Non Denominational Denomination: Independent Cults | Daniel Bright | 702 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John invites Daniel to examine what “non-denominational” actually means and why religious movements that reject denominational labels can still develop distinct leaders, doctrines, boundaries, language, organizational structures, and identities. They compare William Branham’s anti-denominational rhetoric with YWAM and other independent Christian movements, asking when a movement effectively becomes the very denomination it claims not to be.  John and Daniel also explore accountability, transparency, institutional memory, finances, loaded language, and the difficulties people face when leaving isolated religious environments. They discuss how distinctive terminology can make one group’s beliefs seem universal when they actually reflect a much narrower Christian tradition, and why understanding a church’s history and organizational structure can help people distinguish broader Christianity from the particular movement they came from.  CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 05:55 William Branham and the Problem with “Non-Denominational” 11:04 What Does Denomination Actually Mean? 16:26 Accountability, Scandals, and Independent Movements 23:07 When a Movement Becomes an Organization 28:45 When Your Religious Bubble Feels Like All of Christianity 34:32 Loaded Language and the Christian Tower of Babel 41:10 Financial Transparency and Healthy Church Structure 47:53 Why William Branham Rejected Denominations 52:35 When “Non-Denominational” Becomes Dangerous ______________________ Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

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

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

00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Daniel Bright.

00:45Daniel, today is an interesting episode.

00:48I've actually wanted to do this conversation that you wanted to do with me multiple times

00:53and in multiple ways, and that is to talk about what does it mean to be non-denominational.

00:58I've had multiple guests who tell me we came out of a non-denominational church, and we

01:03found out that it wasn't what we expected.

01:06And so we went to another non-denominational church and found out that it wasn't what

01:11we expected.

01:12Some of them just de-churched altogether.

01:15But even early in my escape, I tried to figure out what this means, because in Branhamism,

01:22we considered ourselves to be a non-denominational church.

01:25Branham would say inter-denominational in the early years, and then later, non-denominational.

01:31And as I've been studying these groups, as you know, you and I have talked offline, most

01:36of the groups that turn into destructive cults, they say, we're not a denomination.

01:42You're welcome to stay in your denomination.

01:44Join us, and join us as we celebrate Jesus.

01:48And then once they start joining, and they become part of the movement, they no longer

01:52go to their church.

01:53And then once there's enough volume of people coming to the meetings, they say, now we're

01:58non-denominational.

02:00We don't like those people you just came out of.

02:02And so it seems to be that this term is thrown around loosely.

02:08And I wanted to talk through that, because I'm not branding all non-denominational churches

02:13as inherently evil, but there is this weird problem that exists with that phrase, which

02:19you and I can explore.

02:21Absolutely.

02:22When I first messaged you about a year ago, I wouldn't call myself a prophet, but I did

02:29say, John, you're going to get onto the YWAM stuff soon.

02:33And we're in fairly deep now, from what I've been hearing on the podcasts.

02:38And it was prompted by the split, which I foretold, or at least I told you about back

02:44in January, February, between YWAM Proper and Fire and Fragrance.

02:50And I don't know any of the details in those scandals.

02:53I don't know if there is a scandal, but I know that in the press release, they said they

02:57split amicably.

02:58Well, I think we know what that means.

03:01Anyone who's done a little bit of journalism and knows about the English language, we know

03:05what split amicably means.

03:07And so that raised the question, how does an organization that isn't an organization that's

03:13actually a movement, how can it split if it's not an organization?

03:17So that begs the question, is YWAM an organization?

03:21And is that just another way of saying a denomination?

03:25I think it is an organization.

03:27I think it is a denomination.

03:28And prompted by some of your previous episodes on YWAM, I read through the core doctrines of

03:35what YWAM calls itself, or the five points or the five utterances.

03:39One of them was very good, the Christian Magna Carta.

03:42But the point is, if Lauren Cunningham, if he wrote these things down, this begins to sound

03:48like a doctrinal statement.

03:49This is the kind of things that denominations come up with.

03:52At the moment, YWAM has what it calls a global board of elders or the eldership team.

03:58This is actually quite good.

04:00This is quite healthy.

04:02And all of that indicates that it's going to become a church denomination.

04:06It's got global elders who are appointed more or less locally.

04:10That's fairly good as well.

04:12So despite everything I've said, YWAM actually looks to be heading in a good direction.

04:17Because Fire and Fragrance has some of the wackier tendencies.

04:23Long before I'd heard of you, I actually got stopped by some street healers who were trying

04:28to heal one of my friends.

04:31I'd happened to break his left finger when we were playing football together.

04:36And they said, well, can we try and heal your finger?

04:38This inevitably was unsuccessful.

04:41But they said to him, you know, what else is going on in your life?

04:45And they tried to share the gospel with him.

04:47And I had to kind of pick up the pieces after that.

04:50They said, well, Daniel, what do you think about all of this?

04:52Do you think Jesus healed?

04:53Jesus does heal.

04:55Christians can be healed.

04:56But I believe what I believe.

04:58So the local YWAM base here in Norway is still hosting Fire and Fragrance discipleship training schools.

05:07Now, for those who haven't really kept up with the story, there's been a split in Kona,

05:11which is the main base for YWAM.

05:14It's miraculous how many people God calls to Hawaii.

05:18And there was a split between Fire and Fragrance.

05:22And I understand that YWAM Kona said they can't use, you can't advertise a Fire and Fragrance

05:27DTS anymore at Kona.

05:29They're still doing it in Norway for good or ill.

05:32The Norway base has had huge growth.

05:34A lot of people coming to it.

05:36Maybe it is going off in a different direction with Fire and Fragrance, which raises the question,

05:41if you're not a denomination, how can you talk about directions?

05:45And these people are doing that.

05:47That definite group is doing this.

05:50So I'm just looking at our show notes now because we wanted to focus on non-denominationalism.

05:56And I actually read through some of, I listened to my first William Branham sermon.

06:02I loved it.

06:03Not because I bought any of it, but it was almost as if someone had said to you,

06:10have you heard of fast food?

06:11Yeah, I've heard of fast food.

06:12Have you heard of McDonald's?

06:13I've never heard of McDonald's.

06:15And so listening to William Branham for the first time, it was like it was the OG.

06:20It was listening to McDonald's.

06:21It was up front.

06:23He had all of the soundbites.

06:25He even said in that one sermon I listened to, spit out the bones, eat the chicken.

