When Spiritual Covering Turns Toxic: Legacy of Shepherding Abuse | Derek Prince & Discipling | 481 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John invites Martin and Sarah from the UK to share their story of escaping a controlling, charismatic fellowship tied to shepherding-style authority inspired by Derek Prince and the Shepherding Movement. They describe how subtle shifts — from house-church “body ministry” to centralized power — opened the door for predatory leadership to operate unchecked.  Their journey reveals why spiritual covering doctrines, personality cults, and authoritarian structures can create the perfect environment for silence and fear. Despite deep wounds and the loss of community, Martin and Sarah share how healing, truth-telling, and faith brought post-traumatic growth — and why others suffering in similar systems deserve to be heard.    00:00 Introduction   00:31 Meet Martin and Sarah: Leaving a Troubled Church in London   03:23 Parallels with Other Groups and the Power of Loaded Language   05:30 Derek Prince, Shepherding Influence, and Early UK Connections   08:09 How Control Structures Spread Through Charismatic Networks   10:21 Abuse Ignored: The Case of Harry Greenwood   12:04 What “Spiritual Covering” Really Means in High-Control Churches   14:10 Subtle Shifts: From Home Fellowship to Stage-Centered Meetings   17:00 Data-Mining, “Words of Knowledge,” and Manufactured Authority   20:12 The Role of Music and Atmosphere in Reinforcing Control   23:22 Stanley Hickman: Grooming, Manipulation, and False Persona   27:05 Behind the Scenes: Grooming Tactics and Hidden Misconduct   31:21 Why Public Displays of “Supernatural Insight” Create Fear   33:16 When Narcissistic Leaders Replace Other Narcissists   36:05 Confrontations, Prophetic Grandiosity, and Silencing Dissent   40:12 The Global Network Connected to the Abusive Leadership   43:02 Marriage Counseling Manipulation: The Night Before the Wedding   46:55 Aftermath: Turmoil, Power Plays, and Psychological Impact   50:01 Why Control Thrives When Leaders Aren’t Accountable   53:03 Attempting Reform, Getting Blamed, and the Cost of Speaking Up   56:22 Leaving the Fellowship and Experiencing Social Shunning   59:00 Hope, Healing, and Finding Courage to Tell the Story  ______________________ 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

00:00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guests, Martin and Sarah Johnson.

00:00:47Martin, Sarah, it's good to have you and to let you share your story to the world.

00:00:52We've been chatting a little bit through email, and some of the things that you're talking about,

00:00:58I'm aching to hear more. I know the listeners will be too, so maybe if you could just tell

00:01:03everybody a little bit about yourself, and then we'll get into the exciting stuff.

00:01:08Thank you for inviting us, John. We're very glad to be here.

00:01:12On the other side of the Atlantic, so we are Martin and Sarah. We live on the south coast of the UK,

00:01:19about two hours south of London, and we were part of a church in London where there were lots of issues.

00:01:29We've heard lots of people tell their stories similarly, and we left there about 15 years ago,

00:01:35so lots of stuff has gone on in the meantime. And in the last year or so, we've just come to that place

00:01:40where we felt we were in a place where we could talk about what had gone on.

00:01:45And so here we are.

00:01:48Yeah, and I think also we've been watching different things on YouTube and the like,

00:01:54and come across your channel and heard people telling their stories and the things that they've

00:02:00gone through. And also with you and your friends who you talk about different issues concerning the

00:02:06message, although we weren't part of the message cult, we recognize as we've been hearing these things

00:02:12that what we were involved with was cultish, at least, and some of the things rang very true.

00:02:19So to listen to the programs and different people speak and the different subjects you've talked

00:02:25about has been very helpful to us to understand more of what we've been through, I suppose.

00:02:30Well, that's good. There are so many people who are hurting. They have been through really bad

00:02:36experiences. And I'm a little surprised myself that this has grown to what it has, because I never

00:02:43dreamed that there would be so many different groups of people sharing their stories. But what I

00:02:47have found is within every single group, even though the doctrine is different, the leaders are

00:02:52different, even a lot of the history is different, the internal structure of the way that they're

00:02:58manipulating people is very much the same. And the survivors of each group, they have the same

00:03:04experiences. What's really odd is that many of the groups even share the same loaded language.

00:03:10So whenever I have a person telling their story, they're using loaded language that most people

00:03:15who've never been in a cult would never know. But the listeners hear it, and they're like,

00:03:18wait a minute, that's exactly what my leader said. So it's strange and odd, but it's exciting at the

00:03:25same time, because it is really helping a lot of people.

00:03:28Yeah, I mean, I think for us, one of the interesting things, hearing you and Charles Paisley talk about

00:03:34Derek Prince, and all those sorts of things, because I certainly grew up with that being

00:03:38part of our, everything we listened to, everything we knew was what we should be listening to. And to

00:03:45hear him talked about in those terms, which are a little bit more, probably nearer to what was

00:03:50really going on, particularly regarding things to do with authoritative structures for churches.

00:03:58And I hadn't really realised until I looked back at some of the stuff we'd learned and we'd read

00:04:03about was how much he had brought in that whole shepherding way. And that really that was in the

00:04:1170s. And he and his first wife, Lydia came to came to London twice in 1974 and 75. Obviously, I was very

00:04:21young. But I remember him coming. And I remember not long after he'd been another he sent another group

00:04:31of Americans from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in fact, to us, and they were looking to take us under their

00:04:41covering, so that we would have a commitment to them. And my dad, who had started, we'd started a

00:04:48church in our house, along with another family, and it was gradually growing. And he was keen to,

00:04:55well, these people were keen that we would come under their covering, but we didn't. And we're

00:05:00grateful that we didn't. But it was interesting to look back at that. And also to hear Charles's

00:05:05comments about him, and how much he was involved with other people there who were those Fort Lauderdale

00:05:10five that they talked about, and their connections, particularly Anne Baxter and others to back to

00:05:18William Branham. And that was quite shocking. In a natural fact, we remember, didn't we, a video that

00:05:23we had when when we were in the church, which was called the ABC of, of the charismatic movement,

00:05:31Alan, Branham and co. And that was interesting, because that's, that was in those days in the 70s,

00:05:38it was very much people were talking about the things of the spirit, the move of the spirit, the

00:05:42charismatic renewal. And there was such a sort of sense of everything being new and fresh, that with

00:05:48that stuff coming in, all the, all the stuff about the, that the, the control, the authoritative

00:05:56structure, you didn't really notice it, it was sort of woven in, it was subtle, it was woven into what

00:06:01was happening. But what's interesting is that all looking back and hearing you guys talk about it, is that

00:06:07even though it happens then, and even though then they seemed to say, well, we don't really, we don't

00:06:13really believe that anymore, we'll just push that to one side. It's a bit like whack-a-mole, it's gone

00:06:17underground, and it comes up here, and it comes up here, and it comes up here. And it really did, at a later

00:06:23date, although my dad then died, and he wasn't there, it really did affect the direction that our church

00:06:29went in.

00:06:30And I think also, I'd say, what's been really helpful is, we've been hearing the histories of

00:06:35things. I think one of your things is, you want the history to be out there in its true sense,

00:06:40rather than the sort of sanitized histories of what are in a lot of the biographies, and whatever,

00:06:46of some of these principal players. And hearing the truth of the history over time is really

00:06:55enlightening, and joins, and as you say, there's that spider's web that joins dots, and different

00:07:02things together. You never thought were joined together, but they are in a funny way.

