- 2 days ago
John sits down with Jordan Roberts, a former Word of Faith member, to examine how healing claims, signs-and-wonders culture, and emotionally driven church environments shaped his faith and family life. Jordan traces his path through Kenneth Hagin influence, Pentecostalism, Vineyard, Foursquare, Brownsville-era revival culture, and prosperity-style teaching, explaining what first drew him in and what finally caused him to question it.
The conversation explores failed healing expectations, the human cost of spiritual pressure, the contrast between hype-centered religion and compassionate church life, and the difficult process of separating biblical truth from religious fiction. Along the way, John and Jordan discuss Kenneth Hagin, John Wimber, revival culture, the New Apostolic Reformation, and why asking hard questions can be the first step toward spiritual clarity and healing.
00:00 Introduction
01:30 Jordan's Word of Faith Background And Kenneth Hagin Influence
10:20 A Sick Child, Divine Healing Pressure, And The Breaking Point
17:04 Cancer, Delayed Treatment, And The Cost Of Healing Expectations
19:07 How A Mainstream Church Responded Differently To Suffering
23:17 Vineyard, Worship Culture, And The Church-as-Venue Model
28:12 COVID, Church Shutdowns, And Cracks In The Signs-And-Wonders Framework
32:10 Leaving The Gospel Of Hype For Reality
35:04 Challenging Family Without Pushing Them Away
37:26 Foursquare, Aimee Semple McPherson, And Revival Lineage
40:05 Shared Patterns Across Word Of Faith, Foursquare, Vineyard, And Revivalist Churches
42:56 Deconstructing Old Interpretations And Learning To Read Scripture Again
48:12 The Lack Of Compassion And The Relief Of Verse-By-Verse Teaching
49:40 Looking Backward To Movement Heroes Versus Living Forward In Christian Practice
51:10 Being Christlike Versus Trying To Be Like Christ
52:35 Advice For People Still Inside Word Of Faith Or Similar Movements
53:45 Closing
______________________
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
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– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
The conversation explores failed healing expectations, the human cost of spiritual pressure, the contrast between hype-centered religion and compassionate church life, and the difficult process of separating biblical truth from religious fiction. Along the way, John and Jordan discuss Kenneth Hagin, John Wimber, revival culture, the New Apostolic Reformation, and why asking hard questions can be the first step toward spiritual clarity and healing.
00:00 Introduction
01:30 Jordan's Word of Faith Background And Kenneth Hagin Influence
10:20 A Sick Child, Divine Healing Pressure, And The Breaking Point
17:04 Cancer, Delayed Treatment, And The Cost Of Healing Expectations
19:07 How A Mainstream Church Responded Differently To Suffering
23:17 Vineyard, Worship Culture, And The Church-as-Venue Model
28:12 COVID, Church Shutdowns, And Cracks In The Signs-And-Wonders Framework
32:10 Leaving The Gospel Of Hype For Reality
35:04 Challenging Family Without Pushing Them Away
37:26 Foursquare, Aimee Semple McPherson, And Revival Lineage
40:05 Shared Patterns Across Word Of Faith, Foursquare, Vineyard, And Revivalist Churches
42:56 Deconstructing Old Interpretations And Learning To Read Scripture Again
48:12 The Lack Of Compassion And The Relief Of Verse-By-Verse Teaching
49:40 Looking Backward To Movement Heroes Versus Living Forward In Christian Practice
51:10 Being Christlike Versus Trying To Be Like Christ
52:35 Advice For People Still Inside Word Of Faith Or Similar Movements
53:45 Closing
______________________
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.
00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org.
00:42And with me, I have my very special guest, Jordan Roberts, former member of the Word of
00:47Faith.
00:48Jordan, it's good to have you on and to talk about Word of Faith.
00:51It is something that's a little painful for me to talk about because I think back to all
00:56those times that I heard, it's thus saith the Lord.
00:59It's the spoken word, and the spoken word is the original seed, and all of these, I
01:06don't know, this framework of ideology that was in my head that you had the power to speak
01:10things, and you basically became a sorcerer with speaking.
01:14That was, I would say that that's probably more the destructive version that led to all
01:20of this.
01:21But then it evolved into what it became, and I'm interested to hear from your perspective
01:26what, how you perceive the Word of Faith movement.
01:30So, it kind of evolved for me, too.
01:34I, you know, started off, like my father actually is where it started.
01:38When I was like two, he got saved reading a book by Kenneth Hagan.
01:43And I remember he'd tell us the story, he was driving with the book in the steering wheel.
01:49And, you know, he came from a Catholic background, wasn't really serving, I think, the Lord at
01:54the time of his life.
01:55But in reading the book, kind of realizing that no one was going to be there on Judgment
02:03Day to help him pass.
02:07And so, he prayed right there and got saved.
02:11But that started, you know, really like the Kenneth Hagan, that's what we grew up listening
02:16to.
02:17I had all the tapes, you know, my dad had all the tapes, but I would listen to him as
02:21a
02:21kid, you know, the old like foam core plastic binders with the tapes in them and all that
02:27stuff.
02:28And he's exciting, you know, as a kid hearing his stories, you know, what he came through,
02:33you know, going to hell and all that stuff.
02:35It's, you know, it's entertainment, right?
02:37It's really good.
02:39And then so, really kind of coming up through that as a kid and going to a Pentecostal church.
02:45But interesting for me is a lot of the stuff that I dealt with was really more at home.
02:51Then in the church, the Pentecostal church that I was going to, there was a lot of the,
02:56you know, kind of going for the signs and wonders.
02:59It was very like deliverance ministry type of driven, you know, you've got a demon of
03:05this, a demon of that, casting them out, you know, prayers for healing and whatnot.
03:11Um, but then it was more of at home where my family had, my parents would have like a,
03:19a, uh, home group and they do a lot of just worship and prayer and, you know, kind of really
03:27seeking signs all the time.
03:29It's like the, the sensitivity of the spirit, but it's really that kind of what you've talked
03:34about, the manipulation of music, you know, you can create that atmosphere.
