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00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org.
00:42And with me, I have my very special guest, Bruce Haying.
00:46Bruce, it's good to be back.
00:48Your previous episode was explosive, if you didn't already know.
00:52I got all kinds of mail, and I've got people that I was expecting conversations with who
00:58won't have a conversation, and I've got other people who want to have a conversation.
01:02So it's like you flipped worlds upside down, which is kind of funny.
01:07But you and I were talking right before I hit record.
01:11I really want to talk about humanizing John Wimber.
01:15And that doesn't mean the thing that everybody thinks it means.
01:19I come from a world where we â I hate to make the comparison to Branhamism because Wimber
01:26is not Branhamism, but there are aspects that are similar.
01:30And the biggest aspect that I see of the movement that exists today, at least the people who are
01:37contacting me, is that he has become bigger than human.
01:42And there is this concept that appears to only exist in the Pentecostal charismatic movement
01:49where you look backwards at a human guy.
01:53You don't look forward to God or look forward to what you can do, how you can be better.
01:58It's always we have this guy in the past.
02:00And remember that guy?
02:02Remember that guy in the past?
02:03And, you know, in Branhamism, it was extreme because we had â he was the central figure.
02:09He was a dead prophet that we thought was â it goes into weirdness.
02:15But without him, you don't have some of the chain that led to Wimber.
02:20And that's why it's fascinating to me.
02:22But what I've learned is what these guys did, each person in the chain â I'll call them
02:27God's generals.
02:28For lack of a better way to say it, everybody can recognize what this means.
02:33They come up with something that was just slightly different than what the Bible said.
02:38It was a different take on a scripture.
02:41And everybody said, oh, this is new and exciting.
02:43And it might not even be anti-biblical, but it was just slightly different than what they've
02:48heard before.
02:49Well, then the next guy built on top of that and turned it just a little bit more.
02:52And you're turning this dial to where, by the end of it, for you to understand what
02:58the last man said, you have to know what the previous man said.
03:01And before you can understand that guy, you've got to go backwards and backwards.
03:05So in the end, what happens is you have people who aren't really human.
03:08They're spiritual leaders of the past.
03:11So I want to humanize John Wimber.
03:13And with that, thank you for joining me.
03:16Oh, it's good to be with you, John.
03:18I enjoyed it last time.
03:19I feel like I found a new brother in the Lord, so it's kind of nice.
03:22Awesome.
03:23So I just had a conversation yesterday with a guy.
03:27We were talking about the music.
03:29And I would have connected with Wimber, like I said to you in the last podcast, just instantly
03:34because of being a musician.
03:37But Wimber changed things in the music style and the worship style.
03:41And like I said, turning that dial just slightly, is it good or bad?
03:44I don't know, but the focus of the music was no longer directed at praise up to almighty
03:51God.
03:52It was more about your experience.
03:54And people really, that resonated with people, right?
03:57The experience kind of grew.
03:59Well, that shifted the dial just a little bit.
04:01And I would say that in humanizing Wimber, I would say that that's all right.
04:07But if you take it to the new extremes where the self becomes the focus and not the worship
04:14of God, you've really upended worship in the church.
04:17So where does it go from there?
04:19There's many different ways that you can look at this.
04:22But when I think about trying to humanize Wimber, I want to look back at the things that
04:27he probably never intended to do, but also examine some of the things that he said and
04:33did, which honestly are the reason why some of what we see today exists.
04:38Well, you're speaking about, when you talk about worship, I would disagree with you a
04:45little bit.
04:46When we started out, when it started out simply meeting at a home across the street from the
04:54Friends Church, it was not, the worship was just simply reaching directly towards God.
05:02You know, I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you, O my soul.
05:07Simple, okay?
05:09And so I believe there was many, many years where the worship simply was focused on that.
05:17There was a time later on where John decided, hey, we need to expand lyrically.
05:24What was happening musically.
05:26And then the song started to get more complicated, more wordy.
05:31And then, yeah, we headed into more of what you're speaking about in your question there.
05:38But at the beginning, it certainly wasn't like that.
05:41But again, this is what happens.
05:42John, in your last time when I met with you, you talked about how slightly if you start at
05:48different angles on the rails before you know it, you're way off.
05:51And I wouldn't even say that we were way off, but I would agree with you that the worship
05:56got less intimate as it got more wordy and we were looking for something new.
06:04We certainly weren't looking for the old.
06:06You know, Jeremiah, it says, find ye the ancient ways where the good path lies.
06:12We were looking for the new thing God was doing.
06:14And musically, that shifted things a little bit.
06:18But I wouldn't be critical myself of John at all musically where he had us at the beginning.
06:24And actually, it wasn't even John.
06:26It was more my lifetime good buddy who just passed away recently, Carl Tuttle, who was
06:31a major force.
06:33And another worship leader, Eddie Espinosa, who really did keep it centered in a wonderful
06:38way.
06:38Got you.
06:39Well, you have just answered a question that I've been digging and trying to find.
06:44And that's it opens new doors when I talk to you because you have kind of the history
06:50that nobody's talking about.
06:52I really enjoy that learning that from you.
06:55So in my opinion, which comes from a lot of the things that I've read, you're correct.
07:01Most of what I've read is probably targeting John Wimber after it got explosive, got big.
07:07And in fact, I was reading an article as I was talking to the other gentleman and they
07:12were talking, even going down into some of the lyrics of the songs that he wrote.
