- 9 months ago
John and Brantley discuss the strange intersection between Christmas traditions and the theology of control that runs through movements like William Branham’s Message and the International House of Prayer. Their candid conversation explores how cult systems redefine holiness by stripping joy from human experience—right down to banning Christmas trees. The episode connects Branham’s mantle claims, the rise of Joel’s Army, and IHOPKC’s culture of overwork and spiritual abuse, tracing how authoritarian leadership transforms faith into fear. They unpack how stage personas, hero worship, and emotional addiction create a cycle of narcissism and trauma, then turn to healing, recovery, and the rediscovery of genuine community and humanity.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:24 Christmas, Control, and Cult Conditioning
00:12:02 Joel’s Army, Youth Focus, and Ideological Indoctrination
00:17:06 Spiritual Abuse, Trauma, and Silencing Victims
00:26:18 Stage Persona, Dopamine, and Authoritarian Power
00:34:55 Forced Conformity, Worship Policing, and Identity Loss
00:43:14 Community, Belonging, and Why People Stay
______________________
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
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:24 Christmas, Control, and Cult Conditioning
00:12:02 Joel’s Army, Youth Focus, and Ideological Indoctrination
00:17:06 Spiritual Abuse, Trauma, and Silencing Victims
00:26:18 Stage Persona, Dopamine, and Authoritarian Power
00:34:55 Forced Conformity, Worship Policing, and Identity Loss
00:43:14 Community, Belonging, and Why People Stay
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to another episode of
00:29the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author
00:34and founder of William Branham Historical Research at william-branham.org. And with
00:39me, I have my co-host and friend, Brantley Smith, former member of International House
00:44of Prayer and Christmas connoisseur. Brantley, it's good to have you back. I've been having,
00:50I don't know if you've seen it, people in the comment feeds, they have said for a long
00:53time, we want Brantley back. We want Brantley back. And we finally, we finally, we connected,
00:59but I was thinking this might be a good Christmas present to all the listeners just to see Brantley's
01:04shiny face and his Santa Claus red beard.
01:08I'm sad I didn't have a Santa hat. My wife's going to get a kick out of this though, because
01:12I'm kind of known as a Scrooge around our house. So I'm the one that doesn't let Christmas get put
01:17up till after Thanksgiving and all that kind of stuff. But you've been begging me to come back
01:23for a while and my life's just been crazy. So we'll be honest about that. I've been saying,
01:28I can't do it. So I'm the opposite of a Scrooge. My family, it's interesting. I think we've talked
01:35about this in the past, but in Branhamism, Christmas was a thing. You were not supposed to
01:40exchange gifts. You were not supposed to definitely not decorate. If you had a Christmas tree, you had
01:46just put a pagan idol in your house. That's how ridiculous it was. But see, my family grew up around
01:52the Branham family. And while Branham is out there preaching hellfires and condemnation to anybody who
01:58celebrates, from behind the pulpit, man, he was accepting Christmas gifts. They would bring them
02:04in the church. And he's like opening up, oh boy, a present. I got a new suit and all of this stuff.
02:10And all the little kids are thinking, man, I wish I had one because their parents wouldn't allow it.
02:15Well, my family knew the Branham family and they had a tree in their house. They celebrated like
02:20every normal family. And yet he's condemning the whole world. So I got to have Christmas. But then
02:27when I married my wife's family, they didn't know that the Branham family did this. So they just took
02:33the cult doctrine at heart. And so there was a little bit of a collision, not much, because they did
02:39celebrate Christmas, just not anything big. But the moment the decorations started to come,
02:45that's whenever we're like, okay, we got to have a talk with each other. Because I wanted them.
02:51Fast forward, I left the cult. And my family had never decorated outside the house, because
02:58you can have it in the house, nobody knows you're doing it. But once you put it out there,
03:02that's public display. The old church knows you're doing it, right? So after we left the cult,
03:07I hung Christmas lights, and I was proud of it. I put it all over social media. And I kid you not,
03:13the day after I put it on social media, somebody had come and they cut in several places the lights
03:19that were around the house. It just destroyed my Christmas lights, man.
03:23Oh, my gosh. Like, what is it in their mind that makes like Christmas so bad? Is it the
03:29commercialization? Like, why was it like a no-no?
03:33It's a cult, and you can't have fun in a cult, man. That's about what I've
03:37come to the conclusion of.
03:39It's true. At IHOP, we really didn't have like a whole, like Christmas, holidays really weren't
03:45much of a thing at IHOP. Like Christmas, I remember Thanksgiving. Over Thanksgiving time,
03:53it was whoever was in town would play as many sets as they could. I had one Thanksgiving's
03:59coming to mind that I played like six or eight hours that day, I think. I worship-led a couple
04:03sets. I played bass, and my hands were like bleeding, I think, at the end. Like I got my
04:10cut open from playing for so long. But Christmas always got kind of ignored because we always had
04:16our big end-of-the-year event or one-thing conferences, which I think always started like
04:20December 28th, I think, through the beginning of the year. And it was like a big New Year's thing.
04:25And so it was all hands on deck because it was like the big Bartle Hall conference center.
04:32It'd be like, I mean, whenever I was there in the heydays of it, man, it was 20,000 people,
04:36something like that, that were showing up for those things. And it was majority done off the
04:42back of the members is what it was. And so I heard awful stories of people not sleeping for days during
04:50those periods and just like having all kinds of like horrible body responses, just their body
04:56shutting down on them because they weren't sleeping and all that kind of stuff. So everything was not
05:00jolly and bright at Christmas at our cult.
05:04Yeah, Christmas is a thing. It's funny. I had wondered what would it be like if you're in
05:11International House of Prayer? And during Christmas, what would Christmas be like?
