- 13 hours ago
John and Andrew explore the hidden history of Pentecostalism, the Independent Assemblies of God, the PAOC, Myrtle Beall, George Hawtin, and the New Order of the Latter Rain. Andrew shares how family history, church memory, prophecy, and Canadian Pentecostal roots led him to question what was inherited, what was biblical, and what may have quietly continued into modern charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation circles.
The discussion examines how movements build entire systems of belief from loaded phrases, prophecy stories, personal experience, and verses taken outside their original setting. From Azusa Street and early Pentecostal splits to Latter Rain influence in local churches, the conversation asks how Christians can separate genuine faith from inherited religious systems, historical gaps, and spiritual authority claims.
00:00 Introduction
01:38 Growing Up in the PAOC
02:42 Independent Assemblies of God Questions
04:40 Researching a Family Church History
06:31 The Problem of Conflicting Pentecostal Histories
09:05 PAOC History, Azusa Street, and Latter Rain
13:14 Pentecostal Origins and Revival Networks
17:15 Doctrine, Seymour, Durham, and Sanctification
21:29 Denominational Splits and Doctrinal Perfection
25:35 Myrtle Beall, Prophecy, and Latter Rain Influence
30:37 William Branham Historical Research Announcement
31:37 Loaded Language and Castles of Doctrine
36:25 Misused Scripture and Pentecostal Preaching
45:13 Scripture, Agendas, and Weaponized Religion
49:23 Family History, Free Methodists, and Myrtle Beall
52:29 Independent Assemblies of God and PAOC Tensions
54:14 Did Latter Rain Influence Really Die Out?
______________________
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
The discussion examines how movements build entire systems of belief from loaded phrases, prophecy stories, personal experience, and verses taken outside their original setting. From Azusa Street and early Pentecostal splits to Latter Rain influence in local churches, the conversation asks how Christians can separate genuine faith from inherited religious systems, historical gaps, and spiritual authority claims.
00:00 Introduction
01:38 Growing Up in the PAOC
02:42 Independent Assemblies of God Questions
04:40 Researching a Family Church History
06:31 The Problem of Conflicting Pentecostal Histories
09:05 PAOC History, Azusa Street, and Latter Rain
13:14 Pentecostal Origins and Revival Networks
17:15 Doctrine, Seymour, Durham, and Sanctification
21:29 Denominational Splits and Doctrinal Perfection
25:35 Myrtle Beall, Prophecy, and Latter Rain Influence
30:37 William Branham Historical Research Announcement
31:37 Loaded Language and Castles of Doctrine
36:25 Misused Scripture and Pentecostal Preaching
45:13 Scripture, Agendas, and Weaponized Religion
49:23 Family History, Free Methodists, and Myrtle Beall
52:29 Independent Assemblies of God and PAOC Tensions
54:14 Did Latter Rain Influence Really Die Out?
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have Andrew Martin, Occasional Pentecostal Lay Preacher.
00:47Andrew, it's good to have you on, and I love introducing you as Occasional Pentecostal
00:52Lay Preacher, because your sect of Pentecostalism is much different than mine.
00:56If you were an Occasional Minister, that was it, buddy.
01:00You were a minister in our sect, some of the people anyway.
01:04But anyway, it's good to have you on.
01:06As I was mentioning before we started recording, I really enjoy having people who have different
01:12opinions than me, because the more angles that you can get of people's perspective to look
01:18into this box that I've been examining, the better.
01:20And we're literally rewriting history the way it should be by talking to people who are
01:27opening up and sharing their stories.
01:29So, thank you for coming on.
01:30Maybe you could begin by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.
01:33Well, I have been in the Canadian PAOC, Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, my entire life.
01:44I grew up going to a rural community church called Mount Zion Pentecostal Church in Gilmore, Ontario,
01:56and was always fascinated by the move of the Spirit, is what we call it up here.
02:09The speaking in tongues, the prophetic words, all of that just drew me in right from a young
02:19age.
02:20And where the church I grew up in, kind of a special connection for me with, it was actually
02:28founded by my great aunt or great great aunt.
02:34And then there's some other history we might get a chance to get into, but that's my background
02:41and where I'm coming from.
02:44Awesome.
02:44Well, you had contacted me, and I'll let everybody know up front, this is a little bit different
02:49than some of the stories that we go through on the podcast.
02:53But you had contacted me asking several questions about the independent assemblies of God and gave
03:00some of the history, which I'll let you tell that part.
03:03But just to start off, it is such a crazy history that is, I'm trying to rewrite in the
03:10correct way because I have yet to find a history book that talks about it accurately.
03:14Even the whole history, as far back as you go with some of the Pentecostal trails, you can
03:19really tell which groups are respectable because they'll document, fully document their history.
03:25And then you can see some that I wouldn't call them not respectable, but there's a reason
03:29why they're not documenting their history.
03:32And some of the things that you find, it all comes back to this major split in the assemblies.
03:38One half went the independent assemblies of God, one half went the main trunk of the assemblies,
03:43and they split over latter rain.
03:45Now the funny part about this is, I have some Pentecostal friends who are actually helping
03:50me with the research.
03:51One of them took me to a church, and we went through the archives with the Pentecostal minister,
03:57and this church had documented everything.
