- 10 hours ago
John and Anita discuss life inside the UPCI, the culture of holiness standards, family dynasties, religious performance, shunning, and the painful process of leaving a high-control church environment. Anita shares how her upbringing in Oneness Pentecostalism, her years around Word of Faith television ministry, and her daughter’s experience forced her to reexamine grace, the gospel, and the difference between outward conformity and genuine love.
The conversation explores UPCI modesty rules, television bans, hair standards, class systems around ministry families, the emotional cost of being excluded, and the healing that can begin when people find sound teaching and a loving church community. For anyone processing Pentecostal legalism, spiritual control, or the fear that comes after leaving, Anita’s story offers honesty, perspective, and hope.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Anita’s Life Inside the UPCI
06:08 Growing Up With Holiness Standards
14:58 Learning to Hide What the Rules Forbade
18:16 From the UPCI to Word of Faith Television
23:05 How Pentecostal and Word of Faith Traditions Intersect
30:07 Family Dynasties, Privilege, and Religious Celebrity
38:01 Doctrine, Loaded Language, and Questioning What You Were Taught
42:16 Shunning and the Cost of Leaving
51:50 Anita’s Advice for Rebuilding Faith After Leaving
______________________
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 conversation explores UPCI modesty rules, television bans, hair standards, class systems around ministry families, the emotional cost of being excluded, and the healing that can begin when people find sound teaching and a loving church community. For anyone processing Pentecostal legalism, spiritual control, or the fear that comes after leaving, Anita’s story offers honesty, perspective, and hope.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Anita’s Life Inside the UPCI
06:08 Growing Up With Holiness Standards
14:58 Learning to Hide What the Rules Forbade
18:16 From the UPCI to Word of Faith Television
23:05 How Pentecostal and Word of Faith Traditions Intersect
30:07 Family Dynasties, Privilege, and Religious Celebrity
38:01 Doctrine, Loaded Language, and Questioning What You Were Taught
42:16 Shunning and the Cost of Leaving
51:50 Anita’s Advice for Rebuilding Faith After Leaving
______________________
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
00:00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at william-branham.org.
00:00:42And with me, I have Anita Wade, former member of the UPCI.
00:00:46Anita, it's good to have you on and to share your story.
00:00:50I was reading through your email again today.
00:00:52I've actually read through it a few times.
00:00:53You sent me so many things to talk about.
00:00:56I don't even know that we can fit this in one podcast.
00:01:00But you have such an interesting story.
00:01:02I want to get into that.
00:01:04But first, if you could just tell everybody a little bit about yourself.
00:01:07Well, I was raised in Minnesota in the UPCI.
00:01:10I was born into it.
00:01:11My mom was a bus kid from Wisconsin, and she went to ABI to go to school and met my
00:01:16dad.
00:01:17He was second generation.
00:01:19And I was thinking last night, I don't remember exactly how my grandparents got in the UPCI, but they did.
00:01:25And so he was mentored by Robert Sabin.
00:01:28And of course, we went to ABI, which was started by S.G. Norris.
00:01:32I don't know if you know who they are, but that's where I spent the first 16 years of my
00:01:36life.
00:01:37And then my dad was a polio survivor.
00:01:39And so we moved to Arkansas to get out of the snow and to put me into a UPCACE Christian
00:01:46school from a public, large public school from the Twin Cities.
00:01:50So that was kind of a culture shock.
00:01:53And while I left there and went to school in Little Rock where I met my husband, and I started
00:02:00working in television and worked for four years in a Word of Faith church that had a television station.
00:02:09It was a statewide regional network for Word of Faith people.
00:02:17And then I did that for four years, and I left to have my child.
00:02:22We had in vitro.
00:02:24I spent six years at home with her.
00:02:26In that time, we moved to Kansas City to attend a church, a UPC church here.
00:02:32Kind of a long story how all that happened.
00:02:35And about three years ago, we had a really traumatic incident happen, and it opened my eyes to so many
00:02:45things.
00:02:45And I started getting on podcasts and listening to people that had stories similar to mine.
00:02:50And I met a man who, via online, I connected with a young man that had been in the UPC
00:02:57and had gotten out.
00:02:59And I contacted him.
00:03:00We talked for a day, and we ended up, long story short, we ended up going to the church that
00:03:04he was going to.
00:03:06It's a great church.
00:03:08It is a denominational church, but I honestly want nothing to do with the denomination anymore.
00:03:13I can relate.
00:03:14We went to several different denominational churches, and I'm not going to mention the names of them because I don't
00:03:20want to sway people in their journey.
00:03:22But I was of the same mindset.
00:03:23I was going to go to a church that wasn't non-denominational.
00:03:28That was my one criteria.
00:03:29I want to go to something that's not like what I went to before because it was so messed up
00:03:34what I went to before.
00:03:35And so we tried out different ones, and I was of the same mindset.
00:03:39I did not want to devote my life to something that I didn't yet understand, and I wanted to learn
00:03:46more about it.
00:03:47And the more I learned about it, it's, you know, I'm looking at it now in hindsight.
00:03:53I could probably spin off podcasts about each denomination because I was just so curious.
00:03:58I want to learn, well, why does this exist?
00:04:00Why does this other denomination exist?
00:04:02And what you find is if you follow the trails of history all the way back, you find that they
00:04:08all seem to merge in one way, shape, or form.
00:04:11But there is a limited number of splits for the major denominations and an explosive number of splits for the
00:04:20Pentecostal denominations.
00:04:21And I wanted to understand that, and that's really, you know, that's how it evolved my website into what it
00:04:26is today.
00:04:28A lot of that history, believe it or not, goes back to the early creation of the UPCI.
00:04:34And William Branham, though he was not a UPCI minister, it looks very much like he was working with people
00:04:41who were forming what would become the UPCI with the intention of joining into it.
00:04:46And for whatever reason, it never happened.
00:04:49But that history, for me, is just fascinating because all of these different streams of Pentecostal, word of faith, charismatics,
00:04:57all of these things just come together into one big ball of spaghetti.
00:05:01Yeah, I mean, I knew that, you know, the AG and the UPCI had split at one point.
00:05:06And, of course, I knew about the ALJC and the PAW and all of that.
00:05:11I knew Branham was part of what started the UPCI, but they pretty much start their history with Charles Fox
00:05:19Parnham, William Seymour, G.T. Haywood.
00:05:23You know, even in listening to your podcast, you know, you talked about Hoekstra and starting Calvary Tabernacle, which was
00:05:29done by the Urshans.
00:05:30And, you know, so that's a pretty popular church in the UPCI, and I've actually been in that church.
00:05:38So, you know, to me, it was really interesting, but then also have been in word of faith and to
00:05:43hear those same names.
00:05:45But then, you know, you don't hear the Amy Simple McPherson, and you don't hear the Catherine Kuhlman, and you
00:05:52don't hear the, I wrote some of them down, Kidson.
00:05:56You don't hear a lot of those, but yet, same thing in UPC, you don't hear those, but in the
00:06:00Word of Faith, you don't hear about Parnham and Seymour and Haywood and Goss as much.
00:06:04So, anyway, not to go down a rabbit trail, but that's been very interesting to watch your podcast.
00:06:10But I started watching them just basically because I didn't know what to do.
00:06:13Of course, I was raised in the UPC, and we were told that we were the only ones going to
00:06:18heaven, that we had the truth, and that anybody else was, you know, needed to be saved.
00:06:24And, in fact, my husband, when we met, was a Baptist, and he had to be re-baptized before we
00:06:31got married and, you know, all that.
00:06:33And so, it's just, it's been an eye-opening thing for me.
00:06:37And I think my parents weren't real strict on the standards growing up, but they were in some instance.
00:06:46Like, if we were on vacation, we could wear a swimsuit.
00:06:48Or, because it was Minnesota, if we were skiing or sledding, we could wear snow pants.
00:06:52But if we were with the church, we had to wear a skirt over the top of them.
