Mike Bickle’s Return? What IHOPKC’s New Strategy Really Means | Brantley Smith | Episode 594 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John and Brantley examine the growing effort to replatform Mike Bickle and the network of people and ministries now pushing for his return to influence. They trace the public messaging around Hope City, Grandview Fellowship, Julie Meyer, fasting campaigns, and the continued attempt to frame Bickle's situation through prophetic language and Israel-focused rhetoric.   They also discuss the deeper issues underneath the replatforming debate: betrayal trauma, public accountability, the difference between repentance and reputation management, and how connected charismatic networks protect their own. Along the way, they address the "global nope feast" response, media attention from Christian Post and Julie Roys, and the legal and institutional pressures shaping what happens next.   00:31 Introduction 01:17 Betrayal Trauma And Mike Bickle’s Replatforming 02:13 Father’s Heart Church And Julie Meyer 03:00 Hope City, Vulnerability, And Rumors Of Ongoing Influence 03:56 Grandview Fellowship And Mike’s “House Church” 04:44 The Fast For Mike Bickle, Israel Framing, And The Black Horse Prophecy 06:00 The “Global Nope Feast” And Public Pushback 09:00 Bob Scott, “The Club,” And The Deeper History Behind The Movement 12:00 British Israelism, Israel Theology, And The Messiah Complex 21:00 Gate City, IHOP Atlanta, And New Abuse Allegations 24:00 Billy Humphrey, James Haynes, And Boundary Violations 48:00 Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchy, And Abuse Systems 51:00 Branham’s Women-Vote Prophecy And How It Spread 54:00 Closing Thoughts ______________________ Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research

00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Brantley Smith, former

00:45member of IHOPKC.

00:48Brantley, it's good to be back and to talk about current news about IHOPKC.

00:53I'm certain that you've heard the news, but there are people out there that may have not.

00:58It is very surprising, and well-

01:01Are you being serious?

01:02Are you surprised?

01:04No, I'm not surprised at all, but to the world who doesn't understand how all of this works,

01:10this would be a very surprising thing.

01:12And I'll let you introduce it because I kind of want to hear how much you're shocked about

01:17it.

01:17Yeah.

01:17And I think something, before I even get in the nitty-gritty details about it, because

01:22I'm sure some people will be watching who this hits close to home with, it's been interesting

01:27to feel my emotional responses to all of this because, I mean, I was joking with you, like,

01:34did you really not see this coming?

01:35We all knew this was going to happen, but it actually starting to get legs and starting

01:42to have momentum behind it, and that we see that it's soon and very soon is very different,

01:49I think.

01:49And so, it's almost like you feel that betrayal trauma all over again a little bit.

01:54But for those who are not aware, so there's been a couple of different circles who have

02:00been pushing for Mike Bickle's re-platforming.

02:05I've mentioned, I think, all of them in different times that we've had conversations.

02:10There's one that, the most obscure one that most people don't know about is a thing called

02:14the Father's Heart Church.

02:16That's an online church.

02:18I was skimming through before we started recording on Facebook on their page, and they had just

02:22released a prophetic word a couple days ago, calling Julie Meyer to repent and how she

02:27needs to be restored to Mike Bickle.

02:29Julie Meyer was a big worship leader at IHOPKC and was even there during the Metro days.

02:35And so, she was a very recognizable face and a crucial part of, I guess, the culture there

02:41early on.

02:43But they're always putting their hands in stuff.

02:46And if you remember me telling the story about them seeing Julie Roy as being taken care

02:54of, we'll say, in the spirit, is what they saw.

02:57That was that church.

02:59And then there's also Mike's sister's church, Hope City, which was originally a part of IHOPKC,

03:05for those who don't know.

03:07And then eventually, at some point, became its own separate organization.

03:10They focus on inner city stuff.

03:13And so, they're really capturing people at a really vulnerable time.

03:18They do a lot with addiction recovery and run a soup kitchen.

03:21They run laundry services for those in the inner city that need it.

03:25They do some good work.

03:27Some of those things that they do are good and needed things.

03:30But with their internship programs and stuff, I think that they, in my opinion, I think

03:35they grab people at a really vulnerable time and take advantage of that.

03:39But there's been rumors that Mike has spoken there at Hope City.

03:42We've not seen photos or any kind of hard evidence of that.

03:46But we've heard testimony from people that that has gone on at different points.

03:51And Misty Edwards, as well, has been involved there.

03:54We've heard.

03:55And then the other one that I actually didn't know the name of, we were just calling it their

04:00church in the garage because they have a little house church going that is ran by Clay Edwards,

04:06which is Misty Edwards' brother.

04:08And apparently, this is Mike's house church is what this is.

04:11Mike's name's not on it, but apparently Mike's there.

04:14You look at the teaching notes.

04:15It's all in Mike's format.

04:17It's all Mike's content.

04:19And so, this group of people, they're calling themselves the Grandview Fellowship.

04:25And on their homepage of their website, you'll appreciate, John, they brought up the old

04:30prophetic word about a grand view of the kingdom, which I think was a Bob Jones word that they're

04:36repurposing and pulling back in.

04:39But they had sent out an email, I guess, to their email list that they have.

04:43And they addressed it to the friends of Mike Bickle, who it was to.

04:47And they are calling for a fast, for a breakthrough with the attacks that Mike has been experiencing

04:56these last couple years, and that is keeping him from his purpose and calling in regards

05:02to Israel.

05:04And they link back, which was part of the black horse prophecy thing.

05:07So, Mike was exposed publicly in October of 2023 with the allegations of abuse.