03:59You could really tell that they really cared about their history, they preserved it, they
04:05had photographs of it, they had documentation, and it was like a treasure trove of information.
04:12Much of it aligned with my research, so I was able to get pieces that I wanted.
04:17And then I start working with some other groups, and their pieces are missing.
04:21And I'm like scratching my head, why is that?
04:24But anyway, that's how we met.
04:26You contacted me, and I do want to share your story so that you can tell it.
04:31That's your story.
04:32But I also want to, as we go, try to talk a little bit about this independent assemblies
04:37of God weirdness that exists in the history.
04:40Yeah, like I said, my connection was, it all kind of started for me when I just had this urge
04:49to know what the history was of where I grew up and behind the church because it's so closely
04:57tied to my family history.
04:59And I found that the more I looked into it and the more I started learning and discovering,
05:07the more questions I had.
05:10And it wasn't until this past year that I, I've been listening to the podcast for a while
05:18as well as some others, but it wasn't until this past year that I made that connection of
05:26the founding ministers of the church I grew up in were actually part of the independent
05:32assemblies of God for a time.
05:35And it wasn't until later on in the church history that they joined the PAOC.
05:42And I've heard and looked up some of the research for myself of the discrepancies that the assemblies
05:51of God had with the independent assemblies of God and what the PAOC's official stance
05:58was regarding the latter rain movement in the 40s and 50s and how there seemed to be a disconnect
06:08in my church's history of what was acceptable, what wasn't, and was just trying to fill in some
06:16of the pieces of the puzzle for myself and at the same time figure out, you know, what is actually
06:24true?
06:24Uh, how did my family pay a part in this and where do I go from here?
06:31Well, that makes sense.
06:32And that's a difficult journey.
06:34I will tell you, it is a difficult journey.
06:37Whenever I began this journey to find truth, it gets a little bit difficult because where do you find it?
06:44Where do you go whenever there's so many, so many different sets of documentation that disagree
06:51with each other?
06:51Which one's right?
06:53Which one's wrong?
06:53And that's part of the reason why I modeled the podcast the way that I did.
06:58I had somebody tell me early on, John, you need to bring some authority figures onto the podcast,
07:06people who have respectable knowledge in the history, theologians, et cetera, and almost did.
07:13In fact, I brought one guy on who I would say met that qualification.
07:17But the problem is the documentation doesn't really exist in the way that the history actually was written.
07:24And you can easily find this just by going through the newspapers and watching what happened versus how it's written
07:29that it happens.
07:30And I don't yet know why that is, why a group would want to do this, or many groups, I
07:35should say.
07:36But for me, the journey for the truth was literally, let's just all come together.
07:41Let's bring our heads together.
07:43Let's interview real people with real stories and see what they remember, what their stories are, and see how that
07:50matches the history.
07:51So that's kind of how all of this really began.
07:55And, you know, like I said, I've dug through quite a bit of different Pentecostal histories,
07:59and there seem to be some groups that I really, really enjoy working with because they will open up and
08:06share everything they know, right or wrong.
08:09And I respect that in a person or in an organization.
08:13Your history is your history, you know.
08:15And people, everybody makes mistakes.
08:18We learn from our mistakes, and we move on.
08:21And latter rain just happens to be one of the bigger mistakes, one of the things that just drove a
08:26wedge right down the middle of Pentecostalism.
08:29And what I have noticed, and this is the reason why I was really excited that you'd come on.
08:34What I've noticed is there are a lot of different Pentecostal groups that for a period of time, even if
08:40it was brief, they got in bed with this thing that was latter rain.
08:44But it created such a scar in their history that they said, nah, we're going to let that alone.
08:50We're going to walk away from that.
08:51But then they wiped their hands out of it like it never happened, which, you know, I can, to some
08:57extent, I can understand that.
08:58But it creates a problem when you start going through their histories and see this gap.
09:02What do you do with the gap, right?
09:04One thing that I started to look into was trying to get my hands on resources around what the history
09:16of the PAOC was here in Canada.
09:19And the main resource I've been able to find is this book.
09:24It's by Thomas Miller, the Canadian Pentecostals, history of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
09:32And going through that book and what he's had to say about the history of where the PAOC came from,
09:43how they formed, some of the changes that happened along the way.
09:48Well, it started out by supporting a lot of what people have heard on the podcast already, you know, going
09:55back to Dowie and Charles Parham.
10:00And I haven't read that, you know, was it the God's Generals book, but I've heard a lot of people
10:09talk about it.
10:10And I know people who have been connected with and been a part of Robert Slardin's ministries over the years.
10:20But something that just stuck out to me was how it just glosses over the errors that were a part
10:30of those different ministries.
10:33And Thomas Miller, even in his book here, says that Dowie fell into doctrinal errors, but his teachings and healing
10:44gained wide acceptance throughout North America.
10:47And then it goes on to talk about Charles Parham adopting Dowie and A.B. Simpson's teachings and how he
10:57was a key figure for William Joseph Seymour and the Azusa Street revivals.
11:03And for me growing up, that's where I was always pointed to was back to Azusa Street.
