, you know, um, so that, that was just my, my best example right

00:05:09there, but in all the churches I've, I've attended regularly, uh, and or visited over the years,

00:05:16I would say the lion's share of them are pretty much moderate to conservative, um, that without one

00:05:24in Nevada being on the far right. Um, you know, and my personal observation today is that most of the

00:05:33churches, the UPC or apostolic Pentecostal churches that I've attended, they, they don't harp a lot on

00:05:41these holiness standards. I think most of their focus is on winning souls and living a holy, a holy

00:05:49life and walking with the Messiah. But, um, I think where, where you come to meet the holiness

00:05:55standards more often is in the quote unquote platform industries. In other words, if you want

00:06:01to be used on the platform, they have certain standards you have to uphold. You know, it's kind

00:06:05of funny because growing up, I had friends who were also outside of the Branham cult and they were

00:06:11Pentecostals. There was this weird relationship that happens. I don't know if you've experienced this

00:06:16or not, but when you're in a holiness type religion, especially during the years when the

00:06:22Pentecostals did have the holiness dress code, when you'd see other people who were sharing that

00:06:29same dress code, you had this instant bond with them. And I remember this family that was, they

00:06:35lived down the street from one of the families that I used to go stay with. And, um, that family,

00:06:41because the girls were wearing long dresses, the women wearing long dresses, there's this instant

00:06:46bond. And I became close to them. What's interesting is I hear you say that there was a point of time

00:06:52whenever you were a teenager, it began to shift. Well, I remember that same shift in them. And we

00:06:58thought in the Branham cult, it was very much holiness or hell. So we saw the shift and we're

00:07:04like, well, these people might be doomed, man. And, um, it's, it's, you know, it's something that does

00:07:10differ from church to church. The television thing, that's, that's another thing. I have been in services

00:07:17where the minister from behind what, what you rightfully called a platform ministry would just

00:07:23preach and yell at the, at the television saying, that's a hell box. That's a, that's how the devil

00:07:29enters into your house. And then I've been into other churches where, well, even some of the ministers

00:07:34had them, but they would preach that it's not so much that it is Satan's window to the, to your house,

00:07:43like some of them taught, but it's more of what you watch on it. And then there was this wide variety

00:07:49in between. Some, some of the churches would actually go so far as to say, yeah, it's not going

00:07:54to send you to hell. But if you're watching it, Satan has invaded Hollywood and therefore he has access

00:08:00to your soul. So you had this wide variety of different viewpoints and I'm talking about the

00:08:06Branham cult religion. So I can assume that it is the same in Pentecostalism.

00:08:12I would tend to agree with you on that. Um, I'm sure there's probably even still some UPC churches

00:08:16today. Uh, my personal thought is they're, they're mainly anchored in the South and, and, and the wet,

00:08:23the, the Western district. Nevada was in the Western district with California. Um,

00:08:29when I attended that church in Nevada, but, uh, yeah, I, I believe it's a lot of it has to do with

00:08:36the pastor. Some of it's regional. Um, I recently moved to North Carolina and I've seen a lot of the

00:08:44women here do wear those really, really long dresses, you know, down to their ankles. But I've

00:08:49been a lot of churches in a lot of other States that the women will wear a skirt or dress down to,

00:08:56down to their knee or just below their knee, something like that. That's what I was raised

00:09:00with. You know, women wearing dresses down to somewhere around their knee. Um, but, uh,

00:09:09you know, I don't, there's probably some UPC folks that would say, um, they would consider it a

00:09:16salvation issue, but I, I've never really in the churches that I've attended, I don't really think

00:09:22I've ever heard that explicitly stated. Um, some people might believe that, but, um, you know, I had

00:09:30some other, other comments and thoughts about some of the stuff that you had on your podcast that I

00:09:37wanted to dig into a little bit later, but, uh, and anyway, let's see where your train of thought

00:09:43goes. Well, my train of thought is usually in the history. And since we share this, it's something

00:09:50that I'm probably going to tap into a bit. I am fascinated by the history of Pentecostalism

00:09:55as much as I talk about some of the negative aspects of it. There were good things too, but it

00:10:02is the, you know, the scoundrels that were in the mix that you just have to take a step back. And

00:10:08what, what was this mess and why? One of the things that I've been trying to dig into, and

00:10:14probably, I'm, I'm assuming that you don't have this information, but when William Branham

00:10:19began his ministry, it was a restart of a past ministry. In other words, if you go to

00:10:26the Branham cult headquarters and you start looking through the sermon transcripts, the

00:10:31very first one that you have access to here, he's actually in the very first sentence saying

00:10:36that he had other recordings and we don't have access to them. So I began digging into this

00:10:42and I learned that he and his mentor, who was Roy Davis, the leader of the Klan. If you've

00:10:49watched any of my podcasts, you probably heard that name. They were trying to establish a new

00:10:55Pentecostal sect during the time of the formation of what eventually would develop into the UPCI.

00:11:02So they're trying to build this group. They were trying to do it here in Jeffersonville, Indiana,

00:11:07there were satellite, satellite churches. So this was a network of churches. Davis was kicked

00:11:13out of the Baptist church for bigamy and child abandonment. He was kicked out of the Church

00:11:19of God and several other different things for a wide variety of criminal acts. So he named

00:11:26his sect the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God. He was kicked out of all of those and I'm just

00:11:32going to target all of these groups. Where it gets interesting is as they're trying to

00:11:37embed themselves in Pentecostalism, they make some very important connections. One of Branham's

00:11:43early campaign managers was the head, one of the heads of the PCI and the PCI connected him

00:11:51out west to, what's the guy's name? Harry Morse, I think. And Morse basically in his church,

00:12:00this group of men gathered around Branham and they prophesied that Branham was going

00:12:05to carry – they didn't use the word mantle, but essentially they were saying in this prophecy

00:12:10Branham is going to carry the mantle of Smith Wigglesworth.

00:12:14So when you consider all of these different groups of Pentecostalism, some of them led by

00:12:20good guys who I have no doubt were good Christian men trying to do the right thing, some of them

00:12:25led by complete scoundrels. When you look at this mess, how do you piece all of this together?

00:12:31And what's your opinion on how, when Pentecostalism began to form, what's your opinion on how all of

00:12:38these different groups and their varieties of different belief sets, how did that come together

00:12:44in a healthy way?

00:12:45Harry Morse, Well, obviously I wasn't around in the early 20th century when you had

00:12:50Topeka outpouring and Azusa Street outpouring. But as a student of history, I've learned that

00:12:59it seems that – and somebody can come along and correct me later, or you can – but it seems

00:13:04that they kind of segregated to a certain extent at the very beginning. You had the Apostolic Assembly

00:13:10of the Faith in Christ Jesus, which is largely Hispanic,

00:13:13oneness Pentecostal group, which I associated with heavily for 10 years when I lived in Arizona.