03:40Um, and I don't think that, um, you know, my parents saw it that way.
03:45I don't think they see it that way even, even now.
03:47Um, but, you know, we'd have the laughter of the Holy Spirit slain in the spirit.
03:53I think I was 10 when I was baptized in the spirit, speaking in tongues, um, doing that
03:59whole thing and really kind of just, you know, as I grew up looking at, um, my Christianity
04:08was in a sense superior than others.
04:11You know, I had the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
04:14I, I, um, I had what other Christians didn't have, you know, if I looked at like a Calvary
04:20chapel, to me, that was like a watered down church.
04:22Um, it didn't have the same spirit, right?
04:26Uh, then from the Pentecostal church, um, we moved, we were living in Southern California.
04:33I even went to Vineyard a little bit.
04:35Um, actually Ontario Vineyard had a lot of friends that went there too.
04:40So I'd visit occasionally.
04:42Um, then I moved to San Diego and was going to a four square church and that was when
04:48the Brownsville revival hit, um, pastor and, uh, different members of the church were, you
04:56know, traveling to Brownsville to go catch that lightning in a bottle and bring it back
05:00to our church, uh, that sort of thing.
05:02Um, kind of the same, I mean, the, the, uh, the worship leader at that church was a very
05:10talented musician.
05:12He was like a blues singer singing at a bar, got saved right away, pretty much became the
05:19worship leader.
05:20He was just full of talent.
05:23We looked at that as, you know, a spiritual gift and all that.
05:27Um, but yeah, it was really mostly driven by worship.
05:33You know, my dad loved John Wimber.
05:34So it was always that start high and low, you know, the fast song, end it with the slow
05:41song.
05:42Uh, but it was all mostly really worship related.
05:45I, I could care less what the pastor had to say.
05:48It was, can you get me to this, the throne room of God kind of atmosphere.
05:54So that was a big part of it.
05:56Yeah.
05:56There's so much to unpack there.
05:58In fact, I'd like to talk through each of those things and I don't even know if we can
06:01do it in an hour.
06:02Do I remember correctly that your father is a Pentecostal minister?
06:06He's not actively pastoring right now and he largely considers himself, which he is.
06:12He's more of a teacher than a pastor.
06:14I'm thinking through everything that you just said and my, my wheels are spinning in my head.
06:18I grew up listening to these tape recordings of Branham.
06:20You grew up listening to tape recordings of Hagen.
06:22And it's kind of funny now, if you think about it, if you've ever attended mainstream
06:28church, you would never see the minister asking people to go home and listen to tapes of himself.
06:33That would just be, the minister would think he's full of it if he did this, but we did
06:38and we listened to them over and over again.
06:41It sounds like you did as well.
06:43And, um, I'm, I'm just, I'm fascinated by that part of the story, but thinking through
06:49your, you said your father's a teacher.
06:51It sounds like maybe you might've had some of the five-fold ministry doctrine in your,
06:56in your framework.
06:57Did you have five-fold ministry as well?
06:59Yeah, definitely.
07:00That was, that was definitely a big part of it.
07:02Um, I would say one thing that's maybe different than probably what you grew up with, Branham.
07:08Um, we, even though my dad was saved me reading Kenneth Hagen and was, I mean, he's still a
07:18big believer of Kenneth Hagen.
07:20Um, one, to give some credit to my dad is he is a, he's a Bible reader.
07:26As far as I can remember as a little kid, my dad would wake up at three in the morning
07:31and read his Bible, study it, you know, have time alone with the Lord, pray, worship.
07:37And he did it all the time.
07:39I remember I'd run into him if I, you know, maybe I fell asleep on the couch in the living
07:43room.
07:43You know, he'd come in at three and wake me up.
07:46Um, my dad never really chased the, the man on the pulpit and he wasn't like a, oh, that's
07:54the guy.
07:54Kenneth Hagen's the guy, though he probably listened to a lot of him and was encouraged
07:59by him.
08:00But my dad always believed we could do the same thing, which was largely what it was
08:06taught, right?
08:07We could do it.
08:08Uh, so same thing with like when the church we were attending that was going after Brownsville,
08:13my dad always thought that's silly, like, why don't we just do the same thing here?
08:17You know, so to credit my dad, he, you know, I think he was, um, his heart was in the
08:23right
08:23place, you know, still is like, you know, I love my dad and I mean, he's definitely, he's,
08:27you know, he's saved.
08:28He's not, uh, a confused man.
08:31He's, um, it's just different.
08:34We have a little different of a belief, you know, right now.
08:37And I kind of trickle in little things here and there, um, in hopes that he'll see it.
08:43But maybe he doesn't either way.
08:45He's a great man.
08:46He raised me great in my family.
08:48Um, and so definitely happy and have no regrets in that sense.
08:54Yeah.
08:54There are many people who are even in, you know, in Branhamism that I would say, I have
08:59no reason to believe that they're not saved.
09:01I'll say it like that.
09:02They, they read their Bible.
09:04They stutter their Bible.
09:05The problem with Branhamism that was probably different than what you grew up with.
09:09We would hit these passages in the Bible where what Branham said was the opposite of what
09:16we're reading in the text.
09:18And we weren't allowed to go so far as to question what he said, if it didn't, if there
09:24was a discrepancy.
09:25So we'd read it and we'd be like, well, brother, I just don't understand this passage in the
09:30scripture because he said the opposite, you know, that kind of thing.
09:33And I've, I've actually never met somebody in word of faith who ever did this.
09:37So I would say what we had was a lot more destructive, but there are yet still some
09:42similarities.
09:43And, um, that is, that's really the core of the word of faith doctrine.
09:47So when you talk about differences between you, you and your dad, as it relates to word
09:51of faith, what parts did you keep?
09:54What parts did you decide that you did no longer believed?
09:57What, what did that look like for you?
09:59Uh, yeah, I think the, the main parts I believe in kept is the gospel.
10:04Um, the gospel was still always taught well from my family.
10:08Um, and I, even my extensive family cousins and, um, and whatnot that have kind of grown
10:15up in the same thing with me.