05:12And I think it was early as in March of 2023 that he began talking about Israel, called

05:18a fast for Israel, set up the stage that there was going to be an attack of some sort on

05:24him

05:24for making a stand for Israel, in which he already knew that these allegations had a risk

05:32of going public at this point.

05:33And I think he was starting to lose his grip on certain people he was controlling and able

05:39to navigate.

05:41And so, all of that news has been very, it's been weird to take it.

05:47I mean, to see fasting used again, May 1st to May 7th is what they're calling it.

05:52And so, some of my friends, I don't know if you saw, John, they launched a counter-protest

05:57fast for this fast, and they're calling it, because Mike has the global bridegroom fast

06:04that a lot of ministries do.

06:06They fast three days at the beginning of the month and seven days in December, and it adds

06:09up to 40 days.

06:10I'm sure there's some kind of prophetic history to it.

06:13But so, we called it the global nope feast.

06:17So, we're countering their fast with a feast.

06:20And it's fun because we're telling people, as long as you eat May 1st to May 7th, you're

06:26partnering with us.

06:27And so, they had some people come out of the woodwork and kind of try to throw some shade.

06:32And they're like, as long as you're eating, you're with us.

06:35So, it's been a fun to push back.

06:38And the media has gotten a hold of it too, which is always good to keep the pressure on

06:43for these people, keeping it in the spotlight.

06:45I know Christian Post reached out about our, I shouldn't say our, I wasn't directly involved

06:52with this, my friends.

06:53And so, I just call it our.

06:55But the global feast, the global nope feast, Christian Post reached out to them.

07:00And Julie Roys has talked about it, released a podcast this week with Dwayne and Elizabeth,

07:06who were members of the ELT.

07:08And yeah, it's been a whirlwind of a week, I guess.

07:13I can only imagine.

07:15There are times that I wish that I did like all the other podcasters and did the, hey,

07:19give me money thing so I could get an actual budget behind the marketing material.

07:24Well, I could have so much fun with this anti-fasting marketing.

07:28I would, if it were me, I would choose an IHOP pancake theme for the anti-fasting, right?

07:36And IHOP pancakes, I don't know, they may or may not get on board.

07:40And who knows?

07:41I probably can't say too much about that without legal issues.

07:45But there's so many things wrong with this.

07:48And I think for me, the biggest thing is something that Bob Scott said.

07:53Because of the way that Missouri is reevaluating the laws surrounding what happened, Mike Bickle

08:03is forced into a corner that he really can't get out of.

08:06You cannot really fully repent and say, I did these things and do what a minister would do

08:13before restoration, if restoration was even something that should be possible.

08:18I'll leave that for another debate for another day.

08:21But you can't do that because once you do, now there's an admission of guilt and it puts

08:27you into a different category in the legal system.

08:29So what we're going to see here is not even restoration.

08:33They'll probably brand it as that.

08:35But it's more reputation management than it is at all, anything to do with repentance

08:41and restoration.

08:42Now, I could be wrong.

08:44Maybe he will come out and repent.

08:46Who knows?

08:47But what I expect so far has happened play by play by play, right?

08:53We're not prophets, but we have prophesied and predicted.

08:56And literally, right down to the letter.

09:01Even the Israel thing.

09:02Listen, I had recently another podcast with Bob Scott.

09:06We were talking about the Klan.

09:10And interestingly, whenever we have discussions like that, I have to be careful because YouTube

09:15will block it if you say it too many times.

09:18And I purposefully did not use the three names when I said that word.

09:23Yes, yes, yes, yes.

09:24And Bob and I, we decided we would call it The Club.

09:27We explained at one point in time, here's what we're talking about.

09:31But we're going to call it The Club so that all of the different places don't block us.

09:35It's that bad because that's the disturbing history behind all of this.

09:41When you understand what that was and that it was a religious system, it wasn't what they

09:47painted to be in Hollywood today.

09:49It was a religious fraternal order.

09:52That's really what it was.

09:54Yeah.

09:54But it came at the same time in American history whenever British Israelism, which was focused

10:00on the idea, the false idea that the nations, the North America and the British Isles were

10:07the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel.

10:09Well, Israel plays a key to the British Israel framework.

10:13And Bible passages are reinterpreted to apply modern day Messiahs, and I'm using that word

10:21loosely, towards their application of scriptural prophetic context to the nation of Israel.

10:31And so, once you enter in that framework, you can't get out of it.

10:35You must have a Messiah complex.

10:37You must be focused on Israel.

10:39You must be the one to fulfill all of the scriptures that are being rewritten to apply to Israel.

10:45And yes, I know this later morphed into Christian identity, and then it turned into a very anti-Semitic

10:51movement.

10:52But if you understand all of the different moving parts of this, you can almost predict

10:58with 100% accuracy what each person who creates a destructive cult within this framework, what

11:05they're going to do, how they're going to do it, what they're going to say, why they're

11:09going to say it, and you can become a prophet.

11:12In fact, you can become more of a prophet than these guys because none of the prophecies seem

11:17to come true.

11:19The Israel stuff is, it's really interesting because people who are in these movements

11:26end up building their lives around this story, and it happens in different ways in different

11:31pockets whenever it comes to allegiances and the theology behind it.

11:38Like in I Help You, I had whole classes that were particularly on Israel.

11:43We had these books, and we would talk about how replacement theology was of the devil, and

11:48all these types of things.

11:50But whenever you see this, there's people who have whole, for like their ministries, but

11:55their businesses wrapped up in this Israel idea.

12:00They got mailing lists.

12:01There's one of our big, what would we call it?

12:06I don't want to say that she's an enemy because I don't really like making enemies, but someone

12:12who has given us a lot of criticism, I guess, and been a staunch supporter of Mike Bickle

12:16is someone who runs a huge email list about prayer for Israel is what it is.