07:16But I did not put it into the context of the timeline.
07:21So what I'm trying to learn is at what point did it start to shift and why?
07:29You know what I mean?
07:30What you're describing actually matches what I had when I was in my younger years, even
07:38in the Branham cult.
07:39We had some good times, really good times.
07:41And our worship was directed at God.
07:43It really was.
07:44It wasn't until years later, things just continued to get progressively worse.
07:49And ironically, even in what we had, we progressively started to look more and more backwards at what
07:56the dead guy did instead of what's happening in our lives and our praise to God.
08:01So our religion was shifting exponentially because it was a destructive cult.
08:06I would not brand anything that came from Wimber, the Vineyard movement, etc., yet a
08:14destructive cult, but it was shifting.
08:17And I want to know why and at what point.
08:20Now, what you described, honestly, I could get on board with that.
08:24What do you think was the reason why it began to shift?
08:27Well, I had mentioned when we talked before, there was always this view that Vineyard, started
08:35out Calvary Chapel, was the new place.
08:40I hate saying this.
08:41The new place that the Holy Spirit was hanging out.
08:44I don't know if you knew that the Holy Spirit has ADD, John.
08:47But he tends to hop around in a lot of different...
08:50Anyway, but we were viewed as the new place.
08:54And I think there was pressure, knowingly or unknowingly, and it was exacerbated when Lonnie
09:00Frisbee came.
09:01Or if you were someone that was more like my mother, who was very charismatic, she thought
09:07that was great.
09:10So why did it happen?
09:12John, you've used a term before, as we're trying to avoid going off in error, all of
09:19us as brothers and sisters in Christ.
09:21Let me backtrack just a little bit more.
09:24I just recently was reading in the 17th chapter of John, you know, and Christ, he begins talking,
09:31you know, just about he and God the Father, then he's praying for the disciples, and then
09:37he's praying for the church, and the whole prayer is make them one.
09:43And I get the feeling he's looking into the future at Bruce and John, and those who are
09:50going to perhaps be listening to this podcast and commenting, good, bad, whatever.
09:55And how can we get more to be one?
09:59Well, as John Collins has been looking at this, he uses a term often.
10:04I've heard you use this term.
10:06We need checks and balances.
10:09Okay?
10:10Well, of course, I agree.
10:12The devil's in the details.
10:14It's hard.
10:16Another word instead of checks and balances would simply be authority.
10:23If there is no authority, it's going to be hard to instill checks and balances.
10:32And so, you know, John, this is the problem with a charismatic man and a wonderful man.
10:39He had no one in authority over him.
10:42You know, I recently asked someone who was very close to John about authority, and this
10:50person told me he did have authority over him.
10:52And I said, oh, my gosh, I had no idea who.
10:55And this person told me his wife, Carol.
11:01Well, I have to tell you, Carol's a wonderful lady.
11:05But if you're in a church where the woman is the authority figure, for many of us, that would be
11:12a struggle.
11:12Who is in authority?
11:14And so, that's to kind of answer your question in this long-winded way.
11:19I think it gets more difficult.
11:22It doesn't happen in one fell swoop.
11:24It happens slowly and surely where things shift.
11:29What would have seemed crazy early on slowly and surely became thinkable.
11:35Exactly.
11:37As you know, I'm a study of ancient mythologies.
11:41I love reading about some of the ancient gods and how they came to be.
11:45But more interesting is how they shifted over time.
11:47If you look at the Egyptian gods, for example, you find pantheons, and then sometimes the pantheon even changes.
11:54And the details and histories about that god change over time.
11:58Well, what's happening?
11:59People over time, they remember things differently or they put emphasis on something else that they did not before.
12:07And it changes the religion.
12:09It changes the mythology.
12:11One of the questions that I've been trying to answer, and I still haven't really formed an opinion, what I
12:17see today, whenever â I'll just be open with you.
12:21I get a lot of hate mail anytime I mention John Wember.
12:24It's kind of funny.
12:25I can mention him and then this flurry of people just saying, you're critical of this guy.
12:29Why are you critical?
12:30And I even had a professor engage in a long round of conversations with me recently.
12:36The thing of it is, whenever I see somebody defending a human of the past with that aggression, it's hard
12:45for me not to think of a cult-like attitude.
12:49And the reason I say that is, when a movement stops treating a leader as a fallible teacher and starts
12:56treating them as a near mythological source, right, a source of authority, to the extent words and phrases are repeated
13:04almost, maybe not equal to, but very close to Scripture.
13:10When I see that happening, and it's a human guy, I question, well, why is that?
13:15What happened?
13:16Because I would sincerely doubt Wember would ever have wanted that to happen, but it has.
13:22So one of the questions that I've tried to answer is, did this change occur during his lifespan, or did
13:28it come later?
13:30And what you're describing of the early life is something that it's really hard to get a view into.
13:34Not many people talk about it.
13:36Yeah, well, when John was, in 1970, when John became assistant pastor at Yorba Linda French Church, John was assistant
13:47pastor.
13:48We had an elder board.
13:51He was not in charge.
13:54You didn't hear John say the kind of things then that he would come to say, I would say, eight
14:04or nine years later.
14:05It didn't start out like this when Calvary Chapel, Yorba Linda, in the early years of Vineyard, but it became
14:13like that.