00:07:06They are. It's like a big puzzle that you're trying to put together. I love the mystery shows,

00:07:13and how you solve the mystery, and get all of the clues all along the way. What I found is that this

00:07:18is the biggest mystery that this can even exist in our world. How is it possible that so many people

00:07:23have covered up so many histories? Because if they were to openly declare as they hold a revival,

00:07:29if they go into, like Derek Prince goes into the UK, if he's suddenly to talk about all of the

00:07:35history of all of the charlatans, the crazy people, the authoritarian control, all of the things that

00:07:42nobody talks about, and say, hey, I'm a part of all of this, would you like to join me? There's not a

00:07:47single person that's going to join it. But they cover up the histories, and then where it gets really,

00:07:52really problematic for me, there are many reputable scholars who have to be aware, they have to have

00:07:59studied this enough to know when they write their books, or their, these biographies, why do they

00:08:05eliminate the critical history? That's the part that just really confuses me.

00:08:09Yes. I mean, an interesting point that your co-host Charles Paisley made when you were talking about

00:08:14Derek Prince was that he got a lot of credence and a lot of acceptance, in one sense, because of his

00:08:21education. And his education was pushed to the front on almost everything, everything you read

00:08:27about him. It confirms he went to Eton and Cambridge. And there's nothing wrong with going there. But

00:08:33equally, it doesn't give you, it doesn't, it doesn't give you five leaps ahead of everybody else in the

00:08:40body of Christ, it doesn't give you a certain understanding. And although he clearly was a

00:08:44classic scholar, and, and a philosopher, and all those other things, it doesn't mean that you are

00:08:51automatically, everything you say is right. And I think the big thing for us was the people, as you

00:08:57say, the people they hang out with, weren't very, in some cases, just weren't very nice people. And it

00:09:05really impacted our church, because one of the men he hung out with, was a chap called Harry Greenwood,

00:09:11who, who died a long time ago, but, but, but was a, was a predator, and, and also an alcoholic. And yet,

00:09:21they traveled together, and they ministered together. And that man went into all sorts of places. And,

00:09:28and no one ever said anything. And it's hard to think, it's all very well knowing the meaning of the

00:09:33Greek words, and being able to talk about this, that, and the other. But if you can't call out

00:09:38something that's wrong, that's not right.

00:09:41Yeah, I think, you see, that the, the, the Harry Greenwood was an associate, was an associate with

00:09:46Derek Prince for, for a time, I think, is what Sarah was saying. And they,

00:09:51they traveled together.

00:09:52There was a, a little fellowship in southwest England called South Charred Christian Fellowship.

00:09:59And this was quite an epicenter of things, a sort of charismatic renewal sort of thing.

00:10:06And a lot of people came to there, listened, and came out again. And that's where I think Derek Prince

00:10:13and this Harry Greenwood guy met, and they traveled to a place like Sweden, or whatever, and ministered together.

00:10:19But, and it's hard to imagine, because we've talked to various people who've had firsthand experience

00:10:26of finding Harry Greenwood, who's no longer with us, in various compromising things.

00:10:37And yet, these things were never dealt with. It was sort of covered over, and things were allowed

00:10:41to move on, I guess, because people didn't want to give a bad name to the revival, or to the movement,

00:10:47or to the church, or whatever it was. But it just can never be right, can it, to cover up.

00:10:53What is obvious from the scriptures is not good. And that's what seems to have happened consistently.

00:11:02Yeah, I can't even imagine if somebody is in a position of power, who has the mindset that they could

00:11:08prey on others, that leadership who is aware of this would allow them to continue, because you know

00:11:13it's going to happen again. You mentioned earlier the phrase spiritual covering. It's interesting,

00:11:19because this is a phrase a few people on the podcast have used it, but I have had people ask me what

00:11:25this is. There are people who are in these movements who have the same exact thing, but they go by

00:11:30different names. What's interesting is what you're talking about in the leadership. Well, there is a

00:11:35spiritual covering that flows downhill to the rank and file member, which is basically saying,

00:11:41we are authority over you. That's what spiritual covering is. But then there is a separate one for

00:11:45the leadership. They are spiritual covering among themselves, and you have no way to push back

00:11:51uphill. Could you take a moment and explain spiritual covering, what it is and what it meant in your

00:11:57church, and also how it affected you? Yes, I mean, I think it's a really important issue, and I think

00:12:02it's something that's not really spoken about. In terms of how it affected us, perhaps I should go back

00:12:09and just tell a little of the story of how we started as a church. And so my dad decided, along

00:12:15with a few others, that they would meet in our home, and this was in the early 1970s. And so in that sense,

00:12:20there were just a few families, and there was no structure. We weren't part of the Baptist church

00:12:28or the Assemblies of God or anything like that. We were just meeting in our home. But there were other

00:12:33people all around London doing what we were doing. And so the men from the church or the leaders or

00:12:39whoever it was, there was no particular name for them, perhaps just an elder. They were called an

00:12:43elder in those days. They would meet together so that they could share what was going on. They could

00:12:48help each other out and so on and so on. And then when the shepherding movement started to come in,

00:12:55people like Derek Prince or some of his people that he sent over came along and said that we should be

00:13:02really discipling people and that everybody needed a covering. And I remember one of the leaders of one

00:13:07of the little groups telling me, years after my dad had died, that they had a group, they had a meeting,

00:13:12a meeting was called in London, I'm not quite sure exactly who called it, but the various house group

00:13:17leaders went along, and it was proposed to them that everyone should be submitted to one or other of

00:13:25someone related to the Fort Lauderdale Five. And it was explained to them that if you were submitted to

00:13:30this person, they were submitted to this person, and ultimately, someone was submitted to someone

00:13:34in Fort Lauderdale. And this chap was telling me, he said, I wondered if your dad was going to say

00:13:40anything, because you know, this is not sounding good to us. We like this freedom, we've got freedom.

00:13:45We're not in a denomination, we can do what we want, we can meet when we like, we don't have to pay

00:13:51money to anybody, this is working really well. And there's this freedom, we can sing what we want,

00:13:56and so on and so on. And he said, at the end of the meeting, dad said, well, that's all very well.

00:14:02But I think Don Basham, I think it was Don Basham who was the head on the show. I don't remember.

00:14:07But he said, what happens if Don Basham is wrong? What happens if he asks you to do something,

00:14:13and everyone's submitted to everybody else? Who says? It's a bit like having a Pope, isn't it?

00:14:18And that really was the crux of it. And so we didn't, and I don't think any of those house

00:14:26churches really did agree to go into their covering. There were several other people in

00:14:31the UK trying to set up those same sort of structures, but we never became part of it.

00:14:38But interestingly, as soon as my dad had died, then an American pastor who had been friends

00:14:48with this other predator from the UK, came over, and he came over and started getting more

00:14:55involved with us. So in other words, it wasn't an overt, right, I'm now your boss, I'm now the

00:15:02one you're answerable to, you're accountable to me, etc, etc. He just started to come in and

00:15:08exercise a little bit of control here, a little bit of control there. And it's a very subtle

00:15:13thing, because, isn't it, love?

00:15:16I would say, yeah, he started to exert influence, I would say, rather than put himself as, say,

00:15:23the apostle or some, you know, whatever other name some people use as their thing. He sort

00:15:30of ingratiated himself with the fellowship and was a charismatic guy, no doubt about it.

00:15:38And was quite talented musically in that. And he could, he could hold a crowd, shall we

00:15:43say.