06:29I was like, it all came from him.

06:31Loved it.

06:32It was complete nonsense.

06:34He was talking about the dangers of denominationalism.

06:39And he was, I don't know when he gave that sermon, so you'll have to help me out in the

06:44timeline if it's relevant.

06:45But I suppose it was in his open expansionist stage where he came up with one line which amused me.

06:53He said, we're not in a denomination.

06:56No one is going to dominate us.

06:58I was thinking, well, that's, he's got a problem with the English language for one thing.

07:05You mentioned just at the start of this now that when a denomination, when, sorry, when a movement organization is

07:11in its early stages, it's very much, yeah, anyone can come in.

07:16We're not going to judge if you're Baptist, Methodist.

07:18We're doing this for Christ.

07:20So you allow anyone in.

07:22But I'm more concerned about what sort of people come out.

07:26And that's the kind of same thing that I've seen at YWAM.

07:29It's very unlikely anyone's going to do YWAM and then come out a convinced predestinational Calvinist.

07:35I don't think that's going to happen.

07:37A lot of people from Calvinism have gone into YWAM.

07:41But what sort of people come out?

07:42What sort of language are they using?

07:45So the calling yourself non-denominational is a bit like not admitting you have an accent.

07:54A lot of your listeners will be very clear.

07:57This guy does have an accent.

07:58I've seen a few cheeky comments on YouTube.

08:01So we're doing what we can about the recording.

08:04Yes, but I can't do anything about the accent.

08:07I'm sorry.

08:08I'm aware of that.

08:09You're aware of that.

08:10Our listener is aware of that.

08:12It would be very arrogant of me to say, I don't have an accent.

08:16Everyone speaks like me.

08:17I'm non-accental.

08:21That's ignorant at best and arrogant at worst, because it might mean that I expect that standard of other people.

08:27And then when I travel out of my tiny bubble in southeast London, or east London at least,

08:33I might discover not everyone does speak like me.

08:36And I might have an existential crisis.

08:38Perhaps I might need to deconstruct my accent.

08:40But what I really need to admit is not everyone does think like me.

08:45But there are standards of my accent that a lot of people still need to pronounce correctly.

08:49So that's the accent analogy with denominations.

08:53When you are in a denomination that says things like the Seven Mountains Mandates,

08:59or as Lauren Cunningham wrote in his Five Points, he didn't call it the Seven Mountains.

09:04He called it the Seven Something.

09:06And you've used the analogy with cooking before, where you can trace this ingredient and say,

09:10well, hang on, this was in this barbecue sauce.

09:12Then someone put it in that potluck.

09:13You can track the ingredients, because often it's on the back of a package.

09:17And right there, Lauren Cunningham, we can say this is not non-denominational.

09:21This came from the Seven Mountains Mandate.

09:23We can trace this back.

09:25So we can say to him, your accent in YWAM frames what kind of a movement you are.

09:31And it reveals your origins, which is through the Assemblies of God, et cetera, et cetera.

09:37So that's what I'm interested in talking about there.

09:41There's a few more amusing analogies with if you met someone who's coming as an IT consultant.

09:47And he said, well, I mean, I'm not an IT consultant.

09:49I'm just a guy who works with computers.

09:52Right.

09:52So why are you avoiding the most common term that people use?

09:56Oh, I don't want to be associated with them.

09:57OK, are you accredited?

09:59Oh, no, no, no.

10:00I'm an independent tradesman that just happens to work with computers.

10:03Hmm.

10:04This is very suspicious language.

10:06And so when you're in, when you're doing something that lots of other people do,

10:10and they're probably paying it for you, that's why you call it a service.

10:13You do want to be accredited.

10:15And, you know, a plumber says, I'm not a plumber.

10:17I'm just a guy who works with water and pipes.

10:20I want to see on your car, on the side of it, that little reef, the laurels thing that says

10:26accredited by so-and-so.

10:27You know, he's passed his certifications.

10:30Are we saying that Christians do need to be approved by someone else?

10:33Yes.

10:33Yes, I am.

10:35If you're in leadership, if you're starting a denomination off on your own, the best kind of denominations,

10:40the ones that got kicked out of somewhere else, not because they wanted to leave,

10:45but because the movement denomination, their partner, got a bit dodgy, like Luther and the Roman Catholic Church.

10:50He didn't want to leave.

10:52So when you've been accredited or if you lose a job, you say, why did you lose your job?

10:56I was made redundant or, you know, the boss was really annoying.

10:59But you are accredited.

11:00You do have standards.

11:01And that's what we expect from Christians as well.

11:03Is there anything you want to say on that point from an IT perspective?

11:08Yeah.

11:09So from my perspective, it's odd because, like you mentioned the language, I know what denomination means.

11:16The sad truth of it is most people who are in a movement that is anti-denominational have no idea

11:23what the phrase,

11:24what the word even means.

11:25And simply put, denomination is a distinct religious group of people within the larger faith.

11:33And denomination is a word that can be used for multiple categories.

11:37But within Christianity, it just simply means we're Christian, but we're part of this individual group of Christians within the

11:44larger group.

11:46What happened was, whenever the movement started, they started to say that all other Christians are cold and formal.

11:51Those churches you're going to, you're not getting anything out of them, come join us.

11:56And we're not a denomination.

11:57You don't have to be part of our sect to be part of us.

12:01But essentially what they're saying is, you were, because you're coming out of something that you disagreed with to join

12:08something that you did,

12:09thus creating a group of people within the larger concept of Christianity, the construct of Christianity.

12:15So by default, just simply by joining the movement, you have been deemed part of a denomination.

12:22Where it gets interesting is they were trying to brand specific denominations as worse than others.

12:27So they would say, maybe they're targeting the Baptists in one sermon.

12:32They say, the Baptists believe this, this, and this.

12:34We don't believe this.

12:35Well, that's creating a line in the sand that is a categorization.

12:39Baptists believe this.

12:40We believe this other thing.

12:42So just simply in the nature of doing it, they have created a denomination.

12:48Whenever I left the movement, I started going through the phone book looking at the different churches

12:52because we had no idea where we were going to go.

12:54Well, and granted, I grew up in the mindset that denominations were evil.

12:59They were this entity that I did not understand.

13:01I didn't even understand the definition because I, too, was programmed like this.