14:13I can give examples to you.
14:16I, you know, I think I mentioned you off the air.
14:20John would say things that were just so wonderful.
14:23I remember him in a sermon saying, I am change in God's pocket.
14:28He can spend me as he wants.
14:30And I loved that, you know, and the humility in that.
14:34And, you know, later on, when John was talking about signs and wonders, he said that he believed it was
14:45going to be entirely possible that we could raise the dead.
14:49And I'm not going to argue.
14:51I mean, this is God we're talking about here, right?
14:53But then the next thing he said made me shudder.
14:58And I think he said it casually, but I don't think it's the kind of thing he would have said
15:02if he were under authority.
15:04He said, how would you like to have that on your resume?
15:09Okay.
15:09And the truth is, brothers and sisters, you don't want that on your resume because what it will do to
15:17you.
15:19The last thing we need is to think we are something special before God, that we have special giftings.
15:25It's a dangerous thing.
15:28And I know if John was here today, he'd agree.
15:31And he'd say, oh, I blew it.
15:32But I just was speaking out of turn.
15:35And he would.
15:38He would never have told you that the things that came out of his mouth were ex cathedra.
15:48You know that term?
15:50You know, John didn't view that like a pope.
15:54His words were true because he was the pope.
15:57So, John didn't want to speak ex cathedra, and he made mistakes, and there's things, you know, boy, I'm hoping
16:05when I stand before God, there's not a videotape of my life of the things I've said.
16:10I'm going to be in deep yogurt, John.
16:12You and me both.
16:13I've thought about that often because, again, I came from a very destructive background, but there were things that were
16:20said in opinion behind the pulpit that were taken as literal prophetic claims.
16:28There were statements like, we'll never make it to Mars.
16:32We'll never â it would take angels 10,000 light years to get to Mars.
16:36Well, we've been to Mars.
16:38We've seen the Mars rover, right?
16:39So today, that's not at all prophetic.
16:41But before the Mars rover landed there, I remember ministers saying he had special insight.
16:47He saw this.
16:48Now, I'm talking about Branham here, not Wimber.
16:50But the point is the same.
16:52Whenever you start giving a human that much relevance to your religion, the words they say, you start looking at
17:00them differently.
17:01You start looking deeper for deeper meanings instead of looking to what the Bible said and what Jesus said for
17:08Jesus' deeper meanings.
17:09And sometimes, as humans, we say things that it might be relevant to the culture, it might be relevant to
17:15the era, might not even be relevant at all.
17:19Maybe you just misspoke.
17:20But when you give a human that much credibility to your faith, it turns into a problem.
17:28And honestly, when you look back at the ancient mythologies, that's how a mythology forms.
17:33Whenever you give somebody that much respect, over time, they turn into a deity.
17:37It's true.
17:39It's painfully true.
17:43Oh, boy.
17:44Where could I go on that?
17:47You know, one of the things John did was talk as he opened us up to five-fold ministry, as
17:54he opened us up to signs and wonders.
17:57John would regularly talk about true things.
18:03He talked about the difference between the Western approach to God and the Eastern approach.
18:08And John said, you know, the Western approach to God is pragmatic.
18:14It's what's in front of me.
18:19The Eastern approach is mystical.
18:22The Eastern approach doesn't have to have all the answers.
18:26And this was his way of introducing us to more of the miraculous.
18:33And as I looked, started looking into a lot of that Eastern view, I found out John was right.
18:39He was right that the Eastern view is more open to signs and wonders and the miraculous.
18:49However, what the Eastern view, as I studied further, emphasizes is that the signs and wonders, that's God's second best.
19:01First, don't settle for God's second best, brothers and sisters.
19:06God's first best, his second best is if he heals your body.
19:10The first best is if he can change your heart.
19:13That's what I'm interested in.
19:16So, yeah, leaders, if you're in a church, I hope that it can help you.
19:23What's the answer?
19:24People aren't going to just change their church easily.
19:27That's the most difficult thing to do.
19:30I would encourage anyone, if you're in a church and you can't see how the authority structure works,
19:39if you're in a church that has a really, really charismatic pastor, you've got to be careful of that.
19:47It helps if there's authority.
19:50If there's authority spread out, denominations have more safety in them.
19:54If you're in a denominational church, you're less susceptible to this.
19:59If you're in a non-denominational church that has no authority structure, you're in a time bomb.
20:06Absolutely, and that supports my working theory.
20:10So, one of the things that I've been looking at is not really even the influence that he had immediately
20:20in his,
20:20I don't know if you'd call it his inner circle, but looking back at just simply the Pentecostal influence.
20:26And this isn't a statement where I'm against Pentecostalism.
20:30I'm not trying to say that at all.
20:32But within Pentecostalism, you have this idea that the stories that you tell regarding the people in the movement are
20:41sacred.
20:43And honestly, that's why you have things like God's Generals.
20:46God's Generals is just the New Apostolic Reformation's version of the same thing they had in the Pentecostal movement with
20:52all of their Pentecostal histories.
20:54You look back at what some guy did, and you had the sacred stories about that guy, whoever it is.
21:00And it might be a girl, a guy or a girl, I should say.
21:03But the problem with that is it closes the door to critically thinking about those stories.
21:10Because if you question the story, you're questioning the religion, because the story is now embedded in the religion.
21:17If you question the religion, are you saved?