12:22And so, it's like, yeah, you have a vested interest in this, like whether you realize

12:26it or not.

12:27Like, this is like one of the premier voices, and this network is very connected.

12:32And you see it in all kinds of different circles that even overlap outside of NAR these days,

12:39which I'm kind of surprised by.

12:42But I'm assuming, to bounce back to what you're talking about earlier, just because I think

12:48I should give this some airtime if it's okay.

12:50But the Missouri thing that Bob Scott was talking about, they're trying to pass a thing.

12:55I think it's a joint resolution 93, I think is what it is.

12:59If I got that right off the top of my head, to where they're trying to eliminate the statute

13:03of limitations whenever children are harmed in the ways that we've been talking about.

13:09We'll kind of leave it vague so we don't get censored again.

13:12But that's what that bill is addressing.

13:15And I've had some friends who have been involved in the, I guess, lobbying space with that.

13:21I guess that's what they would call that, with going and talking to senators and stuff

13:24about the bills.

13:25And it seemed like it was going to get passed.

13:28And what ended up happening was the insurance company stepped in lobbying and started bringing

13:33up all these liability things and all the money they would have to pay out if they removed

13:38the statute of limitations.

13:39And so one of the senators, Cindy O'Loughlin, I think was her name, kind of pivoted on the

13:46whole thing.

13:47And last I heard, it's not going to pass, may not have passed.

13:53I'm not sure when the vote's happening.

13:54But those are the things that they're trying to do to help bring accountability for these

14:00things.

14:00Because those types of things, like the elimination statute of limitations on childhood harm, is

14:09not present in like 33 states, I think.

14:12And whenever you look at statistics of when people come forward with those stories, it's

14:16usually not until they're in their 50s, whenever stuff happens when they're a child.

14:21And we see that with the women who came forward with Mike Bickle.

14:26Most of them are around that age.

14:29And so I think it takes a long time to grapple and come forward with those things.

14:35And yeah, it's really rough.

14:38But money's the root of all evil.

14:41And so the insurance company's pushing back again and delaying justice.

14:46And you wonder what kind of connections Mike has behind the scenes on those kind of things.

14:51Like we've heard rumors in the past, and I don't know if there's any veracity to them,

14:57but that he's had connections at the Kansas City Star at different points to be able to

15:01suppress certain press narratives that would happen.

15:04And so I don't know what kind of connections he might have in Missouri government or anything

15:10like that, or people who have vested interest in his success and future.

15:14And yeah, we could speculate all day.

15:19Well, I've gone beyond speculation because the way the movement works, if when you get really

15:25down to the nuts and bolts of it, it isn't so much that they have the amount of control

15:31that is presented by their stage presence.

15:36What instead happens is they do have connections.

15:38There are people who donate large sums of money to different political campaigns and organizations.

15:45And it's not really that they can control it by doing this.

15:49They're actually doing a, you know, seemingly a good thing.

15:53They're contributing to different funds, et cetera.

15:56Well, what happens is it makes a connection and you can have conversations.

15:59Well, sometimes those conversations lead to strategic developments in progress.

16:06So one campaign may be trying to, I don't know, benefit homeless children, say, for example,

16:13or they might be doing something else.

16:14But along the strategy that they're building to do this, there may be elements that coincide

16:21with things that the leadership can portray as prophetic insights.

16:27And so what happens is whether they go left or whether they go right, it doesn't really

16:31matter if you can bundle that into a package that makes it sound like some Bible passage that

16:40you're focusing on, well, then suddenly that becomes prophetic insight.

16:44And they're doing exactly what he said.

16:46It's not so much that.

16:48It's just that it's moving in that direction.

16:50Likely what is happening, with any bill like this, there's going to be pushback because,

16:56let's just face it, this isn't the only instance of this happening.

17:01And in Missouri, with the population this big, there are so many thousands.

17:06Some of the people who are in that may make Mike Bickle seem as unimportant as you or

17:13I because it's so much bigger.

17:14The other big one's Camp Canikook.

17:16I don't know if people are familiar with, but the family that's involved with that is

17:20the ownership of the Kansas City Chiefs organization.

17:22So another big power broker there, which is another story for another day.

17:26Yeah, absolutely.

17:27So what you do is you frame it like this, but here's where it gets interesting.

17:31So you go one of two ways, right?

17:33There's always a prophetic step forward because you're always looking to both outcomes.

17:39You're not looking on one outcome.

17:40You're looking at both.

17:41So if the bill passes, then suddenly the enemies of darkness have prevailed.

17:47We must gather together because this is the end times.

17:50This is it.

17:50They're all coming together against the church.

17:52So that's pathway one.

17:54Pathway two is it doesn't succeed.

17:56Well, we have defeated the enemies of darkness.

17:59So band together.

18:00This is the end times.

18:00It's coming.

18:01It's coming.

18:01So either direction you go, there's a prophetic step forward.

18:06And I think that's really the real problem here.

18:10I'm trying to think of an example of a non—I won't even say cult—a church that's not built

18:19off of this movement that we've been examining the history of.

18:22Take just any normal pastor, and I'm air quoting normal, any normal pastor who wasn't influenced

18:29by this mess, and put them into the same position.

18:33Say that there was true repentance.

18:35Say that there was clearly a separation between them and whatever happened in the past.

18:41I can't think of too many ministers who would say, I'm going to accept my position again because

18:50I should be restored.

18:51Usually what they would say is, I did repent.

18:55I have this thing that's in my past.

18:58But if I were to become the face of this church, I think it would do too much harm to

19:03the people

19:03trying to be saved.

