- 26 minutes ago
John And Jenny Examine How Cover-Up Culture, Stage Personas, And Branding Work Together To Protect High-Control Religious Systems. They Trace How “Repentance” And “Accountability” Language Often Functions As Rebranding, Then Compare Movement Mythologies—Prophetic Histories, Miracle Lore, And Hero Stories—that Recruit New People And Shield Leaders From Scrutiny.
They Also Explore How Emotion-Driven “Calling” Narratives And Adventure Marketing Keep Members Invested Even When Reality Is Unsafe, Unplanned, Or Exploitative. The Conversation Ends With A Clear Contrast Between Organization-Centered Messaging And The Jesus Of The Gospels, Along With Practical Questions For Spotting Healthy Service Versus Image Management.
00:00 Introduction
01:08 Coverup Culture, Stage Personas, And Rebranding
06:00 Miracle Stories, Recruitment, And Mythology
11:03 Spectacle, Funding, And Hype Culture
17:12 Power, Healing Claims, And Leadership Control
24:09 Mythmaking, Hero Worship, And Lauren Cunningham
29:55 Media, Public Perception, And Leaving The System
34:29 Adventure Branding Vs. The Reality On The Ground
39:38 Calling, Emotion, And Spiritual Manipulation
45:17 Does The Branding Point To Jesus Or The Organization?
48:35 What Healthy Mission Should Look Like
______________________
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
They Also Explore How Emotion-Driven “Calling” Narratives And Adventure Marketing Keep Members Invested Even When Reality Is Unsafe, Unplanned, Or Exploitative. The Conversation Ends With A Clear Contrast Between Organization-Centered Messaging And The Jesus Of The Gospels, Along With Practical Questions For Spotting Healthy Service Versus Image Management.
00:00 Introduction
01:08 Coverup Culture, Stage Personas, And Rebranding
06:00 Miracle Stories, Recruitment, And Mythology
11:03 Spectacle, Funding, And Hype Culture
17:12 Power, Healing Claims, And Leadership Control
24:09 Mythmaking, Hero Worship, And Lauren Cunningham
29:55 Media, Public Perception, And Leaving The System
34:29 Adventure Branding Vs. The Reality On The Ground
39:38 Calling, Emotion, And Spiritual Manipulation
45:17 Does The Branding Point To Jesus Or The Organization?
48:35 What Healthy Mission Should Look Like
______________________
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
📚
LearningTranscript
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 at william-branham.org.
00:42And with me, I have my co-host, researcher, and friend, Jenny McGrath, founder of Endwell Movement.
00:48Jenny, I'm a little bit excited for today.
00:51This is a theme that I've been kind of digging into, at least one aspect of this theme.
00:57What I'm talking about overall, I've been heading this way for a long time, but I wanted to dive deep
01:03into the cover-up culture.
01:04Because there's a lot of things that are just simply covered up.
01:08And not many people think about it.
01:09There's two things that go with this.
01:11With the cover-up culture, you also have the stage personas, the stage acts.
01:17You have to have the cover-up culture to have the stage acts, right?
01:21Well, there's another piece of this that not many people really think about, and that is the branding.
01:27Whenever – in fact, I just had this conversation yesterday with Jed.
01:31It will come out, I think, before this one.
01:33But whenever there's any sort of big repentance, whenever somebody does something that's awful in these movements,
01:40and the leaders step up and say, we take accountability, well, what they're doing generally, it's not really repentant so
01:50much as it is rebranding.
01:51They want to rebrand their image because their image has just been tainted.
01:56And I started thinking through this, and there's so many different ways that you can attack this.
02:02But as it relates to youth with a mission, I wanted to hear your perspective of what you feel about
02:07YWAM's branding.
02:08Yeah, I'm really excited to dive into this with you.
02:13One of the things that comes to mind as you start to talk about it is how I even got
02:19into YWAM in the first place.
02:21I was still a senior in high school, and at that time, I really felt that God was calling me
02:30to Africa.
02:30And I have an entire book coming out about how I ended up with that feeling and what led to
02:39that.
02:41But for today, I went to this missions conference at my church with my mom because I was looking for
02:48some way to do like a short-term missions for the summer after I graduated.
02:53And I went in, and I was like, you know what, I want to go to Africa, so I'm only
02:58going to look at missions trips that are going to Africa.
03:02Which, in the first place, as I say this, I'm like, this was literally a convention for missions trips.
03:09Like, it was booths of people promoting their missions trips, which in itself, we could talk so much about that.
03:16And there was one man who was there with his team from YWAM, and they were talking about a trip
03:23that they were going to be taking to China that summer.
03:27And it was the year that the Olympics were in China.
03:32And I kind of could care less, honestly, because I was like, my heart's in Africa, I don't care about
03:38China.
03:38But this guy with this huge smile and this very charismatic personality really drew my mom and I in and
03:47was like, come talk to us.
03:49Let me tell you why you should come to China.
03:52And my mom did not come that night intending to go on a missions trip.
03:57It was all about where I was going to go.
03:59And we ended up leaving that evening with both my mom and I going, I guess we're going to go
04:05on a missions trip to China.
04:08And we did.
04:09We went on a two-week missions trip to China.
04:12And during the time of getting ready for that was when I was invited to the community nights in the
04:19Colorado Springs YWAM base that was 30 minutes from my home.
04:24And so it just kind of just immediately enveloped me.
04:28And a big part of it was this shiny, happy people.
04:32And this really charismatic, bright, smiling culture.
04:38And there was something in that that really captivated me.
04:42And so I think when I think about branding, I think about, again, shiny, happy people.
04:49I can't wait.
04:50I hope they do a season on YWAM because I feel like it fits right in with the brand.