00:13:21They talked about their strong roots coming out of Azusa Street. And I know that the Pentecostal

00:13:28Assemblies of the world today tends to be primarily black Pentecostal. And I know that

00:13:36the previous guest you had on your website, was it Bernie Wade, he had talked about some of the

00:13:47white segregationists, if you will, and he accused the UPC of being part of that. I obviously wasn't

00:13:56around then. But what I can say today is that it's my experience that the UPC is – UPCI is very

00:14:03integrated. A lot of the cities will have multi-ethnicities, whether it be Asian, Hispanic,

00:14:11black, white, just whatever. I'm not sure if that – I know the Apostolic Assembly is still

00:14:18primarily Hispanic, although some of their services are in English, some of them are in Spanish,

00:14:23some of them are bilingual. I've only – I've experienced the Apostolic Assembly. Like I said,

00:14:30I attended their churches for 10 years in Arizona. But as far as the P.A.W., from what I've heard,

00:14:36it's primarily black organization. Although I did meet a P.A.W. guy from Wyoming who apparently

00:14:45the whole church was white. But again, we're talking about Wyoming. So I tend to think that

00:14:55that it's matured as it's gone, as the movement has gone along. I'd like to think that it has.

00:15:05I did, as a curiosity, I bumped into – you mentioned the long dresses and such. I remember when I was in

00:15:13Arizona, I met a lady who was dressed very conservatively. I don't remember what I was doing.

00:15:19I've been a newspaper reporter for 25 years or so. But I bumped into this lady in Prescott Valley,

00:15:26Arizona. And she was dressed very conservatively. And I only have maybe three examples in my life

00:15:33that I know of where the person was literally glowing, as I would describe it with the Holy Spirit.

00:15:39And this lady was glowing. And I just started talking to her. And I found out she was – I know they don't

00:15:47like to use this term, but she was a Branhamite. And I talked to her about that. I think I'd heard

00:15:53a little bit about William Branham at that time, not a lot. And because I was born in 1970,

00:15:59I'm probably about the same age as you. But she told me they'd listen to William Branham's

00:16:05recordings and their services. And then years later, I was in Elkton, Virginia. And I attended off and

00:16:13on for about a year or so, a full gospel lighthouse tabernacle. And they have some certified preachers

00:16:21in their congregation. They don't listen to Branham's tapes. And I'm not someone who's going

00:16:28to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. I don't necessarily – I'm not going to say

00:16:33that all these Branhamites are going to hell. I don't necessarily believe that. I believe some of

00:16:38them have a true relationship with Jesus Christ, the righteous, you know. It's not exactly – it's not

00:16:45dependent, in my opinion, upon what you believe necessarily, because throughout history of the

00:16:51Christianity, no matter – depending, let's just say, depending on what nation or what time you were

00:16:57born into, you're probably going to have a little bit different beliefs about God and about Christ.

00:17:03But to me, the most important thing is your personal walk, your personal relationship with

00:17:08Messiah. So I can't throw them all – I can't throw them all out like the baby with the bathwater,

00:17:14but I do find it extremely interesting some of these historical connections that I'm learning

00:17:19about by watching some of your podcasts. I've watched six or seven of them so far.

00:17:23Yeah, the history is just – it's unbelievable. And so you mentioned Prescott. My ears perked up.

00:17:31It has to because I've got to mention this. I'm certain that you haven't come across this research

00:17:36yet, or likely – the conversation might have taken a different shift. But in Prescott,

00:17:42it was one of the most horrific scenes of Branhamism that existed. It is the one that the cult has covered

00:17:52up for decades. My grandfather was part of the cover-up. He knew that this was going on. But they

00:17:57were torturing and molesting children in Prescott in the message community. It was the only message

00:18:04community there in Prescott, Arizona. It actually turned into a Supreme Court trial in California,

00:18:11because one of the victims, they were – it's a long story as to how this happened and what they did

00:18:19to his head. But one of the victims went on a killing spree. And all of this came out. They were

00:18:25torturing, abusing – it's a horrific story. Things that are so bad that I actually can't say them on

00:18:31YouTube or this video can't go out. It's that bad. So when you say the glowing with the Holy Spirit,

00:18:38here's what comes to mind for me. The people – and I hate to use the term shiny, happy people because

00:18:46of the different videos and the show and whatnot – but the people themselves are good people. And once

00:18:54you're in that system and you're taught to control your emotions and have a full dedication on Jesus and

00:19:04the Bible, you build yourself up into this hype that you believe everything is good and fine and okay.

00:19:11The lady, I'm certain, knew that these things were happening because they used to bring all of the

00:19:17members of the community into a room where they were doing public punishments. And the men would take

00:19:24boards and beat the children until their arms tired, and then they would pass the board to the next

00:19:30children, beat – and it would just go around the group of men torturing the children. So this would

00:19:35have been a lady who saw the torture. This was in Prescott, Arizona. But the point I'm trying to make

00:19:40is the people themselves are good people. They're trapped in bad systems. And the leaders are not

00:19:46always good leaders. I've been to Branhamite churches that I can say truly they wanted to serve Jesus the

00:19:53best that they knew. They might have been off in their doctrines, but they truly believed Jesus. They were just

00:19:59confused as to who Jesus was. But then you go out to Prescott, this person glowing, that is,

00:20:06for me, it's a train wreck. There's a book that you can read called The Serpent's Tale,

00:20:11and one of the escapees was – one of the escapees was basically brave enough to start telling her story,

00:20:19but it was so harsh of a tale that she had to do it in a poetic style. So when you read it,

00:20:25it's more of a poetic style book. All of the others that I'm familiar with, they had to go

00:20:31through counseling. Many of them are really messed up because this torturous place really ruined

00:20:37the lives of several people. So the glowing of the Holy Spirit, I question, was it the Holy Spirit?

00:20:43Maybe. The members, I can say, there are really good members who are trapped in a bad system. And I think,

00:20:51if I remember the words that Andrew De La Rosa was trying to convey, it was kind of the same thing.

00:20:58He did not see the people as the problem. It was some of the leadership that ended up to be the

00:21:03problem. Well, building off of that, I would say that this is just me personally. This is just my

00:21:10opinion. It's not the gospel or anything. I have my own personal convictions, my own personal standards,

00:21:17if you want to call them all in the standards or whatever. I get that. I don't necessarily agree with

00:21:22the pastor imposing his own personal standards on the congregation. Maybe that's what Mr. De La Rosa

00:21:30was talking about. To me, it just has to be crystal clear in scripture. There's there's scriptures about

00:21:42modesty. There's scriptures that Paul talks about having long hair. There's even a scripture from

00:21:47the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, where it talks about during a cleansing ceremony,

00:21:54where the priest would unbind the woman's hair, which implies that it was long. And women having

00:22:01long hair, I do believe, is a tenant because of separation of the sexes. And they're trying to blur the

00:22:09sexes right now, which I don't really think is of God. But let me make a clarification, though.