00:06:55So, it was kind of like, I learned really early on kind of the hypocritical side of things.
00:07:01But being raised in a Bible school, you know, you get everything.
00:07:06And my parents, my dad was actually baptized by Robert Sabin, and he was his youth pastor.
00:07:12And he started, you know, going down this Trinitarian road where he was debating everybody.
00:07:19There was one, I don't remember the guy's name.
00:07:22My memory's getting really bad.
00:07:24But my dad started noticing that we were going down a rabbit trail and that it was not good and
00:07:29that something bad was going to happen.
00:07:30And so, he was deteriorating physically from walking on crutches since he was four.
00:07:35And so, he wanted to find a place that was warmer weather.
00:07:39And we ended up going to a church in Fort Smith that was mainly done by Pastor Lumpkin, James Lumpkin,
00:07:46which I absolutely adore.
00:07:47Salt of the Earth, man.
00:07:48I mean, if the UPC had stayed in that vein, I think we would have been better off, honestly.
00:07:54And that's where we had the ACE school.
00:07:55And I learned really quickly in the ACE school that if I abided by the rules and was a goody
00:08:02-goody-two-shoes, that they were going to leave me alone.
00:08:05And so, I did all of that.
00:08:09While I was there, I started working in the mall, and there was a man that I was talking to
00:08:13that was a Trinitarian.
00:08:14And we used to just spend hours and hours and hours talking about oneness and Trinity.
00:08:20And so, then I left to go to school in Little Rock, and I started hanging out with people in
00:08:28bars and having friends that were outside of the UPC.
00:08:32And so, that's where I really learned to trim my hair and wear makeup during the week and when I
00:08:36went out at night.
00:08:37And then I could put my hair up and go to church on Sunday.
00:08:41And that particular church in Little Rock, we were considered the liberal, you know, UPC liberal church.
00:08:48And so, we never had any issues with us.
00:08:53You know, a minimal amount of makeup and short hair on the platform, those kinds of things were okay.
00:08:56We just couldn't, like, wear pants and jewelry and things like that.
00:09:00I actually want to talk about that a bit more.
00:09:02I don't think anybody has talked about that.
00:09:04And it's really important that people understand.
00:09:07So, in Pentecostalism, you have all of these rules, and it's basically – the structure is such that you're trying
00:09:15to control the people's outward appearance so that they don't look like, quote, unquote, the world.
00:09:20So, the world can look one way, and you can look differently.
00:09:23And yet, at the same time, like you said, there's many, many people who go to these churches who don't
00:09:30really do this, but they do on Sunday.
00:09:31And I knew people that were like this.
00:09:35I knew people – well, even in my family, there were cult rules that we followed and cult rules that
00:09:41we didn't follow.
00:09:42And we were definitely in a destructive cult.
00:09:44But broaden that to the whole scale of Pentecostals.
00:09:49I've had Pentecostal people contact me and say, we were so rigid.
00:09:52We would abide by every single rule every single day.
00:09:58And we were trying to earn our salvation, and we couldn't really perfect ourselves through these things that we're doing
00:10:04with outward appearance.
00:10:05And they would go off and tell their story.
00:10:07Well, I've had other people say, we only did them on Sunday, because why in the world did they have
00:10:11all of these rules?
00:10:13Yeah.
00:10:13I mean, my parents were fairly rigid.
00:10:15My sister and I differ on that.
00:10:17I think they weren't as rigid as she thinks they were.
00:10:19But my dad and his brother were the only ones that stayed in the UPC.
00:10:25Everybody else in the family was gone.
00:10:28And he had four children.
00:10:31Three of them are in the ministry.
00:10:33My parents took on an employee when they were at ABI that lost his mother while he was at school.
00:10:40And so I basically call him my mother.
00:10:42And he's married to a legacy missionary's daughter.
00:10:44And they are very rigid.
00:10:46I mean, they are so strict, it's not funny.
00:10:48So he and I, you know, we used to butt heads all the time.
00:10:52And if my parents had known that I was doing that, they would have had a fit.
00:10:56So I had to hide it from my family.
00:10:58I had to hide it from, you know, everybody else.
00:11:03But I just never really, like, believed all of that.
00:11:06And since I've left, one of the things that just, there's a lot of things that just really bug me.
00:11:12And that is, you know, they talk about jewelry being costly array, right?
00:11:16And you can't wear it.
00:11:17Well, now I'm seeing all of these ministers' wives at conference and, you know, youth conference, all these things,
00:11:23in Christian Louis Vuitton shoes and Gucci and Louis Vuitton.
00:11:28And, like, it's a big competition to see who's got the most designer.
00:11:31So what's worse, a $2 bracelet from Sheen or a $5,000, you know, Louis Vuitton bag?
00:11:39Which one's more costly?
00:11:42And I'm finding now that I'm not in UPC and I'm in another church, there's not that competition to dress
00:11:48up and have all of these things.
00:11:51Everybody just, they show up in jeans and T-shirts and it blows my mind.
00:11:54And my daughter laughs all the time because she tells people I had to sing on the platform and, you
00:11:58know, three-inch heels and put my hair up and do it in a skirt and sweat myself crazy.
00:12:02And they just think that we're, like, loony.
00:12:06So that's one of the things I've really had to kind of struggle through and work through.
00:12:11And I'm still struggling through a lot of it because, you know, I was in it for 50-plus years.
00:12:17And my parents have both passed away, thankfully, so they're not, you know, it would break their hearts.
00:12:23So it's just, yeah, it was one of those things where our family just wasn't, I wasn't that strict, I
00:12:29should say.
00:12:30Yeah, my family, I would say that we weren't as strict as many other families.
00:12:34And I knew families, I've actually spoken to people who, as children, they were not allowed to read books unless
00:12:40it was the Bible.
00:12:42And they were just that sheltered.
00:12:43And what I found was, and you may have seen similar, those who were sheltered the most, those who abided
00:12:51by the rules so much, whenever they got away from their parents, they just went hog wild.
00:12:56They would do anything and everything and try anything and try everything.
00:13:00And then they'd go back to their parents, and parents would have no idea.
00:13:03But I was around those kind of kids, and I was kind of this middle ground person because I did
00:13:09believe what we had was truth.
00:13:14Although now I understand it wasn't.
00:13:16I wanted to abide by all of the rules, but I also wanted to put some critical thinking with the
00:13:22rules to understand why the rules.
00:13:24And if I could make a good distinction as, okay, this rule exists because of this passage of Scripture, and
00:13:30it makes sense because of whatever critical thinking applied to it, I would do it.
00:13:36But you had me hook, line, and sinker.
00:13:38But if it didn't make any sense at all, I just, I was like scratching my head.
00:13:42Why on earth?
00:13:43One of the rules, the weird rules that was more, I guess it was more isolated to this area, the
00:13:49men were forbidden to have beards.
00:13:51And what's funny is I moved away and I forgot about it.
00:13:54And when I moved back here, I had a beard.
00:13:56And you can't imagine all of the backlash that I got from the family from this.
00:14:02And it didn't make sense.
00:14:03I mean, Jesus had a beard.
00:14:04Why would you invent a rule like this?
00:14:06But what they were trying to do is they're trying to show themselves differently than the rest of the world.
00:14:12And if beards were popular, apparently at some point they were.
00:14:15They said, okay, we're not going to do this because everybody else is doing this.
00:14:19But then the problem is society shifts.
00:14:22So what is popular in one ear is not popular in another.
00:14:26To put that into proper perspective, when you walked into the building, right on the bulletin board, it had a
00:14:32photo of the Beatles with circled their hair and writing that said, you will not have haircuts like this.
00:14:37And I remember thinking this rule is so stupid because nobody wants their hair cut like this.
00:14:42I mean, that was back in the 60s, right?
00:14:44So I did apply critical thinking.
00:14:46The problem was critical thinking was so suppressed that eventually the rules overwhelmed the critical thinking.