00:15:43And he said, I mean, he turned out to be a complete, a complete charlatan, but he was

00:15:52very clever. He was a sociopath. He was very clever at pulling people in. So it went from

00:15:57that sort of openness of people saying, right, I'm going to be your covering, to people then

00:16:01being a bit more subtle about it. And it almost is as if, in these groups, it attracts people

00:16:09like that. It attracts these sociopaths, these people who, who have a strong need for control.

00:16:15And he claimed that he had been in Catherine Cullman's choir in Pittsburgh. He came from

00:16:21Pittsburgh. And that's, that's where he received his anointing. But yeah, the sad thing was that

00:16:30really, the people in his church, in his home church in Indiana, Pennsylvania, knew, knew what

00:16:36was going on. But people seem to sort of be able to, to, to accept there's a certain amount

00:16:44of things going on that aren't quite right. It doesn't really matter if the man's really

00:16:47anointed. Really, that's the case, isn't it?

00:16:51Yeah. And I think also these, these sort of groups where people, you know, I wasn't around

00:16:57when it was meeting in the house, because I met Sarah later. But it was obviously a time

00:17:03where people weren't self-seeking, they were seeking the Lord. And so no one had an agenda

00:17:08to try and make a ministry or whatever, in general, in, in the fellowship setting. But

00:17:14the people, because there's no, you know, people knew what they knew. Sarah's dad was obviously

00:17:19very knowledgeable. He read the New Testament Greek and, you know, he's obviously knew his

00:17:24word. But these, these, these sorts of places, I suppose, are inviting to those people looking

00:17:33to gain authority or whatever, because it's, it's a malleable sort of thing. And they can

00:17:40exert influence in different ways, and gain more and more control, but in a very subtle

00:17:47way. And he's, he, he was very good at befriending people, you know, I have to say I was one,

00:17:54you know, he, he could spot someone who was vulnerable. And he, he would happily spend time,

00:18:02uh, what, what we would call now grooming someone to, to get them to the place and start pressing

00:18:10and pushing to see what reactions he got when certain things were done. So he was, he was a very

00:18:16skillful manipulator.

00:18:20But it was interesting that even before, as soon as my dad died in the early eighties,

00:18:26even before this, this guy was sort of on the fringes and he wanted to come in and, uh,

00:18:34you were, now we're looking back, particularly with what we know about trauma and all that other

00:18:38sort of stuff. Looking back, we know that he was, he was in it for the long game. These people are in

00:18:43it for the long game. They're not, they're not going to rush. They're going to build their

00:18:47friendships. They're going to make themselves indispensable to you. They're going to control

00:18:52relationships. I mean, it's really quite shocking when you look back. And I think we look at all the

00:18:56other stories that we've heard. It's very similar with people like Mike Bickle, with people,

00:19:01with people of that type, um, how they're in it for the long game. They build their relationships

00:19:07until they're really pulling all the strings in one sense. And they pull some people close. They

00:19:12keep some people at a distance so that if you talk to other people, they'll say, he just didn't do

00:19:17that to me. I think, I think, I think you might be imagining that actually. Should you really be

00:19:22speaking about that? Should you really be talking about God's anointed? And you suddenly, we moved

00:19:27from being just a little, a little fellowship meeting in a home in a circle with the guitars out

00:19:33to suddenly, after my dad had died, we moved more meeting into a school hall, which was the way

00:19:38those sorts of churches went. And then one day I came in and instead of being in a circle in the

00:19:44school hall, all the chairs were arranged up to the front, facing the front, facing the one man.

00:19:50And something had shifted really, but it was subtle because it happened slowly. Oh, it's going to be much

00:19:56better for everybody. If he's standing up here, if someone's standing up here, then we can, we can all see

00:20:01him at one go or it'll be easier for running the, all the sound equipment if we have it like that,

00:20:07etc, etc. So it's like you talk about quite often the frog in the boiling water or in the cold water

00:20:14that gets heated up. And that's exactly what happens. It doesn't happen overnight because with

00:20:18these sorts of cults and cultish atmospheres, we look back and we think, how could we have been taken

00:20:25in by that? What happens? We're sensible

00:20:30people. We, how could, how could we find ourselves in this position? And yet we did.

00:20:37You know, you just described about half of my childhood. I went to churches that were in mobile

00:20:41homes. One church was in this little building that was for the Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts,

00:20:47it was like a clubhouse. The Boy Scouts met in here on Saturday and then the church was held

00:20:52there on Sunday. They borrowed the building and then they grew. And obviously they become

00:20:56some of the massive churches. So I recognize all of that. But something you said, I want to go back

00:21:02to, you're talking about the, the way the music is attracting people. We have this thing in the

00:21:08United States. I don't know if you have it in the UK. I've, I've never been to the UK, but they have

00:21:12these buffets and America is, has widespread gluttony. People will go in and gorge themselves in a buffet.

00:21:18And as you walk out of a buffet, there's always this bowl of mints and you get a free mint as

00:21:24you walk out. And people think that's just so, uh, you know, a treat for them, but it's actually not.

00:21:29There is a, there's a manipulation technique behind this. If you gorge yourself and you go home

00:21:36and your belly starts to swell and you start to feel ill, you're going to remember that and you're

00:21:40going to associate that ill feeling with the restaurant. But if you take the little mint, the mint kind of

00:21:45soothes your stomach and it coats the inside. So then you feel good afterwards and you, you associate

00:21:51the good feeling with gorging yourself, which is kind of funny when you think about it. Well, music

00:21:57has not the same effect on your stomach, but kind of the same effect on your mind. If you get all the

00:22:03people together and it's a very exciting, very uplifting, you know, people enjoying the music,

00:22:10getting into it. And the preacher preaches something that is just authoritarian and belittling,

00:22:16making you feel lower than dirt. Well, you're going to remember that music because the music

00:22:21made you happy. You kind of forget the bad thing. But if they didn't have the music and you walked

00:22:26in and some guy's just shouting at you, you're going to leave thinking, I'm not going to go back

00:22:30to this place. There's no way I'm going back to this place. So there are, in fact, I released, uh,

00:22:35today's, uh, podcast on just charismatic music and the effects that it has on the people.

00:22:42We didn't cover everything because there's so many different aspects to think through with just

00:22:46the music part. But it is a, it can be used as a manipulation technique. It can be used for praise

00:22:53and worship. What people don't get is it actually can be used for both. And that's where it gets a

00:22:58little scary. Yeah. I mean, I worked in, in the States in, uh, in the music business,

00:23:03the Christian music business, in fact, for six months working for someone connected to South

00:23:09Chard. Um, and yeah, it is a, well, it's another whole program, probably what goes on there. That

00:23:16is another whole world really quite shocking in actual fact, what goes on. But yeah, it, but in

00:23:22the early days, when we first met in our home, it was such a, those were really precious times.

00:23:27And it was talked about often as body ministry. I don't know if you've heard that term, but, um,

00:23:32body ministry, the things of the spirit people would talk about. Um, and we would just get

00:23:37together. Someone would play the guitar. Um, someone would share, pray, read the Bible, etc.

00:23:45It was really very special. But once it got into the meeting, into a hall, when we were meeting up

00:23:51front, as you say, then they did say, one of the things was they'd have the better microphones.

00:23:55We had microphones. We hadn't used those before really. And so on. So yeah, it became more of a,

00:24:01it was changing it from, from what I understand is from something where everyone could contribute.

00:24:06So everyone was involved to becoming more, a few people, whoever was in the worship team

00:24:13and the person who led the meeting at the time. And that's a very different thing.