00:22:15I probably interacted with this lady around the year, somewhere between 2000 and 2005.

00:22:22Okay, so in reading, or not reading, but looking at your podcast and doing a little bit of reading

00:22:29after that, I did learn about the park. And that was around, correct me if I'm wrong, please 1965 or so.

00:22:37And it went on for, I don't know how long, maybe you could tell me how many years it went on for

00:22:43before the you know what hit the fan and closed it down. I don't know if she was around at that

00:22:48point. Now, I'm not saying she didn't know, you know, what, 35, 40 years later about it. She

00:22:55probably knew some about it because she was Prescott Valley and Prescott aren't that far away from

00:22:59each other, right? Yeah, I would agree. I think if I remember right, it was the 80s or so. Which,

00:23:06interesting, in the 80s, there was another shift in Pentecostalism too, which I'll go there in a

00:23:11minute. But you're right, I don't know if she would have known about it or not. I will say that

00:23:16when the park imploded, and the people started going out, they went into other churches, and some of them

00:23:22started telling their story, not very openly, and not to the extent that has been published and

00:23:28identified now. But there are many people who are starting to come to realize. So if she's in that

00:23:34area, there's, without question, she knew that this something had happened, maybe not to the extent.

00:23:41But I agree that, you know, you can't judge a group by the leadership, the leadership can be flawed.

00:23:47And that's part of the reason why I do what I do, because some of this movement has turned into hero

00:23:53worship. And the ministers themselves become heroes that are untouchable. And some of the things that,

00:23:59like this, some of the things that they do are just horrific. You mentioned Bernie Wade.

00:24:05Here's the funny part. So Bernie Wade, I had him on much like I had you on, because I was digging deep

00:24:12into the history. And I wanted somebody to counterbalance that somebody that viewed the history

00:24:17favorably. Honestly, I didn't know where he would take it. I knew some of his thoughts on the racism,

00:24:26because we've had conversations. But I did not know to the extent he was going to talk about it.

00:24:32And here's the funny part that I've not mentioned this yet. I don't even know if I've mentioned this to

00:24:37him. After the podcast with him, I was shell shocked, because I did not know so much of that

00:24:43racist history existed. And here, the funnier part is, I didn't believe him. So after we had the

00:24:51conversation, I started digging into the history. And I'm looking back at the names he mentioned,

00:24:56Howard Goss, you know, different big names that I had come across in my research. And I never made that

00:25:03link until it wasn't until I want to say, you know, recently, I can't remember when I came across

00:25:12the history of the AOG and started to understand why and how all of this was conceived. And you're

00:25:19right, in the southern states, it was very, you know, very segregated in the northern states,

00:25:24not always segregated. You had Indianapolis, you had definitely a, a black leader of the

00:25:32Pentecostal movement there in Indianapolis, you had this wide variety of people. But they,

00:25:37the leadership started fighting with each other over the racism and separated the Assemblies of

00:25:43God. When it formed, it was mostly a white organization. The thing that tipped me off and

00:25:48made me start to believe him and digging deeper was I came across, what year was that? I think it was

00:25:551989 or so, was the first time that the AOG denounced the racism in their history. Before

00:26:03that, they had tried to somewhat either deny it or just avoid it. And it was the article that I read

00:26:09that talked about through that history and the separation that I began to realize,

00:26:13Bernie was right. I should have believed him. It actually supported what I was digging into. Like,

00:26:20the things he said, they actually backed some of what I said. So I should have just agreed with him.

00:26:26But the questioning mind that I have, I wanted to prove it before I believed it.

00:26:30So I started digging into it. And oh, my gosh, I don't, I don't deny some of the things that you,

00:26:36that you've learned, Mr. Paisley and yourself that you've learned over the years by digging into

00:26:41historical documents. I've done some of that myself as a, as a history major and a newspaper

00:26:47reporter. You know, you can go to newspapers.com and you could find out some old, some old

00:26:53advertisements for some of the Branham meetings. And I, I saw one, I found one somewhere in Indianapolis.

00:27:03I, I, I, some, somehow I found it after one of your podcasts about the link to Jim Jones. And

00:27:11I told you that the, well, I think I told you that the church I grew up in was integrated.

00:27:19I would say 10% of our congregation was black. This is rural Eastern Ohio. This is foothills of

00:27:25the Appalachian mountains. And we had a, you know, white pastor and white, white ministers pretty much,

00:27:33but we had a sister who would come and minister on several occasions. I remembered this as a boy,

00:27:41her name was Sister Willie Johnson, and she was a black lady. And I found this, she wore a red cape.

00:27:47I think she played the piano, sang and preached or did a combination, but I saw an ad, I guess it was

00:27:54put out by Jim Jones when he first, kind of like when he first started out in Indianapolis, like 1955.

00:28:00And he, he noted that, or the church noted that William Branham was going to speak and Sister Willie

00:28:07Johnson was going to speak. And we've had good results from her attendance previously. So

00:28:13apparently there was a little connection there, right? So I can see even back in 1955, they had

00:28:20invited a black lady of all people into their midst. I understand this was a, probably a Jim Jones

00:28:27church situation. But, um, uh, I kind of found, I kind of found that interesting when I found,

00:28:33I saw that, saw her name on that, that old newspaper ad. Have you ever wondered how the

00:28:39Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the

00:28:45latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

00:28:51You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,

00:28:55William-Branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of

00:29:02John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,

00:29:09audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various

00:29:16people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can

00:29:22support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like

00:29:27and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William

00:29:33Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You mentioned Willie Johnson and my

00:29:40mind started to just turn, where have I heard that name? Where have I heard that name? And then you

00:29:45said the Jim Jones ad. So here's the other part of that story that not many people realize. There's a

00:29:51large number of people that don't realize that Jim Jones was very big into supporting the poor and needy

00:29:59and the black communities in Indianapolis. He actually got quite famous for that. In fact, before he

00:30:06grew to the big fame that he did within Indianapolis, he was recognized even publicly for his work with

00:30:12the poor communities. In working with them and in working, he had several black people attending his

00:30:19churches. He made connections and apparently one of the connections must have been with the newspaper

00:30:25because the article you're referring to was a mostly black, lead, printed, edited, and read newspaper.