19:04And I don't want to put myself into a place where I'm the distraction because I'm just

19:11like you in the congregation.

19:12I'm just a humble person who's trying to do right.

19:15And I want to help as many people as I can, so I'm not going to take it.

19:20You can give this position to somebody else.

19:22That's what a normal pastor would do, but the movement has framed it such that whether

19:28you're a minister, whether you're a prophet, evangelist, any of the five-fold tier, if you're

19:34in that level, it has this, I don't know, this dignity that's far beyond what a person

19:42should have, and people give them reverence far beyond what they should have.

19:46So they feel like they must be restored, otherwise the church can't move forward.

19:51In other words, the Holy Spirit's not the one leading and guiding us.

19:54It has to be these people.

19:55So therefore, I must be restored, and if I'm not, then the church is just sitting idle for

20:01the next messenger to come forward.

20:03Darrell Bock Yeah, I feel like we're broken records at this

20:06point, but protecting the institution, I mean, that's what they do.

20:10And you would think if people actually live their values, like you say, like a quote-unquote

20:14normal pastor would, that they would step out of those roles.

20:17And the Firefly Report, you know, it was Jim Holler's opinion that Mike Bickle should

20:23never step back into ministry again.

20:25And, you know, if a small fraction of the stories that we have heard, yeah, I think that

20:37that would be, I think it would be an accurate statement.

20:39And it's interesting, because there is another pocket of IHOP offshoots that is going through

20:52something similar right now, in a way, to where a pastor is stepping out of a position

20:58over something like this.

21:00Darrell Bock So there's a, in Atlanta, there is a church

21:04called Gate City Church, but people who are from the IHOP circles would know it better

21:08as IHOP Atlanta.

21:09And so it's gone through its metamorphosis over the years and changed identities, but

21:16the DNA of the organization is still the same.

21:19And I think it was April 1st, that's right, because it was April Fool's Day, we kind of

21:25got a kick out of that, that some former members of Gate City Church had stepped forward with

21:33some concerns.

21:34It's an anonymous group outside of, I think, one guy who's given a public video statement.

21:40There's a website, gatecityaccountability.com.

21:45You can go look at it, and they've done a good job of laying out what their concerns are

21:51and some stuff that makes the church not look that great in their responses.

21:58So that happened April 1st, whenever that got published publicly.

22:03And what that consisted of was some recordings of board meetings, of all staff meetings.

22:11And for context, a staff meeting in the House of Prayer environment involves all your intercessory

22:19missionaries and all those people.

22:21So it's not like a small local church group of eight people in a room.

22:25So this staff meeting was a Zoom meeting that was done right after the release of the Firefly

22:32report on IHOP KC.

22:33And it was supposed to be kind of a processing session.

22:38And in that recording, Billy Humphrey, who's the senior leader there, and also spent some

22:47time in Kansas City, very connected to Mike, that he discredited the stories of about 14

22:54of the 17 that came forward.

22:56Pretty much called them BS to his people there.

23:01He stood up for his other friends who were leaders, who got thrown under the rug during

23:08the Mike Bickle stuff, and rightfully so.

23:11Those people, I know stories about them.

23:13I've interacted with them personally.

23:16They did deserve to have more happen.

23:19If I'm being honest, they kind of got golden parachutes, some of the other members of the

23:23ELT, as they got out.

23:26And so they have that board meeting.

23:28One thing in the board meeting context was someone bringing allegations of, and it's

23:35weird because they go back and forth about using the term allegations, because there's

23:39also a private recording of a meeting between the gentleman who came forward.

23:43His name is James Haynes and his wife, Karen.

23:47And there was a thing that happened that this was right before the Firefly report came out

23:53where Billy had kissed Karen on the forehead.

23:59And James had noticed this from across the room.

24:01They were in a house fellowshipping.

24:03They were, I guess, kind of like youth leaders, I guess, or young adult leaders in their young

24:08adult ministry.

24:09And so they were having to get together in a house.

24:11And as they're saying their goodbyes, he sees Billy kiss his wife on the forehead.

24:14And he said, obviously, it makes you a little upset when you see somebody kiss your wife.

24:19And he saw it happen again.

24:21And he confronted Billy the second time and made Billy kiss him on the head, which I think

24:25is just kind of poetic in a sense that he forced him to own what he was doing.

24:31But James ended up going to one of the pastors and ultimately to the board about not really

24:38accusing Billy of anything, but saying that these types of practices are concerning.

24:44And the reason that they did that was once the Firefly report was released, Karen had had

24:50coffee, I guess, with a couple of different members there in the community.

24:56And he talks about this in his video on their website or the website there.

25:03And what she found out was after these girls who were a part of the ministry were reading

25:07the Firefly report, were coming to her and saying, hey, like, Billy, these behaviors that

25:13Mike displayed of grooming, like, Billy kisses all of us on the forehead.

25:18And so there was a couple of these girls who came forward.

25:21And so you can see all of that there on the website and dive into it.

25:26They've got the recordings.

25:27They've got some shorts, if you don't want to listen to the thing, because some of them

25:30were like five-hour recordings.

25:32So you can waste a day there reading and listening to all that stuff.

25:37But the interesting thing that happened this past week was the pastor that James had gone

25:42to to report the concern about Billy resigned.

25:47And so on Thursday of last week, they had announced that that day that they were going to on Thursday

25:54have a staff meeting that wasn't going to be recorded, that wasn't going to be public.

26:01And in that staff meeting, they announced that Dustin Pennington is his name.

26:05He was one of the leaders there, senior leaders, pastor.

26:08I can't keep their title straight.

26:10One of them was lead pastor.

26:11One of them was executive pastor.

26:12And I think one of them might have been a senior pastor.