00:24:17And so that, but then of course, once you've got someone at the front, then there's the opportunity

00:24:24to build leadership structures and, and things. And then that was it. And I remember the first time

00:24:29I, uh, there was a meeting when this, uh, American guy come along and it was such an excitement in

00:24:36the fellowship at that time. I hadn't seen this guy before. I hadn't met him, hadn't heard him speak,

00:24:41but everyone said, Oh, he's the most godly man. He's most amazing, charismatic man's coming.

00:24:46And there's a real excitement. I remember sitting in the meeting and there's almost a sense of awe

00:24:51when he was in the room. It was quite unlike nothing else I'd had. And at that time he was

00:24:57sort of giving sorts of, I guess you would call them words of knowledge. I don't know if that makes

00:25:00sense to you, but, uh, and he would point to someone and ask them a question and say something.

00:25:07And, you know, it was just like, wow, wow, what's going on here. And then he pointed at me,

00:25:12you know, Oh gosh, stand up. And I thought, well, this man obviously can see through things.

00:25:17So there's no point in line. He said, and he said, who do you say you are? And whatever.

00:25:20And I just, at the time I was not doing well. And I just said, I'm weak.

00:25:24And he sort of looked at me and, uh, and sat me down and stood me up later and sort of,

00:25:32I suppose he would say minister to me, but gave me a pep talk in a sense.

00:25:35And, but it was, it was really playing. You could, it was really playing with people

00:25:42in a sense, in a subtle way, looking back on it, it was really manipulation that was going on.

00:25:48It's not that I do believe people can have words of knowledge for people. I do think that's true,

00:25:54but I don't believe it's a public sort of a great show. If you know what I mean, uh,

00:26:00uh, and entertainment, that's not like what God is. God is caring and, and kind to us. I find most

00:26:08of the time. And it was that sort of early, uh, early data mining, you know, the data mining that

00:26:15they talk about now with various people on Facebook and so on and so on. And they use that information

00:26:20then from the platform, he clearly did find out things from various people and then used it. But it

00:26:26did give you an illusion that this man, yes, as Martin said, could see into your soul, you know.

00:26:32And then of course that gives them a power over you because then you're afraid, well,

00:26:35what else can they see? What else do they know about me? And it's quite a subtle thing. And then

00:26:40this person becomes built up. His name was Stanley Hickman. And he, he, um, he would teach people

00:26:47Greek, but he'd never learned Greek. So he was just one chapter ahead of everybody. But no one knew

00:26:53that. Everyone thought that somehow God had come down and, and taught him himself. It's that sort of

00:26:59building someone up to something bigger than they are. And then they become invincible, really. It

00:27:05doesn't matter what you say after that, because even if you see something awful, and he, he lived a

00:27:09homosexual lifestyle really throughout the time we knew him, he's now deceased. And, uh, and he used that,

00:27:17um, to, to get what he wanted from people in the guise of prayer and so on and so on. But because he had

00:27:25this sort of image, he, he could in one sense, get away with things. And he was careful because he did

00:27:33things one on one. He never did things in a group. So no one saw or experienced what say I experienced,

00:27:40because they weren't there. You were only there one on one with him. And of course, because of this aura

00:27:45he had because people saw him as sort of this holy man is the most, the best Christian we've ever met

00:27:50sort of thing. People wanted to spend time with him. And so he did a privilege. So yeah, it was a

00:27:57great privilege, you know, and I was the same, you know, I wanted to spend time with him. It was amazing

00:28:02to me that he would consider spending time with me because I wouldn't spend time with me at that point

00:28:07in my life. But, and he did, but he recognized that I was honorable. And so he would spend,

00:28:13he spent a good eight or nine months just being kind to me when the occasions, when I saw him,

00:28:18you know, obviously he was in America who had come over twice a year. We might be in a, and we had a

00:28:23conference in Europe once a year. So I might see him three, four times a year, but he was kind. He,

00:28:30and he just ingratiated himself on me. So when he started sort of hugging you a bit tighter

00:28:37or kissed you on the cheek or something, he just, it didn't really register to start with.

00:28:45But then he started, then you started to have this battle in yourself of,

00:28:50what's that? Is it that? No, it can't be because this man's a holy man. This man's a

00:28:55da-da-da-da-da, and you have this whole conflict going on in you because everyone's built him up as

00:29:00this amazing man of God and this Christian with a perfect walk. And on the side, what's that? That

00:29:07felt a bit, hmm? Yeah. Don't know whether I like that. But the other thing overruled,

00:29:14a bit like you're saying with the music and things like that, it left, there was patterns established

00:29:19in your thinking that overruled common sense. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal

00:29:25movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter

00:29:31reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn

00:29:37this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the

00:29:44books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley,

00:29:50Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions

00:29:56of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related

00:30:03to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking

00:30:09the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video

00:30:15version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research,

00:30:20we want to thank you for your support. You know, people ask me, I get emails about this,

00:30:25why I don't take sides on the cessationist continuous debate. And it's because I have so many mixed emotions.

00:30:32I think I mentioned in one of the podcasts, I'm a skeptizationist or something, something like this.

00:30:37I made up a term, right? I'm skeptical of all of the hoaxes that are out there and all of the fraud

00:30:42that is happening. I have known people that knew things that they probably could never have known,

00:30:49just things that, you know, they, they were able to, I don't know how they did. I don't know what

00:30:54the gift was, if they even had one, but they knew it. But the people who can do this, that I have

00:30:59encountered the ones who truly have the gift, not the charlatans. It's, it's a burden to them.

00:31:06They really don't want to have this thing because you don't want to like you people, you're nice

00:31:12people. I would not want to know things about your life that you would not want others to know.

00:31:16This would terrify me. Why, why would I want this? Right. And so people who have this kind of gift,

00:31:22they, they usually don't want to tell other people that they have it. And if it is used in a

00:31:28public manner, it's usually public in that they will take somebody who has some issue and call them

00:31:34to the side, not make a big show of it. They don't want people to worship them, but more to the point,

00:31:41because humans are afraid of things that they don't understand. So the humans in the audience who

00:31:47sees the person on the platform, who's boasting, I can do this magic thing. They start to fear this.

00:31:52And like you said, this, this is exactly the case with everybody. I know when somebody does this

00:31:57and convinces the audience, they can do it. If they ever get alone with them, the person who

00:32:02they're alone with doesn't want them staring into their secret, private parts of their head,

00:32:07you know, because every person, every human is broken. So it, it creates this fear. And what I don't

00:32:14understand is why people in these leadership positions, especially ministers, a minister is supposed

00:32:20to be a shepherd of the flock. You're supposed to help one another. Why would a minister want

00:32:25his congregation to fear him unless he is some sort of a narcissist or has some weird personality

00:32:31disorder? And at the same time, I can't brand the entire movement of leadership with narcissistic

00:32:37personality disorder. So I think there must be something else. This, this is either show,

00:32:42showmanship, fakery. This is something entirely different.

00:32:45Definitely. It is the case that it seems to us, and I've been, you know, I've grown up in this,

00:32:51in this environment, um, that there are the people who want to take control like this chap who get off

00:32:58somehow on, on, on having the control. Um, and there are another, there are the people of which there are,

00:33:05the more, there are more of them who cover it up, who enable it because they see it and they let it go.

00:33:13So it's not just the people who are, who are taking control. It's the ones who stand by and watch it

00:33:20happen and say nothing and then become really involved in it because they've seen it and they

00:33:26should have said something. I mean, one of the, uh, early leaders of the church after my dad had died,

00:33:32um, was a, um, a man who, yeah, who was, I suppose that you'd say a narcissist or someone with narcissistic

00:33:41traits who, um, who said he'd seen a vision of himself holding it. He told you.