13:05So I started going through, and I'm trying to find the ones that aren't Methodists, aren't Baptists,

13:10all of these different denominations.

13:12That's not where we ended up as the first church.

13:15But in my mind, I'm going through this, and I'm looking through reading, and I go to their website,

13:19and I'm reading, we are not a denomination, and literally they say the same verbiage that William Branham said.

13:27And I was like, no, I'm not going to do this again.

13:29This is just not right.

13:32And I came to look at it like this.

13:35If I had an open field behind my house, and I built a wall, and I told all my neighbors,

13:41come visit me at my wall, and they came, and the building structure came and said,

13:47you can't have people here.

13:48There's a wall that might fall on them.

13:50I would say, no, it's not a building.

13:52And then I add a second wall and invite the neighbors.

13:56It's not a building.

13:57It's just a series of walls.

13:59Well, that's just it.

14:01How do you try to say something in a way that just totally defies the definition of it

14:06and get people to believe it?

14:07That was really where I ended up.

14:09How did they get people to believe this in the first place?

14:12That's a really good analogy.

14:15You gradually build.

14:16It is about building boundaries because these new denominations and movements do have boundaries.

14:21They say you should believe this at a minimum or don't believe that at a minimum.

14:29When I was thinking about this topic, I was wondering about, yeah, when you start a,

14:37okay, well, you might have heard Virgin Galactic.

14:40There was a, he was kind of a bit like Tesla 15 years ago, Richard Branson.

14:44He was a whole load of drinks and music, Virgin Records, Virgin Music, Virgin Airlines.

14:49And he tried to do Virgin Galactic, where he was going to send space shuttles into space

14:54and try it there.

14:55It didn't really work very well.

14:56But when it failed, he said, oh, no, it was a subsidiary of my company.

15:00It wasn't, it wasn't actually Virgin Galactic.

15:02It was Enterprise Limited or something.

15:05And that's where you get the saying from success has many fathers.

15:09Failure is an orphan.

15:10And so whenever you get a failure, you can then disassociate it.

15:13So if your building collapsed, it really never was a building.

15:16It was just a series of walls that happened to have a, you know, parallel horizontal structure.

15:21You could call it a roof, but we don't use labels.

15:24You're like, the roof collapsed on your building.

15:26Well, it wasn't a proper building anyway, and everyone knew what they were getting into.

15:29So if you're at a church, well, that doesn't say it's a church.

15:34If you're in a movement that does not have the sacraments, the traditions, which the church

15:41has done for nigh on 1900 years, you need to start asking a few questions.

15:47What is this thing I'm part of?

15:49So some people in the comments have said, well, you don't talk much about Christianity.

15:54Well, no, not really.

15:55I'm not coming up with a standard of let's preach the gospel here.

15:59What we're focusing on is what did William Branham do?

16:02What did he not do?

16:02What can we learn from his mistakes?

16:04And how does that translate into what we're doing today?

16:07But a church should have standards.

16:10I would say minimum communion, baptism, and, you know, preaching these kind of things,

16:13membership lists, and generally doing stuff on a Sunday.

16:16And I would expect from my movement that people have a job.

16:19So they can't actually do that much church stuff.

16:22So we might limit them to doing it on a Sunday.

16:26What my second point was going to be is talking about interdenominationalism.

16:31And this is a slight sidetracking onto the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican churches,

16:37because they've had their fair share of scandals recently.

16:41And there have been cover-ups, yes, and the same with the Jehovah Witnesses.

16:46I'm not having a go at them.

16:48I'm actually making a point in their favor, saying them, they, as an organization, said,

16:53yes, this is bad.

16:54We're going to pay for the lawyers and things.

16:56But when you compare it to what Jed Hartley was up against, trying to warn Bethel about his dad,

17:03Bethel was like, well, you know, we can't do anything.

17:06You know, we're not a church.

17:07He's not part of us.

17:07You know, hey, it's a different movement.

17:10The New Apostolic Network, they're all too loose.

17:13They can all gather together and say there's millions of us.

17:17But as soon as there's a scandal, they say, oh, we're all independent organizations.

17:20We're not even a church.

17:21We're not associated with each other.

17:22The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, they didn't play that card.

17:26They wouldn't say, well, this local parish is independent.

17:28We've never known them.

17:29They said, yeah, actually, yeah, we're fighting this.

17:34But they didn't sidestep the issue and say we're not even an organization.

17:38That's a very strange thing to do.

17:40That's a bit like Russia in 2014 saying, hey, we're not attacking Crimea.

17:45It's just there's independent people in Crimea who happen to have Russian uniforms, who just happen to be.

17:51It's nothing to do with us.

17:52It's not our organization.

17:54We're a movement.

17:55We're a movement of Russian separatists in southeastern Ukraine.

17:58And then you find out a few years down the line, well, it was you all along.

18:01You were an organization.

18:02You were planning this.

18:04So the same sort of thing is true of a lot of churches.

18:08When they're in the imperial growth stage, they're quite loose about the structures.

18:13Everyone's hammering nails in and putting planks in every direction.

18:16But when the bodies start collapsing, they will say, well, hang on, what are we building here?

18:20What is this structure?

18:22And then they'll say, well, we were never associated with this building, Guy.

18:25I mean, if the 11 disciples were sort of modern day New Apostolic Reformation prophets, they would say we were

18:34never associated with anyone called the other Judas.

18:37He was a fringe 12th disciple.

18:39We don't know who he was, but it's about the it's about the association.

18:42And if your organization is too loose to actually know who was in it, you're really setting yourself up for

18:47a fail.

18:48It's like not really having a concise staff list.

18:51If you're a huge consultancy company,

18:53you need to know who the consultants are you're sending out to your clients.

18:57And it's no, you're saying, well, he was independently contracted in by us.

19:01No, he had the van.

19:02He had the car.

19:03He showed up with that customer.

19:05He needs to take ownership of who he is.

19:07And it means that when I hear about a scandal locally within the 100 yards of me,

19:14but if there's one of the churches within, say, 50 miles of me,

19:18even if I'm not in the same denomination, I would still think, well, hang on.

19:22I'm a Christian.

19:23They're a Christian.

19:24In a way, it reflects badly on me.

19:26And I should have just as much authority to burst into their church and say,

19:30oh, what's going on here?

19:31Whereas what William Brannon was doing, he was trying to have it both ways.

19:35He was saying, well, we're not a non-denomination.