04:55That's one of the things that comes to mind.
04:56You know, I was talking with Jed, and it's really weird because you and I come from such different backgrounds.
05:03You always go towards the shiny, happy people, always go towards the doom and gloom, and the world is ending,
05:09all of this.
05:10But yet, at the same time, there are elements that are just so similar.
05:14And part of what I connected with Jed on, when he was talking about IHOPKC, they're talking about the prophetic
05:22history, all of this stuff.
05:24Well, we had the same thing, and pretty much every cult has its own mythology.
05:28It's all called different things.
05:30And what we escaped, I called it the life stories.
05:33We would talk about Branham's life stories.
05:35This is how the gift of God came to him, all of this stuff.
05:38And whenever you talk to new people, and you're trying to get them to – basically, you're recruiting them, that's
05:44what you talk about.
05:45Did you know this life story?
05:47You talk about it.
05:48And in IHOPKC, you would say, do you know the prophetic history?
05:52These guys got together, and God came down.
05:56There's just so many spins that you can do on the mythologies.
06:00What was it like whenever you joined YWAM, or even when you were interested in joining?
06:05Did they go through any of that type of history?
06:07And what was this called?
06:09Yeah.
06:10So, as part of a discipleship training school, you are required to read Lauren Cunningham, who was the founder of
06:17YWAM's books.
06:19And they were filled with these really grandiose stories of miracles.
06:24Like, the one I remember was that they needed money, and God told them to go look in a fish's
06:30mouth.
06:31And they opened this fish's mouth, and there was money in it.
06:34And it was the exact same amount that they needed.
06:36And so, there's all of these really grandiose miracle stories.
06:44And it does feel like it becomes almost this mystery cult, because it's like, well, how do I get enough
06:52skill, or enough faith,
06:54or put myself really in enough danger that God is going to have to come through for me?
07:00And it continues this, I think, an addictive cycle in terms of addiction to cortisol and adrenaline and stress,
07:09because you believe that God is going to have to come through any moment.
07:14And, you know, I heard over the years many, many, many, many stories of these huge miracles.
07:22I never witnessed them personally, right?
07:26And so, then there becomes this dissonance of, what am I doing wrong?
07:31How come God is showing up in these ways?
07:33And it didn't even occur to me, maybe these stories aren't true.
07:37You know, I was like, why would anyone lie to me, especially in a missions organization?
07:42And, you know, it was in several years ago, I was talking to someone, this is embarrassing to me, that
07:49this was this recent.
07:50And I was telling this story, where I was supposed to go on outreach, and I didn't have enough money.
07:56And my parents had already invested thousands of dollars into my YWAM experience.
08:02And I had this inkling where I said, God doesn't want me to ask you for more money.
08:06So, if money doesn't come in, I'm not going to go on outreach.
08:10And my parents were like, you need to finish what you started.
08:13You need to go.
08:14And I was like, no, I'm not going to go unless God provides.
08:17And then, mysteriously, an anonymous donation was made for exactly the amount I needed.
08:23And I was telling a friend this, and they're like, and you're sure your dad didn't just call the YWAM
08:27base and give them up?
08:29And I tried asking him about it.
08:31He didn't even remember, because it was really non-consequential to him.
08:35But for me, it was like, oh, my gosh, this is proof.
08:37I listened to God.
08:39God did what I want.
08:39And it really becomes these self-fulfilling prophecies without questioning where the money's coming from
08:48and how these acts of God might just be concerned family members trying to keep people from not eating and
08:56things like that.
08:57You know, it's odd, because we just – I love sci-fi and movies.
09:01And we recently started watching Severance.
09:05I don't know if you've seen this or not.
09:06It's on Apple TV.
09:07Yes.
09:08And they started talking about the cult that is the foundation of this organization.
09:14It's called – what was it?
09:16The organization's called Lumen, and it's the cult of Keir Egan or something like this, right?
09:21And so they're working.
09:23And it kind of reminds me, if you take The Office television show, but it's written by Stephen King.
09:29Totally.
09:29Because they've got these books, and you've got to know the history of Keir Egan, and Keir says, do this
09:36and do this.
09:37I got to thinking – actually, I was thinking about you and YWAM, not just because of the structure, which
09:44is very similar, this life story kind of thing,
09:47but the leader looked a little bit like Lauren Cunningham, which was really funny to me.
09:53Totally.
09:54So I'm watching this, and I'm kind of addicted.
09:58I've not finished it yet, but the deeper I go into it, I know where they're headed with it.
10:03They're headed with this dystopian-type future where businesses can do all kinds of things.
10:08But I don't know if they recognize that most of that's already in existence.
10:13That was kind of the life that we grew up in.
10:15We had to believe these fictional stories.
10:18And I'll never forget the shock whenever I first began to examine the ones that we grew up with.
10:24I was like, oh, my gosh, how many times can a person lie and still be calling himself a Christian?
10:31It just doesn't make sense to me.
10:34And then I started – as this branched out, and I'm looking at all of these different prophetic histories, life
10:41stories, supernatural experiences,
10:44I started noticing that they're all doing the same kind of thing, but they don't really care so long as
10:51they can attract people to it
10:52and then claim that they're leading them to God.
10:56So it's like the ends justifies the means, I think, is behind all of the branding that they've created.
11:02Yes, definitely.
11:04And it makes me think I was in South Africa on a YWAM base for about a year during YWAM's
11:1350th anniversary.
11:15And Lauren Cunningham was making a world tour to different YWAM hubs.
11:21And so South Africa had this huge celebration in this massive, massive building.
11:28There was, like, pyrotechnics and a lightsaber show and just, like – it was, like, Broadway-style production.