05:16And part of the reason I wanted to discuss this specifically, I'm diving deeper into Joel's
05:23army because I'm starting to understand there's a lot of events, a lot of research that you and
05:27I haven't even talked about yet, much of which I've not even published yet. But before the latter
05:33reign started, William Branham was apparently gifted the mantle of Smith Wigglesworth in a church
05:41of a sexual predator in Los Angeles or Oakland. It's an Oakland church. So he goes in this church
05:48and I've got some of that research published. But the way Branham's mantleism worked is he would
05:54often say, well, he died one day and then I died the next. And he would do this. He never used the
06:00word mantle, but he would allude to the fact that there was a passing of spirit. That's usually how this
06:07worked. And when you put the timeline together, it's really weird because you see this alleged
06:13prophecy happening, whatever happened, happened. And then after this, suddenly Branham is instantly
06:19famous, not just not a gradual famous, not like building up a career instantly in all of the
06:26Pentecostal networks. He's famous. So as you know, he tours through Canada and Sharon Orphanage gets
06:33involved. They start going to the meetings. He's a catalyst for basically the, you know,
06:39the latter reign revival, latter reign movement. But where it gets really, really odd to me is as
06:45I'm studying the, the history of Pentecostalism combined with the culture and the history of the
06:52world wars, you had the Hitler youth, which instantly was indoctrinating children on an ideology.
07:00Yeah. Then you had right after this, and this is happening towards the middle or end of World
07:09War II, you had all of these weird Christian groups that were starting similar youth programs,
07:14right? And they're trying to, you know, probably with good intentions, trying to indoctrinate youth
07:19with Christianity. But mixed with this, you had Christian identity. So mixed with Christianity to
07:26the youth, they also had Christian identity, which is an ideology. Well, that ideology was clear and
07:32present in the Sharon Orphanage from some of the research I have on the leaders who later got rebuked
07:39publicly for their very racist comments and saying that I won't even say what they say, but it's, it's
07:45very, very horrendous. But then you go look at what's happening in that youth. And that's where it gets
07:50weird because Pentecostalism claimed a prophecy from the book of Joel, Joel 2, said, behold, I will
07:59pour my spirit out on all flesh, et cetera. Well, there's a phrase in there that comes next that
08:04says your sons and daughters will dream dreams and prophesy. I can't remember the exact verbiage,
08:09but Pentecostalism, Azusa Street, all of that was starting to fade out. And suddenly somebody came up
08:16with a great idea that, well, we need to focus on the youth. They're the ones that are going to
08:20prophesy, dream dreams, see visions. The old men will see dreams and dream visions. The young men
08:25will prophesy. So they're trying to build this youth thing. And eventually this combined with
08:33the manifested sons of God to become Joel's army. And that's the first iteration. That's not the IHOP
08:38KC iteration of this. So as I'm diving deeper into this and I'm thinking, well, now you've got Joel's
08:46army. And in that era of Pentecostalism, they were starting to just come down harshly against
08:54anybody who celebrated Christmas, not just exchanging gifts, but the whole idea of Christmas they were
09:01fighting. So now that I'm thinking International House of Prayer with regards to Christmas, how much
09:08of that was carried forward?
09:10Yeah, I don't think, I never heard people talk negatively about Christmas. But I also don't
09:17remember things like gift exchanges. I mean, we were all poor, like all of us. So I was talking to
09:22somebody this week and telling them about how much money I made during my time there. Like I was
09:25practically living off 400 bucks a month, like my whole time there. This would have been 08, 2012. And so
09:32my rent alone, I think was like 300 of that. And then eventually I got into a gig where they gave
09:38me an apartment kind of thing or a room in an apartment. But it never was talked about a whole
09:45lot. Like I remember Christmas messages and it was just kind of like traditional kind of Christmas
09:50stuff, incarnation and that kind of stuff. And that's what was so weird about IHOP is with all
09:59the fanaticism and like fringe beliefs and things, there were some times that like Christmas where we
10:06would hear like a message on the incarnation and it would feel okay. Like it would seem a little bit
10:11normal. Which was always, I think you probably had that I'm sure within the Branham stuff is
10:19you almost had like resistors within the system who tried to push back, who maybe believed in the big
10:27vision of the organization and what they were trying to do. But there was some theological differences,
10:35like at IHOP, which I'm surprised. Like I had IHOP U teachers who came from like Methodist
10:41backgrounds and had some more reformed influence with a couple of them, which was very surprising.
10:50Yeah, it's, it's, we really didn't have a whole lot, a whole lot of that. The Joel's,
10:55Joel's army stuff, I mean, in the youth, I mean, that was always a focus and still seeing it.
11:03And that's, that's one of the things I think that like upsets us, the former members the most,
11:08like whenever we're having conversations and stuff, is we see these guys rolling out the same
11:13tricks, like the playbooks haven't changed at all. Back in our day, it was like the big conference
11:20promos and social media wasn't as big at that point in time. And so everything was, was geared towards
11:28those big conferences, like the one thing was like their big recruiting event of the year. And you'll
11:34hear former members talk about all the false promises that were made to people about the
11:39education that they would get and what the experience would be like. And it'd be world class, like for
11:44the music school, it'd be like world class music training. And you'll hear some stories from some
11:49of them, they're like, I barely even played music in the music school kind of thing. And so it was like,
11:53all just kind of felt like a little bit of a front. And we're seeing, I don't know how much you guys
12:01have kept up. I've not listened to the show recently. I'm sorry. But I, with the recent IHOP
12:09happenings and stuff, like IHOP itself is kind of low key still. It's like a small group that's
12:14keeping things going. Hope City's kind of popping off, which is Mike Bickle's sister,
12:18who's kind of stoking the flame a little bit. But the one that's standing out to me,
12:24specifically in the context of this conversation, talking about youth and the Joel's Army kind of
12:28thing, is the group in Atlanta. I don't know if you've kept up with them at all. So there's
12:35Billy Humphrey is the leader there who was, he was an intern of Mike's. He came out to Kansas City
12:43and did an internship and such. And so it was raised up on that. They ended up developing like
12:48their own version of prophetic history. And they started going 24-7 sometime around like 08, 09,
12:54I think. But they ended up rebranding like right around whenever all the Mike Bickle stuff came
13:01out. So they were called IHOP Atlanta for the longest time. They rebranded Gate City,
13:06Gate City Church. They ended up like merging with a local church there. But the stuff that they're
13:12doing, it's still the same stuff. It's come and give your youth, come and give your best years.