11:10The Pentecostals in Canada, what we're a part of, came from Azusa Street and Seymour was a pioneer in racially
11:22including people, whether you were white or black or Hispanic, you were all welcome there.
11:29And learning that, yes, there was an element of that, but there was a lot more behind it than that.
11:41And how he, you know, I've learned that as you go on the 1910s, I guess you would say, from
11:51Azusa Street up before the 20s, that whole revival, according to a lot of Canadian history on the topic, refers
12:03to that movement as Latter Rain, even before Branham.
12:08And when Branham had that, the healing revivals in the 40s and all that, that's what I've been taught is
12:21the new order of the Latter Rain.
12:24And they tried to make that distinction.
12:26And I found that interesting.
12:29I don't really know where to go with that, but it was an interesting note for me that there was
12:35already a distinction between Latter Rain and the new order of the Latter Rain.
12:40And then realizing the connections that my church had to that new order of the Latter Rain through Myrtle Beal.
12:50Well, she was in Detroit, but had gone to Saskatchewan in 48, I believe it was.
12:59And listen, it was part of George Houghton's ministry up there and what was going on with him.
13:07And finding out that there was a lot more behind even that split than I initially realized.
13:16It's funny you say that because I remember, as you're talking, I'm going through my mind of all of the
13:21trails of research that I was starting out with before I got deep into all of this.
13:26And I hit that same weird wall, right?
13:30New order of Latter Rain.
13:31That's exactly how the Assemblies of God framed it in their denunciation of the movement.
13:39And you're right, the early Pentecostals from 1907 also used the term.
13:43But if you go back in history, you find different groups that are claiming either that or something similar.
13:49And it's like this cycle that just repeats and repeats and repeats.
13:53This is the Latter Rain to the former Rain.
13:55And basically any group that gets their hands on the Book of Joel and tries to make Joel apply in
14:02a two-form part that is inclusive of the current era, whatever era that is, they're going to similarly use
14:10that Latter Rain phrase.
14:12Where it gets really odd, you mentioned the groups that go back to Azusa as their origins.
14:18What I have found out is the origin isn't so simple that you can draw a straight-line diagram like
14:24you would draw a flowchart.
14:26It's more like a splatter gun.
14:28If you take a paint gun and shoot a wall, it's like this weird mess.
14:33When I hit the point where you are, where it's Latter Rain and the new order of Latter Rain, well,
14:40then my mind exactly went where you went.
14:42I want to know, okay, Azusa Street, William Seymour, that's where most of the groups go back.
14:48They say, this is it.
14:49Some of them will exclude Parham completely, even though Seymour was working with Parham.
14:54So I wanted to go to Azusa Street.
14:56Okay, how did Seymour come to be?
14:59How was he there in the first place?
15:01And you really can't get him there without Parham.
15:03So you've got to go back to Charles Fox Parham.
15:05But along the journey there, you find that he's visiting all of these weird Pentecostal sects.
15:12And some of those Pentecostal sects, because of their relationship with Seymour, they came to join in eventually into the
15:20revival at Azusa Street.
15:21So you had this conglomeration, basically, of different Pentecostal sects.
15:26Some of them, I would say, were healthy.
15:29Some of them actually were extremists, if you look at some of them.
15:33And some of them were working with Parham, others were not.
15:38And there's a point in time where it gets really weird.
15:41Even Seymour, in his own, one of his letters he wrote to Parham, he said this, and I'm paraphrasing greatly,
15:47he said, this thing is getting out of control.
15:49We have so many weird people here.
15:51Can you come help me?
15:52And he's calling to Charles Fox Parham to come help.
15:54Well, by that point, most people had recognized him as the revival leader, and they did not want Parham for
16:02one reason or another.
16:03But you couldn't really say that it all goes back to Seymour because of the trail of history that Seymour
16:08has.
16:09And then if you look at the trails of all of the different people that he's connected to on his
16:13way, on his path to Azusa Street, many of which came to Azusa, well, they have the same similar type
16:20of trails of history.
16:21So where do you go with this?
16:22And for me, I looked at it differently.
16:26Rather than trying to go through a single person, what I was starting to understand is that people learn in
16:34the revival circuits pieces of doctrine.
16:38In other words, one preacher, he's in a revival circuit, and he's going around preaching, and he may have, I
16:42don't know, 10 churches in his circuit.
16:45Well, those people would pick up a doctrine, and they would have another circuit writer preacher that's going through the
16:50same or similar intersections, right?
16:53Well, he's bringing a doctrine, and what happened is you had these overlaps where doctrines were kind of flowing through
17:00the entire movement, and some of them would be two completely different Pentecostal sects, but have different revival preachers that
17:08are spreading doctrines between them.
17:10And so it's like this movement that's kind of developing instead of a movement that has an origin.
17:15I've noticed definitely that trend in what I've been looking up and researching.
17:21And again, I'm doing this not trying to come to any doctrinal position necessarily just to understand what actually happened,
17:36what was it that my background says was important and where we built off of from there.
17:47And is what I'm believing actually biblical, was it supported, or is it something that I've just grown up and
17:56been taught and taken it for granted because that's all I've known?
17:59And one thing was regarding even going back to, like I said, the connection to Seymour was all I've been
18:11taught in Azusa Street.