11:39And, again, when you're in that world, you're like, yeah, we're celebrating 50 years.
11:45And then you zoom out and you go, yeah, and that was the same base that I was eating mayonnaise
11:50and lettuce at for six months
11:53because, for whatever reason, there didn't seem to be money for the budget for that.
11:58And then it's like, well, where did all of the money for this branding come from?
12:03Because it really does.
12:03It feels like it's such a hype culture.
12:06And no matter what you're going through personally, you just need to keep coming to these worship events,
12:12which are always incredibly elaborate and evocative and emotional.
12:18And so then you kind of just circle right back to, okay, I just need to keep investing in this.
12:24Yeah, and one of the things that I've noticed is that they're really good at the stories
12:28because the story themself is not that interesting.
12:32But they know how to create the tension that attracts the listeners or the readers to know more about the
12:38story.
12:38Just like any good storyteller, you're going to have the villain, and the villain rises up against the hero.
12:45And then the two clash, and the hero wins.
12:48Everybody's happy.
12:49Well, picture watching Superman without Lex Luthor.
12:53He's just flying around doing good.
12:54Nobody's going to watch it.
12:55You have to have that tension.
12:58And I started looking through the Voice of Healing magazines,
13:02which is the precursor to a lot of these things we're talking about.
13:05This was a generator of fantastic stories for hero worship.
13:11That's the best way I can describe this.
13:12You've got hundreds, if not thousands, of ministers who are joining into this thing.
13:16You've got people like there's a boy with a plastic eyeball.
13:20He's going around from convention to convention.
13:23And it's like a magician's trick.
13:26He says, I can see, God gave me the power to see.
13:29When I lost my eyeball and they put a plastic one in, I can cover up my good eye,
13:34and I can see with this through the power of God.
13:37And it reminds me of, you know, like a carnival.
13:40You go and you see the crazy things that people are doing.
13:43That's really what this is.
13:45But there has to be that tension.
13:47There has to be, oh, my gosh, he's lost his eye, which is a true story.
13:52It's horrific.
13:53But then they're adding the fictional element.
13:55There's no way this kid can see through a plastic eyeball.
13:58That's just not how this works.
13:59But that was the kind of thing that began all of this.
14:03In today's world, if you were to take, if you were to try to recruit for a youth with a
14:08mission
14:08and have this boy with a plastic eyeball with you, not a single parent would let their children go to
14:14this, right?
14:15But back in the 40s and 50s, that's the kind of thing that was happening.
14:19Well, what they did was they learned the pattern.
14:22Once you learn the pattern, I can bring the pattern.
14:26I can show something that's disastrous and then show God on the other side.
14:31And I'm going to fake a few things to make God seem more powerful than he is.
14:35The problem that I have with this is when you do this, you're faking God.
14:41And when you're faking God, now when somebody discovers it, they're like, wait a minute.
14:46Is God real?
14:47Do I really believe this?
14:49And that's really the path where a lot of people go.
14:52And I don't think the leadership recognizes the connection there.
14:57If you're doing an ends justifies the means where you can actually lie or create fiction to attract people
15:03and you think you're attracting them to Christianity, the moment they find out you're tricking them, I'm done.
15:08I want to walk away from this.
15:11Mm-hmm.
15:12Yeah.
15:13It makes me think of our conversation with Shelby recently about the kind of in or out of YWAM,
15:21where it's like, as soon as you start questioning and going, was this real, you're immediately labeled a Jezebel
15:28or someone who's trying to lead people astray.
15:32And, you know, because of my own story and my own experience, I had developed a pretty unquestioning mind,
15:42which I don't actually think is how I am naturally.
15:46I'm actually a very cynical person and I question a lot.
15:49I think I have my Polish grandmother running deep in me that questions everything.
15:55But because, again, I think of a lot of the socialization of purity culture,
16:00I had been trained and conditioned into an affect of naivete,
16:06which really made me just kind of not question, especially if God was involved.
16:12It was like, I don't even want to question whether this is true or not.
16:16You know, and I'm thinking about how YWAM has its own publishing company.
16:22And if you look at YWAM Publishing and you click on, like, Shop All,
16:26the very first category is, like, Hero Biographies.
16:31And it's this world where what you're saying is all glory is to God,
16:36but what you're really saying is all glory is to these people that are, quote-unquote,
16:41heroes in the ministry or in the movement.
16:46And I think that that is a really important thing when it comes to these stories,
16:51that it is, like, this lore and these heroes and these people that get really idolized and can do no
16:59wrong,
17:00which, as you talk about cover-up, I think that only creates a power vacuum
17:05that sets up for a lot of the harm that happens in YWAM.
17:09Let's dive deeper in that just a bit, the harm that happens.
17:13I don't know that leadership connects this as well.
17:17I know some people who are in leadership who do some of the things we're talking about,
17:21and I know these are good people with good intentions.
17:24They're caught up in a system that enables this kind of thing.
17:29But so when you're in this type of system where you've got these fantastical stories,
17:35well, there becomes this sense of pressure that you, too, have to do this.
17:40You have to be part of this.
17:42I remember listening to these life stories and all the miraculous things that we were led to believe.
17:49And all the while we're led to believe it, we're hearing things like,
17:53one day you, too, can do this.
17:55You, too, are a manifested son of God.
17:57There's different ways that the pastor spun it.
17:59But essentially, if you had the power of the Holy Spirit,
18:02you, too, would have similar supernatural experiences.
18:06And that was the attraction.
18:08That was like back to the carnival days.
18:10That was the guy that's saying, step right up, step right up, take your ticket.
18:14That's what was happening in our heads.
18:16We wanted this.
18:18We wanted to do something special that was a miracle that nobody else could do.