26:15Like, they all had these different titles.

26:17But Dustin resigned.

26:19And the reason that he resigned, that they said, was because he mishandled allegations in,

26:26I think it was 2011, maybe, of a kid who was abused in his church by a leader or volunteer.

26:35And it happened again.

26:36And he didn't report it.

26:38And this person, I guess, ended up coming to IHOP Atlanta, it says, from 2015 to 2017.

26:46And they're acting like there's kind of been this epiphany, I guess.

26:50To me, this reads, and I know that we're huge skeptics sometimes of this stuff, but to me, this reads

26:58that Gate City as an organization is trying to publicly handle their image as we respond to abuse rightly.

27:11That we take these allegations seriously.

27:15But the flip side of this coin that I've not mentioned yet.

27:18So, Sunday, they announced to the whole church that Dustin's resigning and say it's because of these mishandling stuff.

27:24And they act like it's this mutual decision, which I've been in enough backroom church staffing conversations to know that

27:30very rarely is it mutual decisions.

27:32But not accusing anybody of anything, just my experiences.

27:36But they did not, they have not addressed this website and the things discussed in this website with the church

27:45broad, the broader church community.

27:49And from what I've heard, this website was somehow they have a email list and they sent out this website

27:57to the vast majority of members of the church community showing this website.

28:03And they have acted like it doesn't exist, but following a couple weeks later, one of the pastors resigned.

28:10And so, it's something I'm going to be keeping an eye on.

28:14And I have some friends that are in, been a part of that community.

28:18And so, it's something that I'm keeping tabs on.

28:22But these people are still very connected to Mike's prophetic history with Bob and Paul and all those guys.

28:29It's pretty much another offshoot.

28:31It's a place where we're seeing a huge rebrand of the prayer movement.

28:34They're moving away from using prayer movement language to being presence-centered churches.

28:42And that's kind of the language they talk.

28:45So, it's all very concerning.

28:47All this is happening at the same time, which isn't lost on me either.

28:52Yeah.

28:54Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter

29:02reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

29:07You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

29:14On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,

29:22John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

29:28You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

29:35If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the

29:41top.

29:42And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or

29:47watching.

29:48On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

29:53It's funny how many different conversations I have all seem to come back to different connections that flow through it.

30:00I just recently was talking to somebody, and I think I even did a podcast on some of this, but

30:06the movement trained people to read the Bible in ways that they were never intended to be read.

30:16The focus and the emphasis on the passages, sometimes a verse would be focused so heavily, and that's because of

30:23the British Israel doctrine.

30:24You're ripping things out of context trying to apply it to today.

30:27The problem is that – well, one of the many problems, I should say, is that there are certain cultural

30:35aspects of what you read that really don't apply today.

30:38And in fact, if you did apply them, it would be quite wrong.

30:43For example, you talk about kissing on the forehead.

30:46There is a Bible passage that says, greet each other with a holy kiss.

30:50Right.

30:51In today's world, that's not going to fly, man.

30:53And you're just not going to – in that world, you actually kissed on the mouth.

30:58Can you imagine a minister coming down in the congregation and kissing all of the young ladies on the mouth?

31:04No, man.

31:04You can't do this.

31:05Especially when it's a 50-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman.

31:08Like, that's just – that'd be smacking somebody.

31:10In today's world, culturally, this is not right.

31:13The funny part is, I'll say this, and you watch the comment feeds.

31:16There will be people that will be so adamant that we apply literally what the Bible says.

31:22And my answer to them is always, well, you take the Old Testament in the same way.

31:26It says to stone your children if they disobey.

31:29Are you going to do this?

31:30And if so, what jail sale are you going to go into?

31:34Because, no, man, the culture – cultures change.

31:37And what is right and wrong today culturally does not match what was right and wrong culturally back then.

31:44That gets really interesting when you try to evaluate it through this type of religious framework.

31:50Because it is intended to make the people believe that culturally right and wrong are static.

31:58So, what was right and wrong for Israel is right and wrong for today.

32:01What's right and wrong during Jesus' time on earth, well, that's the right and wrong for today.

32:06And you read what the apostles are writing.

32:08You read the letters from Paul.

32:09And you try to apply that and say that is exactly what we must do today.

32:15Well, no.

32:16You can't do some of the things.

32:17It just would never work.

32:19Even legally, you can't do it.

32:21So, it creates this issue.

32:23But more than that.

32:24So, they greet each other with a holy kiss.

32:26In a culture where this is widespread.

32:29You walk out on the street.

32:31You know, we can't really say what exactly was happening back then.

32:35But we know from reading certain histories that people did kiss and even kissed on the mouth to greet each

32:42other in that culture.

32:43That would make sense whenever you read that passage.

32:47But to a culture that's like this, there was nothing romantic or sexual in the mind.

32:54It was just part of the culture.

32:55This is what we do.

32:56It would be like me shaking your hand, right?

33:00Say a decade from now or more than a decade because it would take longer.

33:05Say a hundred years from now, shaking your hand becomes a romantic thing.

33:09Well, to that culture, it would be wrong to go down into the audience and shake the people's hand because

33:13it has now become romantic.

33:16Cultures change and cultures shift is what I'm trying to say.

33:19But when you take that shift and you try to do the things that are outside of your cultural norm

33:25to a person who's just a little bit unstable or not able to control themselves, now you've put them into

33:32a position of risk.

33:34So, it goes a step beyond cultural issues.

33:37It goes into now you have personal issues combined with the cultural issues.

33:41All this to say, the framework of the religion is such that it allows this kind of thing to happen.

33:48It's not that it promotes it.

33:50It's not that everybody who is in the religion is going to do something wrong.