13:18It's the, you know, God sent revival to this generation. Like it's not changed at all. It's
13:23weird. Like it's almost like deja vu when you go back and look at it. It's like, man, when I was 18,
13:2819, like I was hearing these same exact things. Keep yourself from the world. Don't do these things.
13:33Don't do this. Don't do this. Give all, give everything to Jesus, which we know it all sounds
13:38innocent. That's why we get roped into it. But it's sad because the tactics haven't changed at
13:44all. And we still can't see it. And that's, it's frustrating. It is.
13:49It is sad. You know, so in Branhamism during Christmas, you would have widely different,
13:56varying views on what you can do, what you can't do, what's demonic, what's not demonic. And it's
14:03kind of like you said, it really depends on the minister and their background. If their background
14:07was one where they celebrated Christmas, everybody would. And if their background was one where
14:11many of them came from hardcore Pentecostal sects, which were likely Pentecostal cults,
14:18and they would have sermons and sermon after sermon saying, you're worshiping the sun god.
14:24If you have a tree, it's like, there's this concept. I don't know if you've caught on to this
14:28or not, but in many of these movements, there's this idea that you can accidentally worship a demon.
14:34In other words, you're like, you're carrying on throughout life, and then suddenly you do this
14:40thing, and oh my gosh, you've gave praise and empowered a demon in your house. And
14:44having a Christmas tree was like that in some of those cult sacks. But, you know, back to the Joel's.
14:51It took me tons of memories because that's how it was treated like in my upbringing. So like,
14:56I don't know if people remember, but like I joined like IHOP, like my early teens,
15:0117th when I moved out there. But I was raised in the context, my grandparents are holiness Pentecostal.
15:07And so we very much had that. And I think there was a little like snootiness towards like the
15:11commercialization and stuff. But there was, I think I definitely got a little like St. Nick is demonic
15:17kind of stuff. And Jesus is the reason for the season. You know, we had the whole Christ and
15:21Xmas kind of thing. And yeah.
15:24Yeah. I was joking with this guy one time. And I said, we celebrated my son's birthday this week.
15:30And he said, oh, yeah. And I said, yeah, his birthday was a few weeks ago, but he wasn't
15:35he wasn't feeling well. The family couldn't come. And so this Saturday, everybody gathered together
15:40and we celebrated his birthday. And he said, oh, that's great. I love it when family gets together.
15:44And I said, yeah, it's the thought about his birthday and the memorial that, you know,
15:51everything that goes through our heads whenever we're thinking about his birthday, even though
15:55it's not his birthday. And he said, yeah, absolutely right. And I said, it's kind of that way with
15:59Christmas whenever you believe that it wasn't the exact birthday of Jesus. And you could see
16:06suddenly his face turned, man. He was so angry. No, man, that is different. You're worshiping the sun
16:11God. Actually, no, that's not how this works. People have just it's weird because they get so
16:20indoctrinated that they literally shut off their brains and they don't really think about what it
16:25is they're saying to the extent that they will trample on humanity. Think of all the children who
16:32are watching. Think of in Branhamism, all those kids sitting in those seats watching William Branham
16:37open up a, the wrapped present and they have heard all of their friends say all of the things that
16:43we've, we've got for Christmas and we're so excited and they got nothing. They got a rock
16:48basically because they weren't allowed to. People will trample on, trample on just human emotions,
16:56human feelings to try to uplift a doctrine. And in my opinion, that's actually the same as
17:02worshiping a demon, which brings up IHOP Atlanta. Recently, I had this interview with this lady. I
17:09don't know if you saw this or not, but I did watch it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I had an interview with IHOP
17:15Atlanta, you know, a lady, she'd gone through a horrific experience. And I, you know, when she first
17:22said it, I was like, I didn't even know how to respond. I didn't know what to say. I'm trying to
17:27picture a case where any human would do this to another human. And there just isn't one. That's
17:33not something that you do, but this is happening in a church setting. And the backlash, man, it's
17:38like, do people not even know what you're doing is wrong? And they don't because they're so
17:44indoctrinated to think it's, it's more about the mission than it is about the people.
17:48Yeah. It's so difficult too, because I see it like I've helped facilitate peer support groups and
17:56stuff for, for IHOP people and, um, and other like adjacent kind of movement kind of stuff.