18:22I want to perform this magic trick.
18:24The problem is you never, ever get to do it.
18:28And I know that there are people who, if you are in a Pentecostal-type religion,
18:33there are the spiritual gifts, there's the speaking in tongues, this kind of thing.
18:37And I'm not going to even get into that debate.
18:40But what I'm talking about more to the point are the really, really fantastical things.
18:46The things that the leadership can only do, that the members are following like the carrot on the stick.
18:53Come with me and you, too, can do this.
18:55You, too, can raise the dead.
18:56You, too, can heal a person.
18:57I have yet to see an actual proven raising from the dead.
19:03Not one.
19:03I know many people that have claimed it.
19:05I've studied the histories.
19:07But that's a fantastic thing that everybody wants to be able to do, especially if you've got a dying loved
19:13one.
19:13But when it comes right down to it, only the leadership claim that they can do it.
19:19And the rank-and-file member who's in the same religion, who has the same access to the Holy Spirit,
19:24they never can do it.
19:26And so it leads me to believe that there's something wrong.
19:29The leadership is just really not being honest with the people.
19:33Yeah.
19:33It's like everything is just out of grasp.
19:36It's just out of reach.
19:38It's just like you hear second or third hand of these stories from people that you love and that you
19:45trust.
19:45And so you're like, well, if this person is telling me this, of course it's not going to be fake.
19:50It's not going to be unreal.
19:53And there were so many stories of, you know, people growing back a limb or someone who had been paralyzed
19:59their whole life standing up and walking.
20:02And I had a lot of faith that I was in the ministry for a very long time and I
20:09didn't see any of that.
20:12And I would like to believe that there are things that happen in this world that I don't understand and
20:18that are miraculous.
20:19Absolutely.
20:20But I think what feels really sinister about that is the power that then is given to the people who
20:29claim these miraculous stories and the harm that they do, the violence that they do to people in the name
20:40of healing.
20:41And what gets used as justification to have access to people and to do things that are inappropriate and abuses
20:49of power.
20:50I think that is, it's not necessarily like people having faith that wild things can happen we don't understand.
20:58It's how are leaders using these stories and these narratives to continue to grow the disparity between who has power
21:08and who doesn't.
21:09Yeah, and I think that's really the key is who has power and who doesn't.
21:13I have seen things that I can't explain, but usually they're things that could have an explanation.
21:20They're things that, you know, I've seen people who got healed.
21:24And truly, I believe if you read the Bible, the Bible is very clear that God heals people.
21:29So if you're a Christian and you believe this, there's no question as to whether there's a healing.
21:36But then there's this case that gets, the best example I can give is this.
21:41There are diseases that your body can heal itself.
21:46Bacteria infection, for example.
21:48You might die of the bacteria infection, but you also might conquer it.
21:52Your body might conquer it.
21:54But go to war and have an explosion that takes off part of your leg.
22:01The fantastic stories that I've heard of where people were growing legs back.
22:07And yes, if you read the Bible, that could happen.
22:10But I sincerely doubt that any single leader in this movement ever grew a leg back.
22:16But we grew up hearing those stories that they did.
22:20And that's problematic for me because I've reached the point where, no, they were just lying through their teeth.
22:25Show me one person whose leg actually was chopped off and grew back.
22:29It's just not the way life works, sadly.
22:33Now, again, there can be miracles.
22:35There can be things that can be unexplained.
22:38I just have yet to see a leg grow back.
22:40There were tricks where one of the tricks was the leg would be shorter.
22:47And so they would sit a person who really didn't have a problem at all, but set their torso just
22:52slightly tilted.
22:53So when you're looking from the audience side, one leg truly looks longer than the other.
22:58They're praying over them and twisting them and working that leg.
23:02Well, they twist the torso, and now their legs straighten up.
23:06And I think that's where the rumor came from.
23:09They grew the leg.
23:10The leg was shorter, but never was it ever chopped off.
23:14And I grew up hearing some weird stories like this, right?
23:18Well, what happens is, sadly, and this is part of just humanity, what happens is one person might hear the
23:25story,
23:26I watched the leg grow longer.
23:29And not knowing that that's a stage trick, right?
23:32Well, as that rumor spreads, somebody tells the story slightly incorrectly.
23:36And then another person hears it.
23:38Well, your mind can – your mind has difficulty sometimes remembering how you heard it.
23:43And there are people who claim that they saw things they didn't actually see.
23:47They just heard another person tell them.
23:49And that's just part of how – that's how the rumor mill works.
23:52But rumor mill, if you understand ancient history, rumor mill evolves into mythologies.
23:59Mythologies evolve into deities.
24:02And then eventually you have children being sacrificed to deities in the ancient world.
24:07That's how all of this developed.
24:09It suddenly hit me.
24:11I was probably – I probably left the Branham religion for maybe seven years.
24:15And I was really studying the ancient mythology.
24:18And it finally hit me.
24:20We're actually in the early stages of this with this type of religion.
24:23We have this array of people that have made false claims.
24:27The false claims were from the 40s and 50s.
24:30Those have evolved into outlandish stories that just can't be true.
24:36And you have people like – what's an example?
24:39Benny Hinn.
24:40I listened to this Benny Hinn speech saying,
24:42Did you know William Branham could do this, that, and the other?
24:46Well, every single thing that he named, we have disproven.
24:50And so, he has adopted part of that mythology.
24:53And he may believe it, for all I know.
24:55But he doesn't realize that it's not true.
24:58Well, everybody who listens to him, now they adopt it.
25:01And then they spread it.
25:02And eventually this turns into this weird worship of a man who was just this guy from Kentucky.
25:09And I look back at all the Greek and Roman gods.