10:17Uh, that's always been the same.
10:19I think the biggest difference for me and what really happened, I guess you could say is where
10:25it all started to change was my son got sick and we couldn't figure out what it was when
10:35we started doing all that we could.
10:38I'm not sure if you've heard of, uh, you know, jail, um, JGL ministries.
10:45It's now run by Curry Blake, which is John G lakes.
10:48He has a DHT.
10:51Um, I think it's what it's called DHT.
10:54We got involved with them, partnered with them, went through all their classes and basically
11:01it's all, you know, like, you know, basically almost like street healing in a sense, just
11:06healing, believing in the divine healing and, you know, doing all the John G lakes supposedly
11:11did and we were doing that, anything that we could do to, to heal my son.
11:17And it was really hard for us.
11:21Just, I mean, there was months where I was falling asleep, uh, praying, um, for my son.
11:29I was literally sleeping in the same bed as him because I'd, I'd pray until I fell asleep.
11:33And if I woke up, I'd pray again until I fell asleep.
11:37Um, and it just wasn't going anywhere, started seeing a lack of compassion from my church,
11:42church members.
11:44It was always like, you know, praying was easy.
11:47It's a layup, you know, just, well, now let's, let's put this healing in and now let's go
11:51get our in and out burger.
11:53We're hungry.
11:53And, um, really seeing in the Bible, like, you know, mourning with people and sitting with
11:59people in their sorrow was just completely lost.
12:03You know, I, at that time I was going to probably more prosperity gospel type of church and there
12:09was just a really big indifference there.
12:12Um, and my wife, you know, she was over it at that point.
12:16She was really, um, she had found Ray comfort.
12:20She was doing all the street ministry, you know, evangelism was what her big heart was.
12:26We got involved with an organization doing that and, um, there hit a time where I, it was
12:37right after right 2019 into 2019 when COVID hit.
12:40When I saw that first YouTube video of, you know, people just dying on the streets, COVID,
12:47I initially was like, I don't believe this.
12:50This is, this is fear tactic.
12:52This is world control.
12:55Whatever reason they're going to use this, um, to get rid of Donald Trump or something,
13:00you know, and I wasn't, you know, I didn't vote for Trump.
13:03Um, at the time I, I'm from Southern California conservative.
13:07Our votes don't count.
13:09Um, we, I, so I started studying everything I could politics.
13:15So literally like church and all that was kind of set on the side.
13:19What I really started noticing was, you know, I couldn't, I didn't believe anything anymore.
13:24I was being told.
13:27And at the same time, I was seeing these prophets that were starting to prophesy God said this
13:33and God said that about Trump, this and Trump that.
13:38And because I was so involved with kind of this deep dive I was doing and listening to everything
13:43that was happening in news and politics, I was finding that these guys were just regurgitating
13:50the same things that they were hearing from somebody else.
13:53I heard on a podcast, you know, a month before, but this time God told him, I'm like, God didn't
13:58tell you so-and-so said that on whatever channel.
14:02And that's when I really started thinking, this seems a bit hokey.
14:07And then my wife really hit me with once.
14:09She says, you, you need to really look into Kenneth Hagan.
14:14And it was a kind of a breaking point in our marriage.
14:17Like she was upset.
14:18She saw the destructiveness of it, how I was, you know, trying to heal my son, telling my
14:24son to have faith to heal himself.
14:26You know, he's the kid.
14:30And it got bad.
14:31It got really bad.
14:32And so, then I set off to study Kenneth Hagan.
14:37And that actually led me to one of your episodes that you did with Charles on Kenneth Hagan.
14:44And then, so, when I found you guys, then forget all the politics.
14:49I stopped all of that.
14:50And I spent every minute I could listening to your guys's.
14:56I listened to the new message that you had.
14:58And then I'd go back and start episode one, two, three, see how many I could cram in before
15:03your next episode went air.
15:06So, yeah, you were kind of my Morpheus and red-pilled me out of the matrix.
15:11It's a wonder you didn't go crazy listening to me that many times.
15:14And I remember the feeling, much like you described, whenever, when you first come in contact with
15:19something that challenges your faith a bit, the first thing you think is, oh my gosh, is
15:24it real?
15:25And then once you start to get a little bit of freedom for critically thinking, you can't
15:30get out of it.
15:31You're constantly looking and trying to find more information.
15:35I did the same thing.
15:36And I would go down these rabbit trails.
15:38Kenneth Hagan was one of the rabbit trails.
15:40Go down the rabbit trail and, oh my gosh, here's another guy who's, he's not saying the
15:46same thing as what our leader did.
15:47But there's so many similarities.
15:51And I was kind of in the same place as you.
15:54Part of my story, which I don't talk about much, is I had a family member who was really,
16:00really suffering.
16:01He went through some very, very difficult health issues.
16:07To this day, I still, I get broken up if I talk about it, so I don't.
16:11But it was a very traumatic time.
16:14And I was kind of in the same place as you because I was thinking, we are supposed to
16:20have enough faith that the person can be healed.
16:23And we hear it constantly on these recordings.
16:25You can do it.
16:27You can have this much faith.
16:28We thought, if you have just the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains, this
16:33kind of thing.
16:34But then what happens is whenever it doesn't work, what do you do?
16:38There was no help.
16:40There's nobody really coming to the family member involved.
16:43Their family was struggling.
16:45And it's like everybody just wants to shut them off because here is something that makes
16:50them critically think about the whole religion.
16:53And what happens is I think through cognitive dissonance, they try to just reconcile what
16:59has happened to this person.
17:00But then at the same time, they shut it off so that their minds don't open up to think.
17:04Yeah, for sure.
17:05That's definitely, you know, I know like with my dad, my mom got cancer and she had, I think
17:14she dealt with it for maybe two years before going to the doctors.
17:19And it was kind of that same mentality of like, you know, she's going to be healed miraculously.
17:25I remember, you know, church getting involved and all of our prayers doing like a 24 hour
17:31fast before finally deciding like, okay, let's do this.