21:20You must not be saved because you're questioning this.
21:22Well, what happens is it turns into one of the other elements of a destructive cult is that you can't
21:29ask questions.
21:30You just simply can't.
21:31Well, because it's so bound to the faith, the movement, if you will, the movement has the stories embedded in
21:40it so deeply you can't ask questions about it.
21:42And I noticed that immediately when I started asking questions about some of the things that is in Wimber's past.
21:48And just simply because I had questions, not because I was even critical, that's whenever the backlash started.
21:54And then I realized I need to dig deeper here because there's more to this story.
21:58But it all goes back to what I said earlier.
22:02The stories are embedded in the movement because they're tied to an individual.
22:06The individual is usually in the past.
22:09And so people are looking backwards.
22:11What you just said supports that because usually those stories are stories of great miracles, great healings, great experiences, doing
22:20the stuff, as he would call it.
22:22But that's backwards.
22:24That's looking back at what basically, if you want to go 100 years into the future, that's the early stages
22:31of a mythology forming.
22:32It's true.
22:34Yeah, yeah.
22:35And again, our focus became on John's saying, it's not my favorite saying, doing the stuff.
22:47You know, at the beginning, it didn't start out like this.
22:51At the beginning, it was simply people coming to God, trying to reach out to God, trying to repent of
23:00sin, trying to move to God.
23:03To me, that's the number one doing the stuff.
23:07Okay?
23:07Now, I'm not saying that doesn't mean you don't pray for people and that God doesn't work miracles.
23:13But, yeah, yeah.
23:16Again, it didn't start out like this.
23:18You know, I remember John being asked early on, probably within the first seven, eight years,
23:26do you see your grandchildren worshiping at Vineyard?
23:30And John's answer was, oh, I hope not.
23:32I think Vineyard is a church that will last maybe 20, 25 years, a movement that will last 20, 25
23:37years.
23:38And so, you know, I don't think that he viewed he was going to be Martin Luther.
23:46You know, he viewed it very casually, but that was John's thing.
23:51He, you know, Hawaiian shirt, the keyboard player that comes up and preaches.
23:56And so, yeah, yeah, these things happened slowly at the beginning.
24:03And then, you know, I'm kind of, because I've been away for 30 years.
24:07When I come back in and see this as someone, a friend of mine sent me your podcast,
24:12and I saw, I was unaware about NAR and some of these things.
24:16So, it's shocking.
24:18How did we get here?
24:19Well, I can see it with John, because I remember when Paul Cain, you know,
24:25Paul Cain had a word of God for God for me, and, you know,
24:30and I had spent some time with Mike Bickle and Jack Deere,
24:34and I know these people, and I wouldn't have been critical of them,
24:38but they had too much power.
24:41It's a dangerous thing.
24:43Absolutely, it is.
24:45And that's one of the things that I've often thought about.
24:49He was a very complicated person.
24:52In fact, I think that was even how they worded it.
24:55And I read a Christianity Today article,
24:58and it was talking about just the complexity of who he was, what he did,
25:03and the controversy surrounding the ministry.
25:06He had a broad influence and a broad controversy.
25:09But it was because he was a complicated person with a complicated ministry.
25:14And when I say that, I'm saying it not in a negative way.
25:19He tried to build bridges.
25:21In fact, I think that was one of his statements.
25:23So he would build a bridge between the evangelical world and the charismatic world, for example.
25:28So whenever I'm studying New Apostolic Reformation, for example,
25:33I'm studying traces of history that lead back to one of the bridges that was built.
25:39And it might not even be a bridge that he would have endorsed, but it was a bridge that he
25:45did build.
25:46And it comes down to it's a very complicated person, right?
25:50The problem is whenever you take somebody who is very complex and you try to flatten this and try to
25:59turn it.
25:59But groups like this have a, they have this way of making everything black or white.
26:04You're either with the movement or you're not in the movement.
26:08You're either agreeing with everything that we say in our history or you're against us.
26:13There's never a, there's never this gray area where you can ask questions into the box.
26:19And that's because of this black and white mentality.
26:22You can't apply a black and white mentality to a complex figure.
26:27And so whenever I see the guy with the Hawaiian shirt that you're talking about, I've watched some of those
26:32videos.
26:33I, interestingly, I think I had a shirt like that back in the 80s, which is kind of funny.
26:38But I, I can, I can relate to this because I also wanted to build bridges.
26:44I never wanted to cut people off.
26:47I, I had this, I had this phrase that interestingly came from Branham.
26:51If they draw you out of yours, out of their circle, draw a bigger circle and draw them back in.
26:57And that was my mentality.
26:59I didn't, I didn't like enemies.
27:00I like to bring everybody closer.
27:02I see him much like that.
27:04So if I were to humanize Wimber, I would say that he was trying to bring everybody together and that
27:10makes it complex.
27:12Not everybody who he brought in his circle were good people.
27:15And that's really the problem.
27:16And it goes back to what you said, without the proper authority, checks and balances, when you do this, you
27:23create problems.
27:24Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
27:32reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
27:37You can learn this and more on William Branham historical research's website, william-branham.org.
27:45On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
27:53John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
27:59You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
28:06If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
28:12top.
28:12And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
28:18watching.
28:18On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
28:24What you brought up is something that really was the beginning of a new era when you brought up John
28:31wanting to embrace people.