00:30:34It was the black newspaper for Indianapolis. So the funny part of all of this is I'm looking at,

00:30:40here is a black newspaper. Here's Jim Jones advertising William Branham. Jones is, he cannot

00:30:47be aware that Branham is mentored by working with all of the things tied to the second in command of

00:30:56the Ku Klux Klan. There's no way Jones could have known this. And here he is advertising it to the black

00:31:01community. And the irony in that is just unbelievable. Now here's, here's the other

00:31:07part that's a little bit, I don't know how to, I don't even know how to frame this. In my grandfather's

00:31:13church, which was the Branham Tabernacle, there were black families. It was a integrated church.

00:31:19My grandfather would often call to have the closing prayer by a elderly black man who is up front,

00:31:28which if you're in the Pentecostal circles or the Branham circles, you realize what a honor that is

00:31:34to have the closing prayer. That's a big deal. So on the outside looking in, you would not consider

00:31:39this to have its racist past. You would even not consider the family to be racist. And although I'm,

00:31:47I have to say this carefully because I do respect my grandfather and my grandmother,

00:31:52but the racism was so thick, my grandmother would vomit in her mouth if in a restaurant,

00:31:59the waitress was black. And I hate saying that because I feel, I feel evil and guilty, but that's

00:32:05how it was. Yet they're in this atmosphere where they're openly, you know, giving the presence that

00:32:13it's not racist. And I have other family members. They won't rent to a black person. They have rental

00:32:18houses, will not rent to a black person for the life of them. So the racism is widespread. The

00:32:25public view of the racism doesn't exist. So if I go back and look at Jim Jones and I also go through

00:32:32the recordings of Branham, it would have had the appearance that he was an integrated person,

00:32:38definitely not working with the Klan. At that point in time, he had not even introduced the

00:32:43Christian identity serpent seed doctrine. I think that was, if I remember right, it was 1957.

00:32:50He finally publicly admitted that he believed the racist doctrine. So Jones would have had no idea

00:32:56that this existed. And look at the devastation that was caused by Jones and look at the deception

00:33:03that was there to begin with. I can't say I know a whole lot about Jim Jones. Um, I was just a boy

00:33:10in 1976. I was six years old when I think that's when Jonestown occurred. And I, I vaguely, vaguely

00:33:16remember that, like my older sister talking about it. She was in high school at that time. And

00:33:21a matter of fact, um, I remember, uh, Mr. De La Rosa talked about, uh, not having televisions.

00:33:29Uh, I think it was 19, must've been around 76 when, uh, 76 or 77. Cause I think my sister graduated in

00:33:3878 from high school. Um, my dad and mom, one of them went out and bought a little black and white

00:33:44television so that my older sister could watch the news and be more up on current events for a class

00:33:51that she had. And, um, my youngest sister and myself sat in front of the TV that first night

00:33:57and watched Walter Cronkite or whatever it was for, we think we watched TV for an hour and a half,

00:34:03just watch the news. We were just like, you know, but, um, getting back to the television thing.

00:34:11Um, I, I'm not, I've never been a UPC licensed minister. My brother was, or is, or was for a

00:34:18while, not a pastor, but a minister, but I have friends who have been and are, and I know there

00:34:25were some votes at general conference, which is their annual convention, if you want to call it that.

00:34:31Um, I think one was in 2007 and one was in 2013. The first one I think was about, uh,

00:34:38whether or not we should use video, uh, advertisements, something like that.

00:34:43Uh, and then 2013, I think was more long lines of television for requirement, uh, not to have for,

00:34:50for preachers. Um, and I, I think I told you in an email that, um, there was a split, um, maybe both

00:34:59times, but at least in 2007, I think it was the worldwide Pentecostal fellowship, which would be like the far

00:35:06right, ultra conservative. They, they, they left because of that, you know, but, and I remember

00:35:13talking a few years ago to somebody on Facebook messenger who said that the UPC in Florida was

00:35:20liberal, you know? So again, this is all, it depends on what region of the country in. And

00:35:26I attended a church in Oklahoma city who a friend of mine, I went to a Bible apostolic Bible college

00:35:32for one year in Minnesota. Uh, I met him there and he was originally from Oklahoma city.

00:35:37And he said that his, before I moved there, he said his church was, um, moderate by national

00:35:44UPC standards, but liberal for Oklahoma standards. Right. So, and that's where I ended up going, um,

00:35:51at the time that I lived in Oklahoma city. But, um, yeah, there's a wide variety, um,

00:35:58different nuances and stuff on, on standards and stuff like that. But I do want to mention, uh,

00:36:03a memory I have from my childhood, you know, I don't remember my parents ever talking about

00:36:10William Branham. Um, but I do remember my dad talking about the latter rain movement.

00:36:16And in, I guess this was from the UPC. Um, they looked down there. They looked down at the latter

00:36:23rain movement. They did not agree with it at all. I remember my dad calling it wildfire. He said,

00:36:29we want fire, but we don't want wildfire. Um, and the, the latter rain movement was also

00:36:38used in the same vein as a charismatic movement. Um, no, I'm not going to say that all latter rain people

00:36:47are charismatic or vice versa, but I think there's a, there's a, it comes, it comes like that a little

00:36:52bit. Um, and so that's just the memory I have. Um, my dad not being in favor of the latter rain

00:37:00movement. Um, and I, you know, I've enjoyed six or seven of your podcasts, but up until I started

00:37:07watching those, I'd never even heard of the new apostolic reformation. You know, um, the UPC in itself,

00:37:14um, oneness Pentecostals maybe more generally, cause there's, there's a, there's a, there's a lot of

00:37:21smaller organizations around that are oneness Pentecostal, but the UPC itself, um, I don't

00:37:28think they're very big on prof prophecy. Um, like William Branham kind of got into it at the end of

00:37:35his life. And, uh, uh, I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, Gordon Lindsay or somebody said, you know what,

00:37:42you need to stick on, on, on the gift of healing because you know, you're not, you're, you're not

00:37:48into you. That's not what your prophecy is, not what your gift is. Right. And apparently that led to

00:37:55some, uh, prophecies that either haven't been fulfilled yet or just flat out wrong, you know,

00:38:01but, um, I don't know if that's what caused the UPCI not to be big on prophecy. Now in a general

00:38:08term prophecy just means preaching, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking

00:38:13about, uh, forth telling or, uh, talking about things in the future that are going to come to pass.

00:38:19You know, the way I was taught, the way I was raised at the Bible college that, that I went to

00:38:24for one year in Minnesota, uh, uh, a passage from Ephesians says we're built on the foundation of the

00:38:30apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone. So that foundation's already

00:38:36laid. You can't go building onto it anymore. It's already there. So UPC doesn't necessarily

00:38:41believe in modern day apostles and prophets like, uh, the 12 apostles and the old Testament

00:38:47prophets like Elijah. We don't have those. They don't believe we have those gifts in the church

00:38:53today. There's some people that say there still exists. I, I tend to disagree with that,

00:39:00but just let's just say for the sake of where we're at in society today, the UPC is not,

00:39:05they're not big on this prophetic gift. They're not into this, uh, manifest sons of God stuff.