18:02Um, it's interesting to see even in my own journey here I am. So I left IHOP in 2012. So
18:09we're almost 13 years removed now, um, from Kansas city and I'm still gaining language and articulating
18:17the things that I experienced and still there's some of it that I still don't know how to talk
18:21about. Um, and so like, there's that, that continuing thing is people start to speak up
18:26for the first time. Um, like we're seeing with Atlanta, like there's not been a whole lot of
18:30people who've spoken up publicly, just, I can count probably on one hand, the number of podcasts and
18:35things like that, that have been done about Atlanta. Um, although we've met, met them behind
18:39the scenes and stuff, and I've got to hear their stories. And, um, and I think that that's,
18:44you know, they start to hear that, those first grumblings and people start reacting and start,
18:50you know, um, saw a lot of people jumping out to protect leaders, even though there was no leaders
18:57named, nobody named a leader, nobody talked about it. Um, these people jump in and start bringing
19:03names into it and start, you know, defending people. And, um, and then it's, we see it all
19:11through society too, though. And that's what's scary is, is the propensity of people to dismiss
19:17others' experiences and to say that cannot be true. And, and whenever it's something that you
19:23experienced, whether your perception of it is maybe their perception of it or whatever,
19:28you can't deny what somebody experienced. Like if they think that they were hurt,
19:32at least from their perspective, they were hurt. Um, and, and we, we don't have the ability to slow
19:39down and listen in society anymore, it seems. Um, and so, so I saw a lot of that towards her,
19:44which was just, I can't, I can't imagine, you know, how, how she feels, you know, after sharing
19:51her story and speaking up and talking about something so vulnerably, um, and to see the
19:56negative reactions and, and the things that people have to realize is that, which, which most people,
20:02I mean, most people who listen to your stuff have been in cults and stuff. So they understand
20:06that the people who are responding are not strangers. It's, it's like the people who were
20:12your pastors or the people who were your friends and teammates and different contexts. And so to hear,
20:19you know, those, those negative responses, it's betrayal trauma all over again. Um, and so it brings
20:26up so, so, so, so much stuff. Um, but yeah, it's, it's been disappointing. And I think after, after there was,
20:34there was a couple of podcasts put out, uh, with, with Adam short, you've had Adam short on here,
20:39um, before, and he interviewed, uh, a couple, um, Andrew and Joey Bullard, um, which I can connect
20:46you with as well, but, um, they worship leaders and stuff in Atlanta and they shared their story
20:52on Adam's podcast and it kind of went under the radar. I think people tried to ignore it. Um, and,
20:58and Andrew experienced like significant spiritual abuse and stuff, like just got labeled things and,
21:03you know, put, tried to push into a corner. Um, he about drove himself crazy and you listen to his
21:08story on, on Adam's podcast and maybe you can have him on and share it. But, um, but everybody
21:13tried to ignore that. I think, I think people were like, Oh, it's one, one person. Um, and whenever
21:19all the flare up happened was after Andrew shared, uh, what's her name? Annalise. Is that, is that her
21:24name? Um, after he shared her podcast on Facebook, everybody came out of the woodwork man into that
21:29comment section and started, you know, just blasting people, um, saying, saying things
21:33like this isn't worth listening to. Um, and then they start coming after character assassinations
21:38on you, um, which was hilarious. They're like, uh, John needs to do more Matthew 18 instead
21:45of recording podcasts with these people. He needs to take them to these leaders and he
21:49needs to, if he's really doing a ministry and I'm like, y'all don't know who John is
21:53at all. Like, I don't think you would call it a ministry number one. Like there's so,
21:57so many things I'm back here. Um, but, but they do whatever they can to shut out the
22:02dissonance. Like that's it. Like people cannot handle dissonance. Um, yeah, it's
22:08hard. It's hard.
22:10Well, what's interesting is as much as people want to admit it or not, what happens
22:15whenever they're caught up in these types of movements, it affects their outlook, their
22:21worldview, their personality. And what happens over time, what, what is essentially happening
22:27is they're under spiritual abuse, but what they don't recognize is as they're under the
22:32spiritual abuse, they're starting to experience trauma and trauma changes you. There are people
22:37who they, it manifests itself in different ways. They might get angry. They might get depressed,
22:42but this trauma is deeply rooted. And whenever they see something that makes them understand
22:49that it's trauma, they start to lash out because they know inwardly, you know, that you're being
22:54spiritually abused. You have to know it. So whenever somebody else is language for it, you feel it.
23:00Exactly. Exactly. And so they start attacking things and, and I like, I don't even blame it.
23:06People who attack me, I don't even blame them because I was in the same place. I did the same
23:10things. I, I know all of these things that they're saying usually before they say them.
23:15And in fact, the, one of the things that helps me is because the insults are almost all exactly the
23:23same. And after a while, you just kind of skip over the insult and you find the meat of the
23:28conversation in a comment or email. And that's what I've learned to do because it's, it's a traumatic
23:34experience for them and they don't understand what's happening to them. We recently, I started a
23:40series with Jenny McGrath. She came out of youth with a mission and she is on fire to try to help
23:48expose and help heal people who have been through this trauma. And the part that was really difficult
23:56for me to understand. And I started to piece this together from my own study of psychology,
24:01from talking to her, from talking to, I've got a cousin, Jesse Collins, who's on here every now and
24:08then. What happens when you have this trauma and you're in this cult experience, it starts to affect
24:13your behavior. And so eventually what happens is it molds itself in your head to this thing that is
24:21affecting your behavior or health. And so your behaviors start to become altered. That's, that was
24:26a really difficult thing for me to understand because the people that you see whenever they're
24:30lashing out, that's actually not the person. You're just seeing the effects of that behavior
24:35disorder. Yeah. It's, we, we laugh about it because that's all you can do is laugh about it
24:41sometimes. Um, but I think about, I don't want to blanket statement and say everybody who left IHOP
24:48has mental health issues, but I think most of us do like it's, it's a fight because so much of it
24:55rewires your nervous system. Um, it just me lately, I'm just realizing how much here we are 13 years
25:02later and I'm realizing how much me personally, that I'm always on high alert. I heard, uh, I don't
25:09know if you're a fan of her or not, but I was listening to Brene Brown, uh, on a podcast this
25:13past week and she was talking about, uh, how she could walk into a room and know how everyone in
25:20the room is feeling and she could read a room really well. And I felt like I was looking in the
25:25mirror a little bit because that's how I used to talk about whenever I talk about worship leading,
25:28I was like, that's why I'm such a good worship leader, man. Like I can, I can see the room.
25:32I see how people are responding. I could read, I know what they're feeling. And even when it came
25:35to communicating, like I can see people's things on their faces and all this kind of thing. And
25:40she's like, yeah, that's hypervigilance. And I was like, man, that's, that's true. That's true.
25:47So like, I've, I've had to like work really hard to like find times to limit outside stimulation
25:53and just slow down, calm, find baseline again, because my body doesn't remember what that's
25:59like. My body doesn't remember what it's like to not be threatened by hell or to be, uh, have
26:05my relationships threatened or that just any, any number of things. Um, and then you tack
26:12on other life experiences that everybody goes through on top of that. And man, it's, it's,
26:16it's nasty. It's nasty.
26:17It is nasty. And you know what you're describing people who are in that trauma, they go through
26:24that and they start to mistakenly associate that with the spirit. That's the funny part
26:29of this. As you get into a mental state where you're not, you're not yourself, you're something
26:35else. You can feel that something else is coming out. This behavior isn't me. What is this?