00:14:55And when it comes to that point, you just basically become a mental zombie.
00:14:58Yeah, when I was in school, people would say, well, why don't you have a TV?
00:15:01Why do you do this?
00:15:01Why do you do that?
00:15:02And I would say, because it's my religion.
00:15:04I never understood it.
00:15:05As I got older, I understood why they taught it certain ways.
00:15:10But my best friend and I, our backyards faced, you know, the backs of our houses faced each other.
00:15:15My parents put a fence up because she was Nazarene and she was so worldly.
00:15:19It was my mom's favorite word.
00:15:21But I would leave in the morning.
00:15:22I'd walk over to her house.
00:15:23I'd put on her jeans, polish my nails, put on her makeup, go to the bus stop, come home to
00:15:27her house, undo everything and go back home.
00:15:29My parents still to this day never know.
00:15:32And so there was that.
00:15:34But it really came down to, I think, when all this happened and we were leaving and my daughter, who
00:15:39was 13, I think at the time, or 14, when she found out I termed my hair, it just blew
00:15:45her mind.
00:15:46And when she was little, she used to go around saying, girls don't cut their hair.
00:15:49Girls don't cut their hair.
00:15:52And now that she's out and she's doing other things, she's like, mom, modesty isn't a skirt.
00:15:57And she's right.
00:15:59I worked in television.
00:16:00And one of the advertising agencies, we did a railroad rebuild engine line.
00:16:06And they had these huge railroad engines that would go over your head.
00:16:09And we were having to videotape it.
00:16:11And I had to wear pants in there.
00:16:12I mean, I had to.
00:16:13It was a rule.
00:16:14But I was always on ladders, changing lights and, you know, setting up different things for television.
00:16:20And here I'm in a skirt.
00:16:22Tell me how that's modest.
00:16:24And people would say to me, well, you shouldn't be doing that job.
00:16:27My sister's in-law said one time, you shouldn't be doing that job.
00:16:31But yet it was my house they came to to watch videos when they needed to watch a video.
00:16:36My parents didn't have a television.
00:16:38My grandmother moved in after I moved to college.
00:16:41And so they started watching, you know, then.
00:16:45And, of course, we would go out of town, like in a hotel or, you know, at our grandparents' house,
00:16:50we'd watch it.
00:16:50Or I'd sneak to the neighbors and watch soap operas and things like that or Love Boat or whatever.
00:16:55So it was funny because when I went into television as a career, my dad goes, well, I'm not surprised.
00:17:00You used to go to the bathroom during the show and watch the commercials.
00:17:03And I don't have a formal education.
00:17:04And I spent 20 years as a writer or producer.
00:17:07And so it was just, you know, it was really funny.
00:17:10But one of my cousins' church, I couldn't go there because I have a television.
00:17:14And I worked in television.
00:17:16There was no way I was going to be able to go.
00:17:18And, you know, now they've gotten away from the monitors.
00:17:21And, you know, more people admit they have TVs and things like that.
00:17:24But I remember I was working for Word of Faith.
00:17:27And one of the other producers came into my office.
00:17:29And she said, have you seen any good movies lately?
00:17:32You know, my husband and I, we want to just kind of sit down and watch a movie.
00:17:34And so I gave her the name of a movie.
00:17:36And she came back to the next day.
00:17:36And she goes, you seriously watched that movie the whole way through?
00:17:40And I was like, yeah.
00:17:41And she goes, there's so much cussing in that movie.
00:17:43And it dawned on me at that point, the movie was what was wrong.
00:17:47Not the movie.
00:17:48Not the content of the movie.
00:17:49It's not what we were told was wrong.
00:17:50It was the box.
00:17:51It was the movie theater.
00:17:52It was the actual TV.
00:17:54And so that changed my perspective on, you know, even as a parent now, what I let my daughter watch.
00:17:59I don't – I'm more particular about what's on the screen, not the screen itself.
00:18:04Darrell Bock You and I have such similar backgrounds.
00:18:06It's funny.
00:18:07I could go down just talking about the stories of childhood for the rest of the podcast.
00:18:12But I'll let that go.
00:18:14Before we begin the podcast, you were talking about the connection between what you were in and the Word of
00:18:20Faith.
00:18:20And what's interesting about this is if you were to ask anybody, whether they're in the Branhamite movement or they're
00:18:27part of this God's general's weirdness where they think that Branham was God's general, and they're on the outside looking
00:18:34in, they would say that is not Word of Faith.
00:18:36But when you get down and dirty into all of the doctrines, what we had was essentially Word of Faith,
00:18:41just a precursor to it.
00:18:43And we were in something that was basically a group of men laying the foundation for Word of Faith.
00:18:49Well, that developed and grew into this weird hodgepodge of doctrines that eventually birthed the official Word of Faith movement.
00:18:58And I've been studying that pretty deeply.
00:19:00I want to talk about your connection in the UPCI to the Word of Faith.
00:19:04Darrell Bock When I started working for Word of Faith, I was going to the liberal church, and the pastor
00:19:09actually later used my expertise to start a video ministry.
00:19:13And we were one of the churches that actually put cameras in the church, in the UPC churches.
00:19:17Darrell Bock But I went to work for this Word of Faith, and I was going through in vitro.
00:19:25I had been working in secular television, and the schedule is just absolutely grueling.
00:19:30And so I thought, well, if I go to a church, they'll understand my church schedule, and they'll be more
00:19:34kind to me.
00:19:35And like I said, I'd met a man when I was working as a teenager before I left to go
00:19:43to college that was Trinitarian.
00:19:44And so my best friend's mother also used to watch PTL all the time.
00:19:49And I always thought that was so crazy, but her mother just loved that show, and so I'd be over
00:19:53at their house.
00:19:55So I had some idea of it, and I'd been to some concerts and stuff in this particular church, and
00:20:00I'd watch them on TV and things like that.
00:20:03And so I got the job as executive producer for the pastor and his wife, their flagship shows.
00:20:09And I have to say, you know, during that time, I met a lot of the Word of Faith, you
00:20:14know, you name them, Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, Perry Stone.
00:20:19I mean, all of them, I've met them.
00:20:21But the pastor and his wife of this, I still love them.
00:20:25I learned so much from him about faith and grace and, you know, just different things like that.
00:20:31And they were friends with all those people, but they weren't, and they preached some of that, but he preached
00:20:35a lot of other things, too.
00:20:37So I really have to say I enjoyed my time there.
00:20:40But it was very eye-opening because in producing his show, I would stand in the room and he would
00:20:45talk about, you know, Amy Simple McPherson and Kenneth E. Hagan and, you know, T.L. Osborne and all of
00:20:55them and how they were generals of the faith and they were generals of the Word of Faith.
00:21:00And so when you start talking about God's generals, I was like, oh, that's where that comes from.
00:21:04You know, but it wasn't until I started listening to your podcast that I put together, you know, that Kitson
00:21:11and Branham and Parnham and all, they were all meshed together.
00:21:15Like, they were all, like, you know, you talked about one time about Hoekstra and Osteen, I believe it was,
00:21:21you know, John Osteen's dad.
00:21:22And I was like, they're so, like, the Word of Faith, the pastor, when I interviewed with him, he said,
00:21:29I don't want you talking about what you believe.
00:21:31Don't be talking about that oneness, you understand.
00:21:32I was like, fine, I'm not here to do that.
00:21:34I'm here to produce a show.
00:21:35But on the other hand, a lot of times they would try and, you know, push there.
00:21:40Like, when I was having trouble having a baby, he'd say, well, if you'd come to this church, God would
00:21:43heal you.
00:21:43And I was like, God didn't heal me anywhere.
00:21:48You know what I'm saying?
00:21:49And so that, but yeah, I worked with all of those people.
00:21:53And, you know, they had to have planes because if they were in what my husband and I jokingly call
00:21:59the unwashed masses, they would lose their anointing.