17:35Um, then she started getting treatment and, and then went into surgery and the night before
17:41we, you know, prayed all night, prayed for her.
17:44And I remember my dad was really expecting her.
17:46I too, like I was expecting this miraculous healing to happen.
17:51And, um, the miraculous didn't happen except for it's still quite miraculous that the size
18:00of the tumor that she had, that it didn't spread, that the surgery was successful, her recovery
18:06was phenomenal.
18:07I mean, she was up laughing just hours after surgery.
18:11Uh, you know, this thing was like the size of a soccer ball, you know, it's huge.
18:16And, you know, looking at it now and thinking like, wow, you know, I almost lost my mom over
18:21this.
18:22Um, I know my, my wife lost her grandmother over this, um, same thing where they were expecting
18:30healing and when it finally was, you know, too much, they decided to take her to the
18:35doctors.
18:36The doctors are kind of like, it's too late.
18:39She'll brought her sooner, you know, and she passed.
18:42Um, and so I, I think about that, like, I'm, I'm very happy.
18:47Obviously I still have my mom, uh, that she didn't suffer, but you know, they're, they're,
18:52they're not all those positive endings.
18:54A lot of people do.
18:55It ends in, in tragedy and, and it's sad.
18:58And the irony for us, we, so this was part of my leaving.
19:03This is really what shook me.
19:04Um, I had several things that shook me, but that was the big one.
19:07And then we went into a mainstream church and we just happened to go at a time whenever
19:13somebody else was struggling with a similar health issue and it, the outlook wasn't that
19:19great for this person.
19:20And I was really curious to see what the church did because we came from the, uh, it was the
19:27precursor to the name it, claim it.
19:29You can be healed gospel.
19:31Right?
19:31So I was, I was wondering how does a mainstream church handle this whenever somebody gets really
19:36sick?
19:37And it was, it was so unique from my perspective because I'd never seen it.
19:43And yet everybody else just instantly knew what to do because that's how they were raised.
19:47But they all, the church just came together for the family in need and they, they would
19:52not give them false hope.
19:54They didn't say they, they would pray for the healing much like we did.
19:58And they would say, now we're, we're praying by faith.
20:01We believe that God could do it.
20:03But then there was the caveat.
20:04If God chooses not to, we need to come together.
20:08We need to help the family and who's willing to help.
20:11And so it was like this charge to excite people, to help the person in need.
20:17Whereas where we came from, there was the, there was the excitement, right?
20:22God can heal you.
20:23But there was never the, the situation that could exist.
20:26What happens when it doesn't work out?
20:29And so I got to watch it firsthand right after leaving the group that we left.
20:34And since then it's changed my life because anytime somebody's in need, I, I have a, I'm
20:40an empath.
20:40I want to help people.
20:42So whenever somebody's in need, I feel like I'm more empowered than I was whenever I was
20:46in the, in the group that we came out of.
20:48Yeah.
20:49Like you feel like you're in touch with reality.
20:51Right.
20:53Yes.
20:54It's kind of the same.
20:55When we started going to, we started going to a Baptist church and is kind of that same
21:01mentality.
21:02You see the church come together.
21:04It's the compassion.
21:06Um, you know, I see with the friendships and connections that I have, um, they're very
21:14real.
21:14They want to know how you're doing, you know, emotionally.
21:19It's not just the spiritual, um, you know, the reason why this happened or that happened
21:25is because of the spirit or some spirit on you, uh, kind of looking at that stuff.
21:30It's almost like a, an escape of reality, right?
21:34You, oh, you know, I committed this sin, but it was the spirit of this.
21:38And while you're kind of not taking ownership of that and you're almost not taking up what
21:44the consequences of that thing are that you did.
21:47And, and that's really what I see.
21:48It's, it's almost like the, in a sense, it's kind of like a really smart tactic of the devil.
21:56As long as you're not hitting the target, he's okay.
21:59Right.
21:59You, you, no matter what you're doing.
22:01Um, and then that's kind of how I see it.
22:03Cause I see it with repentance.
22:04I know even with my own life today, I mean, this has only been a couple of years now I've
22:09been out of it.
22:09Um, and it took about five years to fully come out.
22:13Um, but I have a problem with, with kind of living in reality.
22:18I'm expecting everything's going to be okay.
22:21I'm a very optimistic person to begin with.
22:24And I just always think it's all going to work out.
22:26But the fact is it, it might not, you know, it might be bad and that's okay.
22:33God's still good.
22:34No matter how bad it is.
22:36So I'm really curious to know more about, uh, you mentioned in the email,
22:39that you had come out of the Vineyard Church.
22:42And, um, I just today, actually, I had an email from a person who, as I've been digging
22:49into John Wimber and the origins of the Vineyard Church, Chuck Smith, et cetera.
22:54It's interesting because I'll put a little bit of research or information that I have
22:58out there.
22:59I've not yet even formed an opinion, but people are emailing me already thinking and assuming
23:04that I have made an opinion about the group.
23:06And so, uh, just today I've, I've got a couple of emails.
23:09I've got to answer about that, but I'm, I'm interested to hear from your perspective,
23:14what the, what the Vineyard Church was like.
23:17With Vineyard, it was a little more toned down, but it was definitely a big emphasis on worship,
23:22you know, which, you know, with Wimber, that was a big thing for him.
23:26Uh, like I'd say you compare it to, it's real similar to Calvary Chapel, but there was a
23:33lot more emphasis, kind of a flip, the emphasis on Calvary Chapel was a lot more on the teaching
23:38and less on the worship and Vineyard seemed to be the other way around, a lot more on
23:43the worship and, and not so much on the teaching.
23:47And probably because of, you know, what, what Chuck Smith kind of went through and what he
23:51changed, he seemed to be, you know, leaning a lot more towards exegetical teaching.
23:55He would be verse by verse.
23:57Um, I always looked at that was, that was dumb to even do that.
24:02You know, how do you get through all these great treasures of the Bible if you're just
24:05going verse by verse?
24:07Uh, so I say Vineyard was a lot more topical preaching and, um, the, you know, and again,
24:16the emphasis on Vineyard or on the, sorry, on the worship was really the big thing.