28:33I do know that how did we connect with Paul Kane, Mike Bickle, John Paul Jackson, that whole group, the
28:41Kansas City thing?
28:42They needed help.
28:43They were having issues.
28:46They reached out to John, and John embraced them, and his attitude was he wanted to help them.
28:55And, you know, the problem, helping one person is difficult, let alone these four or five men that were older
29:06than him that probably didn't really, you know, I think I might have said it last time.
29:10The only proof you can submit to authority is when you submit to authority you don't agree with.
29:16And so, for some of these people, they needed authority.
29:21A lot of these people, what they didn't need was to have them flown out to Anaheim and stand in
29:28front of 4,000 people with a microphone and, quote, unquote, minister.
29:32That's not good, you know, if God's trying to deal with us.
29:37So, John wanted to help them, but the truth is, John was too busy being John.
29:43At this point, he is traveling the world.
29:45He's trying to do more than he can do.
29:48He doesn't have the infrastructure, and there's no authority other than John.
29:53John, is it any shock that when John left, and this is true of most every church, when you have
29:59a megastar pastor who leaves, the next pastor is going to struggle big time.
30:06That's what happened.
30:07So, back to what you were talking about, John wanting to embrace more people, that was what happened with Kansas
30:14City.
30:14He started out wanting to embrace them, and then it went south.
30:19I don't know if you've read this document, but I have, when I do my research into Vineyard and John
30:24Wimber, a lot of my sources go back to Vineyard itself.
30:28There's some really good documentation.
30:30One of them is this organizational assessment, Vineyard USA from 2023, and it talks about the complexities of Vineyard, and
30:40it's basically, it's talking about what you just said about the accountability and the structure itself.
30:48Unless you have a formal structure, it leaves sometimes some gaps in accountability, and that's one of the things that
30:57I see as a human trait of John Wimber.
31:02I'm actually like that, and I like to be very informal.
31:06Even with this podcast, when we record it, I open the door and I say, this is a very informal
31:11recording.
31:12We're going to record.
31:13If I mess up, I'll go back and we'll edit this.
31:16Because I am like that, and I kind of sense he was probably very informal as well.
31:21But when you bring that informal strategy, how can you put checks and balances in place?
31:28It's one of the problems that I found whenever I started my business.
31:32I was very informal even with my employees.
31:34I'd have people come work for me, and I would just be very casual.
31:38We would meet in coffee shops.
31:39We would start working, and I didn't really have rules and boundaries.
31:44And I found the problem is that chaos can ensue when you don't have proper structure.
31:50And now I'm trying to imagine this big, huge movement that's growing.
31:54Whenever you're kind of in an informal state, there's a period of time, which I will call it growth pains.
32:03There's a period of time in which you see this mess happening, and then you have to correct it because
32:08you've seen a mess.
32:09So I look at whenever the point in time that you're mentioning when Paul Cain and these guys come in,
32:16this is really the growing pains.
32:18This is whenever a mess happened, now we've got to correct it.
32:21And it really comes back to just simply the human nature of him was to be informal.
32:27Yeah, it was.
32:28You know, for those of you that may be listening to this podcast, you know, I think there's been once
32:32or twice where John's been able to, you know, he starts talking, and then he says, hey, his tongue gets
32:37tied, and he goes over and re-records it, the question.
32:41So, but when you're a pastor, you don't get to do that.
32:44Yeah.
32:44Especially, you know, and I think, I doubt John knew that his sermons and messages would be able to be
32:53played on a thing called YouTube, you know,
32:5630 years later.
33:00You know, if you're someone that is critical of John Wimber, you know, John had a great line that I
33:08love.
33:08When people would criticize him, he would say, well, I want God to be gracious to them because I'm going
33:14to need God to be gracious to me.
33:17And so, you know what?
33:19If you have criticisms of John Wimber, I understand.
33:21I have some, too.
33:22And he was a far better example of Christ than me.
33:28You know, forgive me, I might have said it in the last time we got together, but St. John Chrysostom
33:35said it's more important to feed the poor than to raise the dead.
33:39And let me tell you, vineyard fed the poor.
33:41And that was under John's direction.
33:44And, you know, you read through the Proverbs, and for people that take care of the poor, I mean, it's
33:52huge.
33:53So, if you're someone that's critical of John, be gracious to him and ask God to be gracious to you.
33:58And if you're someone that believes John could do no wrong, you're mistaken.
34:02And he'd be the first to tell you.
34:05He blew it.
34:06He, if he came back, and again, John would not have embraced this apostolic thing.
34:14He never said he was an apostle, ever.
34:16I defy anyone to come up with anything, John, ever saying that he had this apostolic ministry.
34:24And nor did I hear him, I've got to be careful how I say this, I didn't hear him say
34:31that any of these others were apostles.
34:33I wish, though, he hadn't given them the platform he gave them, which that's what John Collins is talking about
34:41here, this platform that's enabled this thing to keep going.
34:47As we move further and further, the rails get further and further apart.
34:52Yeah, I just, I recently watched this movie about the coming to be of the atomic bomb.
34:57I'm drawing a blank on the name of it.
34:59Huge movie.
35:00They had this movie and the Barbie movie in the theaters at the same time, and people would go watch
35:04both.
35:05And I look at it much like that.
35:07The guy that created it, I don't think he intended for, it was a doomsday device.
35:12I don't think he intended for them to use it in the way that they did.