00:39:13I, I heard a little bit about that, but I didn't know, I never heard of a new apostolic reformation

00:39:19until a few days ago.

00:39:21You know, and that's part of the reason why I was wanting to have you on the podcast to show the

00:39:25wide variety. So whenever I began publishing the information on the assemblies of God and I got all,

00:39:34I get all kinds of hate mail. It's one of the, one of the consequences of doing what I do.

00:39:39I got this guy that was just blasting me. He said, the assemblies of God denounced latter rain back in

00:39:441948. And I said, yes, I know you can go to the history page on my website. You can see,

00:39:50actually, I've got a copy of where they denounced it. And in that same, as I'm reading through my

00:39:56emails in that same exact day, I got another person who is contacting me. Their assemblies God of God

00:40:03church was hosting the latter rain revivals. And even though it was being denounced, right? So you

00:40:08had this, you had polar opposite views and it caused this schism that went through the churches,

00:40:13but more to the point. So Bernie Wade, one of the things that he mentioned when he started naming

00:40:19the names and he mentioned the, like the Keel auditorium, I'd never really thought about it

00:40:26until he put it into perspective. This is where the, as the UPCI was growing and forming,

00:40:31that's where they were holding all their big conventions. He said, John, why Keel? I don't

00:40:35know if you remember or caught that, but I go back and look and I'm looking through the newspapers.

00:40:40Good Lord, Bernie's right. How, how did I miss that? I've read through thousands of newspapers

00:40:44and he starts talking about the heads of the UPCI that are working with Branham. So in the early

00:40:51years before, before latter rain existed, it seems as though they're grooming Branham and for the

00:40:59roadshow with Hoekstra, who's got the levitating boy and Branham and they're in Keel and you've got

00:41:05a profit and you've got a levitating boy. That was, that was the show that they had in Pentecostalism.

00:41:10I look at that and I think, well, that's weird, you know, but then you go forward in the years

00:41:16and there is the denouncing by the assemblies of God. You've got the separation. There's a period

00:41:21of time in which the voice of healing revivals merged with the latter rain revival and they became

00:41:27one. And then they split because what happened is so many churches started to sanction the ministers

00:41:34and say, we're not going to pay for this if you come because they're part of latter rain.

00:41:38When the money left, all of the showmanship revivalists, they decided, well, we don't,

00:41:46we're not going to come if we don't get any money. That's, that's beyond us. So there was

00:41:50the separation that happened, right? But what happened prior to that separation is this big

00:41:57mess was created where you can't tell was one church infected and one was one church not.

00:42:04I was recently, this would have been probably eight years ago. I was on vacation and we had the

00:42:13opportunity and pleasure of meeting some UPCI folk and we were in another country. We weren't even in

00:42:19the same country and they happened to be from Indiana. So we had this instant bond because we're from the

00:42:24states and we're both from not only from the states, but we're both from Indiana, their UPCI. And it wasn't

00:42:31long before I overheard, they were starting to talk about their profit. And at this point I was out of

00:42:38the Branham cult and I did, I'd not researched Pentecostalism at all, but I'm like, your profit,

00:42:44wait a minute, are there others? And so I started digging into Pentecostalism. And what I found is

00:42:50exactly what you described and exactly what they described. You've got this wide variety of

00:42:56churches, some of which are in the prophetic, some of which are exactly like you're saying.

00:43:01They have reformed from all of this and you can't brand the whole Pentecostal movement with one brush.

00:43:08That's why the New Apostolic Reformation is so insidious because you'll go to, if you're traveling,

00:43:15you go into a city, well, there's a UPCI church. I want to go to it. And it's a good one. It's one

00:43:19that's reformed. You're traveling in another state. You go to another one and they're preaching

00:43:23politics. They've got the prophetic. They've got the revival culture, the end of days,

00:43:30all of the mess that comes with New Apostolic Reformation. And you hear that. If you have

00:43:36discernment and you can tell the difference, you know the good from the evil. But the problem I have

00:43:41is what about your kids who don't yet know the difference between this? So for me, it's fascinating.

00:43:47And like I said, I was glad to have you on because I wanted to balance that scale and

00:43:52show that there are two sides to this coin.

00:43:54Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that because growing up, Jimmy Swaggart would

00:44:00be on TV. And I've enjoyed some of Jimmy Swaggart's music over the years, his singing, his piano

00:44:09playing and stuff like that. But there was a point in time where he had, it sounded like

00:44:15he basically condemned all oneness Pentecostals to hell because they did believe in the doctrine

00:44:20of the Trinity. You know, they believe that basically, as I understand it, a modelistic

00:44:27view. But people can argue about that too. But there have been all kinds of different beliefs

00:44:33about God down throughout history. And like I said, a lot of it might depend on what time,

00:44:38what age, what location, what region you were born in to what that you ended up actually

00:44:43believing about God. But, you know, there have been Jesus named people, which is another

00:44:48word that's used to describe oneness Pentecostals. You may condemn Trinitarian Pentecostals to

00:44:55hell and vice versa. You know, there's a lot of that that goes on or maybe has gone on in

00:45:01years past. But I typically don't, I don't believe that. I believe the most personal or the most

00:45:09important thing is your personal relationship, your personal walk with Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus

00:45:14Christ of Nazareth. And some of my own personal beliefs have changed over the years because I

00:45:22started, years ago, I was in Kingman, Arizona, and I went to an adult forum at an Episcopal

00:45:30church because I wanted to learn more about church history. And I was raised very anti-Catholic. And I

00:45:35said, I'm not one of the Catholic church to learn about church history. They persecuted, made martyrs

00:45:39out of people, right? So I go to the Episcopal church, you know, they branched off. They part of

00:45:44that Protestant Reformation, as it were. So, and I was there for a couple of years and I learned a lot.

00:45:50A very educated Episcopal priest was there and he, he came out one time. I didn't, I didn't bring it up.

00:45:58He was an adult forum before their Eucharist, which is their main worship service on Sunday.

00:46:02And he said, you know, Matthew 28, 19 was probably changed in antiquity to bolster the doctrine of the

00:46:09Trinity. And I'm like, wow, he just agreed with what I was taught as a child. The UPCI would put

00:46:16out these, these tracks from word aflame or I think it's word aflame press talking about the council of

00:46:25Nicaea and what 365 AD or whatever, where it cemented the doctrine of the Trinity. And, and then

00:46:32maybe 10 years later, I was in Newport News, Virginia, and I started attending a Messianic

00:46:39Pentecostal congregation. Messianics, generally speaking, are people who observe the Torah,

00:46:48but they also recognize Jesus or Yeshua as the Messiah. And by and large, they don't believe

00:46:55that following the Torah is for their salvation, but you follow the Torah because you're already

00:46:59saved, that type of thing. And they point out the half of the, half of the laws are more or less

00:47:05in the Torah. You can't even follow it today because there's no temple. But in any case, I started

00:47:11attending this, this congregation in Newport News, Virginia congregation, Zion's sake.