00:33:46Yeah. He told me, I, I, cause I asked him how he became, cause he was sort of a pastor. He presented

00:33:52himself as a pastor at that time. And I said, Oh, how did that come about then? How did you become

00:33:56pastors? I had no idea. And he said, Oh, I had a vision of me sitting on a throne with a sector and

00:34:01an order because I was such a, a young believer at the time. It struck me as odd. And I assumed that,

00:34:08oh, well, other people must've had that vision if, if they agreed with you, but he was the only one,

00:34:13of course, that had that vision or if, well, he would like you to think he had that vision,

00:34:18but I suspect he didn't. And it's just such a ridiculous thing. Now, when you look back,

00:34:24you know, Oh, for the wisdom that we have now, 20 years ago or whatever, but that's the way it is.

00:34:31But then he went on to, you know, people push as hard as they can put people,

00:34:36push you as far as they can go. It's amazing how far leaders like that. You talked about some of

00:34:41the things, the crazy things that William Branham said and did, but it's amazing how far people can

00:34:47go and say things and nobody challenges it. And that is very endemic in these, in this,

00:34:54in this day and age when there's not that, um, balanced leadership. And he then went on,

00:34:59he, the one time he was really shouting at me about something and I'm just

00:35:03a member of the church doing my full-time job and then helping out in the church as well,

00:35:09because these churches run, of course, with mostly volunteers. Um, and he was shouting at me about

00:35:15something and I just, something came up in me and I said, why are you shouting at me? I did everything

00:35:21you asked me to do. And now you're telling me you want me to do something else. And he said,

00:35:26right, we need to have a meeting. And I thought, oh no, you know, I'm, I, I shouldn't have spoken

00:35:31up, but actually something inside me just had to speak up. And we had a meeting with the other

00:35:37leader and he, this particular narcissistic leader looked at me and said, well, I just want you to

00:35:42know I'm like Jeremiah, the prophet to you. And you've talked about people who say they're Elijah,

00:35:47the prophet. This guy said he was Jeremiah. He said, I can tear you down if I want to,

00:35:51and I can build you up if I want to. And standing there right beside him is a,

00:35:57is another leader who knew very well that what was going on was a load of nonsense,

00:36:02but he said nothing. And, and that goes on a lot. And it, and people, and people get away. Well,

00:36:08they don't get away with it because they'll all stand before the Lord one day and give an account,

00:36:13but, but people don't want to say anything. And eventually this American chap,

00:36:18Stanley Hickman coming from Indiana, Pennsylvania, from a church there called,

00:36:22which was then called house of Yahweh. He, um, he came over and he said, right,

00:36:27we're going to, we're going to sort this out. This isn't right that this man's shouting at people.

00:36:31And he told him he had to leave. But in actual fact, what was happening was one narcissist was

00:36:37being replaced with a much bigger narcissist. And that's what we also didn't see looking back.

00:36:41It seems so ridiculous that we couldn't, we couldn't understand that.

00:36:44I mean, he did it also in such a dramatic way. Cause I, I knew him at that point,

00:36:49he called me and the American guy, he'd left, he'd done a conference series and then left and

00:36:54gone back to America. Then he called me and says, I'm coming back, but I don't want anyone to know.

00:36:59And I thought, well, okay. So I picked him up at the airport and put him in a hotel near where the

00:37:04meeting was. And so we were having our normal, I think it was a Wednesday meeting, I think.

00:37:08And he was at the back of me and then he just walked into the meeting, totally unannounced,

00:37:13you know, this American picture from somewhere else. This can imagine the drama and he's creating

00:37:19a dramatic atmosphere, you know, so that people are off their guard already. And then they're open to

00:37:26whatever. And of course he, he confronted the guy in a very direct way, making it seem like he was the

00:37:32goody when it was really, it was, it was like the beast kicking out the anti, anti Christ or whatever,

00:37:39you know, it's just one bad thing for another, but it was, you know, he knew how to manage things

00:37:45and be dramatic. And that it was, but I think the thing that's really struck us, particularly

00:37:51we've gone on to train. I have as a therapeutic foster parent, and I think we understand more now

00:37:56the impact that these have on, and we can look back and, and laugh a little, you know, we look back

00:38:02and we think, oh, and it was a dramatic day that day. And all the things that happened and the,

00:38:07and the shouting and the toing and throwing. But in actual fact, at the heart of all this,

00:38:11there are people who suffer terribly. You know, there are people whose, whose lives have been

00:38:18really impacted by what's gone on. And, and I think that's something we feel very strongly about. And,

00:38:24for example, this chap coming from this church in, in Indiana, the elders there, all the elders who

00:38:30had good jobs, it was small, small town USA in one sense, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania,

00:38:36so they had, they all, they all had jobs, which were, you know, school teachers. And, you know,

00:38:43I don't know, in small, in the small towns in USA, it seems there's quite a lot of, you know,

00:38:48hierarchy in one sense. And they had good jobs. And I don't think they wanted, it was too much really,

00:38:54to recognise what was going on. But they would be at our conferences, we had conferences for all the

00:38:58churches, there were churches around the world, about four or five, five churches in total. We

00:39:03would have conferences in Europe in the Easter times. And this man would be there praying for

00:39:09young men or praying on them, P-R-E-Y-I-M-G, in his prayer time. And there would be young men queued up

00:39:18outside, you know, waiting to, waiting to see him. And yet, there's me, you know, oh, fantastic,

00:39:25we've got, you know, here's the man of God, and we're going to, you know, it's lovely, they're all

00:39:29queuing up to be prayed for. And I didn't know, I couldn't have known what was going on. But now I

00:39:35look back, and I'm horrified that there were men there, plenty of men, well able to have stopped that

00:39:42from happening, well able to have said. And just to take it back a couple of steps, then if you look

00:39:48back to what happened with someone like Derek Prince, I'm not in any way putting him in that

00:39:53mould. But nevertheless, he set up an authoritarian structure that paved the way for other men to

00:40:01bring this man in. It absolutely is directly connected. We haven't touched on any of the

00:40:07the, the deliverance and all that sort of thing that maybe that's another subject. But this this

00:40:14whole way of this shepherding thing has a lot to answer for, because it was never really publicly

00:40:21discredited. It just sort of went down quietly, or we're just going to quietly move away from that.

00:40:28But in actual fact, that way of thinking that way of giving men a lot of credence, a lot of authority,

00:40:34a lot of power, which couldn't be questioned, then set up the way for these men, and in our case,

00:40:40this particular man then, to come in and really take control. And really throughout the entire time

00:40:47he ministered in the UK, which is over 40 years. And he was obviously, he was obviously just a

00:40:54charlatan. And it's never just that one thing, you know, that once they've got control, there's,

00:41:00it's not just about what goes on in the prayer room, which was clearly abusive, it's all the

00:41:08other things that they're doing, all the other type of control that they're having over, over

00:41:13everything over people. I mean, it might be a good point to mention what he did to us when we met in

00:41:18the fellowship. And we married, and we'd asked him to marry us. But hey-ho. But he saw us a few

00:41:28times before we were getting married, and he was sort of counselling us, if you call it that,

00:41:34briefly. But go on, sweetie, if you want to speak about that.