24:21Um, but on, on a side note with Vineyard, I went to a church called Vineyard Extreme and
24:28it was a, I'd say a test run on what they were trying to do, where they took a coffee
24:38shop, turned it into a venue that was open, you know, seven days a week, but on Sundays
24:45we had, uh, service and the idea was, you know, anybody comes to the coffee shop, it
24:52allows you, the church to make money on the coffee shop and use it as a venue for, you
24:58know, music and different things.
25:01And then we also were a church that, you know, people could be invited to.
25:05So you're almost bringing the outsiders into your church and they don't even know it's
25:09a church kind of idea.
25:10Um, but that really went up in a, in a big ball of flames because the guy that was heading
25:17it and pastor of it was definitely more into the music and the, the women and things that
25:23he shouldn't be into.
25:25And so that kind of failed pretty miserably, but I did make some good friends out of it
25:30and still friends with them today.
25:32I saw a video and I can't remember who sent it to me or which church it was.
25:38It might've been even a vineyard, but there was a minister who was coming in to replace
25:45the current pastor and he came in dressed in just grungy, nasty clothes.
25:50And he walked all the way up to the front aisle and sat down and, and everybody else is in
25:56their fancy Sunday go to meet in Pentecostal type, you know, dress.
26:01And they looked at him and everybody's scorning him just because of the way he's, he looks as
26:05he's dressed and finally the, the pastor who's leaving introduces the guy and says, now we
26:11have our new pastor and I want everybody to meet him.
26:13And then the grungy guy steps up and goes to the platform and, and preaches a whole sermon
26:18on how God doesn't look at the outward appearance.
26:21And, um, in the midst of, I think it was that sermon.
26:24I may be mixing memories cause this is a long time ago, but I think it was that sermon that
26:29they were talking about how it, you know, Jesus would go sit with the centers, the, you know,
26:36the prostitutes, the drunkards, this kind of thing.
26:39And he said, what would be, what would it be like today if we were to go have service in
26:44a bar?
26:45And I remember the thought went through my head.
26:47Oh my gosh, every, everybody I know would just, they wouldn't even go in the first place.
26:51Right.
26:51But that's something, if you read the biblical Jesus, that's how Jesus acted.
26:56He would go to save the lost.
26:59And I think out of that concept, there were, there even spun up some bar churches.
27:04In fact, I know I've been in contact with one minister who ran some sort of a bar church.
27:09I don't think it worked out either, but for different reasons.
27:13But the interesting part about everything that you've just described is I actually could get
27:18on board with all of that, except for the problems that you mentioned, because I think,
27:24I think church has become like a box to many people.
27:28They don't really think outside of that box.
27:30And the gospel was meant to save the lost, not to save the saved, but the saved keep going
27:36to the same box and they preach the same salvation to the saved.
27:40Well, who's preaching it to the lost, you know?
27:42And so I could get on board with this.
27:45And that's the funny part about everything that I'm studying in Vineyard.
27:49I would have connected pretty well with John Wember, I think.
27:52As a musician, we would have hit it off.
27:54But his mentality, I think his heart was in the right place.
27:58I'm not certain that many of the themes that emerged, I'm not certain I can get on board
28:03with all of them.
28:04The hyper focus on the worship, for example.
28:07Worship is good, but you don't make it the primary objective of your meeting, right?
28:12Yeah, I would say too, like what you were saying about the walls of the church, you know,
28:18like you're building, everything is sitting inside that box.
28:22When COVID hit and everything got locked down, the church I was attending at the time was
28:27at a, like a marina center in Seal Beach, California.
28:33And that was, you know, it's government owned.
28:36So, we lost our church, you know, at least the walls, but we're at the beach and the
28:42beach wasn't something, you know, it's public land.
28:44Anybody can go to the beach.
28:46And I remember calling the pastor like, hey, this is great.
28:49You know, the devil made a mistake.
28:51He put us outside.
28:52Now we can just go have church at the beach.
28:56And that's the only place people can pretty much go.
28:59So, it'd be a great place to, you know, to mingle and to share the gospel with people.
29:05And, you know, the church itself really just kind of locked down and followed the rules.
29:10And I had this hard time where I'm like, here, we're believing in signs and wonders and miracles
29:17and healing and COVID is nothing to us, right?
29:20And then on the other side, I see John MacArthur, who I'm looking, I looked at him as like, you
29:28know, he's too reformed.
29:29Like, I can't get behind this guy.
29:31But yet, he was fighting.
29:33And he was, I mean, he was getting sued by Governor Newsom in the state of California.
29:38And he kept fighting.
29:39And I thought, I got to a point where I'm like, you know, if I'm going to follow a shepherd
29:43of the church, I would follow John MacArthur.
29:46I don't really even trust my shepherds anymore.
29:50That was another kind of reason why I came out of it.
29:53I started seeing holes, right?
29:55It's like you talk all this, you know, healing signs and wonders.
29:58But where are they at?
30:00They're all stories.
30:01Somewhere in Africa is where they're at.
30:04It's always Africa.
30:05It's weird.
30:06But that's the truth.
30:07Even in what we came out of, there were the publications that they would put out.
30:12And they would talk about all these miraculous healings that was happening in Africa.
30:15And yet, in the church, I can name several people that had chronic diseases.
30:20Some of them died of those diseases.
30:22And some of them had been told that they would be healed.
30:24And then they died.
30:27And that's really the thing for me.
30:29The religion failed so many people.
30:32And the sad part about it is, whenever it does, the person who died, it's sad.
30:38They suffer.
30:39They die.
30:39But the family suffers long after their death.
30:43And I know family members who have had something tragic like that happen.
30:47And they just leave Christianity altogether.
30:50Because if God is going to fail us like this, why would I want to stay in it?
30:54This is a powerless God.
30:55And that's really, for me, that's really the crux of the problem.
31:00Because if you paint God into the box that you're trying to paint him in, and God doesn't quite fit
31:08in that box, then is the box even accurate?