35:16And I don't think John Wimber intended for the Kansas City Fellowship to abuse their platform in the way that
35:23they did.
35:24But yet he built the bomb.
35:25Or he, I should say, I should rephrase that, he enabled others to build the bomb.
35:30That's probably a better way to say it.
35:33It is.
35:33But whenever, so whenever you look into the United Kingdom and you look at what spread over there, I think
35:42it proves the point that myself and some of the other researchers that are working with me are trying to
35:48say.
35:48And that's that once you build this platform, you can't really take it back.
35:52Once you put these people on the pedestals that they were, every single person that went to these conventions or
36:01church services or meetings, wherever they met these guys, when you see John Wimber up there saying, this guy next
36:08to me, he's a prophet.
36:10And I've seen him 100% accurate talking about Paul Cain.
36:14It doesn't matter that he doesn't know all of the details that are critical of Paul Cain.
36:20What really matters is the people in the seats.
36:23The people in the seats suddenly see this as, oh, John Wimber is endorsing this guy.
36:28This must be the true prophet of God.
36:31And I talked to several people who this actually did happen.
36:35And it goes back to what I said earlier.
36:38When you're looking at humans and you're putting all of your trust and your devotion into this human, say he
36:45is a perfect prophet.
36:47It's not really where you're supposed to be looking.
36:50Instead, if you platform, this man is going to show you how you can be saved.
36:56All you need is Jesus and point to Jesus instead of pointing to Paul Cain.
37:00I think things might have turned out differently.
37:03What would you say to a person who grew up in that type of ministry?
37:09I've talked to people in the UK.
37:10In fact, we'll have some on this podcast soon.
37:13They sat in these ministries and they watched this happen.
37:16They watched this unfold.
37:17And suddenly it wasn't New Apostolic Reformation, but a thing just like it started to develop in the UK.
37:23Yeah, well, I will tell you, here's a fact.
37:28When John finally decided to retire and turn the church over, he turned the church over to my lifetime best
37:39friend, Carl Tuttle, who just passed away this last year.
37:43Memory eternal, Carl.
37:46And Carl was, at that time, he was pastor at the vineyard in Santa Maria with his wife, Sonia, and
37:55their six children.
37:57And Carl didn't really, wasn't excited about coming and taking over for Michael Jordan in the pulpit.
38:11Do you understand what I'm saying?
38:12Who wants to do that?
38:16But what happened is, this is at the time when Kansas City is kind of going.
38:21And John Paul Jackson, Bob Jones, Paul Kane, all tell Carl that this is, the Lord's told them that Carl's
38:34supposed to take over the church.
38:38And so, Carl took over the church, and it was the worst decision he ever made in his life.
38:45If you ever want to read an incredible book, Carl's passed away, but it was his complete collapse at church.
38:56Carl ended up in better shape with God than most anyone I know, because he died knowing he was a
39:03mess and that he needed God.
39:06The name of that book is Reckless Mercy, R-E-C-K-L-E-S-S, and it's about Carl's
39:12fall.
39:13And I remember John telling us that a group of us gathered over at a house one night when John
39:21made the decision he was retiring.
39:24Because I'm trying to answer your question here about people that think, you know, the prophetic, that that's where you
39:29need to go and listen to.
39:31John told us that, you know, hey, the Lord told me, the Lord told me that Carl's supposed to take
39:38over the church.
39:41Two years later, when everything fell apart with Carl, and you're going to have to, all of you who are
39:49listening, be gracious to John and be gracious to me.
39:52Because John was funny as well.
39:54I said to John, John, I thought you said that the Lord told you Carl was supposed to take over
39:59the church.
40:00And John said to me, the Lord was wrong.
40:04Well, that's John being John.
40:06He, you know, that's John admitting, you know, hey, I'm human.
40:12John was human.
40:14You know, there were things he said the Lord told him that he was wrong on.
40:18Okay?
40:20And we all have to be careful.
40:22You know, it's funny how these conversations go because I'll, as we're talking, I'm building up to a climax in
40:30my mind.
40:30And you lead me there without me even telling you where I'm headed.
40:35There, so there is a problem that exists that I've been trying to form ways to get people to understand.
40:45And it's really difficult because of what I said earlier.
40:48If you question some of the history, you're really questioning the movement.
40:52And then, therefore, you are demonized.
40:54And that's just the way this movement works.
40:57And I'm going to be open and honest.
41:00You and I have some different opinions of theology.
41:05You're from the Catholic background.
41:06I'm not.
41:08And interestingly, I wouldn't even say that I'm so far out of the Pentecostal realm because there are things that
41:15I still agree with about some of the things they're doing, right?
41:18But there is one thing that I know I'm going to get all kinds of backlash because I'm asking you
41:23this question.
41:23The funny part is if I were to ask somebody who is Protestant, they would be, oh, yes, brother, you're
41:30absolutely right.
41:32But I'm going to ask you anyway because you know the history.
41:37Let's blow this bomb up, right?
41:38Let's blow this bomb up.
41:39So, in this revival culture, what I've learned to â what I've come to understand is it's not really Wimber
41:50that's at fault.
41:50It's not even really the Kansas City prophets that are at fault, though you could look at some of what
41:57happened and you could clearly say that they had problems.
42:00I take it all the way back to the revivalist culture.
42:05If you understand the difference between the revivalist culture and Christianity, there are significant differences.