00:47:16And I learned a lot because I was learning the scriptures from the Hebrew cultural context in

00:47:22which it was written, not as a Gentile trying to interpret it, you know, 2000 years later or

00:47:27whatever, from my Gentile perspective. In any case, I learned a lot and I learned that throughout

00:47:35history, there have been different sects or groups of people who've, who've worshiped on the Sabbath day.

00:47:41They, they have kept the biblical dietary laws and observed the feast of the Lord, not the Jewish

00:47:47feast, the feast of the Lord, Passover, Pentecost, tabernacles, trumpets. There's seven of them,

00:47:53right? There's three in the spring. Then there's Pentecost and there's three in the fall, which the

00:47:58three fall ones by and large have yet to be fulfilled. The day of atonement is kind of like

00:48:03half and half, right? But there's these different groups throughout history, despite persecution by the

00:48:09Catholic church that still did this. There were, there's, there were ones in Ethiopia that did it.

00:48:15They followed Jesus Christ and they, they followed the biblical dietary laws. They worshiped on the

00:48:20Sabbath, et cetera. And so in that sense, I became more conservative in my thinking, but became more

00:48:29liberal because they, they took a passage from Matthew chapter five, I believe it is. And it's like

00:48:37those who follow, um, the Torah, um, Jesus said, uh, not one jot or tittle will pass from the Torah

00:48:49until all things have been fulfilled. Want to talk about prophecy? There's a prophecy right there

00:48:53by Messiah. Well, have all things been fulfilled yet? No, obviously not, right? There's a lot of

00:48:59Old Testament passages today that still haven't, prophecies that still haven't been fulfilled.

00:49:04So that's what they, that's what they take. But there's another point where Jesus says

00:49:10to, um, the people there in Matthew that, um, listen to what these, these rabbis and scribes

00:49:19and Pharisees say, listen to what they tell you to do, but don't do what they do, you know,

00:49:26because they're, they're, they're hypocrites, right? So he, it was, it was kind of like that.

00:49:32And he said that, um, um, whoever, uh, follows the, there's a passage. I'm not going to quote

00:49:42it correctly. Exactly. But there's a passage that says that he, that does, um, um, it talks

00:49:49about the least in the kingdom and the greatest in the kingdom around Matthew chapter five.

00:49:55It doesn't say that you're not going to be in the kingdom. It says the least in the kingdom

00:50:01or the greatest in the kingdom. And it has to do with some of this stuff I've just been

00:50:04talking about. I can't quote it verbatim. Um, but anyway, my point is my, my thinking about

00:50:11that became more liberal. So I wasn't like, Oh, well, um, these people that aren't following

00:50:18the Torah, they're going to hell. No. And messianics, they follow the Torah and not for salvation.

00:50:25They do it to please Messiah because they're already saved. It's, and people will say, well,

00:50:30you can't follow all the Torah. Cause if you, if you disobey one law, then you disobeyed them

00:50:35all. Well, yeah, that might be true, but does that mean we shouldn't try to do it? Uh, if

00:50:42not, okay, then I guess it's okay to go out and commit adultery, right? No, it's not okay

00:50:46to go out and commit adultery. So I became more liberal in my thinking about salvation,

00:50:51right? In other words, all these Christians throughout society aren't condemned to hell

00:50:56necessarily because I don't agree with, they don't agree with me and vice versa. It's about

00:51:01a personal relationship and the congregations, the messianic ones that God has led me to have

00:51:07been Pentecostal. In other words, they believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and they believe

00:51:13in the gifts of the spirit. So that's kind of how I've been led. That's my own personal testimony

00:51:18because when I started going to congregation Zion's sake in Newport news, I was taught the

00:51:23council of my sea was bad, but it wasn't from their perspective. It was bad because they would,

00:51:29the Catholic church would basically kill you. If you worshiped on the Sabbath, if you followed the

00:51:35biblical dietary laws, or if you followed the feast of the Lord, they would kill you. And they did,

00:51:41right? So that was like my right hand, meaning my left hand coming together like that, right? That

00:51:47was how God was leading me. But I kind of got off on a little bit of a tangent there. But I did want

00:51:54to throw that out there because we go through our lives and we think, you know, I've arrived. Well,

00:52:02no, the Caleb or the John, let's say the John or the Caleb from today would probably argue with the

00:52:09John or the Caleb from 10 or 20 years ago, right? Or maybe a week ago, in my case. Things change so

00:52:17quickly. Exactly. So it's not necessarily about exactly agreeing on what you believe. It's about

00:52:24that personal relationship. Yeah. And that's just it. So many of these, so many of these scoundrels that

00:52:33I've been investigating, they wanted to create the cult mentality because it was profitable or there

00:52:39was, you know, money, sex, power, whatever it is that they were after. But in doing so, they created

00:52:45very black or white mindsets. And what you're describing is a person who understands that not

00:52:51everything is black or white. Not everything can be understood in a black or white manner. It's not all,

00:52:57there are many shades of gray in between. And until you're able to understand that it is a personal

00:53:04journey with each person and that really for a person entering into that journey after you've been in a

00:53:10black and white mindset, you have to throw out a lot of the things that you believed and then rebuild them,

00:53:16stack them back up into healthy ways and ways that make sense, not ways that are just there because they have

00:53:24told you, you have to believe this one way or another. I, I came to the conclusion too, that

00:53:29whenever you are condemning a person for their journey and for the things that they currently

00:53:36believe or know at that time, they have to know those, they have to learn those things before they

00:53:43can build the next building block of their understanding. And because they don't have the

00:53:48next building block, they don't yet understand the full picture. It's like putting together a puzzle.

00:53:53You start putting a few pieces together. Well, this is supposed to be an automobile. It doesn't

00:53:57look anything like an automobile. It's not till you get those other pieces. And some of these movements

00:54:03have suppressed the people to the extent they want to control the knowledge and information that they

00:54:08have so that they must always understand the picture as the leader sees it, not, not as an

00:54:16understanding that is growing within the person. Each person has to have their own journey and their own

00:54:21knowledge and understanding. That's why whenever I left the Branagh movement, I started reading the

00:54:27Bible over and over and over continuously, just washing all of the nonsense out of my head.