31:11Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
31:19reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
31:24You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
31:31On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
31:40John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
31:46You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
31:52If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
31:58top.
31:59And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
32:05watching.
32:06On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
32:10Through this example that I'm talking about, where I had a family member struggling, it shook me really hard.
32:15I realized that it had turned into a gospel of divine healing.
32:20It had turned into a gospel of excitement.
32:23We didn't have worship to the levels that you had, but there were churches that had it, to some extent.
32:29And they had turned into a gospel, basically it was a gospel of hype.
32:34And I realized that it just doesn't really fit reality.
32:37So I started to become more grounded in reality, and that's part of why I left.
32:43Yeah, definitely.
32:44It's kind of what some things that resonated with me, what you said, was this, when you try to talk
32:51to people that are still in it,
32:53they don't want to be out of it.
32:56And there's also this fear like, oh, you're messing with my faith.
33:00And I know my wife, for a long time, she kept quiet about her feelings because that, in her mind,
33:06she always kept thinking, well,
33:08am I going to ruin my husband's faith?
33:10Am I going to ruin the faith of my family because I don't believe this stuff?
33:14And she struggled with that for a long time.
33:17And I think of, there's this quote I saw spray-painted on the side of a building in Redondo Beach,
33:25California.
33:25And it said, you can't find something you don't believe exists because even when you found it, you don't believe
33:34it's there.
33:35And it's kind of that idea that even though it's right in front of you, you don't believe it.
33:41And a lot of it is because you don't want to believe it.
33:44You know, I think of in The Matrix when the guy, I forget the character's name, but he defects back
33:50into The Matrix.
33:51And it's like, I know that the stake isn't real, you know?
33:54It's like that.
33:55It's like, you know, I would just rather live my happy life and believe in and hopeful and be okay
34:02with it.
34:03Yeah, it's the comfortable non-reality, basically.
34:07In fact, there's so many themes of Matrix.
34:09I've watched those several times.
34:11There's so many themes that fit the cults.
34:13It makes me wonder, was the thing actually written after the cults?
34:16I know in talking with Dr. Stephen Hassan, the Borg from Star Trek were created as a replica of the
34:24way a mind control cult works.
34:26You get the central figure, which is the Borg queen.
34:29And then people who are in the Borg hive, they get the hive mind.
34:32And if they break away from that, they're always trying to plug back into that hive mind.
34:37Or if they branch out, they'll form their other cluster of splinter groups of hive minds.
34:42When you take a step back and you understand that some of the worst enemies in sci-fi mimic the
34:49things that we came out of, it really boggles your mind, right?
34:53But you look at some of the people who are in it, and I'm extremely sad for those people because
35:00they can't help it.
35:01And many of them are really, really good people.
35:04Yeah, for sure.
35:05And that's really one of the big things I do.
35:08I try to talk to my family.
35:10I know when I first came out of it, I called my dad.
35:13I was, I'd say I was a little upset once I realized Kenneth Hagan was kind of a, it was
35:19all a hoax.
35:22I called my dad.
35:24We had a very brief and not very good fatherly son conversation.
35:30But I called him immediately after I had to apologize.
35:33But I started really challenging them, you know, my family on these things.
35:37And there's a lot of pushback.
35:39And I kind of got to a point where I thought, you know, I can't, I can't shine the flashlight
35:43bright in their face.
35:45It's going to make them recluse back.
35:47It's not going to work.
35:49If I just trickled information, though, here and there, when I find something that's like, hey, dad, or to my
35:55brother and my sister or something like, hey, did you know this?
35:58Did you know that?
36:00Largely, they don't want to hear it.
36:01My dad will actually, he is open to hearing it.
36:04And, you know, he's asked me once, you know, why do you do what you do?
36:09And I said, well, I think there's a lot of wolves in attacking the sheep.
36:16And there's a lot of protection of the wolves.
36:19And I'm looking at myself as somebody that's kind of a watchman to protect the sheep.
36:23And I'm giving my story to help those that, you know, maybe had it worse.
36:30I mean, I didn't have a bad life.
36:32I didn't go through some terrible stuff.
36:34Aside from almost losing my mom, I mean, that was, that could have been really bad.
36:39But I see the destruction and I see how many people have been negatively affected, even far worse.
36:45And it's all avoidable.
36:48And so I really kind of use using my voice and what I learn to help others.
36:54So as you know, I've been digging deeply into the historical roots of all of this.
36:58And I've not, I've only skimmed the surface.
37:01There's so much more to unpack and understand.
37:03You can see all the connections and people can jump to conclusions of why all those connections exist.
37:09But for me, it's just simply that there were a lot of different ministers and evangelists who were cross pollinating
37:17ideas.
37:18I think that's the biggest, best way to say it.
37:21But it gets really interesting when you look at the history that's happening in California.
37:26As I've mentioned a few times on the podcast, I was digging into the Foursquare Church because, well, take the
37:33Jesus movement.
37:34You had Chuck Smith who came out of the Foursquare Church.
37:37You had many of the Foursquare elites were working directly with Branham, inviting Branham to, in fact, whenever they had
37:46the 50th anniversary of Pentecostalism, they brought Branham as one of the headline speakers.
37:52And they were friendly to him even after the assemblies had chastised him and then started sanctioning Branham.
37:59So you've got all of these connections back into Foursquare.
38:01And then I started looking into Ladder Rain and started noticing, well, there's connections with Foursquare to Ladder Rain, the
38:10Sharon orphanage, etc.
38:11So there seems to be a lot of different paths leading back to Amy Simple McPherson's group.
38:17And you just happened to come out of this.
38:19So I wanted to talk through that just a bit.
38:21Yeah.
38:22Kind of funny enough, Amy Simple McPherson, I've been to her house, Amy's Castle.
38:27Foursquare owned it for a while.
38:30And I think at the time that they owned it, my church did like a dinner there.
38:36We did a tour and, you know, kind of checked her house out, which is interesting.
38:40It's in Lake Elsinore.
38:42It's kind of away from Hollywood and all the things.
38:46And, you know, Angela's Temple, one of my best friends growing up, lived in the apartment complex that is literally
38:51about 30 yards from Angela's Temple.