00:22:01Well, I've never heard, you know, like in UPC, at that point, I was best friends with my pastor.
00:22:07He would stay in my, you know, we were friends.
00:22:09And so that was so odd to me.
00:22:12I mean, I had the pastor's phone number, but people in his church did not.
00:22:16And to me, that was just odd.
00:22:18And, you know, the, you know, I would go into the green room to mic these ministers up when we
00:22:23were doing telethons, but I wasn't allowed to talk to them.
00:22:26And it was really interesting at one point because Tommy Tenney came and, you know, he's Tom Fred's son and
00:22:33he was doing Brownsville Revival.
00:22:35We were doing a big special in Brownsville Revival.
00:22:38And I went into the, into the green room and he started talking to me.
00:22:41And I told him, you know, that what church I went to, because he was the pastor of the church
00:22:44that I went to that had had moral failure, that just left, was really good friends with the Tenneys.
00:22:50He said, come out of POA.
00:22:51And so we started talking and I, like, got in trouble just for answering his questions.
00:22:58It was, it was just, it was amazing how different things were.
00:23:02And, yeah.
00:23:03Darrell Bock It's just so odd.
00:23:04You know, you were talking about Hoekstra and all of the Word of Faith, the Charismatic, the Prosperity Gospel.
00:23:10There was a point in time in which these people didn't care fundamental doctrines differences as long as you were
00:23:18part of the agenda.
00:23:20And I've been going back through time trying to figure out why this is, because there's different key points in
00:23:26time where this happens.
00:23:28Usually it's surrounding some political event.
00:23:30For example, there's a big event whenever FDR becomes president and have all these people saying that he's bringing in
00:23:38whatever it is he's bringing in, Catholicism, some people thought it was false, Jews, etc.
00:23:43Darrell Bock It's weird because you've got this sudden surge of people with a variety of different beliefs coming together
00:23:49under the platform of religion, speaking out against the very things that he's doing in politics.
00:23:55And in my opinion, Christianity and politics, that should be two separate things.
00:23:59You shouldn't be doing this.
00:24:01Darrell Bock But it happens again in the 60s, especially when JFK gets in office.
00:24:05And that's about the time whenever you see Hoekstra with Osteen.
00:24:10Well, there are other circumstances that brought them together.
00:24:14But the point I'm trying to make is you had all of these people in what was called – it
00:24:18was actually branded an interdenominational movement.
00:24:22Darrell Bock That's how Branham declared the Voice of Healing magazine, and that's how the campaign started out.
00:24:28So what happened, you had a hodgepodge of doctrine.
00:24:31And what would happen, a man would get up and speak, and he might speak oneness.
00:24:35And you might have people on the platform who are disagreeing with him, but it's okay because it's interdoctrinal.
00:24:40And there was even a declaration, I think it was either the first issue or the second, where it says,
00:24:45we know we have doctrinal issues, but we're all coming together for the sake of the revival, etc.
00:24:51But what happens when you do this is you start to blend doctrines.
00:24:55And so if you want to trace the lineage of how a doctrine came to be, you can't do it
00:25:00because there's all of this cross-pollination.
00:25:03One minister, here's another minister, and picks what he likes.
00:25:07And, you know, we call it spitting out the cherry seed when you're eating a cherry pie.
00:25:12Well, what happens whenever you have a thousand different pies, and they're all different, and you're trying to make one
00:25:17pie, it's not cherry, it's not apple.
00:25:20You don't know what it is.
00:25:21And that's really what happens.
00:25:23So it spun off, and in my opinion, it kind of spun out of control and developed into things like
00:25:28the Word of Faith.
00:25:29That was one of the hardest things for me in the Word of Faith was that they're, you know, calling
00:25:34things that are not as though they were.
00:25:37Right after I started working there, we always had to wear dresses.
00:25:40We always had to wear pantyhose.
00:25:42It was crazy.
00:25:42I thought I was in a UPC.
00:25:43It was stricter than the UPC, what I had to wear to work.
00:25:46The saints weren't like that.
00:25:48They could wear whatever they wanted to church, but to work we had to.
00:25:50And I had fallen, and I had skinned my ankle really, really badly, and so I couldn't wear a lot
00:25:54of the things.
00:25:54I had to get a special exemption.
00:25:56And the pastor of the church kept saying, calling me the healed.
00:25:59And I'm like, I've got a gaping hole in my leg.
00:26:02Why are you calling me the healed?
00:26:04And then at one point I said something to his wife about luck, and oh, my Lord, you would have
00:26:08thought that I had cussed.
00:26:11So I learned to be really, really careful about what I said.
00:26:15But even recently, several years ago, Josh Herring was in our church, and I said something about something.
00:26:23He had prayed for something, and it had come to Patu.
00:26:26Two years later, it had resolved itself in a really traumatic way.
00:26:31And we were kind of laughing because it was, and I said something about, isn't that, you know, coincidental?
00:26:38And he goes, no, and he just ripped my head off about it.
00:26:41And I was like, after that, I just, I started at that point to, that, and I had a run
00:26:47-in with,
00:26:47I did a missionary video for a missionary that was a friend of mine, and Raymond Woodward came.
00:26:55And he didn't like, he didn't like anything that I did, and everything that he ripped apart was technical stuff
00:26:59I learned in television,
00:27:00like working in it for 20 years.
00:27:03And he just treated me like I was scum under his fingernails.
00:27:06And I was like, this is, and that was the start of the unraveling for me.
00:27:10And then, of course, when everything happened with my daughter, and we were eventually kicked out of the UPC church,
00:27:18that the pastor of that church had begged us to move to come to.
00:27:23And I had known him my whole entire life.
00:27:26He was like six or eight years older than me at ABI.
00:27:31And big, you know, if I told you the name, you know who he is.
00:27:33He's high up in the UPC.
00:27:35He gave the church to his son, and it just went downhill, and his son just got downright nasty with
00:27:40me.
00:27:41And, you know, so when we said we wanted to leave, he said, good, don't come back.
00:27:46Well, that threw me for a loop.
00:27:48It's like, this is all I've ever known.
00:27:49And your dad was somebody that I've been told my whole life that I needed to look up to,
00:27:55and, you know, that he could do no wrong, and that whatever he said was the word of God, and
00:27:59I needed to do it.
00:28:02So it took me several months of just listening to podcasts and praying and talking to people.
00:28:08And one of the key people that I talked to had been their assistant pastor for a while.
00:28:14And he and I had grown up at ABI, we were in the quiz team, the youth group, of the
00:28:17same age.
00:28:18And he had left when he, when it became clear that he wasn't going to be the pastor that the
00:28:23son was.
00:28:24And he left and took his uncle's church in Minnesota and took it out and gave up his license.
00:28:29And I called him because I'd been told I couldn't talk to him after he did that.
00:28:33And we talked forever, and it was so helpful.
00:28:36And then, of course, when I connected with another podcast guest from another podcast that lived in Kansas City,
00:28:43we talked for a day, like all day long, just going through the things.
00:28:47And he ended up being really instrumental in helping my daughter because it was traumatic.
00:28:51And, you know, there was so much in my head confusing me because of UPC and Word of Faith.
00:28:57My husband had been Baptist, you know, and just all of that was swirling around in my head when we
00:29:02left.
00:29:03And it's taken me a good long while to kind of unravel some of that stuff.
00:29:08Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started
00:29:11or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,
00:29:17charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
00:29:21You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:29:26www.william-branham.org
00:29:28On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
00:29:34Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others,
00:29:38with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
00:29:43You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
00:29:49If you want to contribute to the cause,
00:29:52you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
00:29:56And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
00:30:02watching.
00:30:02On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:30:07You were talking about some of the names that you heard and names of people that you were with whenever
00:30:13you're in the TV business.
00:30:15There's something that you said that sparked a memory, and I wanted to try to flesh this out because I
00:30:21don't know that I've talked about it much.