19:37Anyone can come in.

19:38But then at the same time, he was saying, come out of her, my people.

19:42And you think, well, if you're asking people to come out of something,

19:46then that implies what they're in is wrong.

19:48And if you're asking them to come into you, what is it about you that's specific that they need to

19:54do better?

19:54So that's the sign of a denomination.

19:56If you can get in, that means it is something.

19:59And so when YWAM has its five words, words of who?

20:04Lauren Cunningham, that means that you more or less have to ascribe to them.

20:08As I said earlier, they're actually quite good words.

20:10They're not all that bad.

20:11The ones that he came up with himself, I would live by any of those.

20:16But that's the point.

20:17You've got a denomination.

20:19And so I just say to YWAM, go the next step.

20:22Start a church.

20:23Call it whatever you like.

20:26But just admit that Lauren Cunningham started this is not a bad thing.

20:30John Wesley, when he didn't start the Methodists,

20:33the Methodists only registered themselves as an independent denomination sometime after his death.

20:38Before then, it was a reform movement within the Church of England.

20:42And likewise, when it comes to a certain denomination in Norway, the Lestardians,

20:48they're an interesting case because there was a missionary who came from Sweden

20:52who just Bible bashed all of the still pagan Sami reindeer herders into believing in Christ.

20:59But that movement, the Lestardians, even though they don't follow his writings,

21:03they follow Luther's writings, but they're still in the National State Church.

21:07It's really strange.

21:08But that's an example of a denomination that said we're not a denomination

21:11because they don't do communion or baptism.

21:13They still do that in the state church.

21:15So for them, I think that's a big marker for Christians today.

21:19If they had the confidence to say we can't be a church because we're not doing communion weekly,

21:24that's an interesting standpoint.

21:26That's where a lot of churches draw the line.

21:28They say we're not a church unless we do communion.

21:32So for a church to say on the websites that you check that we're non-denominational,

21:38well, I just have to ask, when did this start?

21:43Was it the guy who's up the front now?

21:45Did he do this 15 years ago when he was 28 and got a bit grumpy

21:49and didn't like the leadership and started his own thing?

21:52And now he's approaching 50 and he's not really sure what he's up to

21:55and he can't do anything else with his life.

21:58Is that the church you're at?

21:59Or did they split, did they carry on changing their name?

22:02So like you've had a matey from a Kansas City Fellowship,

22:07which had a different name.

22:09There was Metro something as well.

22:11So these churches change the names, which is always a bit suspicious,

22:15which is what would happen with a company that's always selling.

22:19It goes bankrupt.

22:20Then the board of directors, they take out their shares.

22:25They sell it all.

22:26They keep the money.

22:27All the employees get sold up the river.

22:29Then the directors form a new company.

22:32That has nothing to do with the old one.

22:34But you say, you're the same guys.

22:35Where did you come from?

22:36Why is this new name?

22:38So that's why a lot of churches can be a franchise in that sense.

22:42If they're non-denominational, it's very difficult to track where did this come from?

22:46Why did that person leave?

22:48Were they kicked out?

22:48Was there a scat?

22:49Who did they sleep with, basically?

22:50It just comes down to that, doesn't it?

22:52Or what's the financial scandal here?

22:55So that's the second most serious weakness with a non-denominational church.

23:00It's just saying we don't want to be part of an overarching organization which might hold us accountable if there's

23:06a scandal.

23:07I want to go back to something that you said you were talking about.

23:10They're still part of a movement.

23:12And that's where it gets really interesting.

23:14Because if you think of just simply the definition of a movement, it's a group of people who are organized,

23:19who are on a move.

23:21Think civil rights movement.

23:23In the United States, we have the civil rights movement.

23:25They were saying, we're not going to be part of the system where we're being discriminated against.

23:30We're going to move to a new system where we're not discriminated against.

23:34So they created a movement.

23:36But what happens when you do this?

23:38Your movement has to organize.

23:40So you have, by definition, by sheer definition, you have the very thing that you say that you're not if

23:46you're doing this church thing.

23:48Because a movement is going to define – interesting part about a movement, there's always people who rise up to

23:55be leaders of the movement.

23:56If you look at civil rights movement itself, you can almost name the names of the people who are the

24:02faces of the movement.

24:03Well, in a church movement, it's the same way.

24:06You have the faces of the movement.

24:08And so these basically become the CEOs of your organization.

24:12They're the leaders, the presidents, right?

24:15Well, the movement is going to produce books.

24:17They're going to have – in Christian settings, you're going to have sermons.

24:20You're going to have teachings that basically define your canon.

24:24So your movement creates the canon of its internal scripture, if you want to call it this.

24:30This is what defines us as different from the other people who are not part of our movement.

24:35So thinking back to civil rights movement, the civil rights movement defined what they believed and why, and why they

24:42believed that they were being discriminated against.

24:44Those who were discriminating them are not part of the movement.

24:47They're the outsiders.

24:48We are the insiders.

24:50In the civil rights movement case, they had a good cause, and yes, they do it.

24:54In many church organizations, they also have a good cause.

24:57But what happens is those who have a good cause will admit that they have this good cause, and they

25:04will say very openly, we have a movement because we are moving from point A, which was very bad, to

25:10point B, which we believe will be very good.

25:13And when we get to point B, we may form a church because we want this thing to be really

25:17good.

25:18They're very open and honest about it.

25:20The problem that I have had, and people have contacted me actually asking this question, is my non-denominational church

25:27a bad one?

25:28There's so many thousands of these, man.

25:30I can't even answer all – I usually say, I'm sorry, I would love to help you, but I can't

25:34help you with this.

25:35There's just too many of them.

25:36It's because they aren't really being open and honest, because if they were, I think 99% of them would

25:45say, we're in this movement, we have a non-denominational church.

25:49And oh, by the way, it's like 50% of the other non-denominational churches.

25:54Why do you even have this, man?

25:56It's like you're part of a movement that should not even be separate.

26:00You should not have your own denomination.

26:02But because of the way that the language has been presented to the people, this becomes this catchphrase where we

26:09don't define ourselves as Baptist or Methodist or Catholic or whatever.

26:13We define ourselves as non-denominational.

26:16We are in the non-denominational denomination.

26:20Yeah.

26:21They actually have something in the UK called the FIEC, which is the Federation of Independent Evangelical Churches.

26:28So they've just been honest and they said, well, we've got to federate to at least some points.