38:56Never went inside that building, though.
38:59But the church that I went to was, I'd say that they were, you know, kind of borderline prosperity gospel.
39:09They were definitely roots of, you know, the NAR were involved.
39:15I think we, at one point, we, they installed Jack Hayford as an apostolic elder of the church.
39:23I know when I heard that, I was like, you know, that's kind of cool.
39:27And my wife was like, that's a red flag.
39:31This is where she was coming out of this before I was.
39:35But, yeah, I remember, you know, a lot of the studies, too, like Azusa Street Revival.
39:39I went there.
39:41I was living in San Diego at the 100th anniversary.
39:44Me and my dad drove up to Azusa Street.
39:46And, you know, we were expecting something.
39:49And there was nothing going on.
39:51It was just a street in the ghetto still, like it is in most of L.A. right now.
39:58But, yeah, that's kind of how that four square stuff, at least in my life, that was the experience I
40:05had.
40:06So I'm curious, out of all of these different groups that you've came out of, I know people would ask
40:12why you came out of them.
40:13But I'm more curious to know how similar, what were the similarities that you found between all of these groups?
40:20Because when you leave one group and you go to another, usually it's because you have been persuaded in a
40:26spiritual leaning, I guess is the way I'll say it, a spiritual leaning toward a direction.
40:30So the direction led you from Word of Faith, Pentecostalism, into Vineyard, into Foursquare.
40:36What did you see similar between all of these groups?
40:39Yeah, I would say the similarities were kind of blended the lines where it never felt like I left a
40:47group and joined another group.
40:49I went from a Pentecostal church to a Foursquare church, from a Foursquare church to another Foursquare church.
40:57I moved around a lot, so I didn't sit at one church for too long.
41:02But all the churches I went to, you know, a lot of non-denominational churches too, the big blending lines
41:09were worship was a big emphasis, signs and wonders were a big emphasis.
41:13It's that emotional feeling, you know, very much chaotic in a sense.
41:21It's like the believing in all things but decency and order.
41:25We just didn't have the decency and order.
41:28Part of my curiosity comes from just studying all of the different groups and watching the migrations between them.
41:35And part of this started because I have friends who left the – there was a splinter group of Branhamism,
41:41and the first thing they headed for was Bethel Church.
41:44It's like you're stepping out of one fire into a bigger fire, you know, at that point.
41:50And we're not there yet, but we're going to get there.
41:53Cheno and I have been talking about the Hobart Freeman cult, which was also this weird spinoff of elements of
42:00Word of Faith, elements of prosperity, deep, charismatic, deliverance ministries.
42:05Well, whenever that – whenever he died, Hobart Freeman died, his cult didn't fully disband, but some of them went
42:13to IHOP KC because it was so similar.
42:16And so you've got this – I don't know, there's a network of doctrine that is so similar to what
42:23you leave that it's comfortable.
42:25And back to the Borg hive mind thing, whenever the Borg drones break off and they can't connect back to
42:31the main hive, they connect into something else that is similar and compatible, I think is the best way I
42:37would say it.
42:38And it isn't until – I don't know if you're a Star Trek fan, but it isn't until you take
42:42out all of that stuff out of their head that then they can start to integrate into reality.
42:48And so we've covered all kinds of sci-fi themes, but you get the picture.
42:52These groups are often like the bad guys in sci-fi.
42:56Yeah, definitely.
42:56I had to remove a lot of stuff and still doing it.
43:01But yeah, I remember when I officially came out, like say the red pill, when I woke up and started
43:08to have to relearn how to breathe, I was avoiding certain books of the Bible, certain scriptures, ones that were
43:20ingrained in my head.
43:21You know, 1 Peter 2.24, like don't even read Peter anymore.
43:26You know, I started going more Old Testament.
43:29Jeremiah 29.11 was another big one.
43:33And I could see other differences too, depending on like what church I went to.
43:39The Pentecostal movement, it wasn't so, you know, prosperity gospel.
43:45Low prosperity was involved because it's still believing you could, you know, call money down from heaven.
43:50But there was the emphasis more on the deliverance.
43:55Then going to another church, it was revival, right?
43:59Revival was a big thing, especially during the Brownsville revival.
44:03Everyone was trying to duct tape that revival to their church any way they could.
44:07And I think it's kind of funny when I think about revival and the emphasis on it today and with
44:18what's going on with like Bethel and like the Winger video and having family from Bethel that has responded, you
44:25know, to his video without watching it somehow.
44:28You know, they don't want to do that, right?
44:32They don't want to look at the evidence before they make the judgment.
44:35But they don't realize that Mike Winger has only just touched the tip of the iceberg.
44:40You know, the deep-rooted issues that come back that you know and go back 150 years and more is
44:49the real problem.
44:51And I kind of say, ironically, revival is going to happen when the whole charismatic movement kind of blows up
44:58and everybody realizes that most of this was a fraud.
45:04And, you know, people really, truly repent and realize we've sinned against the holy God and we need to get
45:12on our knees and repent.
45:14And that's really the sad part because so many elements of this was fiction, pure fiction.
45:21There's no way to even try to make it not seem fiction.
45:26But yet there were some people in it who were real.
45:29They really believed.
45:30They really were sincere.
45:31They really were doing what they thought they needed to do for God.
45:35And so they started teaching and people built doctrines on the fiction without even knowing it was fiction.
45:41And so now you've got this weird, difficult thing to do.
45:45I'm having to do it in my head where you're taking the doctrines and you're comparing it to the Bible
45:50and you're trying to say,
45:50okay, what parts of this matched and what parts were built on something that was fiction?
45:55Well, then you go back a layer and you realize, okay, well, that layer was fiction.
46:00So you rip it out.
46:01Well, now you find five other doctrines that was built on top of it.
46:05And so you've got this spaghetti mess in your head of things that you're trying to unravel.
46:09I've been doing it since 2012.
46:13And I feel like every day I feel like I'm just beginning.
46:16You know, there's so many things.