00:30:24Whenever, when I get contacted by people who come out of any group that has a central figure,
00:30:29they'll say things like, before they come out, they'll say things like, well, if he's not the one, who is
00:30:35the one?
00:30:36They're always looking for the one.
00:30:37And it might be prophet, it might be messenger, no matter what it is,
00:30:40because that's how they've been trained and manipulated as a central figure.
00:30:45And what happens is they come out of this, and they try to find another one where there's a central
00:30:50figure
00:30:50because they're trying to plug back into something similar.
00:30:53And they will often denounce mainstream denominations for doing the same thing.
00:30:58They say, well, if you're – and I'm just throwing out a random denomination.
00:31:03If you're Baptist, you follow this guy.
00:31:04And what they'll do is they'll find some public figure who's not really representing the denomination as a whole,
00:31:11but he just happens to be in that denomination, and he's just a public figure.
00:31:15It has nothing to do with the structure and is definitely not a central figure.
00:31:20The difference is, in what I came out of, and I'm certain it's the same in the UPCI, we had
00:31:27family dynasties.
00:31:28So you had the central figure, and that was the elite.
00:31:32That was – in our world, it was Branham.
00:31:36And in UPCI, it would probably be the president, et cetera.
00:31:39And that's different.
00:31:40It's not a central figure.
00:31:41It's not the same level of destructive cult.
00:31:45But the families that were near to the highest person up, they had the privileges.
00:31:52And especially if you talk to the children of the people who are these dynasties, man, they could do everything.
00:31:59I knew – there was a period of time, a long period of time, when I was not allowed to
00:32:04have television,
00:32:05but the sons of the central figure, they all had televisions, and they talked about it, you know.
00:32:09We all had the rules that was for us, but then these family dynasties, they had their own sets of
00:32:16rules.
00:32:17Some of them had their own sets of doctrine, and depending on which dynasty you were in,
00:32:22you had a completely different kingdom that you were in.
00:32:25So let's talk to that, because I don't know – people who are outside of this,
00:32:29I don't know that they understand the complexities of that.
00:32:32No, and even in the Word of Faith, I mean, of course, Hagen's given his church down several lines,
00:32:37you know, hosting the same thing.
00:32:38And now you're seeing the fight for Daystar.
00:32:40That's a family dynasty.
00:32:43In the UPC, that's one of the things that really delusioned me, was I knew the church that was handed
00:32:51down to the son.
00:32:52I knew the mother was from Arkansas, and I knew her family, and that's another thing I wanted to talk
00:32:56to you about,
00:32:57because that – her dad's age group was kind of the racist kind of group of men.
00:33:03But anyway, so you have these – like, we had two dynastic families that married,
00:33:07and the children can do no wrong.
00:33:09And that was one of the things that my daughter got so disillusioned about, because, you know, we don't go
00:33:15around –
00:33:16I mean, when I tell you my brother's married to a legacy ministry, if I – missionary, if I told
00:33:20you it was, it'd blow your mind.
00:33:22You know, I have a missionary.
00:33:23One of my cousin's sons became a missionary.
00:33:26He was the ring bearer in my wedding.
00:33:27He came to our church, and he started talking about I was his cousin, and people were just like,
00:33:32Huh?
00:33:33Like, you know these people?
00:33:35You're related to these people?
00:33:36Because that's just not who we were.
00:33:38We didn't go around telling people who we were related to.
00:33:41But again, my cousin married into a dynastic family.
00:33:45And so, you know, and that's been bugging me for – even before I left the UPC.
00:33:50All of these churches are getting passed down to the children.
00:33:55And the saints don't – and like in our case, most of the people who left, they either left and
00:34:01said,
00:34:01You know, I'm going to start – I'm going to go move for this job or that job or another
00:34:04job.
00:34:05Or they would, you know – but now the entire youth group's gone.
00:34:11It's just – the whole church is crumbling beneath itself because nobody wanted him.
00:34:15And there were – but he was crammed down our throat.
00:34:18The vote was done on a Wednesday night when there was nobody there.
00:34:20Nobody would come on Wednesday night because he was so boring.
00:34:24But, you know, nobody would say anything because if they did, they would upset the dad who was high up
00:34:29in the UPC.
00:34:31And, you know, and that's the other thing.
00:34:32Being in the Missouri District, oh my Lord, it's one of the worst as far as that stuff is concerned.
00:34:37We would go to camp and my daughter, she just – she can't – she knows who the kids are.
00:34:41They're her age.
00:34:42The girls are her age.
00:34:43And she's like, they're the ones getting to sing and they're the ones getting to use their talents.
00:34:47And she's incredibly talented, incredibly musically.
00:34:49In fact, she was looking at your podcast the other day and she goes, hey, that's a violin on the
00:34:54wall.
00:34:54She's a viola.
00:34:55She's wanting to go into music education.
00:34:58And she's doing phenomenal.
00:34:59She's headed to nationals right now for the fine arts with the church that we currently go to.
00:35:04But that was her – that was the bug in her – she just couldn't.
00:35:08She's like, oh, now I'm okay because my cousin's a missionary and they know who I'm related to.
00:35:12Now I'm included, you know.
00:35:15And that's the other thing.
00:35:17If you're not one of those families, you feel so left out and so not included.
00:35:23And this – you know, one of the things that drove me crazy in the Word of Faith was, you
00:35:27know, the front row was for the preachers.
00:35:29And they would be in the green room and they would come out and they would go back in.
00:35:32They would – you know, you couldn't pray for your fellow saints.
00:35:35Only they could pray for the saints.
00:35:37But they would come out and they were like celebrities.
00:35:40If you were new, you could go meet them in the green room after church.
00:35:44But as a saint, you couldn't walk up to them and say, hey, I'm having this problem.
00:35:48Because you just couldn't.
00:35:49They were above everybody else.
00:35:51They were – and so – and then, of course, you know, being in the UPC, and I'm probably going
00:35:56all over the place.
00:35:57But there's a new thing.
00:35:59They're starting to call these women the queen so-and-so.
00:36:02And it's like my dad – I wish I had a whole – I'm going to write a book about
00:36:08my dad's life.
00:36:09Because my dad walked away from the man who mentored him and baptized him because he was going off the
00:36:17rails.
00:36:17You just didn't follow a man.
00:36:19You just didn't do it.
00:36:21And so I was raised differently than that.
00:36:23So I'm not in – and I guess part of it is, too, I worked in television.
00:36:27I mean, I've met famous people like Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen and, you know, Mike Huckabee.
00:36:32I've met a lot of these famous people.
00:36:35They're just people.
00:36:36Some of the people that you see on your news every night are some of the worst, meanest people you've
00:36:41ever seen.
00:36:42And then some of them are the kindest.
00:36:43Some of my best friends, you know, were anchors.
00:36:46But the first job I had, the guy was an anchor.
00:36:49He was very, very popular.
00:36:50And he could, you know, hi, I'm so-and-so, da-da-da.
00:36:52And then one minute, and the cameras are off, and he's firing people and yelling at you and calling you
00:36:57names.
00:36:57I mean, and it happened in the Word of Faith TV, too, you know.
00:37:01We didn't dare speak to Mike Murdoch.
00:37:04No way, Jose.
00:37:05The only famous pastor that came through Word of Faith that was – oh, he cracked me up, he and
00:37:12his wife – was John Hagee.
00:37:14Because she wanted to talk to me.
00:37:15And she came out of the green room and sat on the front row where I was floor directing.
00:37:19And I was like, I'm going to get in trouble, but what am I going to do?
00:37:23But they were being friendly to me.
00:37:25So there's like a separate – it's like a class system, I guess.
00:37:30You know, and when they have these conferences, they have these – like, we have a conference at our church.
00:37:33The first five rows behind the pastor's wife were all the – the pastor and the wife.
00:37:38And, you know, you couldn't sit there unless you were so-and-so.
00:37:41And, you know, it just was – you couldn't go eat with them unless you were so-and-so.