26:35There was a little bit of a strange analogy.

26:37I don't know how it will hit, but progressing on to a more troubling point for people who are wondering

26:46about all of this.

26:47I think I would give something of a laconic answer, which is very short.

26:53It's an example from history where it was before Christ in Greece.

26:58One of the historians and philosophers was talking to a Spartan general and he was going on and saying, what's

27:03the best example of a Spartan?

27:05What do they do?

27:06What are their characteristics?

27:08And eventually the Spartan general just gave up and he said, he that is least like you.

27:14And so I'd say with people wanting to find a church, I would just say, look, to all the people

27:20listening, you've been listening and watching for a long time.

27:23My advice to you is to find a church that is the least like what we're talking about here.

27:29So if you find one that has the fewest characteristics we're talking about, that's probably a good church.

27:36And my measure of anyone is if I've ever heard that name said in John Collins' admissible way of talking,

27:46the sort of a slight eyebrow raise.

27:48I know, ah, that's a dodgy person.

27:49I'm not going to pay attention to them if they've ever been mentioned by John Collins.

27:54Don't go there.

27:56So that's my advice for anyone looking for a church.

27:59Are they mentioned by John Collins?

28:02Here's a bit of an analogy.

28:04I don't know if it will land, but if someone is completely fed up of everything in the U.S.

28:09and they happen to live in Indiana, Terre Haute, for example, and they say, I'm sick of everything in Indiana.

28:16You know, the things they do in Terre Haute, they have this thing called Fourth of July and they celebrate

28:20it with flags and fireworks.

28:22It's just such an Indiana Terre Haute thing.

28:24I'm sick of it.

28:25I'm going to leave this state and I'm going to move to Ohio.

28:28Well, OK, two things.

28:29That's right next door.

28:31Secondly, the July the 4th thing.

28:33That's not specific to Indiana and it's not even specific to Terre Haute.

28:37This this is a this is an American wide thing.

28:40And if you're not aware of that, you either don't know anything about Indiana, Terre Haute or the United States.

28:47And so when I'm encountering Christians from YWAM, when I was there on the base in 2019,

28:53I heard some people having a very intense conversation about a word.

28:57I was like, what are you talking about?

28:59The word, the word of God, the Bible?

29:01No, no.

29:01You know, like a word you receive.

29:03And I was like, sorry, guys, I really don't know what you're talking about.

29:06Do you want to say in Norwegian?

29:07But they just said the same thing in Norwegian.

29:09I was like, I'm none the wiser.

29:10What are you talking about?

29:11They were talking about a word of knowledge.

29:13I said, well, I still don't get what you're talking about.

29:19And they were saying, well, you know, a word of knowledge is within the hyper charismatic way of doing it.

29:23So my point is what they thought was Christianity wide was just their tiny little perspective of of what it

29:32means to be a Christian.

29:33And so I guess it would be like, you know, someone from the U.S. thinking, you know, everyone around

29:40here speaks a bit of French and they like to live in cabins.

29:42Well, that's describing Maine, the north of Maine.

29:45That's a very small bit of the U.S.

29:47It's not standard at all.

29:50And if you think that, it means you don't know anything about the States.

29:53You know a lot about north Maine, but not really much about the rest of everything.

29:56So when these people leave YWAM or if they're still happily in YWAM, but then they go around to other

30:04Christian churches and realize them talking about a word and Seven Mountains Mandate and eat the chicken throughout the bones.

30:13A lot of this liturgy and way of speaking and emphasis is pretty alien to vast elements of Christianity.

30:22I was very unfamiliar with the way people were talking about Christianity when I moved to Norway because of the

30:29YWAM base.

30:30The language wasn't an issue because it was kind of Lutheran Anglicanism.

30:35That's very similar.

30:36But if when people come to deconstruct their faith or or try and come to terms with their upbringing,

30:46they're going to get a nasty shock when they're trying to understand, OK, this was standard, you know, 4th of

30:53July.

30:54This was Maine.

30:55Everyone's speaking French.

30:57So one of those two is very normal.

31:00We don't get rid of that.

31:01I don't like the expression throwing.

31:03We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

31:05I much I much try and think when you're dismantling a car, some of them have got ABS.

31:10Some of them haven't.

31:11But they're all going to have four wheels and a steering wheel pretty much.

31:14If they've got three, then it's a motorbike.

31:16It's a tricycle.

31:16So in terms of deconstruction, when you come out of these things, it's going to be very difficult for people

31:21to detangle.

31:22What's the genuine Christianity here that I don't need to drop?

31:25And what's the stuff that I essentially just got from Branham and I'd never heard of him?

31:30Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter

31:38reign,

31:39charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

31:44You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

31:51On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,

31:59John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

32:05You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

32:12If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the

32:18top.

32:18And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or

32:24watching.

32:24On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

32:30So you actually beat me to one of my punchlines.

32:33Whenever we left the group that we came out of, we were told falsely what all other denominations believed.

32:41Yet at the same time, to get to the summation of the doctrines that we believed,

32:47we had all of this loaded language that were building blocks of doctrine that brought us to the same place.

32:53So when I left and I actually started going to a denominational church,

32:58they were telling us what they believed, and I was saying, no, I'm not sure I believed this.

33:02And then I tried to explain what I believed, and they were like, what in the world are you talking

33:07about?

33:08And the further we got in conversing, we came to realize that we both kind of believed the same thing

33:14on certain issues.

33:15I just had a language that they didn't understand at all.

33:19So in your analogy of Indiana and Ohio, it would be like if they spoke Russian and they spoke Swahili

33:25in two places, right?

33:27They're just – it's almost incompatible.

33:30And here's the problem with this type of thing.

33:34And this is – people have asked me, are you against in a non-denominational church or not?

33:39I haven't answered that, but what I will say is it is destructive in this way.

33:45When you have all of these thousands of different groups that are saying, we're non-denominational,

33:50we are open to the denominations, but we see things differently.

33:55And they're not asking what all of the other non-denominational denominations believe,

34:00and they could actually be part of this.

34:02Each one starts to develop their own language in different ways many times to say the same thing.

34:07So at that point, you could have a non-denominational church, A, which believes a certain thing that the denominations

34:16also believe

34:17and don't have the loaded language, so they can't communicate with each other.

34:20And a third denomination, non-denominational group, B, who also believes the same thing but has a different loaded language,

34:27and they can't talk to each other.