00:41:38Is it appropriate to say? Yes, maybe I can. I could tell the story of, because this is a story that

00:41:43really highlights how much impact someone like that, and ways like that can have on people's

00:41:49lives. So we decided to get married ourselves without any outside intervention. And as you know,

00:41:55in these places, the whole shepherding way, although even if you're not calling it shepherding, there's a

00:41:59lot of sort of coercive behaviour, putting people together. And, you know, or keeping people apart,

00:42:07or stopping people from doing what they want to do, but perhaps not actually calling it shepherding.

00:42:13And in our case, so we made our own decision that we want to get married. And so we didn't really

00:42:19have any proper counselling. Not from him, no. We had from the UK pastor, but it wasn't counselling,

00:42:25it was just rambling. It was just rambling. It was nothing to do with anything that matters. When

00:42:30people get married, they need to talk about all sorts of important things. But this was talking to us

00:42:34about Abraham and all sorts of stuff. And not that that's not important. But in the context,

00:42:39there's other things to practical things that you might be better served. So in our case, we had,

00:42:44we had, yeah, we had only one session with him, actually. So he flew in, especially to marry us,

00:42:49which was a massive, you know, that was a massive thing. And I, the other thing that these people do

00:42:55is that he flew into marry us. But really, really, I had very little by then to do with my own family,

00:43:01because he constantly, frequently would refer to my family when he talked to me about them as being

00:43:07demonised. And that's a horrible thing to do, because it, it pushes you apart from people,

00:43:13particularly if this person is to be believed, they're to be honoured. And they say this about

00:43:18your family. Well, really, that makes that really hard, that relationship. My mum wasn't really,

00:43:25wasn't really even there on the day that we got, well, she was there when we got married,

00:43:28but she wasn't with me, etc. However, coming back to that night before, the two nights before we got

00:43:34married, we were both working full time. And I think it's worth saying we were already legally

00:43:38married, because we had the legal ceremony already the weekend before. So we were having our like

00:43:44church celebration a week later. And so two days before we would have a wedding rehearsal dinner,

00:43:50very American invention, we don't normally do in this country. But we were having that because it was

00:43:54all sort of a bit Americanised. And two nights before that, we were we were to see this guy for

00:44:01our formal counselling before we got married. And we came into the room. And I was a bit nervous,

00:44:06because you know, this is the big guy. And he said to me, so you're getting married. So can you tell me

00:44:16why you're getting married? Like crumbs, there's always going to be a wrong answer. When people ask you

00:44:22those questions, it doesn't matter what you say, it's going to be the wrong answer. And then they're

00:44:27going to say, Yeah, well, that's not the right answer, is it? This is the answer. So I thought

00:44:30I'm going to be play it safe. I'm just going to say, because Martin asked me. And I thought,

00:44:36got you there. I've given you one I've given you the right answer. You can't you can't get me on that

00:44:40one. And he said, exactly. He said exactly. And it's not too late to call it off. I'm like, what,

00:44:48what? Wow. You know, we, we were slightly older when we got married. We're in our,

00:44:54in our 30s, late 30s. And I suddenly felt I suddenly felt sort of completely alone at that

00:45:02point. I was like, there's no one here, but me, Martin, and this chap, what am I going to say? I

00:45:07said, No, you don't understand. We legally got married a week ago in the registry office,

00:45:12which we have to do here, if you're going to get married in a certain place. And and he said,

00:45:17Don't worry, I can take care of that for you. I can have that nullified.

00:45:23And, and it was just the most shocking thing, because it and it goes to this whole control

00:45:29that comes with this sort of this sort of setup that comes really from this whole authoritarian

00:45:36way of doing things. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to talk to or what to say.

00:45:43And so we sort of, we sort of mumbled through the meeting. I said, Well, I don't, I don't, I

00:45:49remember saying, it's too late to call it off. It's too late to do that. We've got the weddings

00:45:56booked. We've got people coming in from all over the world. It's all set up. We've spent six months

00:46:04planning this. It's happening in two days, the wedding rehearsal dinner is being prepared downstairs,

00:46:09we can't call this off. Why would we call it off? I didn't ask him that question. But I think I know

00:46:14the answer was he, he wanted Martin more than he, you know, he, he had designs for everybody. And, and

00:46:22he wanted control, and he didn't have control. And I think he thought that he would lose control too,

00:46:28if we were married. But the strange thing is, we're in this room in this house, which is one of the lead,

00:46:35the house of one of the leaders where he was staying. And he says these things. And it's really

00:46:39shocking in that moment, because it questions everything you think you're about to commit your

00:46:43life and your everything to this person. And he's saying, Well, should you really be doing that? Hmm,

00:46:49don't know. And that's a horrible thing to do, where I was thinking it was going to be a talk about

00:46:55all sorts of things I could imagine. But, and then he just sort of, I think he thought, well,

00:47:01I've tried shrugged his shoulders and said, Okay, and then off we went.

00:47:04I mean, he left us in turmoil, we were in about turmoil for about 24 hours. And we couldn't

00:47:09contact, we didn't really have mobile phones so easily accessible, then we didn't really talk to

00:47:14one another. But when we finally talked to one another, we was we got settled that that's what

00:47:19we wanted to do, we got over it. But he was a mind game. It was it was it sent us into turmoil,

00:47:26what's going on? And you know, in my mind, does Sarah want to really want to marry me? I don't know what

00:47:30Sarah was thinking, you know, it was all these things going on. But simply because he stuck,

00:47:36you know, he's playing his game, his power play, and it's just wicked stuff.

00:47:40And his wife and the sad thing is with all these situations that the wives know the wives are part

00:47:44well, not all of them, of course, but in many in many cases, the wives of the of both the

00:47:51protagonists, as it were, the main game players, and the wives of the enablers and the cover uppers.

00:47:59And I'll read on it, they know what's going on. And then she said to me the next morning,

00:48:04I tried to talk to her and she and we're getting married 24 hours, then I tried to tell you why I

00:48:10didn't really think I loved him when we got married either. I questioned it anyway. And she left it at

00:48:15that. But the interesting thing was that just not long before then I'd sat down at my piano and I had

00:48:20written my vows. And, and I said to him, I'd said to him when we had the rehearsal, I've written my

00:48:27vows, and someone's going to play them for me, I'm going to sing them. And he controlled everything,

00:48:32he controlled every detail of the service. And amazingly, he said to me, well, I don't, I don't

00:48:37mind about that, you just go ahead and do it. And that for me was, that was that was a good thing,

00:48:41because he didn't have control of it. But it did send us into turmoil, we got married, he married us.

00:48:47And then we went off to the States for our honeymoon, part of which was attending the

00:48:53summer conference, which is the funny thing that you do, you know, you do those crazy things. And

00:48:58you look back and think, well, what was going on? What were we thinking? But really, it's that the

00:49:03old frog analogy again, I'm sitting here almost at a loss for words, I can't believe somebody would do

00:49:08this to you. My grandfather married my wife and I and the my wife, my wife looks down at this,

00:49:14but I'll tell it anyway. My grandfather made this comment that marriage is a wonderful institution

00:49:21for those that need an institution. And, and I understood my grandfather was joking. I don't

00:49:26think my wife fully did. So there was some humor there. And he was my grandfather. But I can't

00:49:30imagine if my grandfather had have said something like this. But when you said it, the way you described

00:49:35the setup, the first thought that come to my head is, oh, my gosh, he is cold reading you,

00:49:40he's watching the way you respond, he's listening to words. And he's trying to pretend that he has

00:49:46this supernatural thing going and he can see in your head. And yet he's responding to your answer,

00:49:51which was trying to trying to avert, you know, distract from his questions. So the whole thing

00:49:58just it's odd to me. And the other thing that comes to mind is this authoritarian control that

00:50:05Derek Prince and others set up, it was a downhill only authoritarian control, they said that it was

00:50:11shepherds governing the shepherds governing the people. But if you actually understand what was

00:50:16happening, it was just the rank and file member that got the authoritarian control. Those in the

00:50:21leadership were never ever really under control of any kind. And they're nobody was checking to see,

00:50:27are these guys predators? Or are these good, good spiritual men?