25:12This thing has played out for millennia.
25:15And the problem that I have is that evolves into a mythology, which is a different god.
25:20It's not Christianity.
25:21And the worship of the human is certainly not Christianity.
25:26Now, go back to YWAM.
25:28As I've been studying Youth with a Mission, I don't find Lauren Cunningham being worshipped in the same way.
25:35However, I see some of the stories.
25:37And so, the question is forming in my mind with Youth with a Mission.
25:41Are we too early for this to have happened?
25:44Will it eventually evolve into hero worship of Lauren Cunningham?
25:48Or is it already kind of happening and I'm just not aware of it?
25:53Yeah.
25:54It's an interesting question.
25:56I mean, what's funny is I remember even the huge deal that it was that Lauren Cunningham was coming to
26:04South Africa.
26:06And we would joke about it.
26:07Like, I said, like, I want us all to, like, make shirts with Lauren Cunningham's face on it.
26:12And, you know, and it was sort of like, ha ha, we're not a cult.
26:17But I think we were all, like, appeasing some tension that we felt because we really were, you know.
26:24And we, again, we had to read his book.
26:27Is that really you, God?
26:28Like, anyone who enters into it has to read this book.
26:32And he is really, you know, he, yeah, there's so much of that.
26:38But I was thinking about, it's actually, like, I don't even know if I'd say one step removed from child
26:46sacrifice.
26:47In that there were so many youths sacrificing ourselves.
26:53We were literally willing to die for Lauren Cunningham's mission and what we believed God had ordained him to do.
27:05And there are people who have died in YWAM.
27:09You know, I was 17 years old when I was signing up for my DTS.
27:13So, my parents literally had to sign the forms that say, if I die overseas, YWAM is not going to
27:19pay for my body to get sent back to my parents.
27:21They are responsible for that.
27:23And tragically, there are people that have died in various schools on various bases in really tragic ways.
27:32And that is considered a martyr.
27:36It's considered a sacrifice.
27:37And so, it really is this domino effect where I think it's already there.
27:42But similarly to all these shiny, happy things, it's in a very opaque way where it's not, like, serious.
27:54But the practicality of how it actually affects lives and deaths is very, very real.
28:00Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
28:09reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
28:14You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
28:21On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
28:30John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
28:36You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
28:42If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
28:48top.
28:49And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
28:55watching.
28:55On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
29:01It's so hard for me. As I'm listening to you talk, I keep thinking of severance and cure.
29:06You're talking about the books and the literature, and I'm, you know, in my head, I'm going back to the
29:12same way that they were doing the books and literature
29:16that was just lifting this cure person into authority, and he's dead, which is, it's just so odd.
29:23I grew up in the same way. The book is, I think in severance, it's called The Compliance Handbook,
29:29and it's all of the rules, and they've got these weird phrases that they use that give you the rules.
29:34Well, in our group, it was called Conduct Order Doctrine.
29:39We had this big, thick thing that was just this Kentucky, hillbilly, English, all of these rules that we had,
29:45and they were how you would behave when you were in the church.
29:49It was just so odd when I think about it, the similarities.
29:54But then, so I'm in the part of the series, and I hate to use that as the basis for
30:00this episode, but it is just so similar.
30:03I'm at the part of the series where the outside world is beginning to understand that there's something unusual happening
30:08in this place,
30:09and I'm comparing that to what I grew up with.
30:12The outside world did recognize that there was some weirdness happening inside this group I was in,
30:18and I've read through some of the news reports of Youth with a Mission.
30:22The problem in each one of these cases, from the severance example to my example to Youth with a Mission,
30:30the media is not fully educated as to what is happening.
30:34They don't know the loaded language.
30:36They often don't understand the harm that's being caused.
30:40They just see the superficial.
30:42If somebody were to come and tell their story, they know that story, but they don't really dig deep enough.
30:48And as I'm looking through some of the news reports and the advertisements for Youth with a Mission,
30:57now you've got this weird, complex situation because, yes, there are some stories out there that are very critical,
31:04but the social media is shaping it in such a way that it makes it sound positive
31:09and will even spin some of the critical things in a positive way.
31:13So you've got, on the one hand, social media coming in and affecting it.
31:17Then you also have some of the – there are some journal reports that just praise the group to no
31:24end
31:24because they don't know what's happening on the inside.
31:26So you've got literal testimonies of journalists who are in favor of the mission.
31:34You've got social media shaping all of this, and it turns into this weird cycle
31:40where when somebody wants to step out of the cycle, you're kind of lost.
31:44What do you do?
31:45You've got – everything is against you.
31:48And as I'm talking through that, I'm trying to put myself in your shoes.
31:52Whenever you decided to come out of this, what was it like entering into that cycle
31:58that the entire thing is against you?
32:00I had a very unique and I would say fortunate experience because I was still on staff with YWAM
32:10when I went to graduate school.
32:12And the understanding and the agreement was that I would go to graduate school for three years
32:18and then I would move back to Uganda.
32:20And even during my summers in graduate school, I went back to Uganda for the whole summer.
32:26And so, I wasn't – it was sort of this, like, transitionary object that I got that most people don't
32:36because I was in YWAM but not in YWAM.
32:40There wasn't a base that I knew of in Seattle.
32:43I wasn't around YWAMers.
32:45So I was just out living my life.
32:47And it was interesting, even when I did that, I didn't – I have a lot of contact with my
32:55quote-unquote leaders in YWAM.
32:57It was sort of like I felt like I just didn't exist unless I was doing a YWAM ministry.
33:05And for me, going to graduate school and everything I was experiencing was really important.
33:10And I felt like I was sort of out on my own.