34:29So what you have is basically this Christian Tower of Babel.

34:33Yeah, and it's very difficult tracking this thought development, where it came from,

34:40because it's kind of like a bit of pinball and helter-skelter.

34:44It went there.

34:45It went to this guy called Sean Foyt, who learned it through a word of faith movement,

34:49who's on gospel business men.

34:52You've got to rewind that pinball to realize where it all came from.

34:57Whereas when you're in a denomination who says, we are clearly inspired by the writings of Luther,

35:03if you want to understand what we're about, read some of his theses, that will explain to you what we're

35:09on about.

35:10But if you go to a non-denominational church that calls itself the non-denominational,

35:15it can be, as you say, quite hard to get to the bottom of why they think what they think.

35:19And when you try and explain, as I've done with some Christians here in YWAM,

35:24when I've explained to them, well, someone at church, if there's anyone from my church listening,

35:30I know who you are.

35:32Someone came up to me and said, I think I saw you on YouTube talking about our church.

35:35I was, yes.

35:37But when I'm trying to explain to people in my church that that phrase,

35:41eat the chicken, spit out the bones, came from Branham.

35:44Who?

35:45OK, William Branham, Paul Cain, Mike Pickett.

35:48These are your guys.

35:50Why am I having to tell you your guys' history?

35:53Whereas if you're in the Church of England, you'll be able to say to them,

35:56well, you know your archbishop, yeah?

35:58You know the archbishop before him?

36:00Oh, yeah, I know him.

36:01And the same with the Roman Catholic.

36:02You know your popes, John Paul II.

36:04Even I've heard of him.

36:05So you wouldn't need to explain to a Roman Catholic what their own church believes,

36:10because you can read on the website, you know, the Council of Trent.

36:13The Council of all of this stuff.

36:15And with a Methodist, you could say this is the line of where you're going.

36:18Presbyterians as well.

36:19They would know where everything's come from in their church.

36:22And that also means it's easier for people on the outside to, yeah,

36:28I guess to judge whether or not it works.

36:29I know there's a lot of knocking around in Christian circles against discernment ministries.

36:35And, I mean, I speak six languages, and I'm always – I don't want to use a big flowery Latin

36:42word

36:42when a basic word will do the job.

36:45So you could call it discernment ministries, but I'd say figuring stuff out,

36:49you know, that's just another way of saying discernment.

36:52You know, are you going to put diesel in an electric car?

36:54Are you going to smoke concrete?

36:56No.

36:57You can call that discernment, but I would just say knowing what works and doesn't.

37:01If you take your car to a mechanic, you could call that discernment ministries.

37:07He knows what's wrong with it.

37:09So when we're focusing on what's wrong with the non-denominational,

37:13the biggest risk for me is them not being self-aware enough to realize what weak spots they have.

37:20So anyone in a Lutheran church, we're very aware that towards the end of his life,

37:24Martin Luther wrote some very, frankly, anti-Semitic things.

37:29We know what he wrote.

37:31I haven't actually read him.

37:32I haven't read very much Martin Luther at all.

37:35But we know it's there.

37:37But the problem with a non-denominational church is they're just not going to know

37:41or remember the links that go back to Paul Cain and William Branham and Gordon Lindsay

37:46and all of these names, which helpfully for me have been drilled into my mind.

37:50They're not going to know the prophetic history, one might say.

37:55So it becomes very difficult to track what went wrong because when you're trying to fix something,

38:00particularly in IT, you go to the code.

38:03You can show me your root code.

38:05You just did control A, control V, control C.

38:08You should have done control A, control C, control V.

38:11That's why you haven't copied anything.

38:14You know, you go back to the code.

38:17But if you go to a non-denominational church, you say, you know, show me the code.

38:22What's the error message here that you're getting?

38:25There's a lot of loaded language there, error message.

38:28So you just want to say to them, how did you get to where you are?

38:33Do you know what you're saying came from these people?

38:37Because I know in my denomination where it came from,

38:40but non-denominationalists haven't got that same go back and look at the history kind of thing.

38:45Absolutely.

38:46Like I said, every movement is going to form their leaders,

38:49but a movement that is transparent usually will document,

38:54here's the leader that we had.

38:55Here are the mistakes that were made.

38:57Here's how we corrected those mistakes,

38:59so that future generations can go back and say,

39:02we're not going to make those same mistakes.

39:03When you're in one of these, quote, non-denominational movements,

39:08they don't document so well.

39:10Now, I won't paint with a wide-sweeping paintbrush.

39:13There are some that do.

39:14But of the ones that I have looked at that have gone destructive, none of them do.

39:18In fact, as I was going through Branhamism,

39:20trying to just piece together what is the real history,

39:23I found out that none of the history really existed,

39:27and what we had as history wasn't history.

39:29It didn't really match the facts.

39:31And interestingly, a milestone in history was this church near Chicago.

39:36I was traveling up north in Indiana, near Gary, Indiana.

39:41I go into the church, Midway Tabernacle, I think it was called,

39:45and I said, I've connected the dots,

39:47and I found in history, Branham is at this church,

39:51what he describes doesn't fit history.

39:53I want to see what happened.

39:54Do you have your history?

39:56They brought me boxes and boxes of everything.

39:59They even had the meeting notes, who was there, who was present,

40:02all the way down, and they let me scan everything freely.

40:05We're open to sharing our history with you, John.

40:07Amazing.

40:08And they knew that I was somewhat critical of what they believed,

40:12but they didn't care because they were being transparent.

40:15And I came to learn through their transparency

40:18that they were a lot more correct in many ways

40:21than I was of the things I was skeptical of them of.

40:23So by being transparent,

40:25it actually helped me to connect to them better,

40:29if that makes any sense.

40:31These movements that don't document their history,

40:33for the same reason of my wall that I erect,

40:37and I tell the building instructor,

40:38this is not a building,

40:40if that building collapses,

40:42I'm still not going to be able to argue,

40:44well, that's not a building,

40:45even though it killed five people.

40:47They're going to come in,

40:48and they're going to say,

40:48your building killed five people.

40:49I don't care what you call this thing.

40:51Well, that's the same way with the church, man.

40:53If you're building a denomination,

40:55and something goes really, really wrong,

40:59I'll say it like that,

41:01they're going to come and inspect your movement

41:03by the things that you taught.