26:40It must be the spirit of God. And interestingly, Joel's army, the latter rain, it all started with
26:47this because Branham's mental capacity was his mental faculties were failing. And he actually,
26:53I don't know if you know this, but right after that first tour through Canada, he actually went
26:58into a, um, into a nervous breakdown and left the field. That is why Christ for the nations exists.
27:07Initially, uh, Gordon Lindsay, who founded Christ for the nations, he started with Branham,
27:13this voice of healing magazine as a publication of Branham and his ministry. Branham tours through
27:19Canada, gets widely famous, comes back in the United States, latter rain comes in. He has a
27:25complete nervous breakdown and he goes off the field and now they've created this engine. They
27:30have all these people in the engine. You can't just turn it off. So they started publishing the names
27:35of other ministers. And it became this essentially a magazine of hero worship. And then Branham sees all
27:43of this and he sees what he lost and start, I guess he went, I've been told that he went down into Mexico.
27:49I can't prove this yet, but I've been told by more than one person, he went to a mental health facility
27:55in Mexico. Whatever happened, he comes back on the field. He mentions that he is a, he's not completely
28:02healed. He mentioned all through his ministry. He's a neurotic. That's the word he used. And he
28:08starts to say, but that's okay because the apostle Paul was a neurotic and he starts naming all these
28:13biblical figures. And now that I look back on it, it's insanity. But when you are in a movement that
28:21is looking for hero worship and looking at the leaders on the stage as though they're, they're not
28:26human. They're better than human. They're greater than human. Whenever you see the insanity, you start to
28:31think, well, that must be God speaking. And a person can be just completely mentally insane,
28:37but if there are moments of coherence, they'll recognize the coherence and say, okay, this,
28:42this coherent thing is him, but he steps out of the way and the spirit moves when the insanity comes.
28:50I think about my own experience that I think that I pointed to the Holy Spirit as the voice that
28:58silenced the dissonance when really it was just cementing whatever that, that harmful
29:03thought, belief, behavior, whatever that was that I couldn't figure out that I was wrestling with,
29:10you know, I hate to use the word tormented, but sometimes that's how you felt with some of these
29:14things. Like you would have this dissonance pop up and I'm not having any examples right now in the
29:19moment, but then all of a sudden, you know, at IHOP, one of the big things was apostolic prayers.
29:24Mike had this like sheet that he would, and that's what we all prayed in the prayer room.
29:29Like if you went up to pray on the mic, you had to pray from apostolic prayer, you announced it to
29:33the room, told everybody. And I think that was part of like the, the plea to legitimacy is that we
29:39were always praying scripture. You know, we were always singing scripture. But the most popular one
29:45was Ephesians one talking about the spirit of wisdom and revelation. And so we would, that was what we
29:50would always say, man, the spirit of revelation came to me kind of thing. And it was like that,
29:53that epiphany moment. And really all it was, was like my brain found a way to put the dissonance
29:58back in the box and shove it in the corner and give me an answer good enough that I was okay for
30:02a period of time. Right. But it's, it's interesting because like, I wonder like, did, did Branham's
30:08mind, body, whatever, did it react? Because he was experiencing that. Like, was he realizing that
30:14he was a fake? Was he realizing? Because that's the thing, like your body, like you can't
30:19wheel your body and to keep going whenever you're experiencing these things. Like eventually
30:23you hit a breaking point. Um, I think I shared on one of my previous times on here with you
30:29about, about that. My body shut down for two years, had constant vertigo. I had tinnitus
30:33all the time. I was losing my hearing periodically, uh, took everything within me to get out of bed,
30:39um, just to do basic, like taking care of myself. Um, and, and, and that happens. Like there's,
30:46there's a cost to keep doing that. And, and I've watched from afar, like people who are still,
30:52there's a couple of people obviously don't want to name them, but I've like, I've watched their
30:55journeys and how they've stayed there at IHOP. They were there when I was there, they've stayed
30:59there and man, it like, just seems like they just get further and further and further from reality
31:05is what happens. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the
31:11progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other
31:17fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham
31:23Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the
31:31compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with
31:38links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and
31:44documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to
31:50the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always,
31:56be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
32:02On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
32:06I recently had a podcast with Bob Scott. I guess that'll come out before this one, but we were
32:13talking about exactly that. There's different, well, there's a variety of different aspects to
32:19consider. One of the biggest ones, when you look at all of these ministries that are these big
32:23major apostles or prophets, they're starting to fall like dominoes, and you're starting to see
32:29each one sexual sin or crime or whatever. Well, when you understand the nature of what it is they're
32:38doing, what they have is a stage persona. They come out on the stage, and Bob was describing this,
32:44which I don't know Mike Bickle from Adam, so I know who he is, but Bob was describing his
32:50offstage personality was so far different from his onstage personality. And so when he'd walk out
32:55on stage, there was a stage presence, right? I've been told the same thing by family members about
33:01Branham. He had this powerful, powerful stage presence, but offstage, he was just a completely
33:07different person.
33:08Darrell Bock How did they describe them? Was it like a melancholy kind of more thing?
33:12Darrell Bock Humble, gentle, meek, like all the aspects that you would want to see in a person
33:18and a leader, he would have it offstage, but then he would get onstage, and he was just a ball of
33:23hatred. You know, that's really what he was. So what happens is when you go on stage and you're
33:29entering into your persona, your mind starts to focus around that thing that you are while you're on
33:37stage and you feel empowered from it. In the same way that those people in the comments for
33:43IHOP Atlanta, the things that they said they would never say if they were in a group of people face
33:49to face, you know, in a room together, you just wouldn't say these kind of things, but they feel
33:53empowered because they're hiding behind a keyboard. Well, whenever you have that stage presence, you are
34:00feeding off of the energy in the crowd. And interestingly, the crowd is also feeding off of you.
34:07And so it releases all of these endorphins in your brain, and you can actually become addicted to
34:12those. So there's an addiction that happens. Well, people who are experiencing this over time, you can
34:21develop a narcissistic personality disorder just from the stage presence. So you find people who
34:28aren't narcissistic and people who knew them growing up, they'll say, well, this was a good person.