00:37:46And it was just – it was ridiculous.
00:37:49I don't – I have never liked that.
00:37:52Never.
00:37:53So let's talk a little bit about doctrine if you're able.
00:37:56And you may not be able, and you can stop me.
00:37:58But I have tried to explain this to people who were never in this kind of thing.
00:38:03Because people who are on the outside looking in, they look at some of the belief sets and they think,
00:38:08this is just so weird.
00:38:09Where do you get this?
00:38:09And the people who are of the Pentecostal mindset will say, it's right in the Bible.
00:38:14Can't you see it?
00:38:15It's in the Bible.
00:38:15And they might even read the passage and the other guys just scratch in their head saying,
00:38:20well, I don't know that it says what you think it says.
00:38:23And it all comes down to this.
00:38:25There are a lot of phrases that are used from passages of the Bible that have loaded language
00:38:31in the phrase and the Pentecostal mindset.
00:38:35I've heard Pentecostal preachers from a variety of different flavors who do this.
00:38:41They'll preach and preach and then throw this verse out and not really explain how that verse
00:38:46fits with the rest of the sermon because the whole congregation already knows.
00:38:50And this works well when you've got people who are trained to understand your loaded language.
00:38:55But when somebody outside comes in, they're thinking, why did he just say that?
00:38:58That's like word salad, right?
00:39:01Let's talk about that.
00:39:02Did you experience any of that when you were growing up?
00:39:04Oh, yeah.
00:39:05I mean, the gentleman that I was talking about that I spent time with in the mall,
00:39:09and he was converted to the charismatic Trinitarian.
00:39:16And so he would ask me stuff like that, like, the covering is not your hair, it's your husband.
00:39:23He would get into fights with me about that all the time.
00:39:26And of course, I would just regurgitate what the UPC had taught me and what I'd learned my whole life.
00:39:30And I've since then kind of dug into that a little more.
00:39:34I remember when Lee Stoneking did the holy magic hair thing.
00:39:40It was like, well, if I'd have known that when I was going to school, maybe I could have explained
00:39:44it differently.
00:39:45But now that I'm out, I've had a real come to Jesus about grace and the gospel and that sort
00:39:52of thing.
00:39:53But one of the things that when I was working for Word of Faith, the pastor used to say, he'd
00:39:58say,
00:39:59people go around saying that God won't put more on you than you can bear.
00:40:02He goes, that's not even in the Bible.
00:40:06And, you know, and stuff like that.
00:40:07And there's a song that I, to this day, I can't sing it because he gives and takes away.
00:40:13And he would not, that was heresy to him.
00:40:17You know, God doesn't come down, you know, his reigns on the just and the unjust, you know.
00:40:24And there's a part of me that believes that.
00:40:25Like I said, he really kind of opened my eyes to a lot of things.
00:40:28But, yeah, there was a lot of that kind of stuff.
00:40:30And then, you know, you have stuff that the Word of Faith says or charismatic you hear on television or
00:40:35you hear, you know, general Christianity.
00:40:37But then the UPC has their own way of, you know, saying different things.
00:40:42And I remember I was, well, I was, when I was going to camp as a young person, there was
00:40:48a friend of mine who was Hispanic, he was from Mexico.
00:40:52And I wanted to date him.
00:40:53And we wanted to date him.
00:40:54My mom said, you can't do that.
00:40:55You're unequally yoked, you know.
00:40:57And then come later, find out it has now that you can, there's mixed race marriages all the time in
00:41:03prominent, you know, UPC ministries.
00:41:05But growing up, that was a no-no.
00:41:09But being at ABI, we had people that were coming from all over the country, all over the world to
00:41:14go to school.
00:41:14So I was exposed to everything.
00:41:16That, to me, was just never an issue.
00:41:19So when I moved to the South and some of the racial stuff that got thrown in that wasn't even
00:41:23the Bible or that was taken, you know, out of context or whatever, just, I don't know.
00:41:27It just, it was very confusing for me.
00:41:29And I've had, like I said, I've had to work through a lot of stuff, just listening to other opinions
00:41:34and going back to the Word of God and talking to people that I trust.
00:41:38And the minister that married us, he had a, well, they call it a moral failing.
00:41:42I don't know if it was really, it wasn't that big of a deal.
00:41:45But he left the UPC.
00:41:47And I've called him, then talked to him.
00:41:50And I've had to repent to people and say, look, I'm so sorry because I cut you out of my
00:41:54life and I should have never done that.
00:41:57And so I'm kind of going off another subject here.
00:41:59But absolutely, to answer your question, yeah, there's so many different lingos, I guess you would say.
00:42:05You know, you almost went where I was headed anyway.
00:42:08I want to talk through that.
00:42:09I want to talk through your daughter's situation, but I want to do that next.
00:42:13First, I want to talk about this.
00:42:15So I've mentioned on the podcast several times, I've read Dr. Stephen Hassan's book, Combating Cult Mind Control.
00:42:22Very familiar with the bite model, behavioral control, control of information, emotional control, emotional manipulation, thought control, thought manipulation.
00:42:32And all of those aspects can determine if the cult or if the group of people is a destructive cult
00:42:38or not.
00:42:39And there are varying levels of destructiveness depending on the varying levels of those categories.
00:42:45One of the things that I put, I guess it does go in one of those categories, but I usually
00:42:49ask this question first.
00:42:51If a group shuns people who leave, I immediately rank them higher as a destructive cult.
00:42:58Because if you're cutting people off just because they're not part of your group, you must think your group is
00:43:03the exclusive group.
00:43:05And once you get to that level, it is destructive.
00:43:08And even if the bite model doesn't, it will usually apply whenever you get to that level.
00:43:13But even if it didn't, when you're at that level, you really believe that outsiders can't make it because the
00:43:19insiders have it.
00:43:20So it's destructive.
00:43:22Let's talk through that a bit.
00:43:23Did you see, did you witness shunning?
00:43:25Did you see other people who were shunned when they left?
00:43:28Oh yeah, it happened to me.
00:43:29I mean, I never really felt part of any of the cliques, any of the groups.
00:43:37I will have to tell you, probably the last 20 years of my life have been some of the loneliest.
00:43:43Because we went through in vitro and, you know, I was told, you know, you're not praying enough.
00:43:48You're not fasting enough.
00:43:49You're not good enough.
00:43:50You're not doing this either.
00:43:52But yeah, starting off with my best friend, my parents literally put a fence up and told me she was
00:44:00worldly.
00:44:01She was raised in Nazarene.
00:44:02She's not anymore.
00:44:03But moved me to another part of the Twin Cities and then, of course, moved me to Arkansas.
00:44:07And I lost touch with her.
00:44:10But having grown up in a public school for the first 10th grade, I went through the 10th grade.
00:44:15I had friends that were not UPC people.
00:44:19And they were some of my best friends.
00:44:21I mean, my husband went through cancer several years ago.
00:44:23And it was two Baptist people that were the ones who had taken my daughter to school and bringing us
00:44:27meals and that sort of thing.
00:44:29So I have never been one of those people to shun people.
00:44:34I've been told not to talk to certain people.
00:44:36And I just, you want to stay out of trouble.
00:44:37And so you just do what you're told.
00:44:39And so that's kind of where that came from for me.
00:44:42But it really hit home when it happened to my daughter because at 13, she lost every single friend she
00:44:50had in the church from the time she was three.
00:44:55She doesn't understand why the pastor who prayed for her to be born, who baptized her, who dedicated her, won't
00:45:04speak to her.
00:45:05I wrote him a letter asking him for a conversation.
00:45:07I have gotten there.
00:45:09And he said nothing to me, nothing.
00:45:11I have a child who was literally in therapy because everybody she was told to look up to that was
00:45:17godly will not speak to her.
00:45:21We were told we couldn't come on the premises.
00:45:22We could not come back to that church unless it was a funeral or a wedding.
00:45:25We went to another UPC church for a year.