18:12And learning that kind of near the end of that, there was a guy by the name of Durham that
18:24he was starting to preach the finished work of Christ is what I've heard it called.
18:33And how that salvation was a complete work of the spirit changed the nature of the person converted.
18:41So a second work of grace was totally unnecessary.
18:45And that was contradicted or opposed by Seymour, who stated that the baptism of the Holy Spirit needed to come
18:57after salvation.
18:58And you weren't going to experience the fullness of what God would have for you if you didn't experience that
19:07baptism after your salvation.
19:09And finding out that the PAOC officially was against sanctification as a second distinctive work of grace and kind of
19:24viewed that it was an instantaneous reference to divine action progressive in how you lived your life after that first
19:35initial divine action.
19:37So not agreeing with Seymour, but not fully in agreement with Durham, trying to find that middle ground and just
19:47how that difference or that view is like, you know, how many times do we try to find that middle
19:55ground where we hear one person say something, we hear somebody else say a different thing and we want to
20:02be honoring God.
20:04We want to do right by our biblical instruction, but you're willing to compromise on certain aspects of it if
20:14it means bringing peace.
20:16And for me, trying to find out, is it a compromise that changes it completely from what it should be?
20:23Or is it a compromise that is just secondary and there's different ways of viewing it and it's okay to
20:32have those different understandings?
20:34That's a struggle that I've been wrestling with in this whole journey of where I come from, where I need
20:45to be going and understanding better.
20:51What does it mean, what does it mean not just to be Pentecostal, but what does it mean to be
20:58a follower of God, a believer in Christ as my Savior,
21:02and still be able to say, I believe that the Holy Spirit works and moves today, but not necessarily in
21:12the way that other people say that it happens with all the NAR stuff going on.
21:20And I definitely have a lot of issues and questions and things about that as well, but there's not time
21:27for that in one podcast.
21:29And there you've hit the other milestone that I remember clearly.
21:32See, there's this problem in history, in Christian religious history, I should say.
21:38What happens whenever a movement starts is you had some figure or group of figures who said,
21:44we don't like what they've been teaching us in one specific area or another.
21:49And so they split off and they create the group that we're not the ones who likes that one doctrine.
21:54And then that group grows and develops until somebody says, well, I don't like your other doctrine.
22:00And then that splits off.
22:01And then another group comes and in the end, you have the spider web of splits.
22:05And that's why there's not just simply Catholic and Protestant.
22:10You have all of these different flavors of Catholics and flavors of Protestants, right?
22:15But I hit the same roadblock because we were mentally taught that you had to have every doctrine right.
22:22Otherwise, you're not perfect.
22:24And the Bible says, be therefore perfect.
22:26And there are different phrases that our preachers would preach into our heads saying that you had to have basically
22:34a religion where if you don't achieve perfection,
22:37you're not going to make it to heaven.
22:38That's kind of what we were taught.
22:39But what I've come to understand is people get their own ideas and they try to wedge it into an
22:47all or nothing box and then put people in that box.
22:51And this is one of those examples that's kind of funny to me.
22:54When I took a step back and I thought about it, you're talking about the sanctification, the salvation.
22:59This was a big issue for Pentecostals.
23:01It's not so much a big issue for me anymore, but it was at one point.
23:06I got to thinking about it and some guy says, okay, the moment I was saved, that moment I was
23:13cleansed, I was free, I never had any struggles again.
23:16And he went off and formed another group.
23:18One guy says, well, it wasn't like that for me.
23:20When I was saved, I was cleansed, God forgave me, but I still had some struggles, buddy.
23:26And they went off into another group.
23:27That's kind of what's happening here, right?
23:30And one group calls the other one wrong and the other group calls the other one wrong.
23:34Who's to say God doesn't do it that way for both of the groups, right?
23:38Each person is individual.
23:40What the group's doctrines – the doctrinal position of the groups kind of eliminates the means in which God can
23:50work separately for one person
23:51and work on them individually in one way while working on another person or another group another way.
23:58And when it comes down to a doctrinal line in the sand, that's problematic for me.
24:03That's why I don't usually pick one side or the other on these kinds of things.
24:07But the early Pentecostals did.
24:09And there are many – I was going through the history of the different people connected to William Seymour when
24:15I began this.
24:16And there are probably – I don't know how many, a hundred names that I probably should have in my
24:21website and don't like Bill Durham.
24:23These people are significant in swaying and molding what became Pentecostalism or contemporaries who kind of either pushed it one
24:34direction or another
24:35or created groups that were in opposition to them.
24:39So they are important, significant figures.
24:41But there comes a point when you've got this large population of people with different ideas.
24:47How do you document everybody?
24:49And so the moment that that thought hit me, I realized I'm not going to get it all right.
24:55I'm not going to have a perfect understanding of any of this.
25:00And I just simply want to live my life the best way that I can and not try to think
25:05about which person's doctrines are right or wrong.
25:08There are specific doctrines in the Bible that if you're a Christian, you must believe them.
25:14If you're a Christian, you have to.
25:16The basic precepts of Christianity.
25:19But there are other doctrines that if they were as significant as a salvation issue, I'm certain the Bible would
25:25have said,
25:26this is significant enough to be a salvation issue.