41:05Were you destructive or were you not?

41:07Because your segment of people is still a denomination.

41:10Yeah, absolutely.

41:12And that issue of transparency is very important,

41:15because I know you've talked about the example of a church

41:17that you went to.

41:18They started talking about money for a new building project,

41:21and that set off a few warning bells.

41:23But one of the things that's very helpful for a church is,

41:26do they publish their financial statements clearly?

41:29Do they talk openly about salary?

41:31Is that an itemisable number on their account?

41:36And I'm pleased to say at my local church, it is.

41:40They have annual budget meetings,

41:42so whenever they're making budget decisions,

41:44the biggest, most expensive one they're trying to do

41:47is a wheelchair ramp into the main sanctuary.

41:52That's a very good sign that your church is being transparent.

41:59And at least in terms of the point about movements

42:02and organisation, living in Norway,

42:05I speak Norwegian all day,

42:07and they make that point very specifically,

42:10and they've got an interesting distinction in Norwegian.

42:15Is it something that moves independently of itself,

42:19like a river, or is it a movement of people?

42:20They've kind of got two different words there,

42:22which I think is quite interesting.

42:23So when it comes to union, organisational matters,

42:27again, they're using that exact flow that you're talking about.

42:31The movement is the movement of the working class,

42:34but the organisation is the union.

42:38That's where it concretises itself.

42:40And you know you're in a very healthy church

42:43when lots of people show up to the prayer meeting,

42:47but very few people show up to the annual church meeting

42:49about the budget.

42:50That's good, and that's how it should be,

42:54because it's a really boring meeting.

42:56The last budget meeting I went to at my church,

42:59I said to the pastor afterwards,

43:01thank you for doing this.

43:02This was so encouraging.

43:03It was dead boring, and I won't remember any of it,

43:06but there was a few old men in the church

43:09who were really going into the details

43:11about whether or not you can carry over

43:14a budgetary intent into the next year,

43:17and really into details about the numbers.

43:20No one was prophesying and saying shalala abhaim,

43:22but if you've got church budgetary meetings that people don't attend,

43:26that's great.

43:27That's excellent.

43:28That's like a healthy democracy.

43:30How many people go to their local town hall meetings

43:33with their local government representative?

43:37Very few, and only the people who understand it go along,

43:40and that's how it should be.

43:42But if you're part of a movement

43:43where the kind of church budgetary movement,

43:46the church budget isn't really brought up,

43:49they're not talking about wheelchair access.

43:50They're not talking about the private jet

43:52that Kenneth Copeland needs.

43:54They're just, it's 2,000 people or 1,000, whatever,

43:58looking at a stage and just getting shouted at

44:01for hours on end.

44:03So if your church has got poorly attended,

44:06boring meetings about budget, excellent.

44:09That's a sign of a good church.

44:12Go there.

44:14And I wouldn't necessarily say the more boring the better,

44:17but the more it resembles,

44:20the more it kind of resembles the society around us,

44:24and I'm careful when I say that.

44:25I believe the Western society we have around us

44:28is built on Christian values,

44:30and I respect our democracy and institutions.

44:33If it looks quite boring and standard, good.

44:36So does our local government,

44:38which tends not to fail us that much.

44:40I mean, there are roads, there are sewage,

44:42there's electricity, all of these things function.

44:44That's what local town councils talk about.

44:46And often your local church,

44:47when it comes to the budget,

44:48it is the wheelchair ramp access.

44:50It is the heating in the building.

44:52It shouldn't be your profit,

44:54your profit pastor saying,

44:56well, in this budgetary number 70014B,

45:00I think I should get a second private jet.

45:02Actually, he's not going to say those kind of things

45:05in a very boring, dusty,

45:07half past 8 p.m. kind of budgetary meeting.

45:10There's not that kind of leeway for him to say,

45:13God has told me that I need a second private jet

45:15on specifically 7004B section 12.

45:19That really puts your pastor within a matrix

45:24of budgetary constraint.

45:27And if you're from a movement like YWAM,

45:32which gives an example of sending out the 72,

45:38where Jesus says, you know,

45:39don't bring lots of money with you.

45:44Rely on hospitality.

45:45Yes, but that was a specific point in Jesus's ministry,

45:48because he knew those 72 were coming back.

45:51But later on, Paul says, get a job,

45:53make sure you're working.

45:54But YWAM is still very much rely on donations.

45:57And, you know, I've talked about in previous episodes

45:59how people end up with not really very much money.

46:02But if your movement is too busy moving around,

46:06I would almost give, you know,

46:07trying to lean on various American comparisons,

46:11you know, the pioneers who won the West.

46:13Well, I mean, eventually the West is all conquered.

46:15You've got to settle down and start making states.

46:17It's everyone can't just circle the wagons

46:19and, you know, live in tents all the time.

46:21You've got to turn your territories into states

46:24and you've got to set up institutions.

46:26So a movement does have to settle down and organize.

46:30And if it's an organization,

46:31it's going to become a denomination.

46:33And a point on the word denomination,

46:35it means to denominate something,

46:37which is to give it a name.

46:39And if you can name something,

46:41it means you have set up boundaries,

46:43called it a building.

46:44This is a building, I'm afraid.

46:46And when you can identify a movement,

46:50then it becomes a denomination.

46:52And so a lot of people in the New Apostolic Reformation,

46:57when they're trying to defend themselves,

46:59they're saying, well, you know,

47:00when people call us NAR,

47:02it's a bit like someone from New York being in Texas.

47:05And they say, well, you know,

47:06we're going to have a New York steak.

47:07What's a New York steak?

47:08Or we just call it that in Texas.

47:10Well, it's not really the same because if anyone's listened to all of what you've been doing over the years,

47:18it is quite identifiable to look at the ingredients essentially and say seven pounds mandates.

47:24That's where it's come from.

47:25That can be denominated.

47:26It can be named.

47:27It can be traced back to Paul Kane,

47:29William Branham,

47:30Gordon Lindsay,

47:30Charles Parham.

47:32But what I would like to rein you in with us is what I was listening to from William Branham.

47:40Where was he on his kind of journey when he was talking about this?

47:45Because it's 580927,

47:49why we are not a denomination.

47:51Where was he in his sort of journey there?

47:53So that's the interesting part.

47:54I was actually saving it for the climax,

47:56which you helped me to do.