00:50:30Yes, exactly. And I mean, that's the thing with Derek Prince, there's no indication that he was a

00:50:35predator at all. And I wouldn't want to indicate that. But he, he ran with predators, or certainly ran

00:50:42with one. And I think, and that's never really talked about. And that means many, many other people

00:50:49knew what was going on, too. And, you know, apart from the fact that Eldon Purvis, who was, who was

00:50:55producing or whatever it is, the new wine magazine was himself a homosexual, and they knew it. And,

00:51:04and I've got lots of Derek Prince stuff that was produced in the early 2000s before he died.

00:51:09That's reproductions from those articles, which are slightly changed around a little bit, but it's still

00:51:15the same flavour coming through. And I think it's a sad thing with people like that, they,

00:51:20they could have stood up and taken, taken a stand, unpopular though it might have been,

00:51:26for the truth and to protect people. And, and, you know, that, that man, Stanley Hickman from that

00:51:33church, when Harry Green had brought him into the country first, it was on the pretext of ministering

00:51:40at children's camps. And I was a leader at the children's camps. And it wasn't until everything

00:51:46started to, the truth started to come out, that, that I remembered the times when people would tell

00:51:52me that how kind Stanley was, because he would take the little boys to his bedroom to minister to

00:51:58them because they were homesick. And I thought, wow, how kind. And now as a, as a trauma-informed

00:52:05therapeutic foster parent, I can only see one thing.

00:52:09And I think for, for us, you know, one of the most disappointing things was when eventually

00:52:16things became so much that Stanley was exposed and, and the American Fellowship had to take action

00:52:25and removed him as pastor and in effect paid him off to go and move away. When, how this was dealt

00:52:35with in our fellowship was just really difficult and ended up with us leaving because we were asked to,

00:52:41in effect, we, victims were made the troublemakers and put off because we, they, they sort of made

00:52:50an announcement in the fellowship, but it was, we were digging around and we're finding out all kinds

00:52:55of things. And it was nowhere near a big enough statement to say what had gone on. And so with great

00:53:01fear and trembling, we asked for a meeting with our leaders. There's two of them. And we, we just

00:53:07said, we, we really concerned that people, one, didn't really know the true truth of what's really

00:53:14been going on for so many years. And we think people need an opportunity to ask some questions

00:53:20if they got them, you know, and, and, and thirdly, we think we probably need someone to come and help us

00:53:25with this because we've been under the sway of this man for 40 years. So that was our three little points,

00:53:31a clear announcement opportunity to ask questions and get some help. And, and that was seen as

00:53:37almost incendiary when we presented that. So the first time we asked them that in the meeting,

00:53:42they said, we need to think about that and we'll come back to you. Well, they didn't come back to us.

00:53:46Eventually we probably then, and we had another meeting and they said, well, would you like to

00:53:50change your minds about what you said? It was the first thing he said. And he said, no, he said,

00:53:56can you tell us again? So we went through the whole thing again. And it was, it was really noticeable,

00:54:04the change in their attitude. You know, the one, one of the leaders was the one who shared the gospel

00:54:08with me and I got saved through and I would count as my best friend and the other guy I would have

00:54:13counted as a friend too. But suddenly it was like, there was a chasm between us and, and all that

00:54:19section had gone. It was a cold. Yeah. And they were terrified of, of it getting out as it were,

00:54:27of losing face. I think, I think that's the sad thing when people are more interested in just

00:54:33protecting their position and protecting their reputation than they are in the truth. And,

00:54:40you know, we, we spoke to them very, very, um, from our hearts, but they did say, you know,

00:54:47it was that, that old, uh, you know, people talk about Davo, you know, this deflect attack reflect

00:54:53and so on. In other words, for those who don't know what that means, um, when someone says

00:55:00something's happening, for example, if I said, it would be like, it would be like there was a meeting

00:55:05going on a church meeting in the church building, let's say, and someone's speaking about Psalm 23,

00:55:10for example, and someone runs in and says in that back room where the children are meeting,

00:55:16someone's attacking the children. And someone would, from the front would say, could you,

00:55:20could you be quiet, please? Could you just sit down? We'll deal with that when we deal with it.

00:55:24And it's exactly that thing of, uh, we were told, we don't want lots of emotion. Could you just be

00:55:31calm about this? Could you just sit down and be quiet? And, and it was really, it was really

00:55:37devastating for me because I'd grown up in, I mean, like you, I think you'd grown up in the church.

00:55:42It was my, it was my whole life. It was, I'd grown up in it. Um, these people had sat around my table

00:55:49with my parents. They'd sat in our rooms and we'd, and we'd seen them when they were at their worst,

00:55:55when they needed help, they turned up at the door. We'd been to their weddings because they

00:56:01got married. We'd held their babies, you know, and looked after them and been there for them.

00:56:07And they'd been there for us. And all of a sudden it's, we just don't want to talk about this when

00:56:12we're not even going to talk about it. And these things are quite serious, particularly when you

00:56:17look at the vulnerable people who'd been impacted by it all over the world. So there was the church in,

00:56:23in Indiana, Pennsylvania. There was the church in, in, there's one in Calgary called Living Word.

00:56:29There's one in India called Disciples Fellowship. There's one in Germany run by some, an American.

00:56:35And, um, and there was our church, which had been rebranded and all, and our church had been

00:56:40sort of rebranded along the way. It started as a little Christian fellowship, but had been

00:56:43rebranded. The church in America, when all this came out, they just took the sign at the front of

00:56:49the building and they took it out and they put a new sign in. It's like, we're just gonna, we're just

00:56:55going to make that just all nice and clean. We're just going to call it Word of Grace Fellowship now.

00:56:59So that must be Word of Grace. Yep. Grace. We've got the word grace in there. Yeah, that's good. Yep.

00:57:03Yeah. No, we'll just start again. And, and you can't do that really. You really can't do that. This,

00:57:09this is, I guess that's our concern. Our concern is that there are people out there, especially young,

00:57:15young men at a time who experienced varying degrees of unwanted attention from this man,

00:57:23who've probably been traumatized and hurt by it, and maybe not found their voice to be able to

00:57:29talk to anyone about it. And I think there is a great need for that. I suspect there are, we,

00:57:37we know of some people who unfortunately are no longer on this earth because it was too much

00:57:41what had happened to them. And it's a terrible thought. And we, you know, I, I hope maybe that

00:57:49someone might hear some of this and might find the courage to think, oh, I can speak to someone. I can

00:57:53say this out loud. I can talk to someone and share it because I'd hate to think these things are locked

00:58:00up in people. I know for myself, you know, being able to talk and things has been such a help. And

00:58:07to be able to say these things and have people believe you, it's such a big thing. And I really hope

00:58:15that there are people out there that maybe in some small way can help us.

00:58:21That's, yeah, we had, I think it would have been on one of your podcasts. It was about a year ago,

00:58:27someone told their story, or maybe it was on another one, but someone told the story,

00:58:31and it wasn't so dissimilar to ours. And I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, this happened 15 years ago

00:58:37for us. Now, this is the first time we've really felt that we could talk about it. And I think I was

00:58:42afraid. I was afraid what might happen to me if I talked about it. And still, even when we left the

00:58:47church, someone had left before us. And one of the ladies said to me, I'm really, I'm really afraid for

00:58:53that person and names them to me because he's left the church. And he said things about what went on

00:58:58with that man. I think he's, I think he could die. I think he needs to look out. It's almost like God

00:59:03could strike you down dead. If you speak against God's anointed, it's that old God's anointed thing.