33:59My argument is that if you have a framework that is allowing people to get this Messiah complex and allowing

34:07men and women, there are some female examples too, men and women to do things inappropriately with their congregations, why

34:15would you not want to change it so that this never happens again?

34:19Yeah, I think it's no mistake that there is an attack on people.

34:25I almost wonder if this label was given with ill intention of people who deconstruct their faith.

34:33And I think it's a, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not whatever, I've just been in this world and read

34:40stuff and that kind of thing.

34:41But you see like the development of people that we always heard about midlife crises growing up.

34:48And with deconstruction, it falls into a very similar vein and what it ends up being is whenever the answers

34:56you were given, the solutions to problems that you were given, you start to realize that they don't work or

35:03that you're disillusioned by something.

35:05The things that you were told would happen certain ways don't happen that way anymore.

35:10And then you begin to question those things.

35:12For me, one of those early things that I guess moments of revelation that I had was this phrase non

35:20-duality that, you know, they're short and they're tall, but there's also everything in between.

35:28And there's small and large and everything in between, like things aren't just good or bad.

35:35And I think that there's necessary, with our psychological development, I think that there is a necessary like black and

35:40white phase, especially with children, like that they know, yes, you can do this.

35:45No, you can't do that.

35:47But there may be times in their life, the thing that we told them not to do is the thing

35:51that they probably need to do in certain moments.

35:55I have that conversation with my kids.

35:57So say that like someone attacks them on the playground, does something, I had this happen the other day.

36:03The kids are playing on the playground and found out that my daughter got pushed down and this other kid

36:08started, tried to stomp on her when he pushed her down on the ground.

36:12And with my kids, we very much talk about how violence is not the answer.

36:16And so they were like, we didn't want to do anything because we didn't want to hurt him.

36:20And it's like, yeah, but he's hurting you.

36:22Like whenever somebody is hurting you, you can do what you need to do to get them to stop hurting

36:28you.

36:28And so like those are those moments that you see that the black and white answer may not work.

36:35And so that gets labeled as deconstruction.

36:38And really what I think it is is psychological development.

36:40And I think that that's part of what these movements try to stunt intentionally is that they grab people when

36:46they're young, when they're impressionable, when they're vulnerable, and they give them this way of thinking.

36:51And then once you see a little bit of light, you get out of that system a little bit, whatever

36:57it is, that's a crisis that happens, or maybe something that you watch, you hear somebody's story that they shared,

37:04and all of a sudden the light bulb clicks.

37:06And once that happens, you can't stop it.

37:09Like it's your brain does all kinds of things.

37:11For me, I got sick.

37:12I got started having panic attack, like anxiety stuff, and your body will make you reckon with that.

37:22But also with what you were saying with the holy kiss kind of concept is the thing that's very popular

37:30in the charismatic circles that I've been in, and I think that this is kind of what they're positioning with

37:36these stories of Billy kissing these girls on the forehead,

37:39is that there's very much this positioning of them being a spiritual father, and them being daughters, and that making

37:49the behavior okay.

37:51We saw that with the investigation into Dr. Michael Brown, where he talked about the women that he harmed, allegedly,

38:01that he thought of them as daughters, and supposedly touched one of them on their rear.

38:08And I don't do that with my daughters, so there's things like that, but I think whenever that father title

38:15is given, it lets people let their guard down.

38:19It gives them a sense of trust, and I've heard stories from women.

38:24I didn't experience this much as a man or a boy in these movements, but I've heard stories of women

38:32having men come up to them,

38:33and like, I just feel like God's telling me I'm supposed to be your father, or I'm supposed to be,

38:37you know, this or that.

38:38And I've heard varying responses.

38:40For some people, that was detrimental, and that started an abusive kind of relationship there.

38:45And for other people, they stood their ground and was like, no, you're not my father.

38:49I don't see you that way.

38:51But that's kind of like, I think how I see that holy kiss stuff being taken advantage of now, is

38:57under the guise of spiritual daughters and spiritual fathers.

39:01And so, therefore, if we're fatherly and in our 50s and kissing you on the head as a 20-year

39:05-old, it's okay.

39:06But then we don't see what else happens elsewhere.

39:10And so, and that was one of the things that James Haynes brought up in his little context video and

39:17in his confrontation with Billy and Dustin, the private recording that he did there.

39:23He said that he's like, I'm not accusing Billy of anything specific.

39:29And he's like, but what we know is that these behaviors are indicators that something more could be happening.

39:36And that's why he was asking that it be looked into because they'd had a handful of girls come forward

39:41and say, Billy kissed him on the forehead.

39:44And his question was, I'd like, should we look into this further?

39:48Because we know from Mike Bickle most recently that this can be an indicator that more is going on.

39:54And I appreciate that he went in that level-headed with it.

39:58I probably would have went in more guns blazing and, you know, all that.

40:02But what ended up happening, they ended up disbanding their external accountability advisory board and the board.

40:10They acted like they took it to the board and really they didn't.

40:13Kind of what happened was the dust from my understanding of the way things played out is that Dustin and

40:19Billy kind of had a conversation about Billy being investigated.

40:21Then they went to the board and said, yeah, we think it's probably not necessary.

40:25And the board's like, yeah, we don't think it's necessary.

40:27And it's just all yes men.

40:28That's what it is around and around this leader.

40:30And so, yeah, it's so discouraging seeing this happen time and time again.

40:39But I'm hopeful that hopefully we'll start learning lessons and people will start seeing the patterns and seeing the signs

40:47and be able to start to name and articulate these things that they see happening around them when they don't

40:53just feel right, but they'll be able to name them.

40:57That's my hope.