34:33I don't understand why they became like this. It's because of that exact scenario. They become
34:38something else. Combine that with, in Branham's case, you also had mental health disorders that were
34:45affecting all of this. When you have all of that, it's this recipe for disaster.
34:51Yeah. So much forced conformity from folks, and that does do a number. I think about, as you're
34:59talking about that, I'm thinking about my own experiences, because I still lead worship in
35:04Christian churches periodically, and I'm still considering myself a Christian best I can,
35:09although a lot of people call me a heretic. But I recognize that, like even with myself,
35:17that there are, whenever I'm on a platform, there's kind of a different way that I carry
35:22myself a little bit, and I get a little bit of a different voice and all that kind of stuff. And so
35:28it really can. It makes you feel like you're the center of the world a little bit after a while,
35:34inflates the ego. And that's one of the things. It's been fun to be in church context, because
35:42there's elements of all that we've experienced everywhere in churches. Like, it's not unique to
35:48Branhamism. It's not unique to Scientology or wherever. Like, there's these elements of control
35:55and cultural things that are done, like with Branham. Like, a preacher can say something from
36:03the pulpit, and people not think twice about it, and go, yes, we agree. So it's fun to be in those
36:10environments and be able to push back a little bit gently and have relational equity with people.
36:15I'm not sure how I went down that hole of talking about that, but we're talking about
36:19forced conformity is what we're talking about. So I think it's interesting. We have to have people
36:26fit this cookie cutter mold to maintain the status quo so the machine keeps going. That's why diversity
36:34of thoughts quenched. It's why the freedom of expression is quenched. That was a big one at IHOP.
36:43The way people dressed on platforms was policed, and the way you worshipped or demonstrated worship
36:52on the platform was policed in a way, where you go to like, you see some other charismatic movement like
36:57Bethel Church in California, and man, like them singers and stuff, they're waving all over the place,
37:03and they're dancing and shimmying, and IHOP, they stand behind a microphone stand, and you get
37:09little slightly raised hands. It was all about not drawing attention to yourself, and I think part of
37:16that was it allowed, Mike is not that dynamic of a guy. Let's say that for a first. He had the Mike
37:25two-step is what we said. He would stand behind the podium, and he would talk in his monotone voice,
37:30and that probably has a little bit of a psychological effect too, and every once in a while, he would
37:34yell, but he had his hands up, and he would do. If you're watching the video, you can see he goes
37:38one side back to the other side, and that was Mike's move. That's all he did. It was not a dynamic
37:44guy, but I think the side effect of that was that they had to tone down everybody else so that Mike
37:50wouldn't get overshadowed, because the people that showed up at IHOP, man, they were fireballs.
37:55These were the people who wanted to take Christianity seriously, which I guess is an element where it
38:00was different than brandimism. Most people weren't raised in the IHOP culture. Most people chose to
38:06join the IHOP culture. It wasn't a very familial involvement kind of thing, but we had rules
38:14like you can't scream on the microphone, or you can't do certain things on the microphone like
38:19when praying, and I mean, if you've ever been to a charismatic prayer meeting, there's a lot of
38:21screaming. There's a lot of yelling at demons and all that kind of stuff, but what was always funny
38:27is Mike could get up there and yell on the microphone, and nobody would say anything to
38:30Mike when he yelled on the microphone, and so there's like these double standards of conformity
38:34and such, and yeah, you lose your identity. You lose your individuality.
38:40Honestly, that's another thing that Bob and I discussed, when you're yelling. See, I was
38:44born, I've got this Irish Collins background, so I have the luck of having an Irish temper,
38:50right? Well, when you start yelling, your brain disconnects from your mouth, and that's
38:55one of the problems. You say things that you wouldn't otherwise say when you're yelling.
38:59Well, think of this in the context of a preacher. Also think about the context when
39:04Ladder Rain movement is developing. They were used to preaching, screaming at crowds, because
39:10without the screaming, they couldn't hear you. There was no microphone system. Then once
39:14they got the microphones, they're so used to screaming while they preach, now they're
39:19screaming in a PA system, and it just turns into this thing. What's weird about that is
39:25in the Pentecostal world, when your brain disconnects from your mouth, they see that as the spirit.
39:30Isn't that what speaking in tongues is, when your mouth disconnects from your brain?
39:35Exactly. So they see it as the spirit. And when you're on stage, you have that feeling,
39:42right? You see how the crowd reacts. Like you're describing with the music. It's simply
39:47going out as a musician. You feel this. You know this. I had that experience one time.
39:53When we left the Branham religion, one of the first churches that I left after this, I showed
39:58up one day with my instruments, and I just happened to show up with my instruments on the same day
40:05that the music minister was exchanged for another one. And so he thought I was part of the music
40:12minister, the crowd that was playing the music, right? I came from a background where you didn't
40:18need to have any auditions or anything like this. You just showed up, right? So I just showed up
40:23expecting what? I can show up and play. He saw me. He thought I'm part of the band. And so
40:28instantly, I bypassed all the auditions. Well, he got to know me and realized I can play all this
40:34stuff. I would just show up with a different instrument every Sunday. There was one of the
40:38first Christmas, I think it might have been the first Christmas program that we did. They had
40:44back-to-back services. And I was to show up. He wanted me specifically with a banjo for whatever
40:49reason. So I'm to show up with a banjo, and he calls me up. He says, John, I hate to tell you this,
40:57but he says, our drummer is out sick. Our backup drummer has the flu. He's been out sick for weeks,
41:05and we need you to play the drums. And so I said, sure, I'll play the drums. So I get up there.
41:11I play the drums for... Did you know how at the time?
41:13How hard can it be? How hard can it be? It's just beating on a stick, right? So I show up. I play
41:23two back-to-back, you know, the songs before and after. Afterwards, this guy walked up out of the
41:31crowd, and he says, man, I did not know that you knew how to play the drums like that. That's
41:35amazing. And I said, yeah, I didn't know that either.