25:28You must do this.
25:30And some of the doctrines like this, they just simply – it doesn't exist.
25:34And that is definitely a perspective I've tried to adopt more for myself over the last few years.
25:43I appreciate that.
25:45One thing I wanted to mention, again, going back to this connection that I have to the independent assemblies of
25:55God
25:55and the New Order of the Latter Rain was that I found the connection I have.
26:05The founding pastors were, according to the little booklet that my church made when I was a teenager,
26:14the ministers went and received a prophecy from Myrtle Beal in Detroit,
26:22who was very heavily involved in the Latter Rain movement of that time, the end of the 40s.
26:31And they received a prophecy that they would have an outpouring and that God would give them workers in the
26:44rain to raise up when they went home.
26:48And I can see in one aspect how that was fulfilled and it happened in my area.
26:59But then in another aspect, it's was it the fulfillment of prophecy or was it so vague that it could
27:08have happened with anybody at any time
27:10and we just call it a fulfillment of prophecy because that's what we want to think of it as.
27:18And even with that, the connections, because I'm Canadian and how the Latter Rain got started in Saskatchewan with all
27:30that history,
27:33I just found it interesting how the Bible school that George Houghton was a part of,
27:40was actually independent from the Pentecostal assemblies at the time.
27:45It was its own thing, but the Pentecostals would often draw from the graduates to bring them in as ministers
27:54and send them out as evangelists and preachers.
28:00And when the Latter Rain focus started coming through in the preaching and what was being taught,
28:11they tried to separate.
28:14And that's when things like the Share and Orphanage got started.
28:20But they also had, I didn't realize it was more, they had the Bible school,
28:25they had the orphanage, they had high schools, they even had a technical institute.
28:31It was pervasive in almost what seems to me like, and it could be me reading into it,
28:40but it could be like without saying that directly that kind of seven mountain mandate of let's get this
28:49into as many aspects of things as we can so that we can have as big of influence as we
28:55can.
28:56And that's what Myrtle Beal went up and was a part of and received.
29:01And that's what my relatives went to Detroit and got from Myrtle Beal and brought back home to Ontario.
29:12And even how all of that came about and what happened afterwards in the community with some of the guys,
29:22I can see the, and I've known the gentlemen who were a part of that.
29:29A lot of them passed on now, but I grew up with them being there, even my own family members.
29:35And yes, their lives were changed.
29:38Yes, I can see the desire they had to do the work of God, to minister, to evangelize.
29:48And then at the same time, trying to figure out like, but if what was being taught was an overemphasis
29:59on the spiritual gifts,
30:01and if that Louder Rain movement was considered heretical because of that desire for the gifts more than,
30:14and elevating that more than what the Bible actually says or teaches on the topic or the position that it
30:22holds,
30:22then is the connection that I have biblically based or was it heretical?
30:33And is there a way to come back and reconcile that?
30:38Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism
30:44transitioned through the latter rain, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
30:51You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
30:59On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley,
31:05Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
31:13You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
31:19If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
31:25top.
31:26And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
31:32watching.
31:32On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
31:38It's so interesting hearing you talk about your journey because I'm literally, I'm going through my mind of all the
31:44milestones that I went through.
31:45And it's a thought process to come out of something like this.
31:49I had to really go deep and it's not just superficial things that I had to think about.
31:54I had to think about the very foundation.
31:56One of the things is exactly what you said, but I'm going to rephrase it a different way.
32:01I think the listeners might connect with it a little bit better.
32:06In the movement that I came out of, we had certain passages or phrases from the Bible text that we
32:14had fully loaded as language so that if you were preaching and you mentioned that phrase,
32:20you didn't have to mention the entire volumes of doctrines that were built on top of it.
32:25So you'd be preaching, here's a phrase, if you're a part of the body, you understood it.
32:30One of the phrases is Malachi 4.
32:32They would preach, preach, preach, Malachi 4, and everybody knows exactly all of the stuff that's built on top of
32:37that.
32:38It's like a whole castle of doctrine.
32:40If you were a newcomer who just sat in the church, you might hear it and you might open it
32:47up.
32:47Oh, Malachi 4, yeah, I don't really know how that connects to what he's saying, but okay.
32:52They would be a little bit confused, right?
32:55Where it got odd was I started thinking about the emphasis that they put on those phrases.
33:01Because they had built castles of doctrine on top of a single phrase to the group, it was significantly important.
33:08In fact, I know people who have left the group or are on their way out who still use some
33:14of those loaded language phrases in their speeches whenever they preach.
33:19Because to them, it's significantly important.
33:22And I had to suddenly come to the realization that many of those passages, while, yes, they're important because they're
33:29in the text,
33:30they weren't castles of doctrine in the text itself.
33:35You really had to add to the text to make your castle of doctrine.
33:38So I started reading the Bible over and over for myself, just cover to cover, book to book, chapter to
33:44chapter,
33:45straight through and read it for what it said so that I could read, okay, what was – this was
33:52an author who wrote a book or a letter.
33:53What were they trying to convey to me?
33:56And I read it, and all of the castles of doctrine just disappear.
34:01I had to stop and think through that.
34:04Some of them were probably important because that was how we related our movement to Scripture.