40:58And I think we're seeing that here with Atlanta because these people came around whenever the Mike Pickles stuff was

41:03going on and we were having conversations with them and we met with them and talked with them.

41:07And I know with the friends that I've made that that was super helpful for them.

41:10And even listening to this podcast, there was one of them, one of my good friends.

41:13Now, I got connected to because he heard us listening, listening to us talk about the IHOP stuff and hearing

41:21us articulate specific things.

41:23He's like, oh, my gosh, this was the same in Atlanta.

41:25Like, we did this.

41:26He's like, I knew that it was off, but I didn't know like why or what it was.

41:29He's like, it's spiritual abuse.

41:31Like, that's what that is.

41:32And so, that gives me hope.

41:36That gives me hope.

41:37And in a world that's full of hopelessness right now, those are the moments that make me feel good.

41:43Darrell Bock There's a website that I follow called spiritualabuse.org.

41:47And it talks through all the various spiritual abuse instances that are happening that are newsworthy.

41:54And as you can imagine, many of them turn to sexual abuse more than just simply emotional or spiritual abuse

42:02because it's so widespread.

42:04One of the problems that I see, and it's really disturbing to me, is that the modern churches that have

42:12developed from the framework that is covered in my research,

42:18many of the people in those groups and leadership in those groups know that certain things are wrong

42:25and know that there are problems that are deeply rooted in the doctrine and theology of the group's history that

42:32are wrong.

42:33And they will not address the wrong.

42:36They'll just kind of skirt around it, not talk about it.

42:40And you can go back.

42:41If you want to see what a group really believes, you can trace its history and you can see the

42:45doctrinal foundations

42:46because even though they may reject those doctrinal foundations now, there's so many doctrines built on top of it

42:52that they can't really get rid of the root.

42:55They have to go back to the root.

42:57And because so many have built on Branhamism, you can almost go through Branhamism and see some of the things

43:03that are being taught

43:03and you'll find out what the ministers and the elders are saying behind closed doors that they're not saying in

43:09the pulpit.

43:10There was a news article recently, if you type the end time message and sex or something like this in

43:18the news, you can find it.

43:19But it's all over the news.

43:20There was a group in, I think it was Africa, that ministers started preaching that if the wife refuses sex

43:28to the husband,

43:29the devil enters into the home because the women have no control over their bodies.

43:35Now, that's horrific.

43:37I can't imagine anybody in the New Apostolic Reformation preaching it.

43:40I can't imagine my grandfather preaching it from behind the pulpit.

43:45But I can assure you that I heard this kind of thing with multiple leaders who were in the message

43:51from not behind the pulpit

43:54because it's one of those unwritten rules that you believe because you're taking the cultural aspects of the Bible that

44:02don't apply for today

44:03and the way in which humans were just – it was just the culture.

44:09I'll just say it like that and let you think what you want.

44:12They're trying to apply things for an ancient culture that doesn't apply today,

44:16and in doing so, they're creating a hierarchy over humans,

44:20especially putting the women lower in rank and status than they should be today.

44:26For me, this is problematic because you're skirting around the underlying issue that your religion is not adapting to the

44:33current culture,

44:34and therefore, it's become stale and stagnant.

44:37And if you are in a stale and stagnant religion and people are applying passages in the wrong way for

44:44today,

44:44where does that end?

44:46Because there are passages that talk about killing.

44:48There are passages in the Old Testament that talk about pillaging.

44:51Is that what we're seeing in the wars today?

44:54I know that if you look at – I'm not going to mention the names because it might get censored

44:59on YouTube,

44:59but there are leadership in the United States military, and you can Google it and you can figure out who

45:06I'm talking about.

45:06Are they Pulp Fiction fans?

45:08They are misquoting Pulp Fiction scriptures, man.

45:12You know exactly who I'm talking about.

45:14But they're doing things in a way that matches the very heart of what I'm talking about today.

45:21They're pillaging, and they see this as a holy thing, that they're doing this.

45:25And for me, this is just so wrong.

45:28It's wrong on so many levels.

45:32But where that's invading and trying to conquer a nation, and that's bad in itself, think all the way down

45:40to the church pew.

45:41You have people in the church pews who are also affected in the same way that this guy is affecting

45:45the entire nation.

45:47In fact, the entire world is at risk because of what's happening.

45:51Well, entire churches are at risk for the same exact thing because it's all coming from the same root.

45:56It's interesting seeing the same types of mechanisms that are used, like at IHOPKC, I guess, dress up differently.

46:07And kind of what I mean by that, I don't know if you're familiar with Pulp Fiction's pastor, who is

46:17more – he's not a charismatic guy.

46:20Like, they're not a prophecy and speaking in tongues kind of sect of Christianity.

46:26And instead of having prophets who prophesy things and that they reorient their lives around, instead, it becomes scripture and

46:39this man's interpretation of scripture.

46:42And one of those things that, as you're talking, that have those lingering repercussions and even developments, I would say

46:50at this point, I wouldn't say that it's just lingering side effects, is the treatment of women.

46:55And those are the movements that are – is it the 19th Amendment, I think, that's the right for women

47:00to vote, that they're calling for the repeal of?

47:04And these people have people in power in government believing these things, that women shouldn't vote.

47:10I'm sure some women's study major could correct me, but I don't think that we've had any women-led empires

47:17throughout history, and I think men have done a pretty good job of messing things up so far.

47:22And so, like, you see, like, even in churches that are complementarian, which just means that they believe that distinct

47:30gender roles, usually that women can't be pastors or leaders of different types, they can just lead kids.

47:36But you see, like, and that comes from a literal interpretation of scripture, of taking these Pauline epistles, who are

47:45written in a very specific time to very specific people in very specific situations, and they paint it with a

47:51broad brush today.