00:45:27And she couldn't go to the youth functions in this section because they were all held at that church.
00:45:32And I contacted the youth president.
00:45:36I contacted the district superintendent.
00:45:41And I'm like, can you do anything about this?
00:45:43And they were like, no, we can't.
00:45:44We're not going to go against the pastor because it's his church.
00:45:47And that's really what pushed me out.
00:45:49I started putting her in a youth group at another church.
00:45:51We drive an hour from our home in Kansas to go to church somewhere else because they love my daughter.
00:46:00We walked in for the first time after she went to camp with them.
00:46:04And this lady runs, just blasts by me, grabs my daughter, looks me in the face and says, I love
00:46:11her.
00:46:12I just love her so much.
00:46:14And she's proved it over the last year.
00:46:16They've been, you know, we've not been love bombed.
00:46:20We've been loved.
00:46:22And I now realize how isolating and mean and unloving the UPC was to me and my family.
00:46:31Not everybody.
00:46:32Just like with the word of faith, I don't put everybody in the same category.
00:46:35I kind of judge people for who they are and how they treat me.
00:46:39But yes, absolutely.
00:46:40The shunning is, you know, you hear about it in the Amish, right?
00:46:45But my daughter is legitimately afraid that there are people in her family that will no longer speak to her.
00:46:52And it breaks my heart.
00:46:54Yeah, it's so sad.
00:46:56I've witnessed various levels of shunning.
00:46:58There are people who won't come around us because of, well, mainly because of what I do.
00:47:03But it's not just me.
00:47:04It's also my children.
00:47:05It's also my wife.
00:47:06And their children can't be around my children.
00:47:10And we had to deal with this when we left.
00:47:12It's really hard.
00:47:13But there's also varying levels.
00:47:15I had other family members who would allow us to come over.
00:47:19And I'm using that word very loosely.
00:47:21But they would never emotionally connect.
00:47:24So you were there, but it was never the same.
00:47:27They were just completely – they wouldn't shut you off, you know, completely.
00:47:32But they would emotionally never connect, even if you tried.
00:47:35If you wanted to connect with them, you couldn't do it.
00:47:38And for me, that's actually worse because you're there and it's like going to a well and put the bucket
00:47:45down the well, trying to get water.
00:47:46And every time you put it down, it just comes up empty.
00:47:49That's really what it feels like.
00:47:51My dad had three siblings that weren't UPC.
00:47:53And so – but he had one, like I said, that was very strict.
00:47:57And his kids are all very ministry-minded, and this is one of the things that just really bothers me.
00:48:04My dad was not one of those people that shunned his family that wasn't UPC.
00:48:08He loved his sisters.
00:48:10The one sister passed away, and he was there in the home with the kids when it happened.
00:48:14He loved her.
00:48:15We heard stories – I never met her.
00:48:16It was before I was born.
00:48:18He loved his family, and we were brought into that.
00:48:21And we were always – we're going to go see them, and we're going to go spend time with them.
00:48:24And if we drove through their town, we'd just stop in, right?
00:48:28And his brother's family, the other one, you can't do that.
00:48:30You absolutely can't do that.
00:48:32And, you know, we went to a wedding, and one of my cousin's children, they have the church.
00:48:39And my daughter went.
00:48:40Of course, she was, I don't know, 10, 11, maybe.
00:48:43And she kept bugging my cousin.
00:48:45I want to spend time with you.
00:48:46I want to see you.
00:48:46I want to talk to you.
00:48:47Can we hang out?
00:48:48And she said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:48We'll do that on Sunday.
00:48:50So Sunday after church, she brings out the reception food in a buffet, and she goes off
00:48:56with the preachers and all the missionaries, with her and her husband and her entourage,
00:49:01completely ignoring us.
00:49:03And it happens all the time.
00:49:04I shut up at my cousin's – her brother's house one time, and the wife told me I couldn't
00:49:07come in and talk to my cousin.
00:49:09He had to come outside.
00:49:10I don't care who you are.
00:49:12If you're my family, you can come in my house if the bomb's gone off.
00:49:15I mean, it's just that kind of stuff that just – I was not raised that way.
00:49:19My dad did not do that.
00:49:20He loved his family, and they loved him back.
00:49:24And to this day, you will never hear a bad word about him from anybody that he knew.
00:49:29My mom was the only one that was Pentecostal in her family, and I'm still friends with
00:49:35my cousins, and we get along, and I go see them.
00:49:38They're not in church, per se, but I don't shun them.
00:49:42You know, they're still my family, and I love them.
00:49:44And that bothers me.
00:49:46It's like, at the same wedding, one of my cousins came from one of the other families
00:49:50that wasn't in church, and she felt like we were leaving her out.
00:49:56And I said, no, there's just a lingo of, were you BC?
00:49:58We were all raised the same.
00:49:59We have different common things.
00:50:01You know, we're not leaving you out.
00:50:03It's just we've been raised differently.
00:50:06But yeah, it's, that part of it has been very traumatic for my daughter, because we moved
00:50:11to Kansas City so that she would have a youth group like I had, and I had a fantastic youth
00:50:16group at ABI, fantastic.
00:50:18Some of us are, a lot of us are still really close.
00:50:21There's only three that are left in the UPCI, though.
00:50:25But we were really, and I want her to have that.
00:50:28But I will say this, she went through some stuff with the ICE stuff at school, and she's
00:50:34like, mom, it's so demonic in the school, and there's kids doing this, there's kids doing
00:50:38that.
00:50:38And I didn't take her to public school because I wanted her to be a light, not the other
00:50:43way around.
00:50:43And she is, she absolutely is.
00:50:46But come to find out, she's leaving early, driving to school, sitting in the car, reading
00:50:51her Bible.
00:50:52She's praying, she's studying things.
00:50:54She showed me a song the other day that said, talks about, it's the blood, it's not about
00:50:58perfection, it's not about performance.
00:51:01You know, she wanted to pray sing at the last UPCI church we were in, and she was told she
00:51:05had to look a certain way, because I put pictures on Facebook of us in Florida, and her in shorts,
00:51:09we got a lecture.
00:51:11And she just, she was like, I was told to jump.
00:51:14S.G.
00:51:14Norris would have had a fit if he'd heard that.
00:51:16He's like, you don't run, if it's not God, you're going to run into a wall, you're going
00:51:19to hurt yourself.
00:51:21And so I had to explain to her that I was raised like that.
00:51:25She was raised in this jumping, screaming, yelling, shouting, shunning people portion
00:51:29of the whole thing.
00:51:31So I know I probably got off on a rabbit trail there.
00:51:33But yeah, she's, the hardest thing I think I've had to deal with with her is spiritually
00:51:40she's grown, but she doesn't feel like she fits in anywhere.
00:51:44She doesn't feel like she's included, or that she's, you know, and as a 17, 16-year-old
00:51:49girl, that's hard.
00:51:50Well, you've definitely been through some hard things, and you found a good church on
00:51:54the other side that's more accepting, and you've been able to change for the better.
00:51:58What advice would you give people who are making that adjustment?
00:52:02Because I have a lot of people contacting me going through exactly through the hard times
00:52:06that you went through to get where you are now.
00:52:08What advice would you give them?
00:52:09I would say be kind to yourself, and don't be so judgmental.
00:52:15One of the things that my friend told me about my daughter was he said, she was afraid that
00:52:21if she turned her hair, she was going to hell.
00:52:22And I told her, look, you go pray.
00:52:23I'm not cutting your hair.
00:52:24I'm not telling you one way or the other.
00:52:25I'm not doing it.
00:52:27He said, you've got to do a Bible study in grace.
00:52:30You've got to.
00:52:31And I was sitting in the car in the pickup line, and Jason Crabb was playing.
00:52:35I love Jason Crabb.
00:52:36Of course, I know all the Southern Gospel people because they're gay, 30, and they were
00:52:39on the channel.
00:52:41And his song was, when he was on the cross, I was on his mind.