33:13So by the time I left staff with YWAM, no one really cared because I had already been gone for
33:20three years.
33:23But I think – and I've shared this before – I also then, when I was in Seattle, was going
33:30to Mars Hill Church.
33:32And so I was still in this world.
33:34And my reasons for leaving were a little bit vague at the time.
33:39I wasn't as clear as I am now about what the harm, I think, YWAM was.
33:45And honestly, it was really in a lot of sharing stories with my husband where I would just share them
33:50like normal stories.
33:52And he would go, what the heck are you talking about?
33:55You did what?
33:56And they did what?
33:57And I was like, but it was fun.
33:59And again, I think that that's that brand indoctrination is that everything was an adventure.
34:06So as dangerous as it was, as unhealthy as it was, as toxic as it was, as fill in the
34:12blank, it was part of this like, oh, but I felt so alive and I was so free and it
34:17was such an adventure.
34:18Which I think is so baked into the DNA of YWAM that it is this sense of no matter what
34:25you're going through, you can always spin it to be really exciting.
34:29Yeah, let's talk about that a minute.
34:31I've often thought about the networks that are promoting this thing.
34:36I actually came across – I don't know if I should go there or not.
34:41There was a very bad thing that recently happened in America.
34:46There was a person who became mentally unstable and somebody died.
34:50I'm going to leave it at that because it was a very tragic event.
34:54The church that they came out of was connected to Youth With A Mission.
34:59And that connection doesn't imply that YWAM caused this or anything like that.
35:05But I started noticing the networks.
35:07And I began to realize that that was networked because there was a college involved.
35:13The college was networked to Youth With A Mission because why not?
35:16You've got students graduating college or who are even attending college.
35:21And those are networked to, believe it or not, International House of Prayer in Kansas City.
35:26So as you've got this big, complete circle of networks, and that goes far beyond even just those, you've got
35:34this funnel where you can recruit people.
35:36And the branding that you have to do, it would almost have to be something that is adventurous.
35:42Because you're not going to say, we're going to go to the backside of the desert and we're going to
35:48spend all of this time with your children and we're going to struggle while we're there.
35:56Nobody's going to send their kids.
35:57But if you say, hey, we're going to take them on an adventure for God, there's a little bit of
36:02twist that you can do with what your mission is and make it sound fun, sound entertaining.
36:09And then the problem is, like I mentioned with the people who discover some of the trickery that's happening, when
36:16a child gets in there or a young adult gets in there and realizes that it's not quite the adventure
36:22that they were told, that's where, for me, that's where it becomes a little bit questionable.
36:28Do you sense that that is the case or were the adventures, was the way that they advertised the adventures
36:35the way that they ended up being?
36:37Yes and no, I would say, like, and that's what is still a complex thing is that I, you know,
36:44I live in a van because I love travel and I love experiencing different places and people and culture and
36:53what, how even food influences things.
36:56And so, when you are traveling around the world, I think, you know, there's usually some sense of adventure to
37:05it where everything is new, everything is exciting, and it is not exactly what you imagine it's going to be.
37:14You know, when, you know, when my mom and I were sold on China, it was, you know, you're going
37:19to be in these little tea houses in the middle of the mountains because people want to learn English.
37:24And it was just this really kind of dramatic and romanticized idea, and we can also spend time talking about
37:34the fetishization of other cultures and how that also is problematic.
37:38But there was this sense of, oh my gosh, it's so romantic, and, and again, there was adventure there, but
37:46it wasn't at all like we imagined it would be.
37:48And we spent a lot of time in cities, unsure what we were doing, usually a lot of things aren't
37:55planned out.
37:56And so, it gets spun as like, we just want to stay open to God, but most of the time,
38:02it's because you have 18, 19-year-olds leading people internationally who just didn't do a lot of pre-planning
38:09ahead of time.
38:10Um, and so then you have things like running out of money, not having proper food, people getting heat exhaustion,
38:18um, you know, there's people that have lost limbs on outreaches from accidents, um, like really, really serious things happen.
38:28Um, there have been people that have like, had to kill their own wildlife to eat while they were on
38:34outreach.
38:34And again, these aren't like people that have been trained for this at all.
38:37This is 19, 20-year-olds that are stuck in the middle of the desert somewhere without a way to
38:44get food.
38:45And so, um, yeah, it's, it's complicated.
38:49And I think it is sort of the quintessential abusive relationship where there is this positive reinforcement intermittently, where there's
38:59just enough really sweet moments.
39:02And there's just enough really good moments to make you go, okay, maybe things will be different now.
39:07Okay, maybe things will be different now.
39:09Um, but then I think the more you're in it, it gets actually fewer and far between that you have
39:15those moments.
39:15But by then you've been so invested for so long that you don't really know what you would do in
39:21the outside world.
39:22And so it kind of becomes this point of no return for a lot of people that might want to
39:28leave.
39:29But economically, um, relationally, just really don't know how to make that possible.
39:35Whenever I was looking into the networks that were all connected, and it's really weird, some of the connections.
39:41You find some of the more modern churches.
39:44You find some Pentecostal churches.
39:46There's this big range, right?
39:49And as I was looking through some of the Pentecostal churches that are connected, I was thinking about the way,
39:54if you're in the Pentecostal world, there's this idea of a calling.
39:58And nobody really can explain how this is.
40:00There are people who say, I was called to be a minister.
40:02Well, what was this like?
40:04I've had people tell me, I heard an audible voice of God tell me this.
40:09And maybe they did.
40:10I don't know.
40:10But it's a little bit out there.
40:13And then you have other people, well, I just felt it in my soul.
40:16And so the question is, well, was that intuition?
40:19Was that just your gut feeling?
40:21And if you're in the Pentecostal world, that calling is very real.