47:53And we see that, like, in movements like – I'm going to get the acronym wrong, but the Gothers, the

48:00IBLP, IPPL, the shiny happy people, that they have, like, the umbrella stuff, that you have God as the covering

48:06of the man, man as the covering of the woman.

48:09And it subjugates people based on their gender, is what it does.

48:15And what's – I'm going to get in trouble for this, but I feel like I should say – what's

48:19funny to me is seeing the societal reactions to these things.

48:22Like, it's no wonder we have people wanting to change how they identify with their gender.

48:30It's because, like, the way that we treat women, like, whenever you treat women badly, and they see no way

48:36out of that.

48:36Like, I could see myself, if I was a woman, being mistreated, that becoming manly would be a way to

48:45prevent that abuse.

48:46And I don't think that – I don't think that we see things in that macro, zoomed-out way whenever

48:54– I don't think we have pastors looking at the impacts of their theology in that way.

48:57I know that we don't.

48:58I've had conversations with pastors who believe that women shouldn't be in leadership and preach those things about marriage.

49:07And I've seen where people have stayed in abusive marriages because of that messaging, and it harms them in significant

49:14ways.

49:15And the systems just take on different clothes.

49:20Instead of having their prophets, they've got their scripture and their literal interpretation and their patriarchy.

49:24And so, they have the man speaking for God still, but they don't call him a prophet.

49:30But it's the same kind of power structures with a brainwashing, coercive control kind of element to it, all dressed

49:38up as in, this is God's will for you.

49:41And interestingly, the female vote is something that ties directly back to what I was saying earlier.

49:47You probably don't even know this.

49:49I probably don't, no.

49:49In 1955, William Branham started claiming that in 1933, he had a vision that women would one day be allowed

50:02to vote.

50:03And if they did, they would cause the destruction of the United States.

50:07That spread all throughout the Laterine Movement.

50:09It became a core foundational doctrine within the Laterine Movement that women would cause the destruction of the U.S.

50:16Not even Branhamites, people who later descended into other flavors of this movement, started to believe this because there was

50:24a prophecy.

50:25And we believe Branham was a prophet, but he went astray.

50:29Now, he claimed that he had this in 1933.

50:32Nobody saw him say this or saw any paper or publication where he said this in 1933.

50:38It wasn't until 1955.

50:41So, we're talking 25 years later.

50:44Well, women were allowed to vote since the 19th Amendment in 1920.

50:49So, he flat out lied about the whole thing.

50:52There was no future women being allowed to vote.

50:56They were already allowed to vote, even back then.

50:59So, he said that this would happen.

51:01This was coming.

51:02And he tied it to his doomsday scenario where all of these events would take place, communism being the big

51:09one because they were in the Red Scare.

51:10So, communism, female vote, all of this stuff would result in the utter destruction of the U.S.

51:17What's interesting is anytime something happens with Israel, I don't care what it is, good or bad, they're going to

51:25go back to his prophecies and they're going to say, this is what's happening.

51:29We're watching it play out because Israel, something's happening.

51:32And you have to understand, people, Israel is a sovereign nation.

51:36They do good things, they do bad things, they get good leaders, they get bad leaders.

51:41They do things that we would not agree with ourselves.

51:44But the movement has conditioned people to think that every decision by Israel is divinely inspired, good or bad, we

51:52need to back it.

51:53And if they want to start a war, we're going to jump right in there with them.

51:56That's really what this comes down to.

51:58And it's foolishness because there is no relevance to that.

52:03That would be like saying that every president that we have is divinely inspired.

52:07Absolutely not.

52:08But that's the way that the movement has been conditioned.

52:12Yeah, so, so much happening in the world right now.

52:16So, just everywhere.

52:18And with the Mike Bickle stuff, I mean, we'll keep our eye on that and see what happens, what develops.

52:24If you want to join our Global Nope Feast, anybody listening, you're more than welcome to.

52:29If you eat a meal from May 1st to May 7th, you can join our protest against pre-platforming Mike

52:35Bickle.

52:35There's a Facebook event you can come join.

52:38It's going to be a hoot.

52:40I think we may even pop up and do a live stream and have our friends get together or something

52:44like that and have a good old time.

52:47And we'll keep an eye on the Gate City stuff, too, and see how that plays out in the coming

52:51weeks.

52:52Because I think they're eventually going to have to publicly reckon with the stuff on the website, like the Internet's

52:57accessible to the public.

52:58You can't take it down, and they don't know who's behind it exactly.

53:02They've stayed anonymous.

53:05So, it's going to be interesting to see how this stuff plays out over the next couple weeks.

53:09Oh, absolutely.

53:10I'm on a special diet.

53:12I'm no longer allowed to eat pancakes, so I can't join into my own marketing campaign.

53:16I do have a smoker, though.

53:18So, I plan on – I'm going to smoke –

53:21Kansas City Barbecue.

53:22It's very on brand.

53:23I'm going to smoke some Kansas City ribs.

53:25I'm going to call my ribs the prophetic so that after the day that I eat them, they will become

53:30the prophetic history.

53:32Amen.

53:35Yeah.

53:35So many things happening, and I don't know that we've helped or heard anything,

53:41but at least we have explained to some people how these things came to be and why we see what

53:47we see today.

53:48So, thank you so much for doing this.

53:50Yeah, absolutely.

53:50Anytime.

53:51Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

53:55You can find us at william-branham.org.

53:57For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion,

54:01From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

54:35Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.

55:06Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.

55:09Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.

55:11Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.

Mike Bickle’s Return? What IHOPKC’s New Strategy Really Means | Brantley Smith | Episode 594

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