41:38Oh, man. Music's such a weird tool. It's a powerful tool. And that's part of the reason
41:44why I've kept doing it is we were talking about before we started recording today, we were talking
41:51about like kind of like somatic experience a little bit. And that's one of the things with
41:55singing that I can't let go of. There is some kind of high, for lack of a better term, that happens.
42:02It's like when you get a room full of people singing the same thing together and doing it
42:08freely, like there's just something that's just healing about that.
42:13It's a dopamine hit. Whenever you have that, it's a dopamine hit.
42:17Yeah. And it's, I think one of the things I've been looking at is my coping systems I had like
42:24in my cult life versus like how I've like failed to kind of like maintain coping systems after I've
42:31left some of those practices. And one of those things I think is worship and singing that help
42:35bring some kind of release, I think, to like anxiety and like all these like pinup emotions
42:41whenever I would get to sing. And that's one of the reasons I've not let that go is because
42:45there's something to it that I think that is worth keeping. And there's not many places where
42:54you see that outside of churches where people come together to sing music together for a common
43:02experience. Yeah, sorry, it's a little tangent, but.
43:07Darrell Bock Well, it's a good tangent. The churches are a community. And I have, this is an interesting
43:14side story, which I won't go too deep with it, but I have known people who went to churches just for the
43:21community, just for exactly what you're talking about. It feels good. You leave encouraged. And
43:26one of the people said, John, I'm an atheist. I have been for years. And I said, I'm scratching my
43:33head thinking, well, why are you going to church, man? But he was an atheist. He goes to church because
43:37he likes that feeling. He likes the community. And I started, I'm friends with anybody. It doesn't
43:43matter who you are or what you believe or don't. So I'm talking to him and he is, you know,
43:50I'm trying to figure, trying to figure him out. I want to, I want to unpack this box of this atheist
43:54who comes to Christian church. And he says, there are times whenever the preacher's preaching and he
43:59says things that I truly stand behind and I believe, and it's all about morality. He, he was a very
44:05moral person, but he just, he just simply went for the community and for that feeling and that
44:11experience. And one of the things that, you know, for me, when I look at this, there are a lot of
44:17people who would condemn him for going or, you know, especially participating. But when I look
44:23at this, I look at this and I think, you know, everybody has a journey. He's on that journey.
44:27And where that journey ends, I can't say.
44:30Yeah, it's, it's, it's one of the things about different experiences and people being in different
44:35places of their journey. I think it's one of the things that the evangelical church as a whole can
44:39learn from is being more open to these people because it's forced conformity. And I think
44:46evangelicalism is cult-like in the sense that it expects a certain belief system from every person
44:53before they can belong. I think that we don't leave room for the humanness of it all and don't
45:00take serious the questions that people have. But the, the, the reason that people go is, is for those
45:08reasons. It's for the community. Me and my wife talk about that all the time. And especially when
45:13we're having like a time where we're feeling a little bit lonely, we're like, man, can we stomach
45:16like going back and being a part of a church, even if we don't agree with people? Just because it's,
45:20it's such an easy way to make friends and have those relationships. And even in the context where
45:25I'm at, I'm at a church right now where I've been leading worship on a contract basis. And theologically,
45:32I do not agree with them hardly at all. That they, they don't believe like gender roles or that they
45:40have some very draconian gender role beliefs, I would say. And there's a lot of things I disagree
45:49with, but like you're saying that there are elements of truth and there are those moments where,
45:53where things, it's almost like the, the tunnel opens up. You see the light a little bit. And, and those are the
46:00things that I wish people would recognize and value more is, is those elements of truth that
46:05might not necessarily be some kind of theological revelation. Um, but just help us understand each
46:11other, help us understand life, help us understand how to find joy and purpose and meaning, um, all
46:17these different things. Like it happened this, this past Sunday, uh, the associate pastor was preaching
46:23and, and I've developed a relationship with him and we're pretty good friends and we'll go back and
46:28forth about theology sometimes privately and stuff. I, I, I try not to influence the, the church
46:33members too much with, with, with my, my thinking and beliefs, but I'll, but we'll banter back and
46:37forth. And, and he spoke this past Sunday in the thing that, that I really appreciated that, that I
46:43pulled out of it and told him afterwards was the vulnerability that he led with. Like there's
46:48something human about whenever you see it and refreshing, whenever you see a human on a platform,
46:53who is a leader, show weakness and show that they are just like you in their lived experience,
47:00because so much of what we saw was, was God's generals. It was hero worship. It was
47:04some kind of superficial thing. And he took a moment to talk about masculinity in a way that was not,
47:11uh, John Wayne Rambo kind of stuff and, and talked about tenderness and valuing tenderness. And I was
47:17like, even in their theology, I'm like, man, it's not something you hear even in these circles a whole lot.
47:22And, uh, but there are all those threads of truth that break through. And I think that are encouraging
47:26to people to speak to, to, to folks. Um, because you, you see that in every environment, I think,
47:32that, um, somebody walks in and they see something that they, they latch onto, uh, that does something
47:39for them. And, and so they choose to be a part of it. I mean, that's why we joined cults.
47:44I think what you're describing is healthy though. When you're in this new apostolic reformation,
47:49Pentecostal charismatic type religion, where you have these figures that are
47:52more than human, they're God's voice to you. They're, you know, basically they're the mediator
47:58between God and man. You start to look at them differently. And when they say something that
48:03is offensive to you or something that you don't believe because you're indoctrinated to think
48:08that it's God on the platform, you start to, it starts to mold your opinion instead of you
48:14helping to mold their opinion correctly. And they're just a human like you and me. They're
48:18just a, you know, a natural person who is learning like you and I are learning.
48:22Darrell Bock Yeah. It goes back, man, I've been, I've been
48:25diving into authoritarianism lately and just like the ideas of authoritarianism and, and how
48:30it played out in the way my parents parented me, um, and the environments I grew up with,
48:35the way we related to pastors and preachers. Um, it, like, it doesn't surprise me to see
48:42society going in the directions it is whenever we're like, we were raised in very authoritarian
48:46type, um, spaces.