40:25And I'm not trying to belittle it at all.
40:27But on the other side of the equation, you've got, um, if you're in a more modern mainstream church, the
40:34calling is just you're called to be a Christian and you're called to do good to other people.
40:40And the calling is something that everybody has.
40:42It's not a special elite thing that certain people get.
40:46Right.
40:46And so that's really, for me, the difference that I'm trying to wade through.
40:50But as I was looking through all of the different connections to youth with a mission, I was thinking about
40:54what about the Pentecostals that come?
40:57Did they have this idea that God's calling your youth to come be with us?
41:03And if they hesitate, was it like some in the Pentecostal world, if you hesitate, you're disobeying God?
41:09Did you ever see anything like this or is that disconnected from youth with a mission?
41:14Yeah, I mean, the phrase calling bore so much agony for me in YOM.
41:22It was this moving target that you were constantly trying to figure out of what is my calling.
41:30And I don't know if this is true for all bases, but I knew some of the bases that I
41:34was on staff at, and they believed that a woman was called to her husband.
41:40So whatever her husband was called to, she kind of just had to follow him, which was convenient for the
41:46men in those relationships.
41:48But, you know, I experienced this, and I didn't come from a charismatic or a Pentecostal world, but what I
41:56research is this very unique moment in 2004, which is this other whole movement.
42:03There was a documentary-style film called Invisible Children, where three young college men from Southern California did this documentary
42:13-style film about a war that was going on in Northern Uganda.
42:17And they did this very highly dramatized and erotically charged film about child soldiers.
42:26And I, myself, was one of many, many, many, many, many, many young white women who watched that documentary and
42:32was hugely moved emotionally and then said, God is calling me to Uganda.
42:38So by the time I was 14, I was begging my parents to let me drop out of high school
42:43and move to Uganda.
42:44And they were like, that's not going to happen.
42:46But a lot of times, calling is so associated with emotion.
42:51And what do you feel the most emotion towards?
42:54Let's not question it.
42:56Let's not wonder how this film has used affective technology to manipulate you to feel a certain way.
43:04Let's just notice what you're feeling, and that's the call of God.
43:07And there's this really problematic phrase that's popular in YWAM and I think other missions organizations as well that says,
43:16God does not call the qualified.
43:18He qualifies the called.
43:21So you have so many people stepping into roles of teaching, of school, of hospitals, of all these different things
43:32that we were not qualified for, but we were called.
43:37And so that was all that we needed.
43:39And so by the time I was 19 years old, I was leading congregations of hundreds of people in northern
43:46Uganda with no right to be doing that other than I was called to northern Uganda.
43:51So God was opening these doors for me, and I wasn't questioning the hundreds of years of racial hierarchy and
44:00harm that had created a system for me to be able to step into those positions of power.
44:06And even then, I would agonize all the time, like, what is God calling me to do today?
44:13Like, call was such a ball and chain, really, for me in that movement.
44:19Darrell Bock Yeah, I can expect that would be problematic.
44:21And you're talking about the emotions.
44:23That's another thing.
44:24The branding I've noticed in not just this, but some of the others, the branding is such that it appeals
44:31to those emotions.
44:32And so the calling makes a lot more sense with the branding.
44:35Now, is that necessarily bad?
44:37I don't know.
44:38You know, if you're in a Christian religion, you would expect some emotional connection.
44:43But what I'm thinking about, and again, I keep going back to the Severance show.
44:47When I'm thinking about this crazy book of these life stories and histories and brandings that I don't know if
44:54I believe all of it,
44:56whenever you put emotion that is tied to the mission, which is tied to the life stories or the prophetic
45:03histories or whatever you call your group's particular thing, your mythology,
45:08whenever that emotion is tied to that mythology, instead of being tied to Jesus and Christ, the Holy Spirit, you
45:16have to wonder, is the branding really Christian?
45:19And that's really – if I was to drive to a question in this podcast, it would be really that.
45:25As it relates to the branding and the way that they pitched it, was the mission something that you would
45:33have considered to be branded as pointing people to Jesus
45:37or pointing people to the mission.
45:40And that's really, for me, that's the bottom line question.
45:44I say this with the caveat that I know my answer might upset people.
45:49So I hold that and you can disagree with me.
45:52But I would say yes, but I would say that it is part of the white, capitalistic, Christian Jesus that
46:04we have been conditioned to believe in.
46:07Was it following the brown Jewish man from Palestine and his messaging?
46:14I don't think so.
46:16But was it following what Randall Balmer distinguishes Christianity with Christendom, which I think is such a helpful reframe?
46:27So I would actually say, like, it felt like it was Christendom.
46:31Like, it was this empire, you know, again, we get back to Seven Mountains Mandate Christianity.
46:40Which, to me, I think, following Jesus and believing in what Jesus said is a lot more diverse and open
46:48to that.
46:49I think, you know, of early Christianities that existed before orthodoxy became really convenient for the Roman Empire to say,
46:59this is what Christianity needs to look like.
47:01And so I feel like it's such a complicated thing for me personally, where I'm still deconstructing what I think
47:09Christianity is,
47:11because I think we have had thousands of years of it being really – the systems that we're talking about
47:18with YWAM are not new systems.
47:19They've been around since about 300 AD-ish, I would say.
47:24I'm actually glad you went there, because growing up, I actually did not know that Jesus was not white.
47:32We had this particular painting that we had to have of Jesus.
47:37That's the one Jesus looks like.
47:39That was part of our loaded language.
47:42Jesus looks like this, part of our mythologies.
47:47And whenever I stopped to think about what Jesus actually looked like, it wasn't just the skin color that bothered
47:54me.