34:10But in the end, the author really didn't say those castles of doctrine.
34:14You had to combine books.
34:17And I heard one speaker, he was talking about some of the errors that people make whenever they're doing theology.
34:24Reading a book through another book and trying to convey both books to the listener makes a new book.
34:32It's not the two books.
34:33The two books individually, if you require both of them to make a statement, you're saying something that is in
34:40neither book but are in a combination,
34:42and you're creating a new book.
34:43And I thought about that for a while, and I thought, but wait a minute.
34:46We had doctrines that really required both books, and in some cases, it's legitimate.
34:53I go to the letters of Paul.
34:55Some things that he says, you do need both letters, and it is significant.
35:00But then add the complexity of the castles of doctrine.
35:04There's no way that you can build a castle of doctrine on a single verse and make it legitimate without
35:09creating a new book.
35:10And so that's what people did.
35:12They started writing books of theology that explained their doctrines by taking verses here and there and everywhere.
35:20So in my journey, this is where I went, and this is far beyond what anybody will probably do.
35:25I started looking at the different denominations, how they did doctrine.
35:28And I came to understand there's a wide variety of ways in which they do it, but the Pentecostal versions
35:36of theology, if you look at their doctrines, usually it is, at least in the ones that I studied, usually
35:43it is different verses from different books to combine to make a theology rather than reading expository reading,
35:54where you're going just, here's what the author meant, here's what he intended, here's another
35:58book that has a similar meaning, a similar statement, and their intentions were the same.
36:03So you had one group that's building doctrines and one group that is expressing the written
36:09thought as it was written.
36:11And that was hard for me to understand, but once I got through that, it helped me to better understand
36:17why people disagree with each other so much, why this group of people can't really fellowship
36:23with this other group of people.
36:24I've definitely experienced that and heard that kind of style, I guess, preach from the pulpit
36:34over my entire lifetime of let's front load the sermon, if you want to call it that, with a bunch
36:44of stories
36:45and personal experiences and testimonies reference without, sometimes they'll open the Bible up and read different
36:54verses or passages, but most of the time it is just referenced as in, if you know the Bible, then
37:01you'll get where I'm
37:02coming from, you'll understand where I'm going with this kind of attitude.
37:07And then drawing a conclusion that when I go back and look at the actual passages, and sometimes I'm, most
37:16of the
37:16time I'm just having to do a bit of research myself, like, okay, this is the passage or verse where
37:22they were
37:22trying to draw from, and then realizing, you know, they took something out of context there, they used what you
37:33said,
37:33that loaded language, where they just expect people to follow along and agree with what's being said without actually
37:42looking into it for themselves. And for me, the one thing was always, it wasn't even explicit, explicitly said, but
37:54it was
37:54always conveyed of touch not the Lord's anointed. And, you know, and another way, the older guys would even say
38:06the wages of sin is death, but convey it as with stories and examples of, you know, somebody was a
38:16godly
38:17person, and somebody else came against them. And when that person came against them, it was a spiritual
38:23attack. And in extreme situations, that person who came against them, either died or experienced the
38:33malady of their own. And even, like I said, for me, it's, it's a lot of family connections. Like,
38:41my great uncle was considered one of the, I don't know if he would be considered an apostle, but
38:51he was definitely important to the congregation and to what we considered the, the move of God in the
39:00area. And, and he would say stuff like that. And even hearing one of his testimonies, where he would
39:12be telling about how he got started out on some of his ministry and when his daughters, so my cousins
39:22were little girls, a generation older than me, he went to the States to minister. And
39:30he knew that it was appointed by God, because where two or three witnesses gather together, there I am in
39:38the midst of them. And he gave the example of two or three people in the service at home, telling
39:47him,
39:47you're gonna go somewhere, you're gonna be away for a while, but you'll come back, and it's gonna use
39:54you and move in, in your life. And, and then that's the verse that he gave. And when I went
39:59back, and it
40:00was from Matthew 18, when I went back and looked at that, like, that verse isn't about going out and
40:06starting a ministry. It's not about two or three people affirming what is prophesied about you. It's
40:15about resolving conflict with people. And where two or three are gathered, there I am, because God is
40:23there in the midst of bringing that healing about from the conflict that happened. And then, you know,
40:30even talking with some others about that kind of idea, the, they bring up, well, okay, yeah, he might have
40:40used that out of context. But, you know, there, there is that part of, you know, God is there in,
40:48in the midst of believers when they gather and forsake not the assembling of saints. And it just
40:56makes me think, yes, I'm not saying that God isn't there, but how you're using that scripture and how
41:04you're trying to use the Bible to support the message you're trying to say, that's not what
41:10was, at least when I read it, that's not what I see as being intended from that passage. And how
41:18can you just boost that and that I can use whatever verse I want, however I want, because it supports
41:29what I want it to say, instead of going back and looking at what's the context, what was said,
41:38who was it written to? Why was it written to them? And then finding a way, now how can this
41:45be
41:45applicable to my life? And when I've written sermons or preached sermons, I have often told
41:53the congregation, like, you know, I'm, I want to take this in context, like, this is the verse I'm
41:58focusing on, but let's read this wider passage. And then I guess you could say more expository,
42:05because we, we look at it in that way. And then I try to walk through, this is what is