00:59:10And eventually, obviously, we made the decision to leave because we thought, you know, we're talking,

00:59:14no one's listening, we're getting pushed back, we're getting anathematized by it. And so we left,

00:59:22and it was like a cut off. We went and told certain people why we were leaving, because we wanted them

00:59:28to hear it from our own mouth. So people knew what had gone on. But no, there was only one couple who

00:59:35who found out halfway through the process what was going on and said, we want to know as friends

00:59:42what's going on. He said, you really don't want to know. He said, as we do. And we shared it with

00:59:46them. And God bless them. They stood with us and walked side by side with us and left eventually when

00:59:52we did. And you find out who your true friends are, don't you, in mucky moments like that. And I praise

00:59:58God that we have two excellent friends, Giles and Sue have been wonderful with us. But, you know,

01:00:04the rest, it all dropped off. And the first thing that the leaders did when we left was have a church

01:00:10meeting to talk about the fact that we'd left. And also, of course, we were doing so much.

01:00:16Yeah, about 75% of what happened in the fellowship was Sunday school, youth group, worship team,

01:00:22various things, opening and shutting the building, all kinds of things we were doing. And we had all

01:00:28the church equipment and everything. You know, it was wild, you know, but we couldn't do it. You know,

01:00:35it's just got to leave. Sometimes you've got to say, this isn't going to happen. It's not going to happen.

01:00:39We've got to go. We did. We sent you on a copy of their, of the four page letter they delivered to

01:00:46us while we were having a, before we'd left. And while we were having a, it was a, it was a worship

01:00:52practice, worship team practice at our house. So everyone's in our house. It's quite full with

01:00:56people. There's a ring on the doorbell. And at the door is the pastor. I call him that in the

01:01:01loosest possible sense, because he wasn't. And he, and he'd been put in place by the predator anyway.

01:01:07And he stood at the door and he just handed us a letter and said nothing. And, and we just didn't,

01:01:15and he just walked away. And so we opened the letter and in the letter it said, you know,

01:01:20we don't like what you've been saying to us. We don't think you should be saying it.

01:01:24And he said, oh yes, it's a serious error to put, what did he say?

01:01:30It says, we believe it is a serious error to put care for the hurt, care for hurt above care for the truth.

01:01:36And also that it was laughable that we should be asking for independent, you know,

01:01:42someone independent to come in. It was laughable and offensive to them. And so in actual fact,

01:01:48the funny thing was that I glanced at the letter and that was 2010. So it's 15 years ago. And then

01:01:56I glanced at the front of it. You read it, I think. And I couldn't, I said, what does it say? What does it

01:02:01say? I can't read it. And, and you told me, and it wasn't until about a year ago that I actually read

01:02:09the letter. It just was that I read it properly because it's so hurtful when people do those

01:02:14things to you, the people that, you know, you people that you've loved and you thought loved

01:02:19you. So it's really sad. And, but, but being able to speak about it and be able to speak and say,

01:02:26this happened to me, but God has been faithful. That's very freeing in itself.

01:02:30Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad you're free. I know that hearing the story from other people

01:02:36who are going through similar things, it will give them some courage to step out and be free. So,

01:02:41thank you so much for sharing this with us. There's so, so much more we could say.

01:02:47And we're grateful for the opportunity, you know, to sit and do it. We just felt,

01:02:51we've listened to a lot of your shows and we thought we could imagine speaking with you and

01:02:56having a free conversation. That's been very much it. So thank you very much.

01:03:00Awesome.

01:03:01Can I share one more little, little thing? I just, I, while I was putting down some notes as to what we

01:03:06might say, I was reminded of, you know, we we've worked as a, as therapeutic foster parents and

01:03:12trained a lot with, with how to help children who've experienced significant trauma and so on.

01:03:20And one of the things I was reminded of was two things. One of the lady, one of the ladies you

01:03:26spoke to, I believe was a therapist, is a therapist. She talked about post-traumatic growth and we

01:03:31certainly experienced that, that, that sort of post-PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. I

01:03:40wouldn't say we were diagnosed with anything particular, but it does take a toll on the way

01:03:44you think and the way you trust or can't trust people because of what's happened. And we had a

01:03:49young, we had a young child with us, a young person with us for a while. And she, we saw a clinician

01:03:58with her, particularly because of what she'd experienced. It was terrible neglect and abuse

01:04:04and so on and so on. And she really couldn't talk about it. And I said to the clinician, I don't think

01:04:10this is a good idea. We shouldn't be having these sessions, you know, I mean, what are you going to

01:04:14talk about? I was a bit nervous. And she said, and also as a Christian, I was a bit nervous where we

01:04:19were going. And she just said to me, there shouldn't be anywhere in, in this, in this young person's

01:04:25mind that they can't go. There shouldn't be somewhere that's so dark that we can't shine

01:04:28light in it. And that was really helpful. So we sat round a table and this child was shut down.

01:04:35She, you know, she, she, we, we, um, she learned to trust us and it was a really a beautiful thing,

01:04:43wasn't it? And we, and it taught us so much. We felt that God took us through that with her to teach us

01:04:48ourselves. And the clinician, we sat on bean bags around a table and in the middle, she draws a

01:04:55picture of a heart and she colors it in red. And she says, this is your heart. She says to this,

01:05:01to this young person. And because of the things that are done to you, each time something was done

01:05:05to you, you put a barrier around your heart. So she's drawing square around the heart so that when

01:05:12people try and come near you and they want to love you and help you, they can't get in because

01:05:16there's the barrier there. And that was really interesting. And then we're talking little girls

01:05:20just sitting there and she, we get to the end of the session and she said nothing. And she said,

01:05:25is there anything you'd like to say before, before we finish? And this was before we started

01:05:30doing play therapy and so on with her. And she took a big black marker from the table and she, um, went to

01:05:37the heart and she just went, she did a sort of, um, like a thunder box, a zigzag line through the heart.

01:05:45And she looked at us and she said, heartbroken. And in that moment, it was just so moving to me

01:05:51that she could express something like that out of, out of nothing. You know, it felt like she was just,

01:05:57you know, this is a child who was punching holes in the walls, punching through the plasterboard in

01:06:02the walls. Such was the pain of what was going on inside. And she did come to know the Lord as well.

01:06:07And that was a wonderful thing. And I think we're reaching out to those who have been heartbroken

01:06:12by what's been done to them. And often people don't really talk about it or they brush it off.

01:06:16But, uh, we just like to speak about the faithfulness of God and the love of God

01:06:21in rescuing us. Um, and thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

01:06:26Well, I'm glad you shared it. Like I said, it will help help many, many people. Thank you so much for

01:06:31doing this. Thank you. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or share your

01:06:35story, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the

01:06:41dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read weaponized religion from Christian identity

01:06:46to the NAR available on Amazon, Kindle, and audible.

01:07:16York City arriba.

01:07:21107-P�이.

01:07:22Where it is called, yes?

01:07:24521.

01:07:25Sean.

01:07:25122.

01:07:280.

01:07:39123.

01:07:40We'll see you next time.

When Spiritual Covering Turns Toxic: Legacy of Shepherding Abuse | Derek Prince & Discipling | 481

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