47:54It was all of the ways that he behaved, how he would sit with the sinners and help the sinners
48:02to become better, sit with the poor and needy.
48:05Yes, he did heal the sick, but that wasn't really the emphasis.
48:09It was making the world a better place.
48:11And when I look at where I came from, it definitely wasn't doing that.
48:15But now spread it into the broader movement, and you've got this real problem, because the Jesus that they're pitching
48:23doesn't really resemble the Jesus that's in the Bible.
48:27It's a little bit different.
48:29And so I thought I would end with this question.
48:34How would you brand this in a healthy way?
48:36Because what they're doing actually could be a good thing.
48:39I'm not going to lie.
48:40The mission could be a good thing.
48:42But how would you brand it?
48:43How would you present it?
48:45How would you declare it in such a way that wasn't painting it into something it was not, but instead
48:54painting it to something that was good?
48:55I am pretty a firm believer that anything that becomes a monoculture is not going to be a healthy culture,
49:05whether that is our microbiome in our gut, or whether that is the types of farms that we're growing, or
49:12the types of community.
49:13I think we need diversity, and we need things to look and feel differently.
49:19And so I personally am a little skeptical of branding, because it feels like it congeals something into a thing.
49:28And a question that I ask in my book, and that I sit with often, is, why didn't Jesus write
49:34his own gospel?
49:36If he came to bring the best news in all of the world, why did he not write that down
49:42for us?
49:42And, of course, I answer my own question, and someone else might have a different answer.
49:47But I think he was actually more concerned with being with people and loving people.
49:53And he didn't, in my reading, exhibit a lot of a sense of urgency or calling or mission.
50:02It was, how do you love the people that are right in front of you?
50:06How do you do the thing that is the hardest?
50:08How do you sit with the people that culture says are wrong?
50:13And I think that that is incredibly applicable in the world that we have right now, where there are entire
50:19groups of people that are attempting to be eradicated.
50:22And how do we allow ourselves to be more like Jesus, to be with those people that think and act
50:30and look and live differently than what empire or Christendom says they should look like?
50:37Yeah, I've thought about that, too.
50:39It's interesting because if you write a set of laws, those laws apply to that culture.
50:46And as culture grows and many of the things that you're writing the laws about don't really apply any longer,
50:53it becomes a stale religion.
50:55And Jesus did not come and do this.
50:57He did not come and write a rule book.
50:59But what has happened over time is they've tried to make it into a rule book.
51:04So when I was reading the Gospels, we were finely tuned to pick out which verses we thought were rules
51:12for us so that we could abide by it.
51:14And I'm reading this as a teenager thinking, man, they did some strange things in the ancient world.
51:19How does that rule apply to me?
51:21And it's like straining at a gnat to try to figure out how you can apply this ancient culture thing
51:27to a modern application.
51:29And then I came across the passage where Jesus says the entire Old Testament, the law and the prophets are
51:35summed up in love God, love your neighbor as yourself.
51:39And then it just started to click.
51:41I started to realize that what we're doing was so wrong.
51:44It isn't about the rules.
51:45It isn't about even trying to.
51:48We had this idea that we had to present ourselves wholly.
51:52And I think that's where our shiny, happy people was somewhat similar to yours.
51:57We had to present ourself in a way that would appeal to other people if we wanted to recruit them.
52:03So we also had a shiny, happy, well, doomsday, sad kind of atmosphere, which is really, really weird if you
52:11think about it.
52:12But I began to understand that it's more than this.
52:16You're leaving a good footprint on the world.
52:19And even if the world should come to a quick end, which I no longer believe in that mindset, but
52:25even if it did, if you're leaving a good footprint, what does it matter?
52:30If you're helping another person, what does it matter?
52:32If the person next to you who did not accept Christ, who is not a Christian, who doesn't want Christianity,
52:39if you're kind to that person, are you not doing exactly what Jesus did when Jesus sat with the sinners
52:45and the prostitutes?
52:47So I started to look at things differently.
52:50And as it relates to branding, I don't find too many things like this.
52:56You don't find branding of the Jesus sitting with the people that are despised.
53:01In today's world, I hate to go here because I'll get hate mail, but in today's world, they have so
53:07far politicized things like homosexuality.
53:10It's a political Christian topic right now.
53:15But what if you had a picture of Jesus sitting with two homosexuals who, if you believe the Bible and
53:21you believe this is sin, well, Jesus would sit with them in the same way that he sat with the
53:25sinners in the Bible.
53:27But if you were to paint that picture today, there would be people that just wouldn't come to church.
53:33And they would say, they put up their hands and say, our politics won't allow us to do this.
53:37But they would use the word Christianity instead of politics.
53:41And for me, that is the real problem here.
53:43They have painted with the branding, and not just Youth with a Mission, but a lot of these groups, they
53:50have made their branding such that the branding can't fit Jesus.
53:53The branding fits the organization.
53:57And if you're a watcher of severance, they have created the religion of Keir.
54:03Yeah, that's a great reference for this conversation.
54:08Yeah, like I said, I just, I can't get it out of my head.
54:10And whenever I look at that guy, he kind of looks like Lauren Cunningham, which is really funny.
54:16So it's just all around a good reference.
54:19I don't know that it's the best show that I've watched in the first eight or nine episodes.
54:23It took me a long time to get into it.
54:25But once I did, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like almost every cult that I have examined, and
54:30it's crazy.
54:31So thank you so much for doing this.
54:34Yes, thanks so much for having me.
54:36Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
54:39You can find us at william-branham.org and inwellmovement.com.
54:43For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion,
54:48From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:24For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
55:53For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
55:58For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
55:59For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
55:59For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
56:00For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
56:00For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can check us out on the web.
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