00:52:46And I started to bawl.
00:52:48And my daughter got in the car, and I don't mean to cry, but I said, Savannah, if I asked
00:52:52you what the gospel is, would you know?
00:52:56She's 13 years old.
00:52:57She's in high school.
00:52:58She's been raised in the UPC, and I'm scared to death she's not going to know what the
00:53:01gospel is.
00:53:02And she told me, exactly, and I was like, thank you, Jesus.
00:53:07Some way, somehow, you've gotten through to my daughter.
00:53:10Because I think sometimes they preach so much on the standards and the outward appearance
00:53:17that what happens is she would say, Mom, I'm not listening to Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift
00:53:23and all this stuff, but the other people in the praise team are.
00:53:25But they look perfect on the outside.
00:53:27Nobody's yelling at them.
00:53:29And I think the outward standards, one of the things I've learned is that a lot of that
00:53:34covers up a lack of love, a lack of understanding, a lack of biblical knowledge.
00:53:43I mean, growing up in Bible school, I never really had that problem, but along some of
00:53:47my peers now, I've seen that.
00:53:50They think if they look good on the outside, they can get away with whatever they want on
00:53:53the inside.
00:53:54And they're mean, and they're nasty, and they say some of the worst things.
00:53:57And, but they look good on the outside.
00:54:00Everything's perfect.
00:54:02So I would say, give yourself some grace in that area.
00:54:04And, you know, really look at the motives of the people that are telling you that you're
00:54:09doing the wrong thing.
00:54:11You know, is it to control you?
00:54:12Is it to keep you?
00:54:13And is it money?
00:54:16You know, that was one of the other things.
00:54:17When we left, my dad, he lived with us the last 10 years of his life, and he had a
00:54:22van
00:54:22that was very difficult to drive for his wheelchair, and I gave up a BMW.
00:54:26We lost our house.
00:54:28We lost luxury cars when we moved to Kansas City.
00:54:30Nobody seemed to care about that.
00:54:32It was, are you paying your tithes?
00:54:34Not, can you, like, my dad was giving money to the church and to missions that I was paying
00:54:38for his health care and his food.
00:54:39And he was living with me because he couldn't afford anything else.
00:54:43Um, so, you know, you've got to look at the motives of people, and you really have to
00:54:47study grace, and you have to give yourself grace.
00:54:49You've got to know what the gospel is.
00:54:51Um, you know, I was talking to somebody that was helping my daughter, who's an amazing,
00:54:58he's a, he's a PK, but he's, like, if you talk to anybody in the UPC, he's a hell yeah.
00:55:03And he said, he wanted to know, you know, he said, your dad just never was really judgmental.
00:55:07Like, a lot of people have really judged this man.
00:55:10And, um, he said, when I held my daughter for the first time, he said, there's nothing
00:55:16I would do to send her to hell as her father.
00:55:19And when I was going through in vitro, and people were telling me, you know, you're not
00:55:21praying enough, you're not doing this, you're not doing that, and God's punishing you.
00:55:24My dad said to me, he said, Anita, I wouldn't do this to you.
00:55:28Why would God do this to you?
00:55:30We have to look at our Heavenly Father.
00:55:33I had a fantastic dad.
00:55:35Not everybody does.
00:55:37But you have to look at him as the loving father that he is.
00:55:40And there's nothing that we can do that he's going to come out of the sky with a club and
00:55:44just knock us into hell for.
00:55:47I was very fortunate when I was in quizzing that Brother Marvin Walker, we were studying
00:55:51Mark, and he did a lesson on that.
00:55:52And so, a lot of the fear of those things left me, but I didn't realize they were being
00:55:57taught to my daughter.
00:55:58So, I had to kind of go through all that with her.
00:56:01But listen to podcasts.
00:56:02One of the reasons I'm doing this, I'm an introvert.
00:56:05I don't like being on camera.
00:56:06I'm a behind-the-camera person.
00:56:08But other people's testimonies leaving the UPC have so helped me.
00:56:12You know, some of your podcasts, Grace Escape, Laura Lynn, I don't know if you knew who Deanna
00:56:18Jo is in Canada.
00:56:20She was so helpful to me, and I talk to her as often as I can.
00:56:24She's not doing a podcast anymore, but they're still on there.
00:56:27Those things helped me.
00:56:28It helps your critical thinking.
00:56:30It helps you work through the stuff that you've been told all your life you're going to go
00:56:33to hell for, that you're really not.
00:56:38I mean, there's still things that I do, you know, modesty-wise, and I will never have short
00:56:42hair.
00:56:43There's just things that I'm going to do because that's what I believe.
00:56:45That's the way I want to be.
00:56:47You know, in the Word of Faith, that pastor said, you give your best to God.
00:56:50You wear your best to church.
00:56:53People wear jeans to church, and I used to judge them for that.
00:56:56Now, I don't.
00:56:56I wouldn't personally do that because I want to give God my best.
00:57:00But you just, you have to give yourself grace and just say people are doing the best they
00:57:04can.
00:57:04You can't.
00:57:05The judgmental stuff has got to go away, and you've got to find a place where you're loved,
00:57:10where people say, you know, it doesn't matter what's happened to you.
00:57:13It doesn't matter what you believe.
00:57:14We love you.
00:57:15We want you to be loved.
00:57:16We want you to feel the love of God.
00:57:20And that's kind of where we are now.
00:57:21And even though it's a denomination I don't 100% totally agree with, you know, I was shut
00:57:27down.
00:57:28I was like, because in the UPC, it's really performative.
00:57:30You don't raise your hands, you're backslip.
00:57:31You don't run the aisles, you're backslip.
00:57:33My dad couldn't run the aisles.
00:57:34He always hated that.
00:57:35And I would just sit there like stone cold.
00:57:38I was done being told how to act.
00:57:41So when I went to this other church, I was doing the same thing.
00:57:43I was like, I'm not going to raise my hands.
00:57:45I'm not going to clap.
00:57:45I'm not going to do anything.
00:57:49And this pastor is just, he's, you've got to get sound teaching and sound doctrine and
00:57:54not from somebody who is, you know, he's a doctor, but he would not, you wouldn't know
00:57:59that.
00:58:01But I was just, I would leave church and I would feel peace.
00:58:04I wouldn't feel judged.
00:58:05I felt like I'd learned something.
00:58:07And he got done preaching and he sang this song and I just broke because that particular
00:58:13church allows you to worship how you want to worship.
00:58:17They don't look down their nose at you if you don't run the aisles and raise your hands
00:58:21and stand up the whole time.
00:58:23They just don't.
00:58:24And it becomes a relationship between you and God, which is the most important thing.
00:58:28And I think that's what we lose focus on.
00:58:30We're in these denominations.
00:58:31We focus on standards and the who's who and, you know, what did, what did the general
00:58:35superintendent or what did my pastor say or what?
00:58:37It's not about that.
00:58:38It's about your relationship with your, with God that died on the cross so that you wouldn't
00:58:44have to take the punishment.
00:58:46When you think of the real story of the gospel and how much love there is there, we've got
00:58:51to give that to other people.
00:58:53And I think for me, that's always been in me because my dad was handicapped.
00:58:58I had, one of my good friends was deaf and I can't look down my nose at people that aren't
00:59:02perfect, that don't have their hair just so, or don't have the name.
00:59:06I didn't have that luxury.
00:59:08Um, and so, you know, you, you've got to find a place where you're loved.
00:59:11You've got to find people that can speak into your life and you got to trust your, you got
00:59:16to trust your relationship with God, your prayer life.
00:59:19Well, it's very good advice.
00:59:20Thank you so much for doing this.
00:59:21It's, it's been my pleasure.
00:59:23Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story,
00:59:26you can check us out on the web.
00:59:27You can find us at william-branham.org.
00:59:29For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
00:59:34from Christian Identity to the NAR.
00:59:36Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:00:44For more information, visit www.fema.org.
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