48:49Darrell Bock We do. And, you know, so it's those authoritarian
48:53spaces that really go back to this idea that you can take a figure who's just a normal person
49:00like you or me, put them on stage, let them feel the dopamine hit, but now empower them
49:06with an authoritarian structure for the church. Well, they start to feel like they're a miniature
49:11God and they eventually take on that mindset. That stage persona overcomes their authentic
49:17person. So while they're on stage, they really do think that they're either God or there's
49:22something really close to it. They definitely see you as bigger or more powerful than the
49:26people in the seats. And that, that problem becomes secular because the people in the seats
49:32start to see it as well. And they start to get excited. The crowd gets excited. They get a
49:37further dopamine hit and everybody is in this cohesive, drunken status in the church. And
49:43this drunken stupor leads to all kinds of problems.
49:46Darrell Bock Yeah. It's the, the power is intoxicating. And it's
49:51something that I've had to reckon with, even though I wasn't like ever like a senior leader
49:54or anything like that. Like people, but because the way the culture was formed, whenever you
49:59walk into a room, like you're respected just because you're a church leader of some sort.
50:03And it does, like it leads to narcissistic traits is what it leads to. Because at the very,
50:11like if you don't think that you're God himself, at the very least, you believe you're the mouthpiece
50:14of God to these people. And that's just a weird positioning from the get go. Whenever you put in
50:22prophecy and all these things, dipping back to Annalisa's story earlier, we were talking about
50:27with IHOP Atlanta, that was the thing that was like so heartbreaking to me that I don't think most
50:33people who are within the systems realize the gravity of is whenever that leader looked at her
50:41and said, God wants you to dance. Like the thing that you have to realize is what backs that statement
50:50is all the things that we believe happen when we disobey God. If God wants us to do something and
50:57we choose not to do it, we've been conditioned our whole life to believe that's sin and that there
51:02are consequences for that sin. And so people want to know like what controlling behavior looks like
51:09in the church. That's how they do it. Like it looks innocent enough and you think, and at certain
51:15points it may give you a dopamine hit to know that God wants you to dance. And it may feel pleasant in
51:21the moment, but like in her situation, like it was, you know, it was detrimental for her health. Like
51:26she was in a crisis state. And that's the thing that people won't reckon with. That was a conversation
51:32that I was having with people on social media afterwards was like, we have to have some sort of
51:37accountability. Like if we're going to speak on behalf of God and like we get it wrong, like there needs to
51:43be, there needs to be something, you know, some kind of checks and balances and accountability,
51:49or we just need to keep God's name out of our mouth. Like you, you don't have to talk about
51:53spirituality to talk about Jesus. You don't have to speak on behalf of God to talk about religion.
51:59Like you can have these discussions and maybe that's where like we've lost the nuance. That's where
52:05we have lost the diversity is because it's this forced conformity to this one set of beliefs,
52:10these creeds. That's where I've been geeking out lately is going into creeds. And I'm like,
52:13how in the world did these things form? And then all that kind of stuff. And, and you just realize
52:17the human involvement that that's like with the creeds, the thing that's, that's getting me with
52:21the creeds right now, and this may get you in trouble, but is I realized the audacity of to ever
52:28have how many men it was in a room in Nicaea, you know, year 300 to go, we got God figured out.
52:35We're going to write a document. We understand who God is. We're going to tell you who God is
52:39and everyone has to agree with it or else you're not of us. And in that, like that dividing line,
52:46you know, is, is, is crazy. I remember earlier where I was going to go
52:52when we were talking about authoritarian stuff, just to bring it full circle. Christmas
52:57Christmas is that's, that's what we did with Santa Claus, like in, in, in our culture, like
53:03growing up was Santa Claus was like this arbiter of justice. It was naughty and nice. And we took
53:09that seriously, like almost as serious as we took like Jesus and God. And, you know, and that kind
53:14of bleeds out into other cultures. And I've seen parents like, even like in today's age, like tell kids
53:19like, man, you bet you better not do that. Or Santa's not going to bring you anything. Or like, you know,
53:24Santa's always watching. Like, that's the creepiest song.
53:30He knows when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. Like, that sounds like the God
53:34that we've painted a whole lot, you know? Darrell Bock Well, that's just it. They look at Santa
53:39Claus as though he is this God or demigod, and yet they're doing the same exact thing. They're,
53:44they're speaking as though they have the mouthpiece of God. And so I'm going to recommend for Christmas
53:50this year that if you're in one of these churches where these guys are doing this,
53:54you're constantly saying, God told you to dance. God told you to do this.
53:59We need a thousand Will Smiths to stand up and smack them and say, get God's name out your mouth.
54:05Will Smith I'm all for that. I'm all for this.
54:09Darrell Bock Well, this has been fun. Thank you so
54:11much for coming back and doing this. I did hound you. How many times did I hound you?
54:15Will Smith I think I've had to turn you down
54:17at least five times, but it's probably been more than that. I mean, it's, you know,
54:20every other month or so. And I'm just like, things are still crazy, John. It's still crazy.
54:24Like I wanted to, but it's just been nuts.
54:26Darrell Bock Yeah, it's same here. I mean,
54:28things have been busy.
54:29Darrell Bock Covering from a cult's hard.
54:30Will Smith It is, man. I'm still recovering. I may
54:34recover the rest of my life, but hopefully we've given some people and some encouragement,
54:39and hopefully people can stand up and say, get God's name out your mouth.
54:44Will Smith Yes, yes.
54:45Will Smith Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information,
54:49you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-brannum.org. For more about the
54:54dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian
54:59Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:19O Hello.
55:21How to drop the light to code And in my version, I'm justý aby and react.
55:25So Lord, my whole family up everything To be sure you're looking for, you're watching,
55:27thank you.
55:30We're still paying attention to all the vans to your số name.
55:30Coronation Wherever you're interested
55:32Are you always doing all your pleasure?
55:33Best acabcoming Here, I'll take care of your