47:59If you look at the timeline,

48:00there were multiple timelines of the we're not a denomination,

48:04we're open,

48:05come join us.

48:06That was happening in the early years,

48:08right before the latter rain movement.

48:10Then what happened was the assemblies of God denounced the whole thing.

48:14Pentecostalism split.

48:15And now he's scrambling to get a crowd again.

48:18So everybody's welcome again.

48:20Well,

48:21this happened again in the,

48:23I think it was like 1953,

48:2554.

48:25He starts to lose most of his major supporters.

48:29And for a period of time,

48:30even Gordon Lindsay didn't have anything to do with him.

48:33So he started working with Jim Jones.

48:35That was about 1955.

48:38Jim Jones of people's temple.

48:40And so in the tape index,

48:43the 58 at the beginning of that index means it's the year 1958.

48:48So the year 1958,

48:51Jim Jones himself has denounced Branham as did many other people because Branham was

48:56teaching the serpent seed doctrine,

48:59which was anti-semitic.

49:00Even Jim Jones gave up on him.

49:03So with the loss of Jim Jones,

49:06he's now scrambling again.

49:07I've got to find some more people.

49:08And that's,

49:09that's kind of how this happens.

49:10If you,

49:11if you actually search that phrase,

49:12search by the phrase,

49:14we're not,

49:14not a denomination.

49:15It starts like 1957 or 1958.

49:19I mean,

49:19that might've been even precisely on the 27th of September.

49:23Yeah.

49:24No,

49:24that is fascinating because this is what we're talking about.

49:27You know,

49:27this is why I'm interested in talking to you.

49:31The,

49:32the,

49:32the character of William,

49:33William Branham fascinates me.

49:35I think it'd almost be like if,

49:37if someone was trying to research a British history,

49:40but they'd never heard of Winston Churchill.

49:43Guys,

49:44this is what it's all about.

49:46This,

49:46this is the,

49:46this is the source text.

49:48This explains it all.

49:49So for by 1958,

49:51yeah,

49:51the assemblies of God,

49:52that split was in the 1940s.

49:54And something which I didn't realize until quite recently was that Hillsong.

49:59If you ask someone,

50:00well,

50:01how are Hillsong and IHOP KC in a way unrelated?

50:03They're not related.

50:04Well,

50:04except that Hillsong's founding father,

50:08the father of the guy who currently got disgraced,

50:10he was assemblies of God Australia.

50:14And,

50:15and so,

50:16so when Hillsong came back to New York,

50:18with a,

50:19with other various disgraced worship leaders,

50:22that was,

50:23that was a replant that sort of come full circle.

50:25So as the U S is kind of getting reinfected by stuff,

50:28it's sent out to Australia and the rest of the world.

50:31So it's come back to New York via,

50:33via Hill,

50:34assemblies of God,

50:35Hillsong,

50:36which I didn't know that link.

50:38Yeah.

50:38So when,

50:39when William Branham is saying this,

50:41why we're not a denomination,

50:43for me,

50:44it sounds like a bit of a sulk,

50:46really,

50:47that he's in any movement when it starts,

50:50a political movement tries to be very open and say,

50:52we're not going to have any boundaries,

50:53but then things start to solidify.

50:55And that's when the boundaries start appearing.

50:58The,

50:58the message for me is not the message.

51:01Um,

51:02but what I,

51:03what I'd want to say to any listeners and anyone watching is a sort of

51:07message of hope really,

51:08or,

51:09or something to,

51:10to end on,

51:11to reiterate what I said earlier,

51:13a church that is least like William Branham.

51:16And,

51:16uh,

51:17would I throw it out there now?

51:18Uh,

51:19any good Lutheran churches?

51:20Not necessarily,

51:21but I would say there is a guy out there who was in the message and

51:25that's a rain.

51:25He's called Chris Roseborough.

51:27He's got a very good channel.

51:28Um,

51:28he is Lutheran.

51:30Uh,

51:30I'm Lutheran.

51:31Give that a go.

51:31Anglicanism because they seem least like William Branham.

51:34Um,

51:36William Branham ism,

51:37um,

51:37and non-denominationalism.

51:39It's about having the self-respect to admit that you do have an accent.

51:44I've got an accent.

51:45Yes.

51:45I'm sure a lot of people mentioned it in the comments and you've,

51:49you've got to own it and be aware of how you pronounce things.

51:52I alter how I speak depending on whether I'm speaking to somebody who's

51:56British or not.

51:56And so it should be the same within our Christian churches.

51:59When you're in your Y1 bubble,

52:01yes,

52:01you can talk about words of knowledge,

52:03but when you're outside,

52:04you need to be aware to tone that down a bit and just realize that Christianity is a

52:08lot wider.

52:08Uh,

52:10and not,

52:11not,

52:11not saying the old thing folk major on the majors and minor on the minors,

52:15but just look at what the entire church has been doing for 1900 years since it began and try and

52:21match yourself up with that.

52:23Uh,

52:23and,

52:24uh,

52:24you know,

52:25as,

52:26as I think,

52:26I,

52:27I haven't been able to come up with any,

52:28uh,

52:28Lord of the Rings analogies today,

52:30which is a bit of a disappointment.

52:31I should have got a few out of the bag,

52:33um,

53:03from that.

53:04And,

53:04and how,

53:05how much it differed from Christianity.

53:07Well,

53:08when they start to deconstruct,

53:09how do you deconstruct?

53:10You've been taught Christianity is this one thing,

53:13but you find out it's actually this other thing.

53:15And for me,

53:16it's really that simple.

53:17You can't be in a group that is professing something that they're not calling themselves a denomination, a non-denominational

53:24church when they're actually not.

53:25If you're in this type of movement where people are telling you we have the secret truth and they don't,

53:33that's a denomination because they're separating,

53:35they're creating that boundary.

53:36They're creating these walls around them.

53:38We have the truth.

53:38They do not.

53:39Those are the ones,

53:40in my,

53:41my opinion that are dangerous.

53:42And like you said,

53:43there's many churches that you can go to.

53:45And in the broader scope of Christianity,

53:48yes,

53:49you might not agree with everything they say,

53:50but it's going to be better than somebody that's going to take you like Jim Jones and people's temple.

53:55That's,

53:55that's one of the more destructive groups.

53:58And I'm watching so many of these other groups that are spinning off in the same trajectory.

Non Denominational Denomination: Independent Cults | Daniel Bright | 702

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