00:54:34And what I found out was, I still believed some of the things that was taught to me,

00:54:41but I found out that many of them weren't really that important. And we had made them

00:54:45to be fundamental to your salvation important doctrines. And some of them I kept, some of them I

00:54:52didn't. But I began to realize none of that really mattered. If you really understand the Bible, none of

00:54:57that matters. There, there's a much bigger picture that people can learn. So I, I like the way that

00:55:03you put it, that was probably a lot more eloquent than I did, I was going to add on to some of

00:55:08something that you just said there, john. But I'm losing my train of thought a little bit. I want to

00:55:15throw this out there, because I was talking with a UPCI, a friend of mine who's actually a minister in

00:55:21Indonesia right now, which is, you know, predominantly a Muslim nation. But he's done

00:55:27some research on some of the Pentecostal folks, preachers of your days of yore. And I was chatting

00:55:35with him by messenger here a few days ago, and he brought up little David Walker. And I didn't even

00:55:42know who David Walker was until I looked at one of your podcasts, right? But David Walker is still alive

00:55:48today. And matter of fact, my friend shared his Facebook page with me, you can follow his Facebook

00:55:53page. And so I just wanted to throw that out there in case you ever get a chance to interview

00:55:58little David Walker. I don't know if you've had the chance. But another thing I wanted to talk about

00:56:07was Benji McNair Scott, a gentleman from England or the UK you had on here recently. I, I, I enjoyed

00:56:15that podcast. And one of the things I wrote down was he said that the early church was radically

00:56:24charismatic and radically liturgical. And that piqued my interest because of my connection with

00:56:30the Episcopal church and studying church history. And then moving over to the Messianic congregations,

00:56:36because the Messianic congregations are liturgical. They get that from the Hebrews, right?

00:56:42Right. And, uh, the, the Anglican church in their 1979, the Episcopal church in their 1979 prayer book,

00:56:49I believe the preface says they go back to the P-R-E-F-A-C-E. The preface says that they've

00:56:56incorporated some of the liturgy from the early church or a significant portion of that into their

00:57:02prayer book, you know, and as a Pentecostal, how, I mean, I was just like, I first started going there.

00:57:08I'm like, man, there's liturgy stuff. This is completely new to me, but you know what? I fell

00:57:12in love with it. I fell in love with it, John. And, um, but, but the Messianic congregations,

00:57:19especially the Messianic Pentecostal ones, um, they, they combined that the liturgy and,

00:57:26and the spirit filled worship, which I believe is just beautiful and really neat. But I wanted,

00:57:32I wanted to mention that too, and give Mr. Scott a plug. Um, I don't know if there's anything else

00:57:39in my notes here that I wanted to talk about. Um, oh, I did want to ask you a question because,

00:57:45um, my friend in Indonesia, he, he, he's scratching his head a little bit about some of these historical

00:57:52revelations that you've, you've unearthed. And I've shared with him, um, from what I've learned from

00:57:59these podcasts. And, um, I mean, he, he believes, and I tend to believe too, that, that William

00:58:06Branham was using the gift of divine healing. I'm not saying that everything he did was correct.

00:58:12Um, but I have to believe that there was a lot of people healed through his ministry or the wise

00:58:17it wouldn't have flourished like it did. I don't believe it was all just a show. Um, and I want to

00:58:23see what you think about that. Do you think there were divine healings that did occur through his

00:58:28ministry? I was going to ask you that. Like I said earlier, not everything is black or white.

00:58:33Here's my opinion on this. My father was healed in the Branham meetings. And in fact, you can find

00:58:39on recording, if you search for my dad's name, you can see where he's healed. I know the story. I know

00:58:45my father, I know all of that. I know other people who at least they tell me they were healed and I

00:58:51believe them. And the Bible says that where two or three are gathered, I will be in your midst. So

00:58:59there, for me, if there are Christians gathered there and God is still the God of healing, which

00:59:05I don't see any place in the Bible that says he's not, there will people be healed. At the same time,

00:59:12in any crowd, I could go to a ball game and I could say, I could get the announcer's podium and say,

00:59:18is there anybody in here who's sick in a ball game? And then two weeks later, ask those same

00:59:25people. There will be people who get better. Some of them may have bad things wrong with them, but

00:59:31they, it, it is a numbers game. When you play the numbers game, there will be people get better.

00:59:36There is a documentary by Darren Brown, which if you haven't seen it for your history research,

00:59:42you need to watch this. Darren Brown is an atheist, but he is exposing the faith healing charismatic

00:59:49movement. And he sets the stage as a big stage act. He's coming into a place. You can watch all of

00:59:55the charismatic people coming in and he's doing the healing thing and people are falling out blessed.

01:00:02And I truly believe some of them were truly blessed. However, at the end of it, he says,

01:00:07now I just want to tell you, I know that some of you have, after, after they gave their testimonies,

01:00:13they were brought up to stage. Yes, I was healed. Thank you, brother, for healing me. That kind of

01:00:17thing. He said, no, I just want to tell you, I'm an atheist. This is not the power of God. I just want

01:00:22to show the people that when you bring a crowd together, there will be people healed. And the

01:00:29interview, the newspapers were interviewing the people as they left saying, what do you think about

01:00:34this? And people are saying, yes, I don't know how he did it. I know he said he's an atheist, but God

01:00:39healed me when I was in there. My opinion is it has nothing to do with the man on the platform.

01:00:46Absolutely nothing. My other opinion is, here's the problem that I have found historically that I can

01:00:54back up. I can't really prove or disprove anything that I said prior to that, prior to this. But what I can

01:01:01prove is that many of the claims that he had of massive numbers of people being healed, I can find

01:01:10newspapers where there were newspaper reporters and journalists, after the claim was made, who went

01:01:17to the city to try to find one and couldn't find one. And yet he's going from town to town saying,

01:01:23just go back there to that city. Watch those people healed. So many people there. I raised one from the

01:01:28dead. Newspaper article comes out, you know, the journalist went to the town. No, that person wasn't

01:01:35raised from the dead. He was never dead. So if there's a true gift, and there's a true thing

01:01:41happening, there's no need to deceive the people. But at the same time, the people are in that mindset that

01:01:49they're coming to get healed. And statistically, there will be people healed anyway. And all it takes is for one

01:01:56person to speak up and say, I was healed in this. Other people who are listening to them,

01:02:03their faith will be lifted because they watched this person healed. And that's why they came.

01:02:09So you've got so many complex elements to this. You have a person who is literally deceiving the public,

01:02:15lying to the public, we can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, he was lying to the public.

01:02:20We've got people who he claimed to be healed, who wasn't people who he claimed to be healed,

01:02:25who actually died from the very diseases he said. But we also have people that are healed, my father being

01:02:31one included. So my opinion of this is it is not black or white. It's not something that you can say

01:02:37yes or no, true or false. This is a complex mess.