42:14And from a Catholic background, the Catholics would say, well, that's all nuts.
42:18Why are they doing that anyway?
42:20But one of the problems that exists in the revivalist culture, they use terms and phrases like the one that
42:29you just mentioned where it's talking about the spiritual presence.
42:34But they use specific language, and the presence language actually blurs the categories.
42:40And one of the things that blurs is simply my gut feeling is that I should have this guy as
42:47a pastor, but I'm going to use the presence language.
42:50God spoke to me.
42:52God told me this, right?
42:53And it blurs the categories.
42:55Then when it doesn't work out, was that God?
42:58God, and I like the way that Wimber said that because that's the way every single pastor should say it
43:03who's abusing this term, right?
43:06Yes, yes.
43:06So their congregation, well, no, God didn't lie.
43:09You just pulled that out of your, you know.
43:12Yeah.
43:12But anyway, the presence language blurs these categories.
43:16And what happens is when you're using things like I'm anointed, I'm carrying these authority, I'm fathering, basically what turns
43:24into is they see the anointed language and they associate the anointing with you.
43:31So what happens without you even intending to do it, people begin to worship you, not knowing they're worshiping you.
43:39Once a movement forms, now that's embedded into the history of the movement.
43:44You can't question the leader, he had the anointing.
43:46You can't question the leader, he brought the spirit to us.
43:49And so the association of bringing the spirit to the people now falls into the human.
43:57But when you read the Bible, it doesn't say this.
43:59It says that Jesus will send, the Father will send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide the people into
44:05all truth.
44:06You can't say that a human did it.
44:08But in the revivalist language, that's how it works.
44:12What would you say to this?
44:13Well, you would go back to the revivalist.
44:16I would, I definitely see the point you're making with the revivalist.
44:20I would actually, of course, go back to the Reformation, which you'd kind of think.
44:26Because, you know, one thing leads to another.
44:29I mean, it is fascinating.
44:31What years are we talking about?
44:33We're revivalists, really?
44:35What years, John, are you specifying?
44:38Well, there were different phases of them.
44:40Right.
44:40You can go back to, actually, you can go back to like 1600s.
44:44Okay.
44:44Yeah.
44:44They got big in the United States, 1800s.
44:47Right.
44:47And then exploded in the 1900s.
44:49And you look at what, and that's what I thought.
44:51I was going to focus on the 1800s.
44:54And you look what happened in the 1800s.
44:56I mean, that's where really known cults.
45:00I'm not talking about Christian cults.
45:03But, you know, where we get Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness and the Unitarians, the explosion of it.
45:10But I would say that, you know, you even go back to the Reformation and you're seeing the difficulty that
45:18Christians had.
45:19You know, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli had just even getting along with each other and hating each other.
45:27So, you know, again, authority is such a key.
45:33And I am under no illusion that people should all become Catholic or I'm Orthodox, which I know brings up
45:41people.
45:42And for those of you that worry about me, I'm going to ask you to pray for me.
45:45I'll always take prayer.
45:47I'm serious.
45:48Pray for me that God would lead me and direct me.
45:53But we need accountability.
45:58We need, John calls it checks and balances, authority.
46:02We need authority in our churches.
46:04We need safe places.
46:08And there's language.
46:10I understand charismatic language.
46:12I like to say I'm spiritually bilingual.
46:15Okay?
46:16I can speak Vineyard.
46:19I can speak Pentecostal.
46:21John, I know you can too.
46:23I can speak Catholic.
46:26It's a different language.
46:30Believe it or not, brothers and sisters, it is the same God.
46:33And John Wimber embraced Catholicism.
46:36And when I went to John and told him I was considering leaving Protestantism, he was surprised.
46:42Because when I did it 30 years ago when he was still alive, that was pretty rare.
46:47But, you know, the answer isn't.
46:49When I stand before God, he's not going to ask me if I'm Catholic.
46:53He's not going to ask me if I'm, he's going to, the questions will be different than that.
46:59But for the church, as John Collins is trying to help us to avoid error, we need to go to
47:07a place where there's authority or checks and balances, and that you can tell one man's charisma cannot lead you
47:15down a path.
47:16Absolutely.
47:18Like I said, you and I differ in religion, but there's one thing that I do agree on.
47:24When I go back through the history of religion, and I've gone all the way back to the Reformation, I've
47:29gone way past this, what happens is you get two people or two groups of people who have some sort
47:37of a tension between them.
47:39Then they separate, and then a movement starts, one or the other.
47:43And it continues.
47:43This is just human nature.
47:45This happens all the time.
47:47You went back to Protestant and Catholic whenever the split happened.
47:51Well, what is it?
47:52It's two different movements that occurred because there was a division, right?
47:55Go back prior to this.
47:57You're going to find every milestone in history, you're going to see the same different things.
48:02And they spun off into different groups.
48:04They did.
48:05All the way back.
48:05I mean, you can go back to, I mean, take it back to the Old Testament.
48:09Islam exists because this happened.
48:11You had two groups of people that split, right?
48:14I know people.
48:15I've got neighbors who are Islamic, and they're genuinely good people.
48:20I also have read the news, and I have seen what Islamic extremists do.
48:26And I can't brand my neighbors with what the extremists do.
48:31Just because they're Islamic, what happened, you had two groups of people.
48:35They separated.