46:18I can't even imagine a decade from now, as this thing starts to topple even further,
46:24how many people are going to be going through the same thing I did and feel like their heads are
46:30scrambled.
46:30What does it feel like for you when you start to try to separate the truth from the fiction?
46:36Yeah, scrambling.
46:37That's a good word for it.
46:39One of the biggest things is definitely relief.
46:42I feel more grounded.
46:45I feel like now when I see the word or hear the word in context that it's like a piece
46:52in a sense.
46:53Like, oh, this is real spring water.
46:56This is fresh.
46:57This is what I need.
46:58But there's always these things in the back of my head, the what about this and what about that.
47:04I think it will always they'll always be there in some sense.
47:08I don't want to forget some of these things because I use them now as kind of walls to guard
47:14myself.
47:15But I also have to be careful, too, when I hear something that I'm not jumping to conclusions either.
47:20Or, you know, sometimes I hear somebody say something and it's just red flag after red flag.
47:26And, you know, I don't want to I don't want to do that either.
47:30Right.
47:30So it's definitely it's a battle.
47:32This is a constant.
47:33My brain is at war with itself and my history and past.
47:37And was this real?
47:38I'll remember something that happened.
47:40And then it's like, was that even real?
47:43Like, I don't even know anymore.
47:45So, yeah, definitely.
47:47So I asked earlier, what were the similarities?
47:49And I know people were going to be begging me to find out, well, what were the differences?
47:53What made you decide to leave that type of religion and go into the church you did?
47:59What what was the thing that I guess what was the thing that bothered you most?
48:04And how would you compare the church that you go to now to all of these others that you have
48:11left?
48:11The thing that bothered me the most was the lack of compassion dealing with my son and the inability to
48:20heal when that was such an emphasis, realizing that it wasn't true, really kind of coming from your research.
48:31And once my eyes kind of opened to this, then it's like, well, it's this whole thing was like a
48:38big scandal in a sense.
48:40And it's a scandal on top of another scandal.
48:42And that that really kind of made me mad and to leave it.
48:48And then I found a church that was very theologically sound.
48:54The pastor was a great teacher, just going through verse by verse through the Bible and explaining the Bible.
49:03It was less about what application, you know, a lot of services and, you know, sermon is how to how
49:12to apply this to your life.
49:14And it was less of that. And it was more of this is just what the Bible says.
49:18And I'm just going to explain what it says, what it means to you was really on you.
49:22But this is what it says. And this is what God meant when he said this or said that.
49:28And so finding that grounding, it was like a relief.
49:31I'm like, this is what I need. I need just solid biblical truth taught to me word for word, you
49:39know, through the scripture.
49:41Yeah, I think so many people would just feel refreshed if they were to get this.
49:45One of the things that I have seen that's similar among all of these in the networks is there is
49:50this idea that you should look backwards.
49:53Take things like God's generals. You're looking backwards to these.
49:57These are the heroes of the faith in Branhamism.
50:00We look back to Branham word of faith.
50:02You look back to Kenneth Hagen, T.L. Osborne, these kind of guys.
50:06Almost every movement, Vineyard, I have people with Vineyard who will just die on a hill for John Wimber.
50:13And, you know, he probably was a great guy.
50:16I'm not going to say he wasn't, but it's looking backwards.
50:19It's looking to what somebody else has done and their walk with Christ.
50:23When I started entering into churches that weren't part of this movement, there was none of that.
50:28You never look backwards to some ancient hero of the faith or some dead guy.
50:32It was always, what can you do when you leave this building to go be a better person to other
50:38people?
50:39And that was, for me, that was a mind-shifting, mind-altering, worldview-changing thing that happened to me.
50:48Because I no longer was looking backwards.
50:51In fact, I was examining my own heart how wrong I was not to want to help all of the
50:58other people who were not in part of our religion.
51:03And that was the shift that I think changed me the most.
51:08So I can relate to that a good bit.
51:11But focusing on yourself can also be taught destructively.
51:17And being in churches that were prosperity gospel-driven, it was always me, I, you know, how I could be
51:25better, what I could do.
51:27But it was from a lens of being like Christ.
51:30And I think that there's kind of a difference of being Christ-like and being like Christ.
51:35I can be Christ-like.
51:37I can be loving and kind and patient and helpful and really sharing the gospel, being compassionate and helping the
51:46world or helping my neighbors.
51:48You know, that's being Christ-like.
51:50But walking on water and healing the sick and raising the dead, that, you know, that might not be what
51:57I'm supposed to be doing.
51:59You know, and not to say that God doesn't still do those things, but to walk around every day acting
52:05like I can do this and use affirmations to empower myself to get there is pretty destructive.
52:14Yeah.
52:14I call it the literal sorcerer's type gospel.
52:17You think that you can do all of these.
52:19And it's like you said at the very beginning, you're basically stepping out of reality when you do this.
52:25It's a gospel that can't really remain grounded in reality for many people.
52:30What advice would you give people who are still in this type of religion?
52:35I'd say the biggest advice is to be okay with questioning.
52:40It's okay to question your pastor.
52:44You should be at a church where the pastor's okay with you questioning him.
52:48If your pastor's not okay with you questioning, then my advice is to run.
52:53But questioning, even yourself, what you understand of the word, look into it.
52:58We have good resources online, YouTube, even just Googling websites to really break down, you know, what verses say.
53:07And it's okay to look at what other sides of an argument are to really base a solid opinion and
53:16foundation.
53:17And God's not going to be mad at you for even questioning him.
53:21It's okay.
53:23He's a loving and merciful, gracious God.
53:27And, you know, really spending time in his word and building that relationship with him is really the most important
53:33thing.
53:34That's very good advice.
53:35Thank you so much for doing this.
53:36Thank you, John.
53:37I really appreciate everything that you and all the guys that are helping you out doing all this stuff.
53:43It's been a big blessing for my life.
53:45Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
53:49You can find us at william-brannum.org.
53:51For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to
53:57the NAR.
53:58Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:01Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:09Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:20Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:21Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:21Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:21Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:22Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:23Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:24Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:25Available on Amazon.
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