01:02:42Okay, I was just curious about that, because I haven't, I don't, the six or seven podcasts I've watched, I

01:02:47haven't seen you talk about that. Not saying you haven't, because there's a lot of podcasts on there,

01:02:52right. But I mean, I personally have been healed. I remember once in my life, a pastor prayed for me

01:02:59after service, and I was healed instantly of something. And I have a friend who had an injured

01:03:09knee and was healed through the ministry of Benny Hinn. And at that exact same time, my friend,

01:03:18he fell back on the floor. And he began speaking in tongues. He was filled with the, you know, the

01:03:24baptism of the Holy Spirit. And he said, he told me he spoke in tongues for two or three days.

01:03:30So I mean, I hear these testimonies. And so I was just wondering what you thought. I also had another

01:03:37question if you want to wrap it up, because I know we've been here about an hour. But I don't know if

01:03:42this was on one of your podcasts. It was on one of the other ones from another ministry somewhere.

01:03:47But Kenneth Hagan, Frida Lindsay, and Anna Schrader apparently prophesied about Mr. Branham

01:03:54beating his end.

01:03:56Interestingly, that ties back to our Jim Jones conversation. If you go to jonestown.edu.sdsu,

01:04:05you can search for my name. I'm working with the people at the Jonestown Institute to help

01:04:11uncover all of this history that's been concealed. And I think it's the last year's article or the

01:04:18year before that, I actually talk about that very thing. Because there was this rift that was

01:04:24happening. As I mentioned, when the Assemblies of God split, it caused all kinds of chaos.

01:04:28Well, Gordon Lindsay actually started snubbing Branham because nobody wanted to see Branham. He was being

01:04:34sanctioned. And Gordon Lindsay wanted the money, apparently. I can't say what his intentions were,

01:04:40but it appears he wanted the money. So he started snubbing Branham, wouldn't let Branham speak.

01:04:47And they're at, if I'm not mistaken, this is one of the conventions that Jones himself hosted,

01:04:54or maybe it was Joseph Matts and Bosé, one of the two. But they're in this meeting. Branham's not

01:05:00allowed to speak. They start fighting. In fact, if you go to the Jim Jones page on my website,

01:05:06you can read some of those publications. I think I've got them up there. They all start fighting

01:05:11with each other. Branham gets openly condemned, and not just the people you've mentioned. Many,

01:05:18many people start openly condemning Branham, and eventually it turned into prophecies of his death.

01:05:24Jones himself prophesied of Branham's death. Where it gets interesting is Jones talks about it. He

01:05:31talks about A.A. Allen being there, Branham being there, and they're all meeting, and they're telling

01:05:36their innermost secrets to Jones. And Jones says, Branham said, to me, he didn't believe a thing in

01:05:43that Bible, but it's, what did he say, his only way to make a living, or something like this.

01:05:48When I first came across that, I thought, that doesn't make sense. I think Branham was a good

01:05:54man. I think he was just a little deceived. The more that I begin to understand and uncover of the

01:05:59deception that he did, I think Jones was actually telling the truth. And in this one instance, I have

01:06:06to believe the guy who was the infamous leader of the Jonestown massacre over Branham. But all of that

01:06:14existed, because at that point in time, Branham started to preach his racist serpent seed doctrine.

01:06:22That's ultimately, I think, what led Jones to split. And whenever this happened, something like,

01:06:29Branham even mentions this on recording, 300 ministers, I think he said, rose up against him,

01:06:34because they suddenly realized, this guy's a racist. And so they started prophesying of his death,

01:06:41this big mess happened. I don't know that Hagen did. If he did, he never mentioned it or wrote it

01:06:50publicly, to my knowledge. I think he claimed it after the fact. But some of the others you can read,

01:06:55they actually have a testimony about it. Okay, well, I think it was Hagen and what I read that

01:07:01he said, or maybe it was one of those two ladies that said it. I'm kind of getting confused on the

01:07:07details of it. But one of them, at least one of them had said it was because he was getting into

01:07:12error. And God, in order to save his soul, was going to, you know, remove him from the scene,

01:07:19because he was, you know, that was, that was the reason or one of the reasons anyway. So

01:07:24it kind of jives with what you just said.

01:07:28It's such a complicated mess, man. When you look at all of this, and you look at all of the people

01:07:33involved, I mean, some of the people prophesying, like Jim Jones, this is not a man of God. I don't

01:07:39know. I really hesitate to believe that he had a prophecy. And if he did, it was a failed prophecy

01:07:46because he said Branham would have his head chopped off. Branham's head wasn't chopped off. My

01:07:51grandfather was in the room after the accident, and Branham was, his head was not severed from the

01:07:58body. So Jones, if it was a prophecy, it was a false prophecy. But I really questioned that part

01:08:04of it. I don't think he had an actual prophecy. I saw a podcast about Jim Jones, apparently

01:08:10prophesying Branham's doom or death or something. I haven't watched that one yet. Have you come

01:08:17across, do you have any thoughts about the claim that William Branham leaned over and prayed for his

01:08:25wife and she was healed during the aftermath of the accident?

01:08:29All nonsense. And in fact, you can confirm all that from the newspapers. She, after the accident,

01:08:36she's still struggling. And it isn't until later. In fact, I don't know if you knew this, but they

01:08:41held his body from the grave for months and months. They kept his body on ice. And the claim that they

01:08:48were telling the people at the time was that they had to wait for her to heal before they could have the

01:08:52burial. I question that too. I think she, according to the newspaper, she got better long before

01:08:59the burial. They were just trying to revive the cult. However, there was a period of time in which

01:09:04she was suffering.

01:09:05You did a podcast about Chris Reed. I know him a little bit through my cousins who went, they still

01:09:15go to the church that he used to pastor in Indiana. I think it's Peru, Indiana. He was in a covenant

01:09:23apostolic church, which is very similar to what I believe today, which is, I call myself a messianic

01:09:29apostolic or messianic Pentecostal. But he kind of left that when he went to South Carolina.

01:09:35Um, but I remember, uh, talking to Chris or reading something that he said, we're talking

01:09:44about William Branham. Chris Reed and I were talking about William Branham. And he said he

01:09:49went to his, his burial site. I don't know if that's in Jeffersonville or is that in Jeffersonville?

01:09:55It is. Um, he said, and, and after he went to his burial site, he started getting these,

01:10:03these visions or God started ministering to him and these prophetic gifts.

01:10:08It's such a weird mess, man. The deeper you dig, the more dirt you find and the weirder the people

01:10:14get. It's, it's so much. But anyway, thank you so much for doing this.

01:10:18I enjoyed it.

01:10:19Awesome. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out

01:10:23on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the new

01:10:28apostolic reformation, you can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR

01:10:33available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

The Pentecostal Puzzle: Race, Doctrine, and Revivalism | Our Stories | Episode 476

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