48:36The problem that I'm seeing is that there has been a separation of the movements because
48:43of the bridge that was built whenever this complex person said, we need unity.
48:49Bring me these shepherding guys that have an authoritarian control.
48:53Bring me these Kansas City prophets that are apostles and prophets.
48:57When you build all of these, what you're doing, you're inviting more groups that will explode
49:03into more directions.
49:04So what's really funny is I can trace some of that history in one of those groups that
49:09evolved out of this.
49:11Well, the other groups don't know that that even exists.
49:14The language, it's not even the same language.
49:17There's two different groups.
49:18Like you and me, Protestant and Catholic, I can't speak your language.
49:22Well, you can speak mine because you came out of it, but most Catholics can't.
49:26What I'm seeing is basically the movement itself, if you're not allowed to critically think about
49:32your movement, even, so I'm Protestant, I actually critically thought about the Reformation.
49:38I went back and I looked through it.
49:40It's not what I've been told.
49:41It doesn't mean that it's wrong or right, but what I've been told doesn't really match
49:45the whole scenario.
49:47It all comes down to, I don't care about that.
49:50If you want to say that you're a Christian, you're not saying that I am a Protestant Christian.
49:57Jesus didn't even, when Jesus was here, there was no Protestant.
50:01There was no Catholic.
50:02He just said, follow me, follow Christ, right?
50:05So if you're Christian, it isn't that division that needs to be your focus.
50:10Your focus is in the wrong place if it is.
50:12Yeah.
50:14So as brothers and sisters in Christ, again, I go back and I read what I read this morning
50:20and I actually had heard a little commentary from the great Pastor Chuck Swindoll talking
50:27about John 17 that he says, boy, Christ was peering into the future, looking at the need for us
50:33to become one.
50:36And there are so many things we can be at division over.
50:40And that's another thing I would encourage people to try to think the best of people, of your Islamic
50:50neighbor and to share Christ lovingly and in your churches with those that don't have the
50:57same theology as you.
51:00You know, John had a great line.
51:03Here's a great Wimber line about doctrine and theology.
51:08This is a good one.
51:09I remember someone asking John, and this was way back at the Orbital and Friends Church,
51:15about different things that he believed in his doctrine and his theology.
51:19And he said, you know, my theology and doctrine, it kind of reminds me of when Carol and I got
51:25married.
51:26We didn't have a lot of money, so the furniture didn't match.
51:30But it worked for me.
51:33Okay?
51:34Now, for someone, for any of you that are listening to this, who want to have all your T's crossed
51:42and your I's dotted, that'll drive you nuts.
51:45But that was John.
51:49And I think John would have been so dynamite had Gunnar Payne, the man I mentioned before
51:56in the previous one that we talked about, been there to help guide John.
52:00He was alone.
52:01And so much of the errors he made was because he was alone with no authority.
52:09Look for authority, people.
52:10And the interesting fact that you can take with you is, I'm not entirely certain that
52:15all of my furniture matches right now, so.
52:17Yeah.
52:18No, it's true.
52:20Look, I mean, I can go over struggles I've had and struggles I still have.
52:26It's always interesting.
52:27You know, in the Orthodox Church, we've had, it's just incredible what's happened.
52:36We are swamped.
52:37We are overrun with young people, especially young men.
52:41And it's very fascinating seeing people that come in.
52:45We get a lot of atheists that are now becoming Christians.
52:48And we also see a lot of Protestants who are 20 and 30 years old.
52:56And to tell you the truth, John, they would look at the kind of worship music you and I
52:59used to do, and they think it's lame.
53:01Yeah.
53:02To tell you the truth.
53:04They say, what are these old guys up there doing with a guitar and, you know.
53:09But for many people, they come in and the theology can be challenging.
53:15And again, people tend to view this in terms of you're either in or you're out.
53:20My deciding to face and become Catholic was not a matter of becoming a Christian.
53:25I found Christ in the Protestant faith, and I'm so thankful for it.
53:31And perhaps had I been raised Eastern Orthodox, I might be, well, I hope I wouldn't be a member
53:38of NAR, but I would be in, I would probably end up in a Reformed church or a strong Lutheran
53:47denomination.
53:47That's me.
53:48Yeah, and I'm a byproduct of the mythologies that I'm talking about.
53:52As I said, I was in a destructive cult.
53:54The problem that I see, if you're in these types of groups and you let it evolve and you
53:59let it continue, once it does turn destructive, and it will if you don't have checks and balances,
54:03it will eventually turn destructive.
54:06When you don't have that, you bruise people.
54:09And for me, I have trouble sitting in a church service because all of that loaded language in
54:14my head, all of the triggers that I get, I came out of such an abusive, spiritually abusive
54:19situation, it's very difficult to trust a church or trust a minister.
54:25And my only reason for doing this, it isn't to attack John Wimber.
54:29Like I said, I don't have a dog in that fight at all.
54:32It's more, how can I help the people so they don't do this, man?
54:36Don't let your movement turn into what I came from.
54:40And you're a big part in helping, so thank you for doing this.
54:43John, thank you.
54:44I've enjoyed talking to you, and as we head towards Easter, blessed Easter to everyone.
54:51Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out
54:54on the web.
54:54You can find us at william-branham.org.
54:57For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
55:01from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:41Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:55Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:56Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:58Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:59Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
56:01Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
56:02Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
56:02Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
56:04Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, and Audible.
56:12You
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