42:12actually being
42:13said, this is who it was said to. And that connection of applying the biblical passage to my life,
42:23it, it's not always a direct connection. Like, I can't just plug myself into the Bible passage and
42:31say, okay, I'm this character, or you're this character, this, this is the situation. Like,
42:37I'm not David. And I don't know how many times it was prophesied over me as a kid that you're
42:45a
42:45David, you're going to go out, you're going to be a leader, you're going to influence, you're going to
42:51overcome giants in your life. And, but I'm not David. And there's a lot of stuff in David's life
43:03that I really would hope wouldn't be a part of my life and the mistakes that he did make. And,
43:10you know, in looking at that, like, I, I recognize that you're trying to be positive, you're trying to
43:16be encouraging to me. But looking back on it now as an adult, is doing that an appropriate and a
43:30proper way of looking at scripture and using scripture or not? And honestly, I'm, we started
43:41out like I'm a occasional lay preacher in the Pentecostal church around where I am. I would
43:49probably get in trouble and they probably wouldn't ordain me if I actually tried to get my credentials
43:56with the PAOC because of this way of thinking that I want to take things in context and I want
44:03it to be
44:03accurate and true to what the Bible says. To the point where there's example, we're running out of time
44:13here, but there's examples I could give of different ministers that are considered giants or generals in
44:25the faith in the faith in this area. And some of them I've heard preaching at my local church's camp
44:33in my entire life. And they have global, all kind global ministries, at least national ministries
44:43throughout Canada, and are considered really important. But they're the ones that are doing this,
44:50that are just using verses out of context and assume that people are just either not going to
44:58question them, not going to look at what the context actually is, or just assume that because
45:04it's my testimony, because it's my experience, you can't argue with it. And I'm not trying to be
45:10argumentative with you. I just want to know what's true.
45:14You probably saw me smiling as you were talking, because again, you hit one of those milestones.
45:18For me, the bigger milestone, probably the biggest milestone that hit me, as I mentioned, we had
45:25castles of doctrine. And I'm using that word specifically castles, because you're building kingdoms
45:30and you're putting kings in their domains, right? We had castles of doctrines that were built on top
45:37of a single phrase or passage of scripture. But sometimes those passages of scripture didn't mean
45:43what they were trying to say that it did. And those castles would not exist if they knew what it
45:48actually meant. When that hit me, I remember I laughed so hard. I was like, you got to be
45:54kidding me. That's whenever I learned that the Bible is actually filled with different genres.
45:59You've got, you know, the Psalms, you have an array of genres just in the Psalms themselves,
46:04but you have books of the law, you have books of history, the kings, you have all of these
46:10different letters, you have letters to specific people, letter to groups of people.
46:13Then within the letters that Paul wrote, in some of the statements, you have different
46:19genres of statements within each letter. And yet we would try to apply something so significantly
46:26religious to a single phrase that you would build a castle of doctrine off of it and not
46:32understanding what it meant, you're actually doing in many cases what Paul was preaching
46:37against, which is kind of odd when you think about it.
46:39And the thought that hit me that really struck me funny as I was going through that journey,
46:44I thought, what if we did the same thing to every verse? One example is, what is 1 Timothy? He
46:51talks
46:51about drinking a little bit of wine with your water for the sake of your stomach. What if you
46:56built a castle of doctrine on this? Every time that you drink water, my brother, you must also mix it
47:00with wine and then build doctrines on top of that. What would you end up with? You'd end up with
47:05chaos,
47:06man. But we did that exact thing with other verses. So they picked and chose which verses
47:13we used as loaded language. And here's the key. They chose the ones that fit their agendas,
47:21because nobody had the agenda of drinking water with their wine every time. You don't want to water
47:26down your wine, it would be disgusting. So they picked a different verse that fit their agenda,
47:31and we're going to build a castle of doctrine on top of that one. In doing that, again, you're
47:37building a different book, you're building a different, you know, theme that doesn't even
47:41match what the original authors wrote. But worse, you're trying to combine Christianity with agendas.
47:49And in some cases, those agendas were political. So you had Christianity with political agenda.
47:54And that's where it got a little bit scary. And that's what led me down the path of weaponized
48:00religion research that I did. You can literally make the Bible, you can turn it into a weapon,
48:05and it's just as dangerous as a gun holding in your hand. And you've heard the phrase,
48:10it's not the gun that kills people, it's the guy holding it. What's the same way with the Bible?
48:14It's not the Bible that kills people, it's the guy that's holding it.
48:16So once I realized all of that, no matter what church I went to, even after leaving the group
48:23that we left, whatever was said, I would critically think about it. Does it match? Does it match the
48:31genre? And every sermon becomes an analytical exercise when you do this. It's very frustrating
48:39at first, but after you do it a while, you actually better understand what the speaker is saying because
48:44you're critically thinking about what he's saying and not to find fault with him. You know, there are
48:49people who have all kinds of different ideas, but to critically think and understand, A, is what
48:54he's saying correct? Does he know what he's talking about? But B, do I understand what he's talking
48:58about? All of that exercise makes you a better person because now you have a deeper understanding
49:05versus when we were in the group, we just took everything at face value. You had the big leaders
49:11who came out, like you're saying, somebody who's highly respectable, we're going to trust
49:15them and shut off our minds. Well, the problem is some of them weren't trustworthy.
49:20Again, that's where I'm going through this history of my family and the church I grew up in.
49:29We kind of started the conversation identifying the connection with the independent assemblies of
49:36God. You know, the ministers that founded the church I grew up in, who went to Myrtle Beal,
49:45they were free Methodist. And actually, the church in the community wasn't started necessarily by them,
49:54but it was my grandmother's mother. So, my great-grandmother, who was also free Methodist,
50:02was preaching at the time in the area and brought in her sister to preach because she wasn't satisfied
50:12with the ministers that were coming. So, there's that aspect of it. And then after her sister went to
50:23Detroit and had prophecy from Myrtle Beal and came back, then they started her own thing. And
50:30the history that I've heard presented to me over the years is this was phenomenal. This was just
50:38revival. It was a move of God that came and swept through the area and people all over the area
50:48were
50:48just touched in and had their lives changed. And, you know, my mother was five at the time. Her
50:56grandmother was this person in the Free Methodist movement preaching who asked her sister, so my
51:05mother's aunt, her great aunt, to come. And hearing the differences that even between the sisters that
51:14they ended up having after the one came back from Detroit and experiencing that latter rain movement,
51:22uh, hearing the, the differences that they had about different times, like that's something that
51:29I've never been made aware of before. It's something that you don't, it doesn't get shared because it
51:35doesn't fit the story of what we want people to know. And then, you know, one of the, I mentioned
51:45a
51:45lot of respected ministers in this area. One of them who's come to the camp that the churches that I
51:51grew
51:52up in was built off of, even last summer, he said in one of his talks there that, uh, when
52:00Violet and Bill
52:01went to Detroit, they received the latter rain and he acknowledged, he said, yes, there was a lot of
52:08stuff that wasn't good, but they just brought back the good. And that's kind of how it's looked at is,
52:16you know, we'll, I, uh, a lot of people have heard the saying that we'll, uh, put it in, we'll
52:25eat the
52:26meat and spit out the bones. Yeah. And that's kind of how it's approached. And for me, the,
52:35there's a lot more to it than that. And if, when they came back, they joined the independent
52:42assemblies of God and they came back from Detroit, they joined the independent assemblies of God,
52:47because what they experienced, what they were preaching wasn't in line with the, what the free
52:55Methodist believed or were preaching. And there was a bit of a falling out between the sisters there
53:01in my family and the ministers. And they joined the independent assemblies of God because they were a
53:08group or an organization that supported this. And later on, I don't know how many years later,
53:16because it's, it's not been clearly documented for me, but they went to the district office and joined
53:26the Pentecostal assemblies of Canada who formally denounced the latter rain movement and had a falling
53:34out with the independent assemblies of God. But even though they joined the PAOC, they didn't stop
53:40preaching this. They didn't stop how the ministry unfolded and took place and what was encouraged.
53:48And, you know, again, going back to this book by Thomas Miller that I read on the history of
53:55Canadian Pentecostalism, one of the things he says is that the latter died out. The organizations,
54:04the different things connected with them just kind of petered out or fizzled out. And that's how they
54:12knew it wasn't of God. And like, but it didn't do that. Like maybe officially stuff like George
54:19Houghton's school shut down or the Technical Institute might have shut down. But that idea of
54:28how the spirit moves, the focus on what they emphasized, that was still pervasive in where I
54:36grew up, the congregation I grew up in, and a lot more. And I, I can look at different people
54:43now
54:45that are still part of the PAOC. I can look at how there's some that have left the PAOC to
54:52be independent,
54:53uh, non-denominational churches, but they still emphasize this type of thing and how it is tying
55:02into what's become this NAR movement. And I've tried to talk to some, um, ministers older than
55:12myself that I grew up in respect and some just completely blow it off. Like you're asking too many
55:20questions. Don't think about it. There's the, the pastor where I am right now actually says like,
55:30you know, those are a lot of good questions, but without having the answers, because it's probably
55:35something that he hasn't thought a whole lot about himself until this point of me asking him.
55:39Yeah. But, uh, just that idea of is, is there evidence of heresy that was taught back then that
55:49has continued on that we need to eradicate? Or is it just the difference of opinion that I can live
55:59with and just recognize this is a different way of thinking about something? And like you said,
56:06the solid lines are sometimes drawn. And for me, I'm not trying to draw a solid line. I'm just trying
56:14to figure out what's true and honor God in the way that I live my life and how I teach
56:19my kids
56:21and want to do right by God and how the Bible tells me to live.
56:25Well, it's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this. Like I said, when you contacted me,
56:30you had so many pieces of the puzzle that it's a different perspective looking into the same box I'm
56:35looking in. So very glad that you came on and I'll probably do this again with you if you're up
56:39for
56:39it. Thank you so much for doing this. All right. Thank you. Definitely be glad to be back.
56:44Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story,
56:47you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-branum.org. For more about the
56:52dark
56:52side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion,
56:55from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
57:16www.available on Amazon's website.com
57:17www.available-off.com
57:17www.availablego.com
